This question may have a simple answer, but if so I don’t know it — so maybe one of you will. Who is this guy?
More on the above images — stills clipped (and and in the case of the inset, cropped, but otherwise adjusted only for brightness and contrast) from a video appearing below — momentarily; let’s first consider why we want to know the answer.
According to John Fields over at Pedrozaville, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher released a YouTube video this past Saturday purporting to give the lie to Scott Moxley’s story of his trashing his house rental, leading to a bout of claim and counterclaim with his landlord, Robert Polyniak. Here’s the (soundless) video:
Fields notes that Jon Kobylt (of KFI’s “John and Ken”) had jumped onto Moxley’s story, leading Rohrabacher to call in and dominate the ensuing hour. Crazy Dana
mentioned the video, how to find it and also pointed to his Facebook page for a number of stills that would disprove Moxley’s claims and contradict the photos from the first OC Weekly piece. It was a terrible interview as both Kobylt and Rohrabacher fought for the microphone, but by the end Kobylt’s adrenalin was drained and he conceded their was no evident explanation for the competing photographs (Rohrabacher said Polyniak’s were “doctored”) which could either cost a 13-term Congressman his next election, or R. Scott Moxley his reputation.
Note that our own Gericault (who is no fan of Rohrabacher) pointed us to the video in this past Weekend Open Thread, saying that Dana was calling us liars. (That’s not strictly true: he’s calling Polyniak a liar and Moxley gullible — and at most he’s calling us rumormongers, which I suppose has merit, but when one comes up with a great nickname for a politician like “Staina Rentalbutcher” I think that one is morally compelled to go ahead and publish.) Our own Big Box notes, though, that it’s not clear whether this is the moving-in date or the moving-out date — to which I would add: “isn’t it sort of odd that the sound was turned off?” Isn’t the default for video nowadays that the audio is on? Maybe not; again, the collective intelligence of OJB’s readers will let us know.
If it is the move-in video, then Moxley’s description of the house as at that time — that “the carpeting was new, appliances worked and walls were spotless. Thriving flowers, plants and grass adorned the idyllic back yard less than 4 miles from the Pacific Ocean” — is clearly off.
OK, so what do we know? We know that someone took a video of the Rohrabachers’ rental at a time when it was unfurnished. That person seems to be tall and slim, balding and bearded, casually dressed — and wearing long hair extensions, at least three or four thick braided strands draped over the front of his left shoulder and a thick cable of them (visible in the inset) hanging down in the back.
I presume that the beard, receding hairline, and the flat but muscular chest rule out Rhonda Carmody Rohrabacher as the videographer. Is that Dana? Apparently I have some history of trouble recognizing Dana outside of official U.S. government photos, but the build seems too athletic to be him — and then there are the hair extensions, which, if it is him, bear some explanation. (I don’t think that Dana wears hair extensions — at least not of that length. Perhaps someone out there knows otherwise. But if it is Dana, then his appearance may help us understand what year this was from.)
So who is this guy? Is he taking video of the house just before Dana moved in (in which event the dirty carpet was in large part not Dana’s fault) or just after he moved out? Or was it taken at some moment in between during which the Rohrabacher furniture had to be moved out of the house — say, because they needed to spray for pests or make it hypo-allergenic? We have no idea — but, whoever he is, this guy knows.
I realize that I’m taking a light tone here, but at its core this is serious stuff: if this material is being presented as evidence, then someone is probably perpetrating a fraud on the court, which is very bad. If Polyniak’s photos don’t match what the house looked like when Dana moved out in August 2012, then he’s in trouble. If this video is from an earlier date, then Dana really may be committing a crime by representing it as the “move-out” condition.
Or, perhaps, there’s not much difference between Polyniak’s photos and Dana’s Dewar’s-hair-extension guy’s video after all. The photos largely showed dirty rugs and flooring, which the video largely either skips or confirms. And many of Moxley’s charges include things that wouldn’t show up in a video. In the list below, items in bold should be visible in the video (unless the videographer was really deft about avoiding bad images) and italicized items would either certainly or possibly be hidden:
Massive black stains and muck covered the carpet throughout the home. Sticky grime encased damaged, rusted appliances. Denied water, once-thriving outside plants and grass dried up and died. Blinds were cracked. Black dirt ruined the appearance of once-sparkling tile floors. Walls inexplicably contained odd holes, nail polish, wax and some smelly substance that may have been feces.
