I was wrong ... I can admit that.
I honestly have never heard of that --- and I follow politics relatively closely while also watching Scarborough himself over the last 10 years.
Kind of odd nobody (even online evidence is scarce!) nobody has heard of Lori Klausutis while everybody has heard of Chandry Levy.
Just the facts: Scarborough got a divorce. Then he suddenly resigned from Congress, just six months after re-election. (Invoked old fallback excuse of wanting to “spend more time” with children.) Then he suddenly resigned as publisher of the Independent Florida Sun. Then, just as suddenly, Lori Klausutis, 28-year-old staffer to Scarborough, was found dead in Scarborough’s district office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Date was July 20, 2001. Cause of death: Blow to the head. Conclusion: Heart condition caused her to collapse, fall, hit head on a desk, and die. Story barely a blip on the radar. Lots of people left with lots of questions.
So apparently within a few hours of the discovery, Joe’s press secretary went on local television and claimed she had many health problems that could have contributed to her death. From
American Politics Journal…
There was a great deal of ambiguity over whether Lori had suffered past medical problems. Scarborough’s press secretary, Miguel Serrano, made mention of health problems in Lori’s past, but could not be more specific. In response, Fort Walton Beach Police Chief Steve Hogue is quoted as saying “That’s part of our investigation, checking into her medical history.” Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Berkland said “She had a past medical history that was significant, but it remains to be seen whether that played a role in her death”. Soon after a member of the immediate family rejected out of hand that Lori had any significant medical problems. She was, in fact, quite an athlete, having recently run an 8K with a very respectable time and she belonged to the Northwest Florida Track Club.
They obviously shared that with the police who promptly started spreading the same lie. Her family denied it several times, including in a letter to the local paper. Why on earth would Joe and his press guy jump out in front of the media and lie about a previous medical condition? This was a healthy 28 year old woman who runs marathons, come on now, you generally don’t run marathons when you have a serious heart problem. Oh but there’s
more…
As for Lori Klausutis, rumors began to swirl as time passed with no resolution to the case, rumors that included whispers of suicide, some emanating from inside the Beltway. Family members, angered at what they considered unfair and exploitive coverage wrote the editor of the
Northwest Florida Daily News, Ralph Routon, saying “For those who knew Lori, the thought of suicide, as your published reports suggested, is absolutely unthinkable. Suicide was contrary to her faith and being. She did not suffer from seizures, nor did she have a history of medical problems.”
Now what seems even more odd to me is the fact that Scarborough and his people in Florida went to such extremes to wipe away the whole story, if it was simply a matter of someone fainting and hitting her head and dying, why go to such extremes to cover up any mention of the event or the girl who lost her life. It just gets more bizarre the further you look into it. Here are some questions that deserve to be answered by Joe Scarborough directly and honestly. From the
American Politics Journal…
September 1, 2001 (APJP) — Over at
The American Prospect’s message board thread concerning this very article, Phoenix Woman has asked a trolling Scarborough “defender” three pivotal questions. We’d love to know the answers ourselves:
1) If Lori’s death was just a simple accident, then why did Rep. Scarborough and his spokesman Miguel Serrano feel the need to go to two different local TV stations within
three hours of her body’s being found and invent a nonexistent history of chronic medical conditions for
her — in other words, why did they feel the need to lie about Lori’s health?
2) Would you trust without question the word of a Medical Examiner who lost his ME license in
two separate states (Missouri and Florida) because he LIED about his autopsy work (for instance, saying he had autopsied some brains when he hadn’t)?
3) Why should whoever wrote Ms. Klausutis’s obituary feel it was appropriate to mention nearly everything about her life —
EXCEPT where she’d been working since 1999?
A recent check of the Young Republican’s web site found no mention of Lori or her contributions, nor any tribute to her memory nor comments about her passing. In fact, you will find no mention of her at all. If you go to
The Pensacola News Journal’s online pages, one of the few papers that actually covered the story, and search the site for “Klausutis” you will come up empty, even though the same search will pull up numerous stories matching “Scarborough”. It seems as though someone wants to erase all traces of Lori Klausutis from the record and bury the story with her.
A little more background from the
American Political Journal about Lori Klausutis…
According to her obituary in the
Fort Walton Daily News, Lori had served as President and, later, Treasurer, for the Emerald Coast Young Republicans and as a aide to Congressman Scarborough, she was active during the Florida recounts.
If this was just a simple slip and hit head and die story, why would the Young Republicans and the local paper scrub any mention of her from their websites? You would think they would have a memorial for her. You would think they would honor her death but for some reason….nothing.
