Top 50 Most Noteworthy, Effective, And Influential Stories Broken By Turtleboy; #30-21

 

The critics will say Turtleboy isn’t real news, but the facts show that over the last 8 years we’ve written countless stories that exposed problems in our society that no other media outlet was willing to look into. As a result of our reporting corruption has been exposed, bad people have been fired from positions of power, criminals have gone to jail, future victims have been spared, mainstream media lies and narratives have been debunked, and the world has become a better place. This week we’ll be running down the most noteworthy, effective, and influential stories broken by Turtleboy in our history, starting with #50-41 on Monday, #40-31 on Tuesday, and so forth until we get to our Top 10 on Friday.

 

30. Landon Steele. Landon Steele promoted himself as a heroic, grizzled, battle hardened celebrity veteran. In reality he was a drunken abuser who conned dozens of women who he took advantage of and abused, built his own personal brand with crazy lies about surviving firefights with Haitian rebels and Somali pirates, lied to mothers about being with their dying children, lied about his military service, accidentally shot himself in the face but later blamed it on a heroic veteran who was in another country at the time, pretended to be a hired mercenary, nearly allowed a dog to bite an Indian protester, and stuffed his ass with paper towels. We found out about him after he made plans to move to Montana with Leigha Genduso, who threatened several of Landon’s other victims.

Result – High profile veterans like Dakota Meyer disassociated with Steele, and he completely disappeared from social media. His grift is effectively over.

 

 

 

29. Franklin Baxley. A white woman was publicly shamed by millions for calling the police on a black man at an Attleboro dog park because his dog allegedly was humping hers. As it turns out that man was a drug dealing felon and disbarred attorney named Franklin Baxley who lied about everything and was harassing the woman prior to her calling police. We also obtained footage of him orchestrating two crackheads to viciously assault another crackhead while he filmed, because the woman owed him drug money.

Result – Inside Edition cancelled his interview and Franklin was arrested days later for drug trafficking and spent 18 months in prison.

 

 

28. Braintree parent emails. Braintree Girl’s Basketball Coach Kristen McDonnell guided the team to 2 state championships in 8 years, but abruptly resigned, claiming parental harassment. The Boston Globe and other media outlets weren’t reporting the story behind the story, so we tracked down and reached out to parents of other kids on the team. They sent us outrageous emails from overbearing parents who were upset with their daughters’ playing time. One parent was upset that the coach “marginzalized his daughter’s captaincy” by adding more captains as the year went along.

Result – Braintree High School was publicly shamed into doing the right thing and offering Coach McDonnell her job back. They went on to win her third State Championship the next season.

 

 

27. Andover Hockey. The media was reporting that Andover High School Hockey Coach Chris Kuchar, who rebuilt the program from the ashes to a state championship contender, was put on leave and being investigated by DCF for abusing his players and denying them food and water after a loss. However, we obtained receipts showing coaches paid for Panera Bread and supplied players with food and drinks on the way home from Springfield. We outed the failed country music singer Dad who made the false allegation to begin with. We later found out that Superintendent Shelley Berman, who made the decision to suspend Coach Kuchar, had written an insane letter to the coach about his mediocre son Dale not getting enough ice time. He also lectured Kuchar about coaching, even though the only sport he played was fencing, and we found out that he had fled Louisville after getting a kid killed at football practice.

Result – Kuchar was reinstated and Andover made its first Super 8 in school history. The next year he was not rehired, leading to a student walkout, but he was immediately hired by Malden Catholic where he’s killing it today. Berman resigned in disgrace the next year.

 

26. Adam Jones lied about being called the n word. The Red Sox beat the Orioles at a game at Fenway Park in May of 2017, and center fielder Adam Jones had peanuts and unkind words hurled in his direction. However, he exaggerated/lied and said that he was called the n word repeatedly throughout the game by an unknown fan in the bleachers. The media immediately took his story at face value and branded Boston as America’s most racist city. Barstool Sports attempted to shame Turtleboy for pointing out that the story was an obvious lie and even encouraged fans to give Jones a standing ovation. Not a single person in attendance saw or witnessed this happening, but Sports Illustrated columnist Mike Lupica interviewed a 17 year old Woburn student named Niko who claimed he witnessed it. We poked holes in the story and reached out to Niko who admitted that he made it up.

