----- Original Message -----

From: Casey Connelly

Subject:This is Casey Connelly...

This is Casey Connelly... Those images that you are spreading around the internet are me and Sam's personal photos and were obtained by a hacker from my myspace account.  I'm asking you nicely to please remove all those images.  This is unfair and I do not derserve this.  I'm writing you this e-mail in tears as I have never been so embarassed and violated ever in my life.  Please just be a good person and remove them or this will get very ugly.

Those were photos I sent to him during one of our several long distant stints.  Please, it's been hard enough for us due to the previous weekend and please just leave us alone...

From: randomthoughts@barstoolsports.com

Obviously with any email like this we have no way to know who we are talking to.   Having said that we are nice guys.  But we turn not nice very fast when people include things like "this will get very ugly" in their emails.  We take this as a threat and as a result feel like our hands our tied since we are 100% legally in the right and can't run our business motivated by baseless threats. 

The pictures were NOT hacked into as you claim.   A reader of ours sent us a link of them.   It was a PUBLIC gallery that actually has built in codes to embed and share photos.    This is as clear cut as it gets.     You have NO legal ground to tell us to take those down.

So like I said the last thing I'd be doing is threatening us.     We really could care less about you or the photos.   But you're all over the Internet.    We didn't go looking for you or the photos.  They found us.    And now with you threatening us it almost leaves us no choice but to leave them up.

Dave

From: Casey Connelly

Dave,
 
I can assure that those photos were never public and wish you would share with me this supposed public link.  I am coming to you as a person and asking you to simply remove the compromising nude images.  You may pick through my words and deem what you will as threatening but this is an issue to which you have no understanding.  All I am asking is for you to please remove a few images from your site and we can forget all about this.  I am flattered that you have taken such an interest in myself and my personal life, but please, these have gone too far.

From: randomthoughts@barstoolsports.com

Here is the email that was sent to us.  It appears as if many of the photos were removed from the public gallery.  Regardless there are still naked photos in it and it is clearly public.   And this is where we got all of them from.   So if this isn't yours than you have bigger issues than us.   But I find it odd that if this isn't your gallery those photos have been removed.

Hey guys,
  Came across that myspace page and I thought I'd check to see if she had a Photobucket account.  Sure enough, aside from some which apparently violated their T&S, the girl has got some seriously NSFW pics in there.  Been a long time reader and I hope this works out for you.  If you need any other info, let me know.  Thanks!
 
Brett
 
http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d102/casey128/?start=all

And again we really don't care either way.  But we just can't set a precedent where we allow people to send us emails saying "it will get ugly" if we don't take something down.  So now we have to do it the legal way.    Please send us all the info needed in our "disclaimer" section and our legal team will look it over.    If you don't think you have any legal right to make us take them down then please send another email to this address stating you realize we are within our rights posting them and that we can use the photos at our discretion, but would appreciate we take them down without threats and we will consider taking immediate action.

http://www.barstoolsports.com/copyright/

From: Casey Connelly

Dave,
 
I have stated that the photos were not unrightfuly obtained, although making them public was never my intent.  I would appreciate that all compromising images of myself including nudity, implied nudity, or any compromising poses,(such as the one of my area bent over) as well as any other photos that are obviously person (i.e. bedroom photos) please be removed immedately.  I have been patient with you on this issue.  Thank you for the flattery but it just went too far.  I appreciate all the things you have said, you have been extremely complementing, however please respect my privacy. Thank you
 
Erin Casey Connelly
 
Ps. I would be more than happy to provide you with some of my professional photos, just please do not post any more of my private and intimate photos for my boyfriend.

From: randomthoughts@barstoolsports.com

As a favor to you we took the pictures down.   We reserve the right to put them back up if we think the situation calls for it.   I'd consider yourself lucky since it is my guess that 99.9% of the blogs of our size would not have done so.     Especially in light of the fact that many websites continue to release new photos of you almost everyday which makes you newsworthy and how we heard about you in the first place.    But it's not our goal to ruin people's lives.   

Just another day in the life of El Pres.    This is where it gets hairy running a blog like Barstool Sports.    I’m always faced with bullshit decisions like these. The bottom-line is that anytime we post anything even remotely interesting there is going to be somebody who is pissed and want to sue my ass.     So what would you do if you were me?     I don’t want to be responsible for making some chick cry her eyes out because we posted naked pictures of her on the internet.   But at the same time should I really feel guilty about it?  I mean it’s 100% her fault.  Not only does Casey Connelly date Sam Keller (pseudo college QB) but she already has a billion slutty pictures of herself floating around on the web.    She’s modeled for an Arizona State website called Tempe 12 and Busted Coverage does a new feature on her every freaking week.   Therefore, you have to be a total moron to post naked pictures of yourself on the web and not think they are going to be discovered.   So should the Stool be penalized because our readers are better at finding good photos of her?   I mean that’s the lifeblood of our company.  We need our readers to send us shit like this to survive.  It ends up being a fine line to walk.  Do I be the good guy and take them down or do I say tough shit to chicks like this.  In this case I decided to take them down because Casey Connelly isn’t newsworthy enough for me to justify keeping them up.   I mean I don’t think our readers care either way.   If I refused to take them down I’d be doing so just for the sake of being a hard ass.   But if Sam Keller becomes the next Tom Brady or Casey Connelly somehow becomes a movie star then all bets are off.    Still I kind of feel like Casey took advantage of my good naturedness.

So now it’s time for you to play the role of El Pres.  Vote 1 for you’d take them down and 10 for you’d keep em up.