The secrets are out about the mess Connor Cochran made by defrauding Peter Beagle fans.  So far, pressure forced him to make a public refund promise, and retract attacks he made against a bystander to distract attention. But he plays victim about the harm he did.  Here’s what you’re really hearing when you hear denial about it.

8) There’s no limit to lying.  He’ll never stop.

This Totally 100% Swear On His Mother happened:

Totally shut down.

If only he could fulfill promises as efficiently as he cranks out bullshit. The issues would cease to exist.

A theory held by the crazed: Customers should receive goods they pay for.

A Totally Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs buyer said:

“They shouldn’t be selling stuff and taking your money unless the product is ready for shipment IMO. Those hundred books with the special pages and illustrations etc should have been all done before they announced they were selling them.”

Shush, you Crazed Stalker, you.

We’re told that Cochran takes pride in being a cunning businessman and “getting one over” on people with educations different from his at clown college. No knock against skilled performers who make an honest living – but it seems it may lead those with weak conscience to struggle with the difference between truth and fantasy.

9) Burned former associates show silencing of this story.  Blame The Victim is the oldest tactic in the book of abuse.

Denialists ball up their fists and petulantly insist that there can’t be a ripped-off, cheated worker informing this story – because their identity is confidential.

The insider exists.  Cochran enticed them into labor with pay – then dishonestly withheld months of wages.  Their account makes MULTIPLE whistleblowers.

This independent blogger’s post is informed by the existence of that ex-employee.

Not so nice was the email, two months later, from Connor Cochran throwing his former employee under the bus:

“You are receiving this because at some point in the last few months you sent a message to one of the following email addresses: contact@conlanpress.com, customersupport@conlanpress.com, or [redacted]@conlanpress.com. Those accounts were all being handled by Conlan Press’s one employee, [redacted]. Unfortunately, [she] left the company in late April in order to deal with getting divorced — pretty much overnight she quit, packed, and moved back to Sacramento to be closer to her family and old friends. She gave no notice, and left huge stacks of jumbled, unfinished work behind her. It was quite the mess.I am writing now to ask your patience as I correct these problems and find and train new staff. First up is untangling and completing all the backed-up product shipping. Once that is done I can begin answering individual customer emails, get delayed manufacturing back on track for this year’s crop of new releases, and return to finishing the Extra Deluxe LAST UNICORN books many of you are waiting for.”

I don’t care how badly an employee screws you over, you don’t send email to all your customers naming and shaming her. I think my jaw literally dropped when I read that.

Unlike Unreliable Narrator Connor Cochran, we won’t trample their rights.  After cheating them, putting them in financial plight and forcing them to leave – Cochran twisted blame to that employee for his mismanagment.

10 YEARS of mismanagement.  Just look at it.  Yet Cochran blames someone employed for under one year. (Until the next excuse.)

The blame was a perfect excuse for cheating employees AND customers.  And Cochran’s “smokescreen of employee abuse”  is corroborated by multiple instances.

He’s already been forced to retract character assassination against whistleblower Michael Bolger.  The lies associated Bolger with “tattoos” and “conspiracy theories” to Poison the Well.

Cochran’s assassination of the second ex-employee associated “divorce” and “alcohol”. Honest people know that divorce doesn’t imply poor character. The ex-employee rejects the alcohol lie with disgust.

We’ve been asked to notice that other employees won’t put Conlan Press on their resume – at least four with titles like “Publicity Assistant” and “Executive Assistant”.

Previously: 4) “Conlan Press wastes ill-gotten money of YOURS on silencing complaints… instead of producing what’s owed.”

Con artists gather cults of believers.  (It’s no shame to be fooled once, but you know what they say: “Fool me twice- shame on me.”)  Cult of fans is an innocuous term, (not all cults are bad), but this is more malignant.

People who play cult leader must crush dissent without mercy – at any cost. When Michael Bolger was targeted with lies and threats, how badly was his arm twisted to say what Cochran wants, to save his own skin?  Complicity under duress discredits anything he may say now.

Remember, accusations against Bolger were false.  WE said it before anyone else. We were first to discredit Cochran’s lies, and overly-credulous friends who supported him. Truth is on our side. After the breathtaking rush to silence Bolger, changing his story under duress doesn’t hold up.  He’s wrong to take anything back, and right when he tried to warn about Cochran.

It makes you wonder how many times people will let themselves be fooled by a con artist before they question trust.

Watch for part 4 soon.