Patrick Byrne Celebrates Pretexting Debacle

Byrne takes joy in being a scumbag

In the furor over the Overstock.com pretexting scandal, I missed this gem: Overstock's wacky CEO, Patrick Byrne, staggered onto the corporate p.r. blog, Deep Capture, long enough to celebrate his being whacked upside the head by his infuriated victims.

Here's a quote from Byrne that was published on a Salt Lake Tribune blog (so as to obviate the need to duck malware and tracking bugs at Byrne's website):

We can always tell when we are getting to them by the whine of the Spin-Blender’s motor in the blogosphere and financial media. Right now, they’ve punched the button marked, “Purée”.

Getting to whom, is what I would like to know:

Facebook, which just banned his cyberstalker Judd Bagley from the premises and issued a statement condemning the pretexting scheme?

The SEC, which now has something else to investigate, in addition to the "cookie jar reserve" he used to manipulate earnings?

His board of directors, which has given silent assent to his misconduct, thereby changing their status from "bird brains" into "accomplices"?

Investors, who sent the share price spiraling down in the wake of the scandal, who have a new reason to stay away?

Oh, I know what he means. He means his victims--the dozens of previously uninvolved journalists and bloggers whose privacy was violated, and would like to see Overstock boycotted Byrne and his henchman Judd Bagley tossed in jail.

He has definitely "gotten" to all those people.

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.