One of John Kerry’s pre-Teresa girlfriends, Lee Roystone, has a photo scrapbook web site My John Kerry Scrapbook. (Site is now disabled, but the Dummocrats has a cached copy) Google has apparently never heard of this woman (see below) which is very odd. So too is the Hedge Fund Mistress domain name. Roystone explains that the name referrers to a novel she is offering for sale. The following is from the Hedge Fund Mistress page on Aug. 18, 2004:
I think that I should explain “Hedge Fund Mistress.” By the time John Kerry won Iowa this novel was mainly completed. There is a chapter on a character who dated a United States senator. When John won my first reaction was: What do I do now? Shelve my book? Rewrite the book? That portion of the book is crucial to the story.
It puts me in a strange situation because I do not want my personal experience with him to be twisted and I put nothing past the right wing talk show hosts – especially in such a close election (I hate Rush Limbaugh – in the book I call him “The Rash”). Anyway, I’m not really sure what to do. John may certainly read it before it goes to press for his input but, I will ultimately make the decision on what is printed.
So what’s Google have to say?
BUSTED!!!
Presumably the author (or Kerry supporter) has purchased AdWords to lead search engine users to the site. Notice the text of the ad: Former John Kerry girlfriend has written a tell-all book. The problem is that there is no tell all book; there’s only a fictional story (synopsis) about a character named Nicki Mathews – conveniently available for pre-order. The Scrapbook page is a fawning tribute to John Kerry Eco-Crusader and lover. There’s not an ounce of Kerry bashing to be found, and even the rival for the senators affections and future wife Teresa is fawned over.
The cynic in me wonders if this is not a brilliant ploy to get out in front of some as yet unknown story about Kerry’s last relationship before he snagged his billionairess. Even for someone as accomplished at creative truth liberties (i.e. lies) as Kerry is, that’s a serious stretch. Based on the content and secret ad campaign what we’re probably seeing is a scam job by this Lee Roystone to grab some free publicity to hawk her lame novels. Such a scam certainly doesn’t lend credence to the veracity of the “scrapbook” material either…
Update: David checked the domains Whois record and found that it was registered to Lee Whitnum. Google has never heard of her either, but guess which ad shows up when you do that search? View Google search for Lee Whitnum.
Update 2: The site has been disabled (Google cache to the rescue), the author is now claiming that she’s received 500 hate e-mails, and that she was just trying to promote her book.
Final verdict: Scam
Kevin: Not sure if you’ve already investigated, but I did a Whois on the site — turned up a name of “Lee Whitnum” which yielded no Google hits…and neither did “alphablue llc” – although I didn’t try any variations yet. Veddy interesting.
http://www.davidmsc.com/archives/hedgefundmistressreg.gif
Isn’t this coming out just as the challenging of Kerry’s war record is picking up steam? I question the timing of this site’s sudden popularity…
(Hey, someone had to say it.)
J.
Nice catch, Kevin.
interesting find. I closed the site as soon as I saw she was hocking her book… I bet most people are the same way.
She supports Kerry on her front page. Just because she’s written a “tell-all” book, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. If she had some dirt, I’m Bush would have dug it up by now.
No need for an investigation. Lee Whitnum gave an interview that was printed in Wednesday morning’s New York Daily News.
She said that Kerry was such a romantic that he whispered “sweeti nothings” in French while they were in bed – whenever she asked him to do so.
Here is the NYDaily News article…
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/223211/p-191776c.html
She’s apparently scammed the Boston Herald also. See her interview at:
http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=40469
Whitnum is described as a “former Harvard student said she had a steamy secret 20-month fling with Sen. John Kerry, who cooked for her, whispered to her in French and shared intimate nights with her in his Back Bay bachelor pad.”
Besides giving me the heebie-jeebies, the story is packaged a little too pretty for my liking.
I for one couldn’t care less about his romantic escapades, except as comic fodder — imagine him telling her, “Bring. It. On.” or, “I was in favor of your having multiple orgasms before I was against it.” or, “Last night is seared — seared into me.”
But if Teresa sees this book and decides it’s true, that won’t be all that’s seared — seared into Kerry.
“Je t’aime… je t’aime… mais, j’ai besoin de l’argent… de beaucoup de l’argent… je t’aime… mais, je cherche une femme riche… tres riche…”
In the Boston Herald article she says their affair was secret and they never went out together. But, last night I swear I saw outside pics of them together at her site. Her site is now “temporarily disabled”, so hopefully someone else grabbed a copy.
Also, the interview says she lives in Nevada, and her site gave an LV address to send away for the book. That address looked like a PMB.
The domain is registered using an Australian company and the address given is a POB in Greenwich CT.
THAT WEBSITE HAS BEEN DISABLED. I guess John Kerry/John Edwards lawyers have been quite busy.
~C
She said she hoped [the website] might help publicise her books ‘Hedge Fund Mistress’ – about a woman who has a relationship with a US state senator – and ‘What About the Dead?’
She said that despite 16,000 hits she had “absolutely zero book orders”.
“I was so sure that I’d sell some books, buy a house, not have to spend the next 20 years in a windowless cube… living paycheck-to-paycheck. Silly me,” she wrote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3579880.stm
I would not at all be surprised if it’s an entire “scam” inorder to “scam” the perceptions about scamming…
Err, what I mean, is there’s this story on the BBC and then there’s the history of the site up, down, up, down, retracted, etc…
and all that just ~soon after~ Kerry’s quite overtly well publicized comments about what women he likes and finds “sexy” and the like, and -presto- this thing.
It JUST MAY BE that it’s a scam site to appear as a scam site (she’s selling her book, after all) that Kerry can and is now using to denounce “books about Kerry” by people who “knew me when”…another very popular book comes to mind here along this theme.
No doubt about it, Kerry is not remaining seamless in his/his campaign’s/DNC’s use of the media. They are definitely showing their bias, showing very real maneuvers in how they use who and what for.
It’s terrible.
Terrible as in, run for President but for Heaven’s sake, don’t try to rewrite history inorder to secure His and Her Royale With Cheese.
Kevin,
Thanks for the entry!
We’ve got a real investigation here 🙂
I think the “Scrapbook” site is back up. I would hope Harvard grads can spell better than she who claims to be an alumnus.
I had actually heard of both her and her first book (not the Kerry-esque one) prior to this…the outside photos were from earth day, which she helped with. That was how I found her in the first place; she was apparently a “concept person” for Earth Day back in ’90 or so. Just thought you’d be interested.