|
An explosive new report from LoHud reveals that the phone number of one of Mike Lawler’s top aides infiltrated a private Signal chat group of political opponents under a different name — allegedly hiding her identity as a taxpayer funded Congressional staffer and Lawler operative.
The phone number attached to the aide, Lawler’s Deputy District Director Erin Crowley, didn’t just use the alleged fake identity to infiltrate a group chat of constituents who opposed him, she allegedly attempted to manipulate them into disrupting one of Lawler’s town halls and inciting chaos in the room—where multiple attendees were forcibly removed by police after Crowley’s apparent comment in the chat.
Lawler has unsurprisingly remained silent, but we have a few questions for him:
- Did Crowley infiltrate and monitor the chat on official time when she was earning a taxpayer funded salary?
- Does Crowley have other potential aliases that haven’t been uncovered?
- Did Lawler directly instruct Crowley to allegedly infiltrate the Signal chat?
DCCC Spokesperson Riya Vashi:
“Mike Lawler’s taxpayer-funded staff allegedly spying on his own constituents isn’t just gross, it’s a disgraceful abuse of power. If true, Lawler owes voters an immediate explanation for his staffer actively trying to stage chaos at an official town hall for his political gain.”
LoHud: Why did a Lawler aide’s name pop up in opposition’s chat group, urging Town Hall disorder?
David McKay Wilson | July 8, 2025
- A mobile phone number belonging to Rep. Mike Lawler’s deputy district director was used to infiltrate an anti-Lawler’s organization’s private Signal chat group and urge disruptive behavior at a Town Hall.
- Someone using Erin Crowley’s mobile number gained entrance to the private group under the name “Jake Thomas,” but refused numerous requests to prove their identity once leaders of the Fight Lawler organization suspected it was really Crowley.
- Crowley, R-Mahopac, is a Putnam county legislator who also works for Lawler as his deputy district director.
- At Lawler’s May 4 Town Hall at Kennedy Catholic Prep in Somers, Crowley patrolled the aisles of the auditorium, scolding dissenters to pipe down. Meanwhile, the person claiming to be Jake Thomas live-posted with indignation about Lawler, R-Pearl River, from the auditorium.
- “I can’t stand how he lies!” Thomas posted at 6:38 p.m., according to the Signal transcript. “We should boo him off the stage!”
- Crowley’s name popped up next to the posts in the chat of one Fight Lawler leader who had previously had Crowley’s name in her contacts.
- After two Lawler critics were carried out of the hall by New York State troopers, Thomas posted that chat group members should leave the auditorium to protest Lawler’s crack down on dissent and his evasive answers to questions from the audience.
- “Should we walk out en masse?” posted Thomas. “Make a point we won’t tolerate his bullsh** anymore.”
- Fight Lawler co-founder Maureen Morrissey, 63, of Mount Kisco, a retired teacher who worked in the Port Chester and Pelham school districts, said the group’s digital sleuthing turned up evidence that is yet to be refuted.
- Starer said she suspected that Crowley, or the person using her number, tried to rile up the crowd to discredit Lawler’s opponents and get them to leave.
- “Walking out of the hall would have been to their benefit,” said Starer. “That would have been great for them.”
- Ciro Riccardi, Lawler’s director of communications, did not respond to two emails and a phone message seeking comment over the past three weeks. Crowley has not responded to three email requests for comment since first contacted on the issue May 20.
- She walked away from this writer on June 16 when asked about the Signal group following a meeting of Putnam County legislative committee in Carmel. She did so again on July 1, as she was escorted by a Putnam County deputy sheriff to a legislative meeting.
- Crowley and Riccardi were asked whether Lawler’s office knew that Crowley’s phone number was used to gain entry into Fight Lawler’s Signal group or that Crowley’s phone number was used to live post during the Town Hall. They were also asked whether Crowley herself used a fake identity to infiltrate the group chat, and whether she made those live posts during the Town Hall.
- [Starer and Morrissey] confronted whomever was behind the Jake Thomas profile with their information, asking them to go live on the Signal video chat to prove their identity. The person would not do so.
- That evening, Starer called Thomas’ number on Signal. On the fifth try, a man picked up. Starer said she told the man that it appeared that Jake Thomas was actually Erin Crowley. Starer said the man, who was curt with her, did not deny it.
- Then a three-day-long Signal chat ensued between Starer and the Jake Thomas account. “I just need to know that you are not Erin Crowley,” wrote Starer at 10:44 a.m.
- “If you do not want to demonstrate that you are Jake Thomas and not Erin Crowley, then I guess the documentation that we have will speak for itself,” she wrote. “I would love to be wrong about this especially because I’d like to think that an elected official and Congressman Lawler’s deputy district director is not posing as someone else to infiltrate groups that oppose the Congressman.”
- The person identifying as Thomas did not respond.
|
