In another shocking (insert sarcasm) display of Republican sexual deviancy, a former intern with the Mitt Romney campaign has been charged with cyber stalking and blackmailing women. 21-year-old Adam Savader was arrested on Tuesday by Great Neck, N.Y. police. According to the complaint that was filed on , Savader was very handy with the Internet and texting. In a sick, twisted kind of way.

The court documents show that Savader victimized 15 women, claiming that he had naked pictures of them. He told the women that he would send the photos to the women’s family and friends unless they sent him more nude pictures. Most of the texts and tweets go back to September of 2012.





That case, involving a Michigan college student, was the basis for the investigation. The details laid out in the complaint describe an act of cyberstalking in which Savader hacked the victims’ AOL account and downloaded nude pictures that the victim had uploaded to her account. She never sent them and was the only one to have access to her account. He then sent a text message – under the alias “John Smith (real imaginative, eh?) – to the victim, telling her that he had the pictures and would send them to her family and friends unless she took more and sent those to him. Savader/Smith demonstrated a knowledge of the victims’ personal information and family members that scared her. She made a complaint to Ann Arbor police.

Savader/Smith, unaware that his victim was cooperating with police, texted the victim again on October 14, 2012. He told the victim that he was masturbating to her photos and what woman wouldn’t be charmed by such an admission, I ask you? Savader/Smith texted his victim several more times during October and into November, unaware that the Google Voice numbers and UIDs he was using were being traced. Eventually, police tracked him to Great Neck and discovered that he had done this to 14 other women all over the country.

Before he became Paul Ryan’s intern on the Romney campaign, Savader worked for the Newt Gingrich carnival. As part of his job there, he would dress up in an elephant costume for readings of Callista Gingrich’s children’s books. Yes, Adam Savader was Ellis the Elephant. If you have an overly active imagination (god help me) the whole world of Furries and their high weirdness might pop into your head. I apologize.

Savader’s Facebook page is loaded with pictures of him with nearly every well-known Republican in the country, up to and including Joe the Plumber. The captions reveal a young man with an almost maniacal desire to be photographed with these people.

Slate’s Dave Weigel was “cyber friends” with Savader. He summed up the whole sordid affair thusly:

“Paging through these photos, we see a young and excited guy who just loved politics, and connecting with people through the Internet. He might have loved the latter thing too much.”

What could I possibly add to that?

T. Steelman is a life-long Liberal. She has been writing online about politics since 2007. She lives in Western Washington with her husband, daughter, 2 cats and a small herd of alpacas. How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is, after all, so poorly lit…