This is a follow-up from Rachinger pleads guilty.
Yesterday Rachinger pleaded guilty to obtaining $1000 by deception – Cameron Slater paid him to hack The Standard with the intent of embarrassing the blog as well as Andrew Little and the Labour Party. Rachinger didn’t provide any hacked information to Slater, hence the charge.
That on it’s own is bizarre – Rachinger was charged for not carrying out an illegal act.
Rachinger outed himself online in revealing what he had done (and not done) with Slater.
This lead to charges being filed against Slater for soliciting the hack. Slater obtained suppression, but this was lifted when it was revealed that Slater had been granted diversion to avoid going to trial.
See NZ Herald: Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater admits soliciting hack
Whale Oil’s Cameron Slater has been granted diversion by police for attempting to hire Ben Rachinger for $5000 to get into the left-wing “The Standard” blog. Instead of being convicted and sentenced, he has arranged to do 40 hours work for the children’s charity Kidscan.
Judge Richard McIlraith said: “He has accepted his guilt and embarked upon a programme of diversion to address that.”
Following that Slater published a number of posts at Whale Oil effectively giving the finger to the Court and to what he had said to get diversion, claiming he was an innocent victim of Rachinger’s actions.
Somehow, the media are still saying Cam ordered the hack. Well, if that was even remotely true, then I don’t understand how stupid he was by asking the police to get involved and asking Ben to share his discoveries with police. That clearly shows Cam had no intent to do anything stupid.
To the contrary, it made Slater look very stupid, as do the denials he did anything wrong despite accepting guilt in order to get diversion (which was controversial due to previous convictions).
Slater had retaliated against Rachinger by making a complaint to the police, which led to yesterday’s court appearance. Newshub reported:
Mr Rachinger was paid $1000 by Mr Slater, but never carried out the hack they discussed. Instead he blew the whistle to TV3’s The Nation, telling the programme he was asked by Mr Slater to figure out who The Standard’s contributors were and record their IP and email addresses.
Police alleged Mr Rachinger never intended to follow through with the promise he made to Slater. He was charged with obtaining $1000 by deception for saying he could and would hack the site.
A summary of facts shows Mr Slater believed Labour politicians were writing for The Standard and posting their views anonymously online.
He offered Rachinger $5000 – paying him $1000 up front – believing the hack on The Standard’s servers would uncover evidence of links to Labour.
Mr Rachinger is also seeking a discharge without conviction, and told Newshub outside court he’s looking forward to the chance to put the matter behind him.
– http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/slater-hired-hacker-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-2016121211
Slater and associates have responded to this with two posts at Whale Oil (so far, yesterday). This again portrays Slater as a victim vindicated by Rachinger’s plea. It includes large dollops of what Slater would refer to if someone else was doing it as ‘explaining is losing’.
The conclusion of a victory speech:
With your help, we have stood up against these people trying to take Whaleoil down. And this is also why it is so important we have your financial support. They wrote a book about us. Labour bet a whole election on us. They tried to take us down via vexatious court procedures. And Ben Rachinger has failed too.
Cam is still here. You are still here. Whaleoil is still here.
That drips with hypocrisy, given that Slater tried to have The Standard hacked to try to take it down and to try to take Andrew Little and Labour down. That’s how he plays politics, dirty – and then when found out he cries victim.
Oddly…
There are suppression orders in place on this appearance as well, which makes it difficult to freely discuss the situation without running into further trouble – the last thing we want to do. As a result, the comments on this post will be disabled. I don’t want any of you to accidentally get yourself, or by extension, us, in trouble.
Both posts had comments disabled, but one post under ‘Whale Oil Staff’ and the other under ‘Cameron Slater’ allowed themselves to fairly free discuss their one side of the story which include claims contradicted by court reports.
The total blackout on comments suggests an avoidance of having anyone point out the stupidity and hypocrisy of their slants. Their final comment:
So yes, I think a short custodial sentence is appropriate. He’s wasted so much of everyone’s time!
Slater got away with nothing but embarrassment and some community service, but wants Rachinger locked up for sucking him in and then exposing him.
This is not the first time Slater has been involved in retaliation to the extent of wanting people locked up for being exposed and embarrassed. I can think of several examples of this, including me being the target.
That’s has Slater played, dirty and vindictively, and it appears that this behaviour is continuing.
Rachinger has made mistakes and done some silly things, and has copped a charge for outing himself over this. Slater didn’t make a complaint until it went public.
Rachinger says he has addressed personal issues and I’ve seen no sign of his previous erratic behaviour, so he appears to have sorted some of his stuff out.
Slater seems to have learned nothing and continues with the same old, big on attacks but whining and playing the victim when things go bad.
And Whale Oil and Slater seem oblivious to the self-inflicted damage they do through their posts – every time they attack Rachinger, and there has been a lot of that, they expose themselves some more.
Rachinger seems to be wisely staying quiet about yesterday’s court appearance given that sentencing is not until March, and courts tend to prefer things they are dealing with aren’t played out in public. I hope he has learnt from his experiences.
If Slater ever finds himself in court again what he has put on public record over this could come back to haunt him. His obsessions with winning and whining with as much publicity as he can get may not always work in his favour.
Slater may think that his ‘giving back double’ against Rachinger is a warning to anyone not to mess with him.
But it is also a warning about Slater’s habit of lashing out when things don’t go his way – he has become politically toxic, which he is busy reminding everyone about with his bitter attacks on Bill English and National, multiple times a day.
He’s not making much headway even against the Whale Oil commenting community, which may be why they have not risked any comments on his Rachinger posts.
