Last night, while discussing the Petraeus scandal on CNN, the network played a 911 call from one of the four major figures in the scandal: Jill Kelley. The call is perfectly bizarre in which Kelley, a Florida socialite, claims “honorary diplomatic” status to get the police to stop people from walking across her lawn. The dispatcher listens patiently and appears to resist the temptation to tell her that he will be sending over some honorary police to protect their honorary diplomatic residence.
Kelley is the woman who went to a friend in the FBI to complain about threatening emails from an anonymous source — emails that led the FBI to Paula Broadwell and ultimately Gen. David Petraeus. She and the agent are a rather odd couple. He sent her shirtless pictures of himself and was eventually removed from involvement in the case. She is described as a “nice, bored, rich socialite” who volunteered with the military as a self-described “social liaison” and cultivated relationships with generals. This included a questionable relationship with Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, involving a remarkable number of emails described by some sources as a bit raunchy and “like phone sex.”
Just when you thought the scandal could not get more weird, it did. Last night, we heard this 911 call for “diplomatic protection:”
“Thank you and you know, um, I don’t know, but by any chance because I’m an honorary council general, so I have inviolability so I should… they should not be able to (cross) this property, I don’t know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well.
Kelley has been described as invoking her diplomatic status previously. She was given the unpaid title of “honorary ambassador” to CENTCOM, the Department of Defense Central Command. This gives her about the same diplomatic status as the hostess at an International House of Pancakes.
What is strange is that she is protected by the non-honorary title of a citizen of Tampa from trespass. She is allowed to demand the removal of people from her property so long as it is not a public space or a private space with a form of constructive easement.
She might want to stick with the Tampa title because “Honorary ambassador” does not fit neatly into the the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). However, if she wishes to claim to be an honorary diplomat, it would allow Tampa to declare her persona non grata but it is not clear what country she would be expelled to since she is claiming diplomatic immunity in her own country. It might be just easier to get a “No Trespass” sign at Home Depot.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tampa-woman-was-hostess-to-the-military-but-had-deep-financial-troubles/2012/11/13/45cea33c-2d19-11e2-9ac2-1c61452669c3_story_1.html
“A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials.”
“The more you read the more they sound like grifters.” Swarthmore mom
Yep. (Love the painting. lol )
Worth skimming:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2012/nov/13/petraeus-broadwell-allen-scandal-live
“The curious case of the Kelley family is explored by the Tampa Bay Times, where Jill Kelley’s social activities meant “the Kelley mansion became the place to be seen” for military personnel stationed nearby in Tampa.
But the Tampa Bay Times article also shows an unhappier side to life:
Just three months after they posed with David and Holly Petraeus, strands of Gasparilla beads hanging from their necks, the Kelleys were hit with a foreclosure lawsuit.
The suit, brought by Central Bank against the Kelleys and Kelly Land Holdings, centered on a three-story office building at 300 E Madison St in downtown Tampa. Court records show they owed the bank nearly $2.2m, including attorney fees.
In 2011, a judge ordered the property to be put up for sale.
And there’s more:
Since the Kelleys have been in Tampa, records show, one or both have been subjects of lawsuits nine times — including an $11,000 judgment against them that originated in Pennsylvania.
Ongoing cases, the court records show, include an indebtedness case from Chase Bank; a foreclosure case from Regions Bank; and a credit card case from FIA Card Services.
Not long after the couple arrived in Tampa, Jill Kelley and her identical twin sister, Natalie Khawam, appeared for a taping of the Food Network’s reality show, Food Fight.
The segment featured sibling rivalry, with the twins cooking off against two brothers.
12.33pm ET
Those US generals and CIA directors appear to have more time on their hands than you’d imagine. According to the New York Post, both David Petraeus and John Allen intervened in a child custody law suit involving Natalie Khawam, the twin sister of Jill Kelley.
The Post has copies of both letters the two men wrote to the court as character testimonials for Kelley’s sister – which reveal that Petraeus hosted both sisters and their families for Christmas dinner in 2011.
