For months, many of us have said Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-50th District) was a creep. His bizarre obsession with "trans kids" was a huge clue on that front. But there have been other signs, including his fandom of drag queens and the fact that he follows porn stars and escorts on his personal Instagram account.
But now, the real receipts have arrived, and they make Talarico worthy of the name Talafreako. On Friday, our sister site Townhall reported that an email address belonging to Talarico appears in leaked records from the 2011 breach of Fling.com, an adult dating site. The profile tied to that address used the username "mohawk787" and listed its interests as "FETISH," "GROUPSEX," "SEXUAL RELATIONS," "ONLINE FLIRTING," and "OTHER."
One can only imagine what "other" might be. And I promise you that I don't want to know.
Townhall sent its findings to the campaign Friday morning. Thirty-five minutes later, Talarico's lawyers fired back a four-page panic letter. Those lawyers work for the firm of Democrat shyster Marc Elias, which tells you exactly how worried this campaign is. The explanation? A hacker supposedly created the account with Talarico's email.
Mr. Talarico never created an account on Fling.com, and objective evidence confirms it. The account you are referencing was created using a hacked email address. It was also never used—it was active for a grand total of 54 seconds on Fling.com. You are formally on notice that any allegation that Mr. Talarico created or used such an account is false; if you publish it anyway, you will defame him and will be liable for the resulting legal damages.
They offered no evidence for that claim, and they ignored several of Townhall's findings entirely.
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What the lawyers conceded is far more revealing.
They confirmed that the email address belongs to Talarico, and they didn't dispute that the breach happened or that the leaked data is real. They argued that the birth date and ZIP code on the profile don't match his, which doesn’t prove anything. The records also show the account's creation and last login came fifty-four seconds apart, with no later login before the leak, though that hardly proves nobody ever used it again.
And it gets worse for Talarico and his lawyers.
The email on the Fling record carries a "validated" flag marked "Y." According to the database structure published by security researcher Troy Hunt, that field defaulted to “N.” So someone clearly verified the address. I think we all have a good idea who.
The same email turns up in leaked Myspace and Zynga records, and a commercial people-search report for "Jimmy D Talarico" lists it too.
Then there's the IP address.
The one used to create the Fling account also appears on a Neopets account registered to an email linked to Talarico's sister, Madeline. His lawyers didn't contest that match, and the search tool places that IP in Austin. Shared or reassigned IP addresses can show up across unrelated users, but a match tied to both siblings suggests the same location or the same computer.
An improbable coincidence.
Naturally, Elias’s firm tried to scare Townhall from publishing the information:
We therefore demand that Townhall cease and desist from publishing any statement stating or implying that Mr. Talarico created, owned, or used the Fling.com account or any other account on that website. If you publish anyway, our clients will be free to hold Townhall accountable in court for the resulting harm. At a certain point, enough is enough with these lies.
Obviously, it didn’t work. Townhall published the exposé anyway, and whoopsie, we’re reporting on it too.
It'd be a shame if this story went viral, wouldn't it?