< Despite what some here feel, it is clear that Mr. Bentley is NOT on the hook for defamation.

Per Wikipedia:
"public officials could win a suit for libel only if they could demonstrate publishers ‘knowledge that the information was false’ or that it was published ‘with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.’"

Mr. Bentley did not know the statement was false, and "reckless disregard" is a very high criterion to meet.>>

Bentley, your blowhard insolence is outmatched only by your infantile petulance. Forget where you think Rikki would put her shoes, you’ve got no trouble shoving your own up your own ass first by idiotically presuming me to be Brian Humphrey, then instead of just letting asinine dogs lie you somehow can’t resist the compulsion to come back for another round of Clueless by laying out a definitive personality profile of me.

You have absolutely and positively no inkling of idea how the more and more you lash out and spew, the bigger and bigger idiot you become.

Absolutely Amazing!

There were no LESS than THREE copy editors whose job it is all day to vet stories like this, who "missed" the reference to Humphrey and the lack of a response quote from him. Why don’t you contact each and every one of them and defame their integrity as you have mine, and accuse them of deliberately trying to ruin a PR person’s life?

Did it ever occur to your pompous ass that maybe I quoted Rikki’s mom (and her dad backed it up, btw) correctly and that Humphrey really WAS the guy who led them through and you are just REACTING to his posts with the same knee-jerk stupidity that guides people to think that Obama is a terrorist because he once had a drink with Bill Ayers? How do you know he wasn’t there? Got a time sheet handy for the day in question?

I didn’t write this story for Humphrey or you, or anyone else. I wrote this for Rikki. She would be the first to jam her shoe up your ass for trying to turn a sincere effort at telling her difficult story into a circus.

I know Brian Bentley vested a lot of himself into telling Rikki’s story and it’s very much a personal endeavor for him. As I said in my first comment "sorry to get bogged down on a minor point…" but I had what I felt were legitimate questions in regards to statements made in his story about Brian Humphrey that stood in stark contrast to the professionalism Humphrey has always maintained — and I asked them in a respectfully inquisitive manner. I didn’t attack in the slightest.

What does Bentley do in response? He accuses my inquiry of being some sort of covert propaganda pitch perpetrated by Brian Humphrey, and when I quit laughing at such a ludicrous assumption I visited the comments section of the story and learned the sordid history of the "Battle of the Brians" as Rodger Jacobs aptly dubbed it. More importantly I learned that the exclusion of Humphrey from the article went far beyond being an oversight.

Since you ask why Bentley is being attacked because of information he received from Rikki’s parents, allow me to attempt an explanation. He ignored a basic journalistic rule of corroboration, better known as Cover Your Ass. If I’m writing a story and a source gives me information on another person that is in any way derogatory or potentially contradicting or just might be plain incorrect, I have a responsibility to make an effort to contact that party and seek a statement either of denial, verification and or clarification. If a concerted repetitive effor made to reach the person fails I insert something along the lines of "efforts to reach the source for a response were unsuccessful."

The ultimate irony is that had Bentley called Humphrey he could have spared himself this mess — one he perpetuates with his staunch unwillingness to provide a correction to the article even though he now knows Rikki’s mom was incorrect and Humphrey wasn’t even there.

I just don’t like it when my friends are attacked and I’m sorry if I came across as a harsh asshole here. I especially want to apologize to Lucinda Michele. Will – I heard that you’re actually a good guy, so I apologize if I put you in the same police lineup as Rodger in my posting. I just don’t appreciate that my friend Brian is being attacked here relentlessly. If Brian received the information from Rikki’s parents regarding Humphrey, then why is he being attacked?

If Rikki was still alive, she would make sure that you two pricks got what you deserved. The way that you just disrespected Rikki in your posting above, Rodger, proves to me and others on here that you’re nothing more than a wimpy-assed wuss hiding behind a computer screen. Why don’t you, Humphrey and Will all get a nice big room so that you can all figure out who you’re gonna fuck tonight? Huh? I think that Rodger and Will would be a fantastic coupling and Humphrey could just jerk off to the whole event. How does that sound?

What do ya think? ;)

For the record, Brian’s story meant a great deal to me personally, which is why I posted it. And I hoped to do right by Rikki and by anyone else who might benefit from reading her story.

I don’t for a minute believe Humphrey did anything suspect or inappropriate in any way. His character is, IMO, unimpeachable.

I also want to make it very, very clear that I don’t believe, nor will I ever (unless presented with some sort of Hail-Mary evidence) believe this was anything but a horrible self-inflicted accident that was a long time coming. Your life gets that chaotic & entropy begins to take its own toll. What happened to Rikki was the timing-out of a ninth life. You can only push so much, so far, before it’s too late.