Soap opera and telenovela writers everywhere are throwing their hands up in dismay, complaining that there’s no way they can top this stuff.”
(And there’s more… See link above.)
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/article1261383.ece The more you read the more they sound like grifters.
NPR interview re Allen’s situation
Check out 2:20+
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=165057218&m=165057201
David Blauw,
“There is enough stuff here for a 10 year soap opera.”
I bet there is more yet to come. The fat lady didn’t sing yet.
“I envision Ms. Kelley moving the action figures around the dream house and devising roles for them.
Yes … I can hear her having the general whisper into scantily clad Barbies ear, ….”you know I can give you honorary diplomatic immunity”” -David Blauw
lol. I completely missed your first comment.
Jill Kelley, Woman Who Sparked Petraeus Scandal, Ran Questionable Charity
Posted: 11/13/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/jill-kelley-charity-david-petraeus_n_2124213.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Tampa, Fla., socialite and military hostess Jill Kelley, one of the women at the center of the ever-expanding scandal that brought down former CIA Director David Petraeus, founded a questionable charity for cancer patients with her surgeon husband, Scott Kelley.
Based out of the couple’s mansion, the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation claimed on its tax forms that it “shall be operated exclusively to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients.”
From the records, it appears that the charity fell far short of its mission. While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees.
By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with — not a dollar more, according to its 990 financial form. Of that, $43,317 was billed as “Meals and Entertainment,” $38,610 was assigned to “Travel,” another $25,013 was spent on legal fees, and $8,822 went to “Automotive Expenses.”
The Kelleys also listed smaller expenses that appear excessive for a charity operating from a private home, including $12,807 for office expenses and supplies, and $7,854 on utilities and telephones.
Jill Kelley’s sister, Natalie Khawam, was listed as the only other officer of the charity. This past April, Khawam filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing more than $3.6 million in liabilities, including $53,000 owed to the Internal Revenue Service and $800,000 owed to her sister and brother-in-law.
Efforts to reach the Kelleys and Khawam were unsuccessful.
anonymously posted,
I like my story better. ..However I believe the two are not mutually exclusive 🙂
While they are registering her with the State Department, can we register her with the Department of Corrections ….??!!
What follows is the article that started the “South Korea” story, I believe. I’m certainly having a hard time believing it
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/13/jill_kelley_is_an_honorary_consul_of_south_korea
” Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite connected to ISAF Commander John Allen and former CIA Director David Petraeus, is an “honorary consul” of South Korea, a diplomatic official with direct knowledge of the arrangement told The Cable.
“She is an ‘honorary consul’ of the Republic of Korea,” the official said. “She assumed this position last August thanks to her good connections and network.”
The position of honorary consul is symbolic and has no official responsibilities, the official said.
“She does not work as a real consul. They play a role to improve the relationship between the ROK and the U.S.,” the official said. “Jill Kelley helped to get support for [the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement] and she arranged meetings between the ROK Ambassador to Washington and local businessmen when the ROK Ambassador visited the Tampa area.”
There’s no implication that the South Korean government has anything to do with the growing scandal that involves Kelly, Allen, Petraeus, and Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biographer and alleged mistress. But her work on behalf of the South Koreans may explain some of the 20,000 to 30,000 pages of e-mails between her and Allen that the Defense Department’s Inspector General’s office is investigating now. “
TPM Editor’s Blog
Jill Kelley, An Embarrassment to Honorary Consuls Everywhere
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/11/jill_kelley_an_embarrassment_to_honorary_consuls_e.php
Excerpt:
“It turns out that Kelley is actually an “Honorary Consul” of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). At first, I thought this was just another one of Kelley’s ridiculous faux titles, something you get for throwing a party or perhaps for anything as long as the ambassador drunk.
