Note: This is Part 2 of a post that was published on Wednesday, July 25th.
Several days ago, I reported on the remarkable and increasingly strange and incredible Story of Recovery of the business of Joseph Nicolas that was first told by the Barack Obama campaign blog on March 28, 2012. I have found several other resources that link Ariel Anatole with Joseph Nicolas, including this OK Cupid profile and this Shelfari profile. The photos match other Ariel Anatole profiles to which I linked in my original posting on Nicolas and also the photo on the BarackObama.com blog post. In addition, I located a YouTube profile for Ariel Anatole. One of the "favorited" videos on this profile is an MPower video of outakes from a 1997 interview with "Joseph." I found this same "Joseph" in another 1997 MPower video identified as being from Albuquerque, NM. Here is a screenshot from this video (around the 9:07 mark):
The Ariel Anatole Live Journal profile places him in Albuquerque in the mid-1990s. [Update: I found a reference to the video on his Live Journal account. In 2009, Ariel wrote: "An interview I did 12 years ago with an HIV prevention youth group."] Although the picture is from 15 years ago, there is certainly a close resemblance not only to the more recent pictures of Ariel Anatole (Shelfari):
but also to the photo of Joseph Nicolas used on the BarackObama.com blog:
And now, via the MPower video, the name "Joseph" is linked as well.
In addition to this further evidence that Ariel Anatole and Joseph Nicolas are one and the same person, I have found more evidence that casts doubt on the Story of Recovery as well. The following entries are from the Live Journal account of Ariel Anatole (alias Joseph Nicolas) that I have mentioned several times before. The entries are not listed in any particular order:
10/1/2011:
As a former small business owner I am well aware of how banks use debit and credit cards to reap huge profits. [emphasis mine]2/28/2011:
I am self employed because there isn't an employer including myself I did not cheat, or downright steal from...I lie. There is not a person alive or dead that I have not lied to. Yes my disease has a lot to do with this, but again it is not the end all excuse. I have, and do realize after the fact that I have lied. Every time this happens I make a choice to not correct the lie, out of shame, and fear I either continue the lie, or simply hide in my own Delusions, or worse I run. These are not the actions of a basically decent, good person. Those actions can not be explained away by my disease, I own those actions.2/13/2011:
In my younger days I was a telemarketer. I was the person calling you during dinner to get you to change your long distance carrier. I worked for MCI (pre Worldcom) at a call center in Albuquerque. My stint at Dessert Hills was finally over and I found myself in the real world. The pay was great and I genuinely liked the people I worked with. Of course some of the time a caller would go off on me and I would laugh it off and move on. Telemarketing suited my illness well, each new call allowed me to become a completely different person. During high cycles I made a killing, more than enough to buffer me when low cycles hit. I would work for a a couple of months take a leave of absence due to my disease and was always welcomed back when I was well again. The great thing about sales jobs is if your a good seller the bosses let you get away with a lot. I was an amazing seller. I went on to work for AOL and a few other small telemarketing companies, I was planning on making it my career.3/1/2011:
I had a great telemarketing job at an AOL call center that paid insanely well but knew I couldn't maintain that for much longer. So a weekend getaway turned into a permanent stop. I stayed at the hotel for a month, found an apartment, and managed to hang on for a little over a year. In that time I managed to live in a three bedroom penthouse near Seattle University, and a host job at a downtown restaurant; then a rented room on Capitol Hill, and a waiting job in Bellevue, then a rented room in Bellevue and telemarketing job in Bellevue. The whole company was a scam, a pyramid scheme and I again found myself making really good money, moved back to Capitol Hill another rented room, in a huge house. I told people I owned the house. My employers pyramid scheme started to topple and I bailed out before the demise to another telemarketing job, that lasted less than a month before I burned out and found myself back in Albuquerque, NM.3/14/2011:
Father did 'own' a mortgage company; however if he did earn anything from this venture we never saw it. Nor can I find any clients, just an office and business licence ( I suspect that his 'company' was a lot like my Venture Capitalist Delusion).3/5/2011:
I still have failed to tell the man who thinks I'm a Venture Capitalist that everything he knows about me is a lie. I've kept up the base facade created during a DD episode. I've told him that our investors have backed out. If that was all then just maybe I could have some self respect, but it doesn't stop there. I actually told him, I am looking or new investors. Not only do I lack the spine to fess up to my delusion, I perpetrate it further by holding the door open.2/13/2011:
On Friday my doorbell rang and I answered it without looking through the keyhole. There in front of me was someone I had lied to. He believes I am a Venture Capitalist and that I want to invest in his business idea. Standing there I should of just revealed what I really am. A very sick, extremely troubled person. Instead I lied my way out of. I used to think this was not a bad thing. In the end he's gone and no one is really hurt. The truth is, every single time I lie and know about it, I cause harm to myself and those around me. I know this now, and still have this persons phone number, all it would take is a call. A call unfortunately that will not be placed because I am still a coward.
In his own words, Ariel/Joseph appears to be a very "troubled person." I still have no response from the Obama campaign or the blog post author Austin Wright-Pettibone, but the evidence is casting more and more doubt on the purported Story of Recovery of the business of Joseph Nicolas. What remains to be seen is how this story came to be included on the blog of President Obama and how long it will take the campaign to respond by defending and backing up the story, or retracting it and taking it down. I have received some feedback recently from my original posting on July 25th that has shed further light on the background and credibility of Joseph Nicolas. If anyone else has information about Joseph Nicolas or his business, email me by clicking here. I will continue to follow up and post Part 3 of this series as soon as further developments warrant such an update.
Part 3 is now posted here.
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