Reports: Jill Kelley's sister hires attorney Gloria Allred
November 20, 2012
TAMPA -- Natalie Khawam, the twin sister of Tampa socialite Jill Kelley and a peripheral player in the David Petraeus scandal, has hired celebrity attorney Gloria Allred.
According to Radar Online, Allred released a statement saying she and Khawam will hold a news conference Tuesday in Washington. The twins' brother, David Khawam, confirmed the hiring in a report by ABC News' Pierre Thomas.
It was not known why Khawam would need an attorney but, according to Radar Online, Allred statement's said she planned "to explain the truth about who Natalie Khawam really is, correct misconceptions about her, explain her course of action and comment on Natalie's relationship with General Petraeus and his wife, Holly."
Kelley complaints to the FBI about anonymous, threatening emails from Petraeus' mistress, Paula Broadwell, led to his resignation as CIA director. Kelley and her husband, Scott, became friends with Petraeus and his wife when he was the head of U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
The Petraeus investigation led to questions about Kelley's relationship with the base and eventually enveloped Marine Gen. John Allen, who succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan.
Allen and Petraeus took the unusual step of writing letters on Khawam's behalf during a custody battle with her ex-husband that she lost.
Khawam, who lives with the Kelleys at their Bayshore Boulevard mansion, made repeated calls to the Tampa Police Department claiming her husband beat her, forced her to watch child pornography and hired people to keep tabs on her, documents show.
The judge in the case said Khawam's allegations were unfounded. Doctors evaluating Khawam in the case found that she "is an illogical thinker."
Allred, known for taking high-profile women's rights cases, was recently quoted by the Daily Caller website as saying the women in the Petraeus case are victims of media coverage "which appears to be very unfair to all of them."
"I hope that one day, all of the women will be able to speak and give a fuller and more positive statement about who they really are and what their role was in this matter," Allred was quoted as saying.
Jill Kelley has previously retained Judy Smith, a crisis management attorney in Washington along with high-profile D.C. attorney Abbe Lowell.
http://www2.tbo.com/news/military-news/2012/nov/20/2/reports-jill-kelleys-sister-hires-attorney-gloria-ar-571613/
The revelation of Broadwell’s regrets came as she bloodied a female news photographer’s forehead Monday in a confrontation outside the biographer’s Charlotte, N.C., home. Broadwell smacked the photographer with the driver’s-side door of her Nissan Pathfinder SUV.
Gen. David Petraeus's biographer and former mistress Paula Broadwell reportedly hit an AP photographer in the face with a car door on Monday.
The incident occurred outside Broadwell's North Carolina residence. The New York Daily News reported that Broadwell attempted to sneak out of a side door to avoid the press outside her home. When she rushed into her car, she hit freelance AP photographer Nell Redmond in the face as she abruptly opened the door.
“I had my camera and in all the chaos the door slammed and I got hit in the head with the flash,” said Nell Redmond, a freelancer for the AP.
Redmond said that she did not believe Broadwell intended to hit her. The incident left the photographer with a scrape above her eyebrow.
, and she knew she had a friend at the Bureau who'd do her a favor and look into it. Jill Kelley Emails: FBI Responded To Complaint With Unusual Amount Of Resources
By RICHARD LARDNER
11/19/12
WASHINGTON -- The way the FBI responded to Jill Kelley's complaint about receiving harassing emails, which ultimately unraveled or scarred the careers of ex-CIA Director David Petraeus and Marine Gen. John Allen, is the exception, not the rule.
The FBI commonly declines to pursue cyberstalking cases without compelling evidence of serious or imminent harm to an individual, victims of online harassment, advocacy groups and computer crime experts told The Associated Press.
But in the sensational episode that uncovered the spy chief's adulterous affair, the FBI's cyberdivision devoted months of tedious investigative work to uncover who had sent insulting and anonymous messages about Kelley, the Florida socialite who was friendly with Petraeus and Allen – and friends with a veteran FBI counterterrorism agent in Tampa.
The bureau probably would have ignored Kelley's complaint had it not been for information in the emails that indicated the sender was aware of the travel schedules of Petraeus and Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Instead, the FBI considered this from the earliest stages to be an exceptional case, and one so sensitive that FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder were kept notified of its progress.
How the FBI's investigation unfolded – especially its decision not to alert the White House, the director of national intelligence or Congress about its discovery of Petraeus's sexual affair until Election Day – is under scrutiny, especially because there is no indication so far that any criminal charges will be filed.
Mueller and his deputy, Sean Joyce, have met privately with lawmakers to defend how the inquiry was handled. Holder said on Thursday that law enforcement officials did not inform the president and Congress about the probe because it did not uncover any threat to national security.
President Barack Obama said he was withholding judgment until he learns more. "You know, we don't have all the information yet," Obama said at a White House news conference. "But I want to say that I have a lot of confidence generally in the FBI." He added that it was "best right now for us to just see how this whole process is unfolding."