But if you need a witness. pic.twitter.com/ipjR6bA7uH

— feitelberg (@FeitsBarstool) May 2, 2017

Result – No retraction from Lupica to this day, but it’s now generally known around Boston that Adam Jones made the whole thing up.

 

 

25. PURR Cat Cafe. The media was hyping up Boston’s first cat cafe, where people could bring their cats, buy drinks, and hang out. But upon further investigation the owner turned out to be a drunken lunatic named Diane who had no idea what she was doing. Instead of investing in her business she started a GoFundMe to pay for everything, she spoke as a cat on Facebook and threatened to sue anyone who asked questions. She also had no cats Kathleen, so she tried to scam the MSPCA into giving her free ones, and she viciously slut shamed her most faithful volunteer/employee. The open house was a complete disaster as it revealed the horrible conditions the cats were living in.

Result – PURR lasted a little over a year before the the police were called and found Diane passed out drunk on the floor of the cafe, and several cats were reported missing. She never paid her rent and lost the business, but still occasionally gets drunk and posts online as a cat.

 

 

24. Luke Noble. Luke Noble was a rising star in the Mass GOP, and had the endorsement of Governor Baker while running for Selectman in North Andover. However, Turtleboy obtained a disturbing video of Noble verbally abusing his 3 year old daughter. Upon further investigation Noble was accused by his daughter of sexual abuse, and their pediatrician said in a deposition that he found the allegations credible. He threatened to sue his ex-wife for defamation for standing up for her daughters, and uses his money and influence to silence her. He was held in contempt of court by violating an order when he got his daughters a new pediatrician. A powerful law firm out of Gloucester threatened me with a lawsuit if I wrote about it, but I blogged about it anyway.

Result – Noble took down his campaign page but didn’t drop out of the election. Local media refused to report on it, but the blogs were read by a lot of people and Noble lost decisively at the polls.

 

 

23. High 5 Friday cancelled in Northampton. We first reported that Northampton was ending its police program where officers went to elementary schools on Fridays and gave kids high 5’s as part of their effort to maintain positive community relations. We found out that this was the result of a small handful of woke anti-police parents who said cops would traumatize black kids, and we obtained internal emails from police officers. The story made national headlines on right wing media outlets, and the Mayor called Turtleboy racist for reporting on this.

Today was High-Five Friday! Thanks to Jackson St School for hosting! We hope that everyone had a great time! Happy Friday!! #highfive pic.twitter.com/MWY6JBlHlK

— Northampton Police (@NorthamptonPD) January 6, 2017

Result – Northampton was completely humiliated by the debacle and launched an investigation into which officers blew the whistle and ran to Turtleboy.

 

 

22. Liz Miranda. State Rep Liz Miranda was a rising progressive name in the Massachusetts Democratic Party. However, we obtained court documents from Michigan and spoke with a woman who alleged that Miranda had been threatening her and sleeping with her baby daddy Corn. We also found evidence that she met Corn in New Jersey while pretending to be on a work trip, which was a violation of his parole because he had just gotten out of jail for murder and could not leave the state of Michigan, and was aware that he was abusive towards the mother of his children. Soon after that we found hundreds of racist and offensive tweets Miranda had sent, prompting her to completely shut down her account and start over.

Result – The media covered for Miranda by choosing not to report on any of this, and she is now running for State Senate. However, her reputation is severely damaged.

 

 

21. Spencer-East Brookfield Public Schools. In one of the longest and most extensive blogs ever published on Turtleboy we documented the horrible conditions in the Spencer-East Brookfield Public Schools and the years of corruption that led to this. The roofs were collapsing in classrooms, a principal was missing, parents were in open revolt at School Committee meetings, turnover rate amongst faculty and administration had never been higher, the carpetbagging superintendent was spending money on trips to China, and the corrupt School Committee members were getting paid to do work on her home. It led to a student walkout, and at a meeting School Committee Chairman Kevin Hayes drew ire when he silenced a student who spoke out. We filed FOIA requests to see where all the money was going and the results were disturbing.

ICYMI. #Spencer officials field questions, complaints about student walkout https://t.co/wkR9EEZA2m @KimRingTG pic.twitter.com/hq9a0vXyjY

— telegramdotcom (@telegramdotcom) April 20, 2016

Result – We mobilized a massive get out the vote campaign for the next School Committee election, and the entire board was voted out. The new committee hired a new superintendent.