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Leaders of the PAC?
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Posted By:
Jun 12, 2004
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Okay this is kind of an old hoax and I'm posting it here only because it still makes some people roll their eyes and because I found out that in an odd way I contributed (at least my name was used ) in this hoax.
In November of 1995 a political action committee named Club 96 was registered with the Federal Election Commission. Over the next 3 or 4 months this committee claimed to have raised something close to $1.6 million. PAC's are formed all the time but most scoot under the rader by doing little or no honest fund raising. It turns out this PAC was doing no fund raising. Actually they were doing nothing of a legit nature..
The PAC was a creation of someone in Colorado. This person used the names of the kids from Home Improvment as the officers. At the time Zachery Ty Bryan, Taran Noah Smith, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas were between the ages of 12 and 14.
Club 96 began to unravel when a reporter became suspicious of this pac that was raising so much money yet no one had ever heard them. It took him several days to discover that the treasurers were a bunch of kids who had no idea what was going on.
As the whole thing started to come tumbling done one of the candidates who allegedly received money from this fraudulent PAC was quoted as saying, that he was flattered in a weird, mythical sort of way.
Now I ask you how can someone produce a total scam and leave the people who were victimized feeling as though they were flattered to be included? Other semi-endorsements of this stunt included a newspaper story that suggested,"the scam was so magnificently loony, so labriously carried through, that it startled even blasz Washington." The same story suggested that other notrious hoaxes out of Colorado could not pull off something this elaborate.
It so happens I know the person who did this stunt--at least kind of know him. We went to high school together 10 years before this hoax, yet he had my correct address listed on the forms that said I was a financial supporter of this "PAC".
There was a brief period of uproar following this stunt that was followed by total silence. Everyone was waiting from the creator, Anthony Clinton Brown, to be charged with fraud and sent to jail.
Time passed and I forgot about the whole thing until Anthony contacted me recently and asked if I would write him a letter of reference. He made no mention of the hoax and it would have blown over had I not mentioned it. I said I could not in good conscience reccomend him if he'd been convicted of a felony for this hoax. He smiled sweetly and said not to worry as charges were never filed. A fairly careful check of public records shows this to be true. Which leaves me to say I guess this hoax was so elaborate that it really did stun the government into silence. That might be a first.
There used to be a lot of info about this case on the net but the only thing I can still find is at
http://www.westword.com/issues/1996-03-28/columns.html
Troy
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Note: This thread is located in the Old Forum of the Museum of Hoaxes.
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