Jan 27, 2010
Cybergate: The Back Story (4)
Like most people outside the Beltway, I had never heard of Michael Connell. But I quickly discovered that his name was all over the web long before his plane crashed. On one site, he was openly referred to as Karl Rove’s ‘vote rigger’, who had created secret IT systems to steal elections, notably in Ohio, in 2004. There were YouTube videos of cyber experts talking about mirror sites, Man In the... read more
Jan 20, 2010
Cybergate: The Back Story(3)
It was a month since I had heard about the story, when my girlfriend sent me a link to a news story about Connell’s plane crash. The story of his fiery death in a Piper Saratoga, shortly before Christmas, 2008, not long after he had testified in a law suit that implicated Karl Rove in what would, if true, be the biggest crime against democracy since Watergate; the grief and anger of his wife, Heather;... read more
Jan 19, 2010
Cybergate: The Back Story ( Post 2)
It is snowing hard when I set off in late January 2009 on Rte. 585 to drive the thirty miles from Wooster to Bath, Ohio, to meet Heather Connell, the recently widowed wife of Michael Connell, a prodigiously gifted computer expert who had worked for Karl Rove and both George Bush Sr. and Jr. Stepping out of the terminal at Columbus Airport the day before felt like walking into a freezer chest. Two feet of... read more
Jan 14, 2010
Cybergate: The Back Story
Over the next days and weeks, I will be posting the back story to my feature, Cybergate, which has just been published in the US in Maxim magazine. These are, if you like, notes from the cutting room floor – the background to how I found and pursued the story, the obstacles I encountered; and my private thoughts, feelings and fears about what I began to find out …to be... read more
Jan 13, 2010
Cybergate ( Maxim Title Page)
The story is now available in print form in the US – link to the website coming soon. Maxim Title... read more
Jan 12, 2010
Cybergate
After a long, complicated birth, my investigative feature into the hacking of the Ohio 04 election – and with it the American Presidency – and the possible murder of Republican IT expert, Michael Connell, has just been published in the US in Maxim magazine. It took nearly a year to unravel this compelling, and complicated story. Often, to use a metaphor from the world of IT, the truth seemed to... read more
Simon Worrall was born in Wellington, England and spent his childhood in Eritrea, Paris and Singapore. He has written for publications all over the world, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, London Times, The Guardian, Paris Review, GQ, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Conde Nast Traveler, Maxim, Playboy,Die Zeit and the New Statesman. He divides his time between Herefordshire and the East End of Long Island.
