Church Communication Director Under FBI Scrutiny After Hiring Russian Hacker*

STONEGROUND, PA — Stanley Claiborne, new communications director at the Harper Valley Providential Church (HVPC), was visited in his home today by FBI agents. According to unconfirmed reports he and the church are under investigation.

Apparently Claiborne hired teenage Russian hacker, Sergei Nominov, who had recently emigrated with his family to the U.S. The Nominovs had just started attending HVPC when Claiborne learned of Nominov’s technical skills.

Claiborne enlisted Nominov to help reclaim Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles, and other social media accounts set up in the church’s name. These accounts were reportedly created by well-meaning members and former members of the church. But no one knew, it has been claimed, who was responsible or had any of the login information.

Claiborne, hired by the church six months ago, believed he’d exhausted all other options. Reached by phone, he said, “I’ve asked everyone in the church at least seventy times seven. No one’s talking. I’ve tried contacting Facebook and Twitter but get only canned email responses. You know what it’s like dealing with them!” exclaimed a clearly exasperated Claiborne.

“The Facebook page was created five years ago. Five years!,” Claiborne continued, “Everyone keeps ‘Liking’ it but we can’t access it! We can’t change anything on the page. We can’t even create a new one using our church name in the URL. And don’t get me started about Twitter. There are three different accounts! How can we be effective in our communication efforts with such a mess? It’s chaos!”

When asked why he enlisted Nominov, Claiborne explained, “What else could I do? Contacting Facebook and Twitter was useless. No one in the church claims to know anything. And my prayers about all this seemed to just bounce against the ceiling. When I discovered that Sergei had done some hacking, I felt like he was a godsend!”

As for Nominov, he was more than happy to help, believing that his talent is one of his better spiritual gifts. “Am thrilled to help church anyway I can,” he explained cheerfully. “Stan is great guy.”

Before he could say more his parents whisked him away, waving at reporters, giving thumbs up, and shouting in heavy Russian accents, “No more talk! We love U.S.A.! God bless America!”

When asked for details an FBI agent would neither confirm nor deny that any investigation was actually taking place, then returned back inside Claiborne’s house closing the curtains in the front window.

At this time Claiborne is no longer answering his phone. The only response from an unidentified church representative when queried was, “We don’t have a clue.”



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*This is humor and fictional. All the characters are most likely fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or soon to be dead will probably neither be confirmed nor denied. Nor can it be confirmed that anything like this has ever been experienced by the author of this blog. However, perhaps you can relate to this story? Please feel free to share your experience and thoughts in the comments, which may or may no be shared with the FBI or any other similar investigative body. God bless America!