Obama accuser has long rap sheet
By BEN SMITH | 6/18/08 7:58 AM EST Text Size:
The Pueblo County Sheriff's website, which pictures Sinclair under the word 'Wanted,' cites felony theft and forgery charges.
Larry Sinclair is wanted in Colorado, but you can catch him today at the National Press Club.
Sinclair is familiar to political junkies and reporters as the source of outlandish allegations about Senator Barack Obama, tales that began with sex and drugs and moved on to murder.
The Duluth, Minn., resident is the sort of figure who appears at the margins of every presidential campaign, and both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had their own obscure accusers with dramatic allegations. But as the old media ignores him, Sinclair has taken full advantage of the Internet, and a video in which he makes his claims that have been viewed more than 900,000 times on YouTube.
This afternoon, he's reserved the Holeman Lounge at downtown Washington's National Press Club
to try to lend his story the legitimacy that comes with national media attention.
Sinclair's biography, though, may get in the way of that pitch: Public records and court filings reveal that he has a 27-year criminal record, with a specialty in crimes involving deceit. The record includes forgery charges in two states, one of which drew Sinclair a 16-year jail sentence. The Pueblo County, Colo., Sheriff's Office also has an outstanding warrant for Sinclair's arrest for forging an acquaintance's signature and stealing her tax refunds.
"It is what it is," said Sinclair's spokesman, Montgomery Blair Sibley, of his client's criminal record. "He's not hiding from it, he's not denying it."
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Sinclair has, however, addressed elements of his criminal past on his own blog and in court filings punctuated by unusual spellings and capitalizations.
Addressing the Pueblo County theft charges, Sinclair swore in a 2004 affidavit that his "ALLEGED VICTIM SEEKS TO USE DEFENDANT AS SCAPE GOAT FOR HER HUSBANDS AND BROTHERS PROBLEMS WITH MEXICAN DRUG DEALERS."
Sinclair's affidavit, which he posted to his blog, accompanied a request to a Colorado judge to dismiss the warrant on the grounds that Sinclair was "disabled with [a] severe spine injury and nerve damage," that returning to Colorado would put his life in danger, and that he was "terminally ill."
Sinclair, who is still alive, is 46, stands 5'7", and weights 168 pounds, according to arrest records. Colorado records list him with 13 aliases, including "Larye Vizcarra Avila" and "Mohammed Gahanan." His story has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, because he's been unable to substantiate his allegations. He has come to public attention recently, however, because his planned appearance at the National Press Club drew complaints from a wide array of prominent liberal bloggers, led by Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher. Their petition to prevent Sinclair from renting space at the club – which bloggers feared would lend him credibility – drew more than 11,000 signatures.
Press Club President Sylvia Smith said Sinclair had rented space at the club, which doesn't censor speakers.
"I'm not aware that we've ever turned anybody away for content," she said, adding that Sinclair's allegations "don't seem very credible."
Politico isn't reprinting Sinclair's allegations because they are unsubstantiated.
This February, the website Whitehouse.com reportedly offered Sinclair $100,000 if he could pass a polygraph test verifying his claims. He took them up on it, and the site said in a press release that the polygraph organizers said his results "indicated deception." Sinclair then suggested the polygraph's sponsors had been bribed to skew the results against him, an allegation his lawyer, Sibley, said he would expand on at his press conference.
Sibley is best known as the lawyer for the "D.C. Madam," the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Earlier this year, the Florida Bar Association suspended Sibley's license to practice law, in part for being a "vexatious litigant," a suspension that applies in Washington, D.C., as well.
Wednesday, Whitehouse.com has scheduled a competing press conference outside the National Press Club to discuss the results of the polygraph.
Sinclair's brushes with the government long predate his recent interest in Senator Obama. The details of his criminal record surfaced after he filed a defamation suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., against three anonymous online critics with names like TubeSockTedD who had written, among other claims, that he was living in a mental institution at the time he allegedly met Obama. Sinclair denies the claim.
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