Rich Girard’s Sexting Scandal: The 2014 Article That Broke the Story
Queen City Mayor Candidate’s Contretemps May K.O. His Campaign
Richard H. Girard, who served one term on the Board of Mayor & Aldermen and two terms on the Board of the School Committee, is running for mayor. Seven years ago, he was embroiled in a sex scandal. This is the article that broke the story to the public.
Manchester, N.H. — Rich Girard, the staunchly conservative host of the Girard at Large radio program, apparently used his Facebook account to try to seduce a female fan who had appeared on his show. If the story is true, it is inconceivable that Girard can continue to broadcast on New Hampshire Family Radio, which carries his program on WLMW 90.7 FM, as it is a conservative Christian network.
Friday afternoon, the Manchester political world was abuzz with news about the sexting scandal as the fan, who uses the moniker “Little Mel”, posted screenshots of Girard’s alleged sexting on her Facebook page. Little Mel is a volunteer at a prominent Manchester non-profit organization that Girard supports. She appeared on his show when it featured a segment on the charity, an event mentioned in the “sexts” that were exchanged between the two via Facebook’s private messaging function.
Alderman Joseph Kelly Levasseur, Girard’s nemesis, was the first to break the story on his own Facebook page. Levasseur contacted Little Mel and got her permission to post screenshots of sexually explicit messages that Girard allegedly sent her via Facebook’s private messaging function on Wednesday, July 9th, and Thursday, the 10th. She also posted messages allegedly sent by Girard to her on Friday.
The host of the public TV show Ed and Joe, Levasseur contacted Rich Girard for comment, telling him he was going to run the story. Girard did not respond to Levasseur’s query.
Due to the extremely graphic nature of the sexting dialogue, Levasseur only published on screenshot, then eventually took it down for editing as it contained Little Mel’s address. The screenshots show the name “Richard H. Girard” with a picture of Rich Girard that I am told he uses on his Facebook page. The address was on the screenshot that Levasseur posted as “Richard H. Girard”, who said that he was drunk, was trying to arrange a sex encounter with Little Mel at her home.
Whether the “Richard H. Girard” of the sexting dialogues is actually Rich Girard, broadcast, remains to be proven definitively. At first, I thought the story was a hoax, but Little Mel insists that it was Rich Girard who sexted her. She also claimed after the story broke that Girard had called her to apologize for attempting on her, and she apparently hung up on him as he sounded angry.
Weird Relationship
The original sexting conversation that Little Mel engaged in with a party calling himself “Richard H. Girard” took place between approximately 8:00 and 8:25PM on Wednesday, July 9th. Little Mel and “Ricahrd H. Girard” were engaged in a Facebook private messaging conversation before 7:59 PM, but apparently, it didn’t turn to sex until around eight, which is the start of prime time on commercial television. The screenshots I received from a source start at 7:59.
According to screenshots (I do not have access to Little Mels’ two Facebook pages), “Richard H. Girard” kicked off the salacious part of their conversation when he sexted her,”too bad for you we’re seperated at the moment. I’m a bit tipsy and I owuld probably — — the — — out of you if we were in the th esame room.” [Spelling including the lack of capitalization is as it appears in the screenshots — Ed.]
The two banter back and forth, then “Richard H. Giard” writes, “it’d be all weird.”
“I think our whole ‘relationship’ is weird ;-P”, Little Mel replies.
“Still got that IUD?” the sexter immediately asks her?
“No. I didn’t get it,” Little Mel replies before telling him why and that she has “lots of condoms.”
“I hate those,” the sexter replies.
After so more talk about birth control, “Richard H. Girard” asks her what will become an underlying theme of his side of the conversation “so it we did it what then? You get all clingy and freaky on me>”
“No,” Little Mel replies before the two then engage in conversation about a preferred position for sexual intercourse, which Little Mel says makes guys look powerful when they engage in sex that way.
“Oh My Head!”
If the sexts are truly from the Girard at Large host, he apparently is a fan of oral sex, both giving and receiving what is vulgarly known as “head”. Somehow, this is fitting, as Girard’s trademark expression on the air is “Oh my head!”
“Do you like it when a guy eats your — — -?”he asks, using a vulgarism for the female sex organ commonly associated with cats.
An obscene exchange of words takes place, after which “Richard H. Girard” asks, “can you do it once and only once?”
He then follows this up with “(omh, I’m hammered….)”
[I read the abbreviation “omh” as “Oh my head”. — Ed.]
Little Mel then asks “Richard H. Girard” about his marital fidelity.
“does your wife know?”
I am missing screenshots for the next three minutes of the conversation, but apparently, the subject of Little Mel having another kind pf pussy — actual real life, four-footed cats — comes up, and she says she can put them in the bathroom. “Richard H. Girard” apparently is allergic to the feline variety.
The presence of cats apparently put a kibosh on the intended assignation and gave Little Mel time to take stock of herself, as she then breaks off from planning a tryst when her conscience kicks in over the other party’s wife.
“Carpe Diem”
“Sigh as much as I want to — — you….I don’t think I can. Not only are you married but you’re drunk right now and I feel like I was raking advantage of you at a weak moment,” Little Mel writes.
“Richard H. Girard”, still intent on meeting up with his fan for sex, replies, “hrey, I asked…”
Little Mel writes in turn, “If you were in an open marriage it would be different but you’re monogamous and you have 5 kids.”
Little Mel asks, “How are you going to feel after?”
“Richard H. Girard” replies in a series of five posts: “who knows?/who cares/carpe diem/besides, I’ve always wwnated you/since you first walked into my studio conservatively dressed.”
Carpe diem is Latin for “Seize the day”. Apparently, “Richard H. Girard” was still intent on seizing his opportunity with Little Mel. His stratagems would backfire on him disastrously.
