Women share 'creepy' Twitter conversations but Coun. Chiarelli says account was hacked

Several women have shared screenshots of "creepy" direct messages from a Twitter account belonging to College ward Coun. Rick Chiarelli, but the councillor's office says a security breach is to blame.

On Thursday, Cassidy Kuhlanek, a Chicago comedian, tweeted an exchange she'd had with Chiarelli's account and quickly received replies from at least two other women who'd had similar conversations.

Kulhanek's screenshots included messages saying Chiarelli'sstaffers didn't want to travel anywhere that"topless sunbathing" could occur.

The exchange goes on to suggest Kulhanek could travel with him to Europe with all of her expenses paidif she gave him a "carefully worded" invoice.

"I want fun! Not just work," the person using Chiarelli's account wrote.

Ottawa resident Tracy Lager told CBC she also received a message from Chiarelli's account asking for travel advice for a trip to Ibiza, Spain.

She responded once to say she hadn't been to the popular tourist location, but continued to receive messages for the next few days.

Lager called the messages "creepy" and "disturbing" and saidshe follows local politics and most of Ottawa's councillors on Twitter, which explained how his account could message her in the first place.

'I just ignored him'

Chiarelliwas the subject of a year-longinvestigation by former City of Ottawa integrity commissioner Robert Marleauthat focused on his inappropriate and sexually chargedbehaviour towardseveral women, including former staff.

In the end, Marleau concluded Chiarelli had committed "incomprehensible incidents of harassment" and called forhis pay be suspended until November 2021, a recommendation council agreed with.

At first, Lager said,she thought the messages were coming from a parody account.

"I know who he is. He's an Ottawa city councillor. And he's, you know, pretty infamous for the lewd conduct with the female staffers. So I showed my husband after the first one. And then I just ignored him after that," she said.

Lager said she doesn't buy that someone other than the councillor or his staff was accessing his account because of the amount of time the messages span.

She got her first message on Aug. 19.

"If this has been going on with several women over the last several weeks or months, then either he or his staffers had to have known about it or done it," she said.

Lager said her Facebook account was hacked several months ago and she knew immediately. She said she plans to take these messages to the City of Ottawa's integrity commissioner.

Coun. Catherine McKenney tweeted Thursday that the office of recently appointed integrity commissioner Karen Shepherd had been notified. In an email Friday,Mayor Jim Watson's office said Watson had written to Shepherdto ask for an investigation.

In a response to CBC, Shepherd said matters handled by her office are confidential and therefore would not comment on if she had received a complaint.

Chiarelli's staff pointed to the sanctions that resulted from the earlier investigation into his behaviouras evidence it wasn't him sending the tweets, pointing out that he cannot hire or fire staff and does not have oversight of his ward's operating budget.

"We have determined the writing pattern and poor grammar to be inconsistent with that of the councillor's," said Chantal Lebel, Chiarelli'sdirector of strategic affairs and communications.

Lebel said that it's mainly staff who operate Chiarelli's social media accounts,and the passwords are being updated to prevent unauthorized access.

"Coun. Chiarelli has not travelled since undergoing a quadruple bypass open-heart surgery in December of 2019," wrote Lebel. "Nor does he have any plans to travel in the near future with the recent passing of his father-in-law, his daughter's upcoming wedding in a few weeks and the birth of his first grandchild later this fall."

In an additional statementFriday, she said Chiarelli's staff had investigated and there were message times that didn't matchwhen Chiarelli was on his phone.

"Some of the messages sent on Monday were sent while Coun.Chiarelli was standing in the receiving line at his father-in-law's wake and certainly not using social media," Lebel said.