Smirking thugs

In mid-2006, when the American Zombie blog began the questions about St. Pierre's use of a yacht for parties for Meffert and Meffert's access to a corporate credit card, St. Pierre had the blogger investigated. An email presented by prosecutors showed that St. Pierre found out the then-anonymous blogger's name, Jason Berry, as well as the names of his wife and children.

"The only thing we don't know is his address and social security number," St. Pierre bragged to his friends via email.

Berry was in the courtroom watching as his family information was displayed on a screen for the jurors. He said he received anonymous threats on the subject before, but seeing it in court took it to a new level.

"It's still scary," Berry said in an interview outside the courtroom. "It didn't hit me until I saw my childrens' names and my wife's name on the screen."

Click the smirk for the rest.

Update: More for Slabbed

Speaking of value, the Hammerman also reveals something that is important to a newspaper reporter circa 2011 as he took a shot at Jason’s reporting near the end of his piece. Never mind that American Zombie was literally months ahead of the traditional media on this but he evidently got a minor detail in grand the scheme of things wrong in his cutting edge reporting on Meffert, the credit card and the sex yacht. IMHO it is a clear signal of the type of mindset that guarantees the continued evolution of the print media in a way the Hammerman evidently dreads. I think Noladishu said it best for those of us on the new media side of things via twitter:

# of bloggers threatened by St. P: 1. # of TP reporters threatened:0. Badge of honor, there.

In addition, there's the obvious contradiction in the fact that although St. Pierre was snooping into Berry's personal life, he takes offense that anyone would be similarly curious about just who that "Tammy" person was.

"I'm not sure why she used the name 'Tammy' but she didn't want people to know she was my wife.... Is that against the law? A lot of people do it," St. Pierre testified.

Prosecutor Matthew Coman asked if St. Pierre tried to stop his wife.

"There was no reason to stop her; it was all about getting the truth out," St. Pierre said.

"The truth?" Coman shot back. "She gave a fake name!"

"Who doesn't call the radio and doesn't want to be known?" St. Pierre responded.