But I was too quick to dismiss this. ‘Honorary consuls” are a real thing. Or at least they can be, whatever Kelley was doing with the title. I talked this evening to a diplomatic from an Asia nation (not Korea) who explained that they’re often used when a country doesn’t have consular representation in a particular city or region. So for instance if you’re from Country X and you’re visiting Florida and you get into a jam or lose your passport you can contact the ‘Honorary Consul” to help you get a new passport or help you out in much the same way your embassy or an official consul might.
Again, who knows if Kelley was actually doing something like this. (Kelley and her twin sister who is also tied up in the scandal are each in debt for roughly $4 million a piece.) But it’s a real title and even a job of sorts. My source says that the embassy of the foreign country actually has to register these people with the State Department.”
And then there’s this, if there’s any truth to the report. Foreign Policy and TPM were running this story last night. South Korea???
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/jill-kelley-twin-sister-closely-tied-top-brass/story?id=17707752#.UKOT1obTT7o
“Kelley’s social efforts on behalf of the military earned her the unpaid title of “honorary ambassador” to Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, and she was also named honorary counsel for South Korea.”
GEE! Yet another wealthy, well-connected, putz with an inflated sense of entitlement. Who could have guessed? If she was not providing occasional riding lessons for Generals you can bet the suggestion that she was willing was implicit but regardless she stroked their inflated egos in ways that got her the attention and perks she adores.
This seems to be a bizarre grown up version of “tots with Tiaras” of course the “o” in tots should be changed to am “I”
Somebody misinterpreted their Barbie dream house as real. Including the Generals and FBI agent. I envision Ms. Kelley moving the action figures around the dream house and devising roles for them.
Yes … I can hear her having the general whisper into scantily clad Barbies ear, ….”you know I can give you honorary diplomatic immunity”
There is enough stuff here for a 10 year soap opera. :o)
Anaon851,
I’m not sure…. I presume that there are others that can answer more fully…
P.S. Would Piers Morgan give similar air time to the phone call of a panicked person in Pakistan or Yemen or somewhere who was pleading for authorities to stop a flying American killer robot from raining hellfire on their wedding party? I think not. (Unless it was a phone call that one of his reporters for a British tabloid illegally hacked into, eh?) Because the reign of terrorism from the air (airrorism?) that Centurion Petraeus oversaw both as a top military and spook service man was his real crime, not the extramarital boinking.
I am SO glad I’m not a 9-1-1 phone operator! Aside from this military camp-follower twit wasting their time, I am amazed at how many patients on the psych ward where I work wind up there because they’ve called the emergency line to report that their neighbours have installed listening devices in their houses, or they’re being stalked by Hell’s Angels or similar deranged tales. Sometimes they even make their oddball calls from the telephone inside the ward. I used to think that the life of a 9-1-1 operator (or “Triple Zero” in Australia) would be full of life-and-death drama. Now I wonder whether irrational calls make up more, or less, than 75% of what they deal with.
Dear Anonymously,
What’s the Tooth Fairy’s going rate these days ….??
Ms. Kelley is a nice, bored, rich socialite prone to partying with the likes of shirtless FBI Agents and wayward Generalissimos — I am sure she can afford the Tooth Fairy ….!!!
Jill Kelley is about as much a Diplomat as I am which is to say “NOT” …
A. Have the State of FLA. revoke those BOGUS VANITY PLATES IMMEDIATELY.
B. ARREST this FRAUD for exactly that — BEING A FRAUD …
C. Open up the 20,000 to 30,000 e-mails she got from GEN. Allen to see what she had to say on all this
D. Calling 911 and professing to have some form of Diplomatic Immunity and then demanding Diplomatic Security keep the “riff-raff” off of her lawn must be some form of crime — if not make it so.
Next she’ll be headed to NYC to use those Diplomatic Plates so she can park in front of Tiffany’s on 5th Ave. to go in and shop and not worry about a parking ticket ….
One word for this woman …. — FRAUDSTER ….. !!!!!
Then by all means the tooth fairy should be called in for ultimate protection….they are the unrecognized super force…..