The Friesster tweets about his uncle

This Mother's Day Twitter post shows that Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen Steve "Friesster" Friess is having a fine old time continuing to milk the publicity and notoriety he received from his self-aggrandizing Las Vegas Weekly cover story about turning in a family member (albeit a black sheep) who was a fugitive on a kiddie porn rap.

The Friesster goes nuts again!

Oh, that silly goose Steve Friess. Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year is having a hissy fit and throwing around words like "slander" once again because we reported on his very controversial Las Vegas Weekly cover story, A Snitch in the Family, in which he explains why he crossed journalistic and familial lines to help US Marshals snare his uncle, who'd fled from a plea bargain and sentencing on Internet kiddie porn charges.

In response, Steve Friess, stringer reporter for The New York Times and other national periodicals (as well as Las Vegas blogger, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen), calls us:

"Pro-child porn"... "Sad"... "Treacherous"... "Sick"... and "Desperate for attention"... while even more disturbingly, refers to himself as "The Friesster."

As we reported earlier this afternoon, this arrest escapade was only Friess's latest ethical quandary of the past year, and only the latest that he made public by using the Las Vegas Weekly to explain himself. We did not pass judgment on Steve's pickle. In fact, we posted a link to the story and suggested to our readers: "You be the judge."

Within minutes, however, the hysterical "Friesster" posted an anonymous comment on our site, in which he congratulated himself for his action.

Then he wrote a second comment, which he deleted.

And then he sent an email to our office:

"So you're pro-child porn now! How thrilling for you!

"Also, I own the copyright on the image you've used. Please remove immediately. Then you can lie about being threatened to be shut down again when, of course, I'm simply suggesting that you not steal. If anything you said was of consequence, I'd rebut your lies, but in a full year of attacks, not a single person in any serious manner has ever noticed or cared what you say. God, you're so sad.

"-sf

"P.S. Yes I deleted my own comment from your blog. I did it because I have had a long-standing policy of not reading or commenting on your treacherous site of slander. I just couldn't believe anyone would attack for something like this, so I had to click. Then I realized: I don't need to react to show how sick and desperate for attention this "person" is. Everyone already knows. Frown face!"

This is The Friesster's deleted comment (which he'd posted inadvertently under the name of his blog):

"So you're pro-child porn? Kinda undermines ur bitching at tmz but oh well! Bravo to the friesster! Cross what line? Journalists aren't above the law. Are you saying you would harbor a porn pusher?"

Frown face? Now really, was there anything we'd written that would warrant such an attack? Remember, this is a reporter for The New York Times, a man who's made himself a public figure by airing his laundry across the Internet while toeing the line that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Would a trusted, objective reporter suggest someone is "pro-child porn" for reporting a story that he himself promoted on his blog (in a post that begins with the line, "I lied to you people a couple of weeks ago...")? Oh, right. He called us much worse for daring to ask questions about the death of Danny Gans.

Steve Friess snitches and turns in his uncle

LAS VEGAS WEEKLY SCREENGRAB

Remember Steve Friess?

He's the Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, concert promoter and comp queen whom we first encountered a little over a year ago when we emailed him to ask why his colleagues were not investigating the recent, mysterious death of local superstar Danny Gans and he responded by going on line and attacking us in a public obscene rant. In the months to follow, he led a campaign to stop our investigation, helped spread disinformation about Gans' death, called us "homophobes" for criticizing him (all the while running a photo on his blogsite showing him lifting former Hefner girl Holly Madison in an over-the-threshold pose while in his second unofficial marriage to a man-- a producer at the local NBC affiliate), attempted to have our site shut down after we posted his photo (we were forced to use approximations), wrote that Michael Jackson's death was the best thing to happen to his music and then, while covering the investigation into Jacko's death for the New York Times, capitalized on the demise by promoting a "tribute" concert to his music-- all the while acting as a mouthpiece for casino mogul and Danny Gans employer Steve Wynn and reviewing musical acts despite a severe hearing impairment-- a morass of conflicts of interest that led him to represent all that was wrong with the lazy, corrupt media of Sin City and led us to name him Tabloid Baby's 2009 Journalist of The Year.


Now, the go-to guy for national media looking for Vegas stories who decides what Vegas events are national news and what are not (see Danny Gans) and uses his column in the Las Vegas Weekly to explain away his transgressions and conflicts, writes this week that he crossed the line again when he helped US Marshals arrest a family member "who could easily pass as my 25-years-older twin brother" and who was on the run to avoid a court plea and sentencing in an Internet kiddie porn case.

Read all about it. You be the judge.

UPDATE!!!


4 pm: Steve Friess reads Tabloid Baby! It appears that he posted a comment on our story-- then changed his mind and deleted it. Please, Steve, have your say! We know you're not shy. Your fellow Tabloid Baby fans want to hear from you!

(And we're not editorializing in referring to Friess as a "snitch." That's the word they use on the Las Vegas Weekly cover.)