A few weeks ago (10/15/2012) a partial mugshot was posted of Jason Wade Taylor aka Randy Hahn by Neal Rauhauser on his blog. In this screenshot, you can see that Neal only posted part of the mugshot and until now, nobody has posted the whole thing. I’m going to post the whole thing and tell you for the first time where it came from.
Before I post it, let’s review what “Randy Hahn” told me about the mugshot — that Neal had photoshopped ‘that whole thing’. This is a lie, for reasons I’ll explain shortly but here’s a 14 second clip where Randy swears it’s not him.
[podloveaudio src=”http://stran-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/NealPhotoshopped.mp3″]Here’s how I know this isn’t true: the mugshot was obtained by Heather Chase from the Houston Police Department via snail mail, after Heather and I talked about getting it. I made a few calls myself trying to track down the Jason Wade Taylor mugshot but Heather is the one who found it and ordered it. It was sent to her by mail and in the full version, you can see the date in the lower right hand corner; it’s a couple of days before Neal posted it. Here’s a giant PDF of the mugshot that was made from a scan once the mugshot arrived at Heather’s house.
As soon as Heather got it, she sent it to me. She also sent it to Karoli — and that’s how Neal got it, either directly from Karoli or via Shoq or Matt Osborne. Either way, the chain was from Houston Police to Heather to Karoli to (maybe Shoq or Osborne) to Neal. Then Neal posted the partial mugshot right away — which bothered Heather a great deal because Neal’s site is so nutty that it makes the whole thing look suspect. Heather confronted Karoli, who lied at first and then admitted she’d sent it to Shoq and Matt. I believe - but am not sure - that other people in Heather’s circle can confirm that this happened.
This shows that both Heather and I were not Randy’s pal. Heather was afraid of him and he’d threatened me, too, which is why we wanted to get the mugshot. Heather hadn’t wanted to talk about this before for fear of setting off Randy, but after he appearance last night on my podcast she and I decided to put this information out there.
The complete mugshot includes a profile view that Neal didn’t include for some reason. Not sure if Randy = Jason Wade Taylor? Here’s another photo that Randy himself sent to Heather from his earlier, heavier days. Again, the first ‘peace sign photo’ was sent to Heather directly from Randy who said it was him. And it’s obviously the same guy. Check it out…
And here for the first time, the entire mugshot. Ladies and gentlemen, meet petty criminal turned compulsive liar political podcaster stalker kook Randy Hahn.
Just a couple of clarifications/corrections on this:
Shortly after Lee received a threat from JWT, he and I talked about the problem of positively identifying JWT. At the time, there were photos of him that I knew were actually him (since I’ve met him in person) and information suggestive of his identity, but no definitive link between the two. It was known that there was a criminal history for JWT, and Lee remarked to me that it would be useful to have a mugshot so that we could be certain beyond reasonable doubt that “Randy” really was JWT. However, in order to order a mugshot, one has to know where the individual served time, and I did not have that information.
A couple of weeks later, I spoke to Karoli on the phone about this whole mess, and we agreed that it would be best if JWT could be positively identified and dealt with. She and I both have concerns for our safety, and she echoed my interest in seeing some kind of law enforcement resolution for that reason. I told her about the mugshot idea and what would be needed, and she told me that she had the records of his incarceration. We agreed that she would send those to me and I would use that information to order the mugshot, which is exactly what I did.
The City of Houston informed me that it would take up to 10 business days to receive it. I informed Karoli of this, and in the interim I told her that if the mugshot proved to match “Randy’s” photos, I felt it would be best not to send the mugshot to Osborne/Shoq because I was concerned they would use the mugshot as more fodder for Internet drama, which might complicate matters for people who might have legitimate legal complaints against JWT. I advised her that the mugshot should be circulated privately to those people so that they could finally file police reports, lawsuits, etc., reasonably certain they had the right person. However, I also told her that the decision was ultimately hers, and I would send her the mugshot regardless of what she planned to do with it. She replied that we should wait until we got the mugshot before making too many plans.
When I received the mugshot, I sent it to her as promised, along with a photo I had that he’d sent me, which he claimed was him (the EXIF data on the photo indicates that it was from sometime in 2008). I also sent it to Lee Stranahan (I knew he had a police report due to a threat he’d received from JWT) and a few other people in my circle. In that email, I made no comment on whether I thought it was a positive match; I was waiting to hear back to see what she and others thought. Within a few hours, the mugshot appeared on Neal’s blog. Karoli later wrote me suggesting that she was confused by how that might have happened and wanted to know if I had any ideas.
I knew that there was no one else I’d sent it to who would have any reason to deliver the mugshot to Osborne, Edelstein, or Neal. Karoli is the only person to whom I’d sent the mugshot who had any existing connection to him. I told her that I thought she was being dishonest with me, and I didn’t know why; I’d told her before I sent the mugshot that it was up to her to decide whether to send it to Osborne/Edelstein/whomever. She eventually made it clear that she had sent it to Osborne/Edelstein. With that said, I didn’t understand why she came to me wondering how it could have ended up on Neal’s blog when she’d sent it to an obvious vector to him.
The thing is, I didn’t really care how Neal got it. As I told her then, it was up to her, and I wasn’t asking her to justify her decision. I continue to believe that it would have been best to handle this matter quietly through the proper channels, but since that horse had already left the barn with Neal’s post, I didn’t see any point in demanding that she explain herself, nor did I understand why she denied having any idea how it got there.
My interest was then, and is now, using the proper channels to address JWT’s behavior so that he cannot continue to create these very serious problems.