Every toilet seat in the house was broken. The ceilings showed smoke damage. Light switches had been cracked. Clumps of hair and remnants of what may have been balloons or some other rubbery material clogged sinks. Cracks scarred doors. Thick, solidified grease rendered the air-suction vent above the kitchen stove useless.Bathroom towel bars were missing, and vanities suffered water damage.
A second-floor suite used by Dana’s wife, Rhonda, as her bedroom contained a huge, mysterious, lubricant-like stain—something you might expect on the floor of a Hollywood sex club—that had seeped through thick carpet and padding to tarnish a hardwood floor. The dishwasher wasn’t functioning. A wooden chair in the back yard had been crushed, and phone lines were strangely severed. An overflowing tub cracked a ceiling with water damage.
And, no joke, white maggots squirmed underneath a kitchen stove that may not have ever been cleaned during Rohrabacher’s $3,350-per-month occupancy, which was secured, in part, with character references from fellow OC congressmen Ed Royce, John Campbell and Ken Calvert.
Who’s right here? I don’t know — but I think that it’s time to try to find our best witness!
I was wondering about that photographer, too.
Here’s a competing theory, but not implausible:
Rep. Wontgoaway sublet his house to Dana’s Dewar’s Hair Extension Guy without letting the landlord know that he was turning a profit on the deal. Dana’s Dewar’s moved into a filthy-carpeted, but not (yet) trashed house.
Finally, Dana’s Dewar’s pulls leaving an unspeakable hell-hole and a video of the before condition.
Or maybe Dana’s Dewar’s was just a friend chronicling the condition before some other third party moved in.
Orr maybe there is some untruth on both sides.
That’s all I got.
The sublet scenario seems plausible. Oh well, how hard could it be to find a guy that age with those long hair extensions? We should know soon enough.
I wonder if Dana realized that the guy could be seen in the mirror?
(Note: I had misspelled “Dewar’s,” and you graciously followed suit, so I corrected the word in the story title and body and in your comment.)
Well, it’s Christmas every week (at least in a secular sense) from YouTube, as they “suggested” another esoteric clip, which I was going to post in Open Thread, but might fit here, too? (feel free to relocate it!) Merry Christmas! Use your (brain) powers for good! lol.
Very interesting and well-done. I may add it to every comments section this week.
I’m a little disappointed, though, because I thought that maybe it was going to be the sponge-bathing scene from Witness.
this video “may” be a crime? that’s like saying all those “secret meetings” cook talks about are actually happening. I mean, if they are secret, how does she manage to attend them all? stalker perhaps but most likely reads the required postings of the meetings and has nothing better to do these days than attend and ramble on, sit down, and smirk.
No, the video is not a crime. Using it to defraud the court — or, for that matter, the landlord’s using the photos to do so, as I don’t want to prejudge this — may be a crime.
As for cook — he’s a man, baby! And I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway.
He’s referring to Debbie Cook, and Mesa Water CalDesal meetings. I assume. I’m not privy to the loud rabble voices in Deadwhitemales big head.
Yeah, he HAS gone on in the past about all the accusations Debbie and John Earl and others make about hinkiness in his water world.
If “secret” means “illegally underpublicized,” then it can be true that meetings are both secret and that someone with expertise and contacts would still know about them. I’ve started doing some Open Meeting Act work in my practice; it’s pretty interesting.
yep. ridge is a dork
Wait. You’re the dork.
The Dewar’s guy looks kinda like Jack, the psycho white supremacist leader from the last season of Breaking Bad. This is Dana’s friend? Pot dealer?
Considering the fact that Rohrabacher’s attorney is also a realtor/broker in OC, how tough would it have been to arrange a showing after the clean-up and get video? It took a year for the wife to file; there was plenty of time. As far as time stamps, can you reset the time on a camera?
Would that be Mark Bucher?
I admit it would be pretty cool to prove that he not only left the alleged mess, but went to these great deceptive lengths to avoid paying for it. That could FINALLY knock him out of Congress. So I hope Scotty’s on to something…
Devin Lucas
Reset the time on a camera? Surely such a thing is unpossible!
Well, at least now we know who to ask — if we can find him.
I think Rohrabacher stated a surfing buddy by the name of Petros Berhane took photos for him.