The FBI's cybersquads, like the one in Tampa that investigated the Petraeus case, are primarily focused on blocking criminals and terrorists from using the Internet to threaten national security or steal valuable information stored in government and corporate computers.
An AP review of court records found only nine cases over the past two years that identified cyberstalking or cyberharassment as the underlying crime in federal criminal complaints. In one recent case, a Michigan man was charged with cyberstalking after using the Internet and text messages to contact female victims, many of them minors, in an effort to obtain pornographic pictures. In another case, the FBI arrested a man for sending emails threatening to kill Los Angeles model Kourtney Reppert and her family.
"They turn people away all the time on the grounds that (cyberstalking) is a civil matter, not a criminal one," said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law who studies cyberharassment issues.
In one such incident, a woman told the AP that her ex-boyfriend posted online an intimate video and nude photos of her with her name and email address, and she complained to the FBI. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared personal and professional repercussions, the woman said she had been deluged with offensive messages from strangers who viewed the photos and video. Her personal and professional reputation had been ruined. She changed her name.
The FBI's advice to her: hire a lawyer.
But the FBI considered Kelley's complaint significant. And for good reason, said David Laufman, a former federal prosecutor who handled national security cases. "Most cases aren't going to get this level of attention or resources," he said. "But most cases don't involve the incumbent director of the CIA or the head of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan."
The first anonymous emails, which the FBI ultimately traced to Paula Broadwell, an Army reservist and Petraeus's biographer, were sent in May to Allen and several other generals warning them to stay away from Kelley. The emails came from the pseudonym "Kelleypatrol" and included notes on Allen's plans to see Kelley in Washington the following week. Concerned about how anyone else would know about his personal plans, Allen forwarded the emails to Kelley to see whether she was playing a prank on them. Other generals also forward to Kelley copies of emails they received.
In early June, Kelley herself received the first of as many as five emails sent from different anonymous accounts alleging that she was up to no good. One of messages cited Petraeus by name and mentioned an upcoming social visit they had planned in Washington. The mysterious emails were sent to Kelley's personal account and to a separate account she jointly monitored with her husband.
Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa she had met years earlier. The bureau believed the emails were serious because they suggested the mysterious sender knew about upcoming meetings of the CIA director and a Marine Corps general....
Most cyberstalking allegations are handled by state and local law enforcement organizations, said Michelle Garcia, director of the Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime. "Given the variety of crimes that the FBI is responsible for addressing, I think often some of the stalking ones don't elevate to the top of the priority list," she said.
State police agencies have little contact with the FBI in responding to cyberstalking cases, Garcia said. "In our work with local law enforcement, very rarely do they talk about working with federal authorities on these cases."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/jill-kelley-emails_n_2158992.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Petraeus scandal: Jill Kelley and the Tampa society set
Emma Brockes in Tampa
Friday 16 November 2012
General David Petraeus was a guest of socialite Jill Kelley to watch Tampa's annual parade, Gasparilla, from her Bayshore home
"No, no, NO!" says an august member of the Tampa Historical Society, who, on mention of Jill Kelley's name, emits a scream down the phone.
"NO," she says, as I persist with the question. "This is not who we are. I won't talk about it. I WON'T be tainted."
Recovering, she recommends a good place for lunch. This is the American south, after all.
This is the tangible effect of the David Petraeus scandal on society in Tampa, a balmy resort city in western Florida. Tampa has become the focus of the affair because it is home to Jill Kelley, the socialite whose circle encompassed not only the Petraeuses, but General John Allen, Petraeus's successor in Afghanistan, an FBI agent identified as Frederick Humphries II, and a community now scrambling to distance itself from the story.
Tampa social life also provided what all parties must now consider a regrettable photo – of Holly and David Petraeus standing with the Kelleys at a party at their house, bedecked in beads, the general looking, out of uniform, disconcertingly stoop-shouldered and unmartial. This image has come to symbolise the poor judgment that would bring down Petraeus, forced to resign when news emerged of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
For the hosts, the party must have represented the pinnacle of a campaign to establish themselves at the heart of the social swirl that centres on the MacDill air force base in Tampa, a milieu of wealthy business people, aspiring politicians, four-star generals and anyone with the chutzpah – and credit, until it ran out – to put on a good show. Even when it fell apart, it would rival even Tom Wolfe's powers of manic exaggeration.
In the streets around the Kelley house, the trees hang with Spanish moss, the elegant properties protected with preservation orders. The Kelleys moved to the Hyde Park North neighbourhood 10 years ago from the north-east US when Scott Kelley got a job at a cancer clinic in Tampa. Their house was empty when I visited, a single Mercedes in the drive, although Jill Kelley, 37, was seen at an upper window the previous day, looking down at the camera crews like a better dressed version of the Woman in Black. She promptly called 911, describing herself, in a gift to news teams, as "an honorary consul general, so I have involability [sic] … I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well."
