Sean Parlaman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Griffith Simmons Parlaman III (30 October 1958 – 23 November 2002), who variously preferred to be called “Sean Parlaman”, “Sean Simmons”, and “Buzz Parlaman”, was a con man and paedophile who used the Internet to build a web of spurious credentials which he used to attach himself both to celebrities and to those seeking to combat the prostitution of children. Parlaman was born in Los Angeles County, California, to Griffith Mead Parlaman (20 April 1923 – 22 October 1991) and Doris V. Simmons Parlaman (22 November 1923 – 11 February 2007); he fell to his death in Jomtien, Pattaya, Thailand.

Parlaman created sites on the World Wide Web which appeared to represent substantial institutions and projects, but these institutions and projects had little if any presence outside of the Internet; he would additionally register claims about himself with the more receptive sites of the World Wide Web, then use their reports of these claims to persuade somewhat less receptive sites to report such claims. Eventually, fairly many sites confidently repeated claims about Parlaman's alleged accomplishments in a variety of fields, including acting, cinematic direction, screenwriting, website design, and child protection advocacy. Parlaman also posted vociferously to Usenet, to the same effect.

Parlaman repeatedly sought reasons to associate himself with prepubescent boys, as a martial arts instructor and child-sports booster in the United States, and as a language instructor and martial arts instructor in Thailand. He additionally tried to attach himself, by way of fandom, to child stars Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, and Billy Gilman, losing interest in the first two as they approached adulthood. (Gilman was still just twelve years old at the time of Parlaman's death.)

Parlaman's fraud enjoyed a certain level of success. He was able to secure government grants, to become a member of the Oregon steering committee of the 2000 Green Party Presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, and to get permission from Stephen King to make Stud City, a short, independent sequel to Stand by Me. However, Parlaman lacked real talent, and had little experience in these areas; further, his attempts to aggrandize himself as a child protection advocate had brought him into conflict both with genuine activists and with sexual tourists; members of each of these groups repeatedly exposed his misrepresentations. All of Parlaman's potentially genuine projects (including production of the short sequel to Stand by Me) dissolved or crumbled.

Parlaman retreated to Thailand. There, on 30 September 2002, he was charged with molesting a 12 year-old boy, but released on bail; earlier complaints of assaulting children were soon brought to light. Parlaman protested that these charges were fabricated in response to his efforts to defend children against exploitation. On 23 November, Parlaman was to accompany police officers to their station for further questioning. Instead, he jumped or was thrown to the street from his fifteenth floor condominium.