Thursday, June 2, 2011

'I Locked My Keys In My Car' And Other Reasons Roger Ailes Calls the Cops

By John Cook

'I Locked My Keys In My Car' And Other Reasons Roger Ailes Calls the Cops

Jowly asshole Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, is a security-obsessed paranoiac who spies on his employees, installed blast-resistant plexiglass in his office windows, carries a concealed weapon, and travels with a full-time retinue of bodyguards. All of which may help explain why the cops were called to his New Jersey home 25 times in the past five years.

When he's not terrorizing the residents of his weekend home in Putnam County, N.Y., Ailes lives with his wife in Cresskill, N.J. And according to records we obtained from the Cresskill Police Department under New Jersey's Open Records Act, between being locked out of his car, accidentally setting off the burglar alarm while letting his dog out, and reporting suspicious telephone company equipment, the Cresskill cops were alerted to incidents at the Ailes home 36 times since 2006. Half of those calls came from the Aileses themselves—the remainder were automatic alerts sent by their security company—and 25 resulted in police cars being dispatched to their home. None resulted in any criminal investigations or found anything unusual.

As with the frequent police calls from the Aileses' Putnam County home we reported on in April, most of the Cresskill calls involved accidentally setting off the burglar alarm—the reports recount at least 21 instances of the alarm being "set off in error by homeowner." But Ailes also called the cops to rescue him when he locked his keys in his car in July 18, 2006, according to this "vehicle lockout" report.

And just three days earlier, on July 15, 2006, Ailes had called in regarding this pressing matter: "Residents called to report upon returning from vacation, a door that was left open by them is now closed. Premisis [sic] appears to be secure, no problems found." Yes, in Ailesworld, this—"Honey, didn't we leave the bathroom door open?"—is a cause to call the cops.

In November 2006, Elizabeth Ailes called to report that a Verizon telephone control box on her street "was open and had been open for most of the day," which is definitely the kind of thing you want the cops—as opposed to, say, Verizon—to know about when everyone is trying to tap your phone.

In a statement, Ailes—classy as ever (and acutely math-challenged)—blamed his mother-in-law for all the visits:

This is a standard automatic alarm system that was triggered accidentally half a dozen times over half a dozen years which happens in a full household — and 30 of those calls were probably from my mother-in-law. What a way to make living — hunting down automatic alarm systems in suburban neighborhoods.

Yes, it probably is a great way to make a living, for the members of the Cresskill Police Department, to hunt down Ailes' false alarms. Actually, the Cresskill cops don't seem to care to much. "I won't say it's unusual," Lt. Ted Sebulski, a department spokesman told me. He then went on to say that some alarms in Cresskill go off "eight, ten, twelve times a day," and that even those numbers aren't out of the ordinary or problematic. Which is odd. Other police departments don't agree: According to the Department of Justice, responding to false burglar alarms cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion nationwide in 1998 [pdf], a figure that's surely gone up in the intervening decade.

Whatever. As long as Ailes feels secure! The inside of his mind must look like one of those awful Broadview Security commercials where everyone's almost getting raped. Here are the police reports.

[Photo of Ailes, top, via AP]