By Brian Hews
A Hews Media Group-Community News exclusive investigation has found that Trent Hager, Chief of Staff to Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton CA) and now Adam Gray (D-Merced), paid to contact escorts on the Ashley Madison adultery website and did most of the illicit work while on state time.
Hager earns a hefty $141,408 per year according to the Senate.ca.gov website and is married to Janelle Beland, who works for Governor Jerry Brown.
Adam Gray
Cathleen Galgiani
The information implicating Hager is publicly available, part of the Ashley Madison data dump that occurred in 2015.
The results of the HMG-CN investigation, which will reveal more names of elected officials in the coming days, are quite shocking and will most certainly have repercussions up and down the state of California.
Ashley Madison is a website for those who are interested in committing adultery, and a website that touts themselves as “the most recognized and reputable extramarital affair company in the world.”
The website made headlines in July 2015 when a group calling itself “The Impact Team” stole data and threatened to release users’ names and personally identifying information if Ashley Madison was not immediately shut down.
Ashley Madison refused to shut down, so the hackers released the information of all 37 million users online.
Journalists initially searched for prominent names in the database using email addresses. Those email addresses were used as usernames to access the site.
But a user could enter a false email as a username thus ending the search effort. Consequently, those investigations did not reveal what was hidden deeper in the database.
No one in the media took a serious look at the financial records contained in the data dump until HMG-CN commissioned a programmer to sort the gigabytes of information into a searchable format.
And the results were shocking to say the least.
Categories were broken down by name, address, card number, IP address, the time the card was charged and registered email.
Specific Financial Data-
Once on Ashley Madison, if a user wanted to take the next step and pay to contact a young woman to have an affair, the user would need to input a valid credit card number and information related to that card number.
Similar to any other website, the name, billing address, and zip code related to the card would have to match, as well as expiration date and the three-digit “CVV” number.
Sample from financial database commissioned by HMG-CN.
But the Madison system went further, showing the date and time of the transaction while also recording the IP address of the computer.
After the information was sorted, HMG-CN found many prominent elected official’s names, with Hager among them.
As additional data is released, the elected officials names will become more prominent; one ran for a Los Angeles County Supervisor seat, another is running for a statewide agency seat.
The database showed Hager using the site on eleven occasions between September 2013 and May 2014.
And Hager was surfing the Madison site while on state time, making five charges on the site during regular working hours.
The data shows Hager charging on the site on the following days:
Friday, October 4, 2013 at 4:47 pm
Monday, October 7, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Monday, May 12, 2014 at 1:36 pm
Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 2:24 pm
Tuesday, May 27 at 1:37 pm.
All charges were under Trent Hager, with the card ending in 3975, an email of [email protected] and his address on Marina Glen Rd.
Given the multiple uses on the site, the Hager information is indisputable and proves he used the site during business hours.
Further, Hager cannot claim he was “just looking” because he paid to contact a specific person.
He also opted for higher levels of contact paying for the “Elite Level.”
Some of those charges occurred at night or early in the morning on:
Sept. 30, 2013
Dec. 6 2013
Jan. 5 2014
Jan. 28, 2014
Mar. 29, 2014
Apr. 28, 2014.
Finally, the charges of December, January, March, April, and May show that Hager paid the $19 fee to have the site erase his information, virtually admitting he was guilty of using the site.
This was the feature that reportedly caused the hacktivists at Impact Team to cry foul and release the data.
The delete account screen from Ashley Madison. Hager paid the $19 fee to delete five times.
HMG-CN called and emailed Hager several times since early July, with Hager finally answering August 11, 2016.
Hager told HMG-CN, “Here’s what I know. My credit card has been hacked 3 times in the last 4 years. The Legislative work hours are 35 hours per week. All employees are entitled to a lunch hour and breaks.”
Hager did not answer the questions as to why it was the same credit card number or why all the charges matched his home address.
Once again, Hager’s name was not the only prominent political name found in the Ashley Madison database used during regular business hours.
HMG-CN will reveal the other names of elected officials and people running for office in the next few days.
Copyright-Hews Media Group, Los Cerritos Community Newspaper, All rights reserved. Reproduction by permission and attribution only.
Would these stories have the same reading, if the role models were reversed: Men for Hire? Females seeking male Escorts?
Some of Cerritos, Nanny ordinances from A-Z, robbing tax payers money from Public Works, are producing the same era of escorts and women for hire. The city of Cerritos has clamped down on massage parlors Exedra, so the massage parlors have moved inside of residential homes, motels, hotels, restaurants, and are being advertised on over 100+ websites.
I blame the city of Cerritos for taking the massage parlors out of the strip malls, and placing them into residential neighborhoods. I knew this was going to happen.
Furthermore the residents need to drive up and down and major arterial highways after midnight, there’s a lot of red light burning in upstair master bedroom Windows, for the ignorant readers, the red light windows are an advertisement for prostitution. Even along the freeways, you see red lights burning after midnight in master bedroom windows & hotel windows. This is a new phenomenon for this area, which has been around since Adam and Eve.
Back alleys along Pioneer Blvd, Artesia, have been pick up for escorts for many decades, this is not new.
Arterial roads around many high schools in greater Diary Valley, have been Blvd for escorts by local high school students for decades and decades. Orangethorpe and Valley View Blvd, in both counties, have been Blvd for escorts of all types.
Just look around the LA Courthouse, Long Beach Court Houses, Bellfower Court House and Santa Ana Court House, areas are full of red light districts, in arms ways of elected politicians -judges and attorneys.
Again I ask, Would these stories have the same reading, if the role models were reversed: Men for Hire? Females seeking male Escorts?
I don’t appreciate this kind public shaming that comes from stolen data.
How can you report anything based on the data you are finding? What was leaked last year wasn’t accurate to start with and its just gotten worse since. People have been spreading around fake lists to smear people for months now.
The data shows his name, address, card number, and look at his quote at end of story, he basically admits it.
Admitted to what? Chatting with robots? He doesn’t admit to anything. You’re no better than Gawker. Disgusting.
Here is his quote:
“My credit card has been hacked 3 times in the last 4 years. The Legislative work hours are 35 hours per week. All employees are entitled to a lunch hour and breaks.”
The card he used 11 TIMES in THE SAME CARD NUMBER. If his card was hacked it would not be the SAME CARD NUMBER. That card number has HIS HOME ADDRESS on it. I am sure his wife is not happy robots or not. He did this on state time Marla, I guess that’s ok with you?
wow, talk about going into the sewers. did you guys start hiring all the folks from gawker who are looking for jobs? it’s all about the story, right? what a rag. i hope he sues your ass for slander …. ashley madison is not an escort service and most of the data from the hack was shit. sleazy.
Why don’t you leave your real email?