NY – Albany: New York State Capitol (Photo credit: wallyg)
An employee from the NY State Assembly was reprimanded for posting comments under a pseudonym on the Internet to defend the way Speaker Sheldon Silver handled a sexual harassment scandal. According to the NY Times, the employee’s name is Bill Eggler, 48 years old, and he may have been doing his postings to the Internet on state time. The comments posted under the pseudonym, Sophia Walker, appear to have been posted since 2010. Eggler works in the Assembly’s correspondence unit and is being reprimanded, including no further access to the Internet. Eggler also used the Walker pseudonym for other contexts online.
In a story posted by The Times Union of Albany, Eggler used the Sophia Walker name to praise Speaker Silver’s handling of sexual harassment accusations against Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez in the comment section. Lopez was censured this summer by Silver after he was accused of harassment from two female employees, but it was later found out that Silver had authorized a confidential settlement with two women who had accused Lopez.
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