Honorary consul
Kelly is an honorary consul general, appointed, bafflingly, by the South Koreans, who are now busily reviewing the honorific. Other choice details include the fact she has a problematic twin sister; she is married to Scott Kelley, a doctor; and they bought their home for $1.5m in 2004. As well as three children, they have nine open lawsuits, brought by various banks and credit card companies trying to recover their assets.
They throw parties which generals from the air base attend, some of whom lose their heads and enter into email correspondence with Kelley that would sit better in a story about teenage sexting. For her part, Broadwell appears to have been jealous of Kelley's social relationship with Petraeus. Broadwell sent anonymous emails to Kelley demanding that she back off; Kelley went to her friend, the FBI agent, setting off the investigation that brought Petraeus down. None of which answers the broader question: who on Earth are these people and what is exactly their deal?
The neighbours aren't saying. "Do you live here, ma'am?" asks a photographer as I approach the house, giving me his best head-boy smile before turning away in disgust; he has just squandered A-grade civility on a journalist.
There is a clue in the local press. Shortly after arriving in Florida, the Kelleys were pictured in Tampa Bay Magazine, a monthly glossy with a Tatler-style gossip column, standing chummily with their new neighbours.
"The Tampa social scene is like [Washington] DC," says Aaron Fodiman, editor of the Tampa Bay Magazine. "People develop affinities for different groups. There are those in Tampa who become friendly with, for example, visiting conductors who come to the orchestras here. There are the politicians. There are different niches of celebrity, influence and power. It's just the way the world works."
Top brass
Arguably the most glamorous set in Tampa is top brass at MacDill, particularly after 9/11, when the community felt proud to host US central command. For gravitas, for sheer national importance, who wouldn't want the man who ran the war in Afghanistan in their social circle? A friendship was born between Kelley and Petraeus, as were friendships between Kelley and Allen; and Kelley and the rogue FBI agent whose snooping into Petraeus' emails brought the whole circuit crashing down.
That party of the Kelleys has come to encapsulate the scene, the Petraeuses arriving with a 28-cop motorcycle escort, heavily flanked by security who, according to reports at the time and in contention for best supporting detail of the entire saga, were required at some point to Taser another guest.
Fodiman, at the party in his role as chronicler of the social scene, is inclined to defend the Kelleys from accusations of vulgarity. "It's one day," he says. "It's like Mardi Gras. It's an anomaly."
The question still remains: how did Kelley, operating on fewer resourcesthan her millionaire rivals and with no particular social capital (she grew up in Philadelphia, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants who ran a Middle Eastern restaurant) attract the best guests and so decisively keep them? Not only keep them but, in the case of both Petraeus and Allen, get them, for example, to lend their names as character witnesses in her twin sister's custody case, a woman described by the judge as having offered "misrepresentations about virtually everything"?
At the Tampa Yacht and Country Club, there are theories, most of them about the voodoo art of self-promotion. "People here live good lives but don't need to be advertising it on a regular basis," says one of several committee members, after emitting a dry chuckle at mention of Jill and Scott Kelley. "These were people more inclined to be in the headlines. I'm not judging."
"I don't know those folks," says another. There is a long pause. "We've been here for 105 years."
'Silicone attitude'
"These types of things are all fuelled by alcohol," says Laurie Hicks, the wife of a retired wing commander living in Tampa and veteran of the circuit, who characterises Jill Kelley as "silicone implants, silicone attitude", and Paula Broadwell as "a foolish twit". She says loftily: "A more usual military-civilian liaison person would be, say, the governor of Massachusetts. Not the wife of a surgeon."
"You've come to the one place that doesn't give a rat's ass," sniffs a nail technician putting the finishing touches to a customer's nails, a five-minute walk from the Kelley house. She turns to her colleague: "Did you hear she called 911? Doesn't that just say it all?"
The women sigh. "Do you think Hillary Clinton will ever be involved in a sex scandal?"
It's not complicated, says Fodiman, who can't see what the fuss is about. "She is charming, lovely, a fun person at the party. We're told not to judge a book by it's cover, but you know: it's a very nice cover."
Miriam Leyva, who has for years done Kelley's hair, won't hear a word against her: "I have nothing negative to say about her. Terrific husband, very nice guy. Cute girls. And she's friendly. A bubbly personality."
Before all this blew up, did she think of her as a local celebrity? "In a way, yes. I knew they had a big house on Bayshore. I knew they were involved in all these parties. I knew she knew people in the military."
How did she know that? "She would mention it. She would take a phone call and say, oh, you know: that was so-and-so."
Of course. And on the other side of the scandal, what accounts for the men who attract so much less opprobrium than the women?
"Guys are all the same," says the client having her nails done, a lifelong resident of Tampa who explains that "old money" in this town means going three generations back. She smiles. "No matter how big and important they are, they still need their egos stroked."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/16/petraeus-scandal-jill-kelly-tampa-society
