After Santa Cruz Weekly reported last week about a collection of fake super-hot lingerie-model Facebook accounts that all seemed to be suspiciously enthusiastic supporters of city council candidate Tim Goncharoff, he took to social media to declare he had been unfairly “tarnished” by our reporting, saying it was “outrageous to claim that I have had something to do with this.”
But a quick look through the histories of the fake accounts shows that Goncharoff was, at one time, Facebook friends with them. And according to the comments he made on their pages, very familiar with them—calling them “sweetie,” telling them the erotic literature they posted was “making me blush,” and reminding them to “remember sunscreen next time you go skinny dipping.”
In fact, he apparently spent so much time offline with one of the avatars that another one commented, “Oh Jazzy, when are you not with Tim? You two should just get married and get it over with!” The avatar wrote this in a thread Goncharoff had commented on exactly five minutes prior.
While the women regularly invited him to their clothing-optional pool parties, Goncharoff was, unfortunately, always unable to attend, much to the chagrin of the women. “@Tim: You and your cute behind better be there!” wrote one.
The postings from the fake accounts were also used in a number of instances to promote public policy initiatives Goncharoff worked on, including the plastic bag ban, and to tear down politicians with opposing viewpoints. Several fake accounts were deployed in May of 2012 to criticize a post that current county supervisor candidate Ryan Coonerty made on his Facebook page about new public safety measures proposed following the murder of Shannon Collins.
“Sometimes when something terrible happens, we feel such an urge to DO SOMETHING that we rush into ill-advised measures,” wrote one avatar, named Jasmine Guadeloupe.
The same language was used by Goncharoff himself this February, in a video interview filmed at the Zami cooperative house and currently available on YouTube.
“If you go to things like city council meetings something you hear a lot is, ‘We have to do something.’ And if somebody says, ‘Well you know, this proposal you’re making isn’t really going to help the problem you’re trying to address,’ they say, ‘Well, we have to do something,’” Goncharoff says in the interview.
In October of 2012, “Jasmine Guadeloupe” leapt out of the digital realm entirely, writing a letter to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors in support of the green business program. The address listed as Guadeloupe’s home is a Chevron gas station in Watsonville.
The group of sexy female avatars also includes a stray male or two, who also share the same posts, have the same friends and regularly communicated with Goncharoff over the years. One of the males, Dennis Finch-Hatton, made a post this past July criticizing Santa Cruz City Councilwoman Pamela Comstock’s stance that the South Beach Pizza Co. should not be allowed to serve food and alcohol past midnight—a position that directly went against the Planning Commission, which Goncharoff served on at that time.
“It’s unfortunate whenever someone misrepresents themselves. Especially if that person is running for an elected position,” Comstock told Santa Cruz Weekly about the incident.
As is evident from the screen shots of conversations viewed by the Weekly, most postings were made just one or two minutes apart. A majority were also made during business hours. At the time the accounts were active, Goncharoff was employed by the County of Santa Cruz as a resource planner.
Perhaps Goncharoff was coincidentally almost always online at the same time as this collection of fake, busty gal-pals?
Or maybe he was hacked? That’s Goncharoff’s newest defense, delivered in a post he wrote on his Facebook page Monday morning: “My friends: It looks as if my Facebook account might have been hacked,” he wrote. If that were the case, it would mean Goncharoff’s personal Facebook page was hacked repeatedly, over the course of a few years—without him noticing the multiple posts that had been made using his “hacked” account.
“Please be cautious about any messages that appear to be from me,” his post continued. At this point, that advice is sager than Goncharoff likely intended it to be.
