evleaks

Evan Blass · @evleaks

31st Oct 2014 from TwitLonger

This email was sent to almost 300 media personalities in Orange County, FL:


"News tip: Orange County-based grifters, posing as former NHL player and Microsoft executive, defraud MS-addled 'King of the Leakers'"

Greetings. I (and hundreds of my Twitter followers) were the victims of a rather high-profile, intriguing crime that I think you may be interested in. It all played out very publicly, on social media.

My name is Evan Blass. I recently retired from being what the BBC dubbed King of the Leakers, as I spent two years leaking smartphone information and imagery on Twitter using the handle @evleaks. Earlier this year, in mid-May, I befriended a new leaker of phones, the brash, daring owner of a YouTube channel once known as TK Tech News. What interested me about this account was the boldness of the leaker and his purported identity: whereas I almost exclusively leaked press images, he was able to seemingly get his hands on actual pre-production prototypes, and capture them on video. I was also drawn to his story, as he presented himself as former NHL player Myles "TK" O'Connor (NJ Devils), now retired and claiming to be a front-office scout for the champion L.A. Kings. He was so knowledgeable about hockey, travel, and celebrities, that I never for a moment doubted his story.

TK and I became fast friends, mostly because we were somewhat star-struck by one another. He knew me as one of the most prolific phone leakers in existence, while I loved the idea of being fawned over by an ex-professional athlete. He fairly quickly introduced me to his wife, a video game developer named Patricia Pizer, who claimed to be on her way out from a well-placed executive position in Microsoft's Xbox division. She easily gained my trust with seemingly detailed, insider information about recent-Microsoft-acquisition Nokia, and I posted many leaks based on her supposed knowledge of future plans.

Fast forward to August 4th, the day of my "retirement." In a seemingly selfless gesture of goodwill, TK started an IndieGoGo fund on my behalf, because I have multiple sclerosis, and the reason I retired was an inability to adequately monetize my Twitter feed (I was lucky to earn $1,000/month in advertising revenue, even at the peak of my popularity, when I had some 187,000 followers). TK was relentless in his fundraising, although some of the perks he offered were a bit suspicious, such as prototype phones for a donation of $500 or more. Still, the money was a godsend to me, as those donors (mostly followers of mine) who paid via PayPal were essentially handing me checks in real time, with those donations deposited directly into my PayPal account.

Credit card donations, which amounted to nearly half of the ~$9,300 raised, were a different story. Those don't get dispersed until several days after the campaign ends, to avoid chargebacks which would leave IGG holding the bag, so to speak. TK informed me that the magic number was 15 days post-campaign cessation, and for days leading up to that date, TK continually asked me if the funds had been deposited in my PayPal account yet. It was only after 15 business days passed, without any disbursement -- Patricia claimed she had contacted IGG and that the money would be deposited imminently -- that I became suspicious enough to email IGG myself. As it turns out, they don't ever disburse credit card funds to PayPal accounts, and in fact, the remaining ~$4,000 had been deposited in her own bank account just a few days after the fundraiser was over.

At this point, I exposed the fraud to my followers, one of whom -- a Penn State IT technician and blogger for the site Phandroid -- reached out to inform me that he had recently written an expose on TK, which was subsequently killed by his editor. This blogger, Derek Ross (a highly respected member of the Android community, with over one million followers on Google+) had discovered that TK was not in fact Myles O'Connor, but a serial conman named Thomas Connors (his article, eventually published on Medium before being subjected to a DMCA takedown due to the use of supposed copyrighted imagery, refers to this individual as Thomas Kelley Connors, but his real name is Thomas Walter Connors).

It did not take much research to learn that Thomas, very likely a current a Winter Park resident, was much more than your average conman. In fact, he was arrested in late 2012 for outstanding warrants based on fairly serious charges such as impersonation of a Department of Homeland Security agent and, more troubling, attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. But his criminal career apparently dates back much farther, with the Hartford Courant reporting back in 1998 that he was arrested for multiple identity theft and the associated spending sprees that occurred.

Thomas is currently in the process of changing identities once again, shutting down all his Twitter accounts, rebranding his YouTube channel to Total Tech News, and collecting new followers on a private Instagram feed of the same name (where many of the posts are dedicated to disparaging and discrediting me, his primary accuser, including falsified documents he's using to claim that the FBI is investigating me for the distribution of child pornography). WIRED magazine is in the midst of publishing an article about this epic fraud, but unfortunately, the real Myles O'Connor seems uninterested in filing either criminal charges or a civil suit (though he did agree to speak to WIRED about the incident).

Unless Thomas is exposed by the media, chances seem good that he will reoffend, continuing to operate his YouTube channel -- seemingly his only source of income -- while at the same time trawling for new opportunities to defraud. I live in Philadelphia, PA, but he lives and operates in your own backyard, which is why you seemed like the proper channel to contact about this matter.

Please do not hesitate to contact me for further information or to see the material evidence I have collected (including his full arrest record in the state of Florida and a dump of his private Instagram posts). Thank you for taking the time to read this rather lengthy tale, and I hope that you will be able to warn your audience about this seemingly dangerous con artist and predator.

Best,
Evan N. Blass

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