Seth Dunlap Photo: WWL Radio

The saga of New Orleans radio host Seth Dunlap has taken another turn, with his station WWL now claiming that Dunlap himself used the station’s Twitter account to post the homophobic slur that targeted Dunlap.

This comes in the wake of WWL turning the case over to law enforcement, which came after the Entercom-owned station apparently determined that Dunlap himself was behind the tweet. WWL also seemed pretty eager to establish a motive, discussing Dunlap’s finances with law enforcement. Here’s Ramon Antonio Vargas and Kevin Allman at NOLA.com:

That decision was apparently made after Cassidy, Dunlap and their attorneys met Tuesday. According to what the station told the NOPD, as detailed in the police report, Dunlap’s legal team had previously sent a letter demanding $1.85 million over the tweet.

The report said management tried to ask Dunlap about whether he had been discriminated against because of his sexuality. But Dunlap’s team objected to the questioning, and the meeting was derailed when management revealed their digital forensic expert had concluded that Dunlap “posted the (homophobic) tweet himself from his personal cellphone.”

The station said the forensic expert, John Conroy, discovered the tweet was sent from an Internet protocol address associated with Dunlap’s phone, according to the police report.  

According to WWL Radio, the station had been receiving “letters in the past few months regarding wage garnishment” for Dunlap’s personal debts, the police report said.

“Apparently, Mr. Dunlap has a variety of unpaid credit cards and personal loans, and the companies holding the debt are going into collections for the unpaid amount,” it said.

When news broke that the case had been handed to law enforcement, Dunlap’s attorney announced Dunlap had passed a polygraph test voluntarily, and while we can’t really learn much from a polygraph test, we learned a lot from the fact they had done it; it seemed pretty clearly designed to get out ahead of what was coming, which was this.

There’s not much detail as to the veracity of WWL’s investigation, either; Dunlap reportedly didn’t have password access to the station’s Twitter account, and WWL’s claim essentially rests on whatever the digital forensics expert determined and apparent security video that shows Dunlap in his office.

The report released Thursday notes surveillance footage showed Dunlap was in his office with the door closed at the time the tweet was sent. He then opened the door and walked out to show his phone to a co-worker, “apparently talking about the tweet.”

So, at this point, there are two possibilities. The first: Dunlap did indeed post the tweet himself in some kind of bizarre scheme, doing so at work from his own office, with cameras all around. That would be impossibly weird.

Second, literally anyone else did it, and the station’s decision was to instead blame the target of the slur and accuse him of not only harassing himself but also extorting the station by threatening a harassment suit, which is not the kind of response you want to offer if someone is accusing you of a hostile work environment.

Either way, it’s a crazy story.

[NOLA.com]

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.