An Attack of Conscience
“don’t tell me you’re having an attack of conscience…” the interlocutor whom Little Mel swears is Rich Girard tells her. “or is it that once won’t be enough?”
“depends how good are you? :-P”
“Richard H. Girard”: “chalk it up to great… final chance… going…”
“I really want to…” Little Mel says, before declaring, “I can’t. I’m sorry. It would be going against what I believe and what I preach.
“I wouldn’t tell but I’d feel guilty,” she wrote.
After some banter, “Richard H. Girard” asks Little Mel, “what do you want?/the sex of the reltinship/the dream of the drudgery”
“I respect you too much,” Little Mel replies.
“Richard H. Girard”: “so you won’t let me make a drunken mistake?/actually, it’s not that drunk…you can tell by the few typos.”
Catholic Guilt
The banter continues and finally Little Mel tells the man she claims is Rich Girard, “you’re catholic guilt will get to you.”
“Don’t be so sure…./What about a good oral encounter?” the sexter “Richard H Girard” writes back.
“and I can’t do it on the maybe chance you’ll regret it,” Little Mel wrote.
“i won’t”, the other party to the sexting replies, “unless you get all clingy and freaky/then I’ll be wondreing if I’ll be seeing boilig rabbits on my stove.”
“I like rabbits”, Little Mel says, apparently missing the reference to the 1987 Michael Douglas-Glen Close movie Fatal Attraction, in which the “other women” (close) in an adulterous affair with Douglas’ character became unhinged.
The subject of Little Mel’s mental state will be used by the “Richard H. Girard” sexter the following day, as he tries to do damage control. It is this strategem, and the patronizing attitude of the sexter, that likely set Little Mel off and did push her into the Glen Close role of seeking revenge, by posting the sexting threads on her Facebook page rather than leaving a pet rabbit boiled alive on the sexter’s stove.
Little Mel, as the Wednesday night sexting conversation peters out, continually brings up the fact that she would be racked with guilt for sleeping with a married man she respects, even if he is on her “Top 10” list of men she’d like to sleep with.
Guilt, Catholic or otherwise, apparently is not something “Richard H. Girard” suffers from.
“and my last relationship ended because I got cheated on,” she writes, “I’d feel like a hypocrit.”
“Richard H. Girard”: “no worries. I respect you and your decision…though I’m looking ]for a one time thing, not the ‘other woman thing’.”
“I’m the Best”
The sexter, seemingly being reasonable and compassionate, immediately propositions Little Mel again, offering her oral sex rather than vaginal intercourse, though he would engage in intercourse “If you wold let me.”
“trust me, I’m the best,” the egotistical sexter boasts to Little Mel. “or at least the best you’ve ever had”
These messages are immediately followed by his declaration, “time has expired……..I can’t get awa now.”
“Sorry,” Little Mel says, then posts a heart.
“well, I could if you really wanted me to,” the sexter replies.
“I can’t,” she says.
“Richard H. Girard”: “accept responsibility…. You won’t, not can’t/there’s a difference between ability and decision/you COULD, but you choose not to which is okay. I don’t hate you for it.”
Little Mel says to the sexter who is blowing both hot and cold, like someone possessed of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality, “I can, bit I won’t.”
“tomorrow, I’ll probably thank you,” the sexter “Richard H. Girard” posts, before immediately launching into more salacious talk intended to seduce Little Mel, before following up with a mea culpa.
“fyi, i respect your conscience….you’re right to say bo. I felt like trying though./sorry fo rthe advance/didn’t want to cause you stress.”
Little Mel ends Wednesday night’s conversation by telling “Richard H. Girard” that despite what has transpired, “I still think you’re awesome.”
The Following Day
The Facebook conversation between “Richard H Girard” and Little Mel starts up again the next day, at 4:37 in the morning. The real Rich Girard typically is at his radio studio in the Goffstown suburb of Pinardville around 4:00 AM to get ready for his daily broadcast, which kicks off at six.
The sexter “Richard H. Girard” has contacted Little Mel to engage in what seems to be part damage control, and part mind games. The sexter responds to Little Mel’s last post of the night before, saying she thinks he’s “awesome”, with this reply:
“and now I know you are…I’m proud of you! You proved that you’re more than a sexually driven piece of mean last night. You hae a good conscience and are concerned about the well being of your friends. might sound crazy, but it’s what I’d hoped you’d do. Your a goo egg! Be proud of yourself. You have a lot to offer.”
After posting an open-mouthed smiley-face emoticon, Little Mel wrote, “it was sooooo hard to say no!”. This post came nearly six hours after the post by the sexter. It would be four hours before “Richard H. Girard” would again sext Little Mel.
In that sext, “Richard H. Girard” continues to hit on the old Victorian reformer as sexual hypocrite theme of having actually been out to test Little Mel with the idea of saving her virtue and uplifting her.
“I was counting on it and you didn’t let me down. See there’s more to you that what meets the eye,” he writes, ending the sext with a winking smiley face emoticon. I have seen a picture of Little Mel with Rich Girard at his studio, and she is a physically attractive woman, a quality that “Richard H. Girard” seemingly is referring to.
A little more than a half-hour later, Little Mel write back, “and what if I had said yes?” before issuing what seems like a warning:
“And I’m like a transfomer…. more than meets the eye.”
Friday’s Child
“Wednesay’s chlld is full of woe,” the Mother Goose rhyme goes, while “Friday’s child is living and giving.” The Little Mel of Wednesday , more akin to Friday’s child, was about to unleash woe onto the sexter “Richard H. Girard.” Apparently, she had had enough with the mind games, and was tired of being hit on by men like the sexter.
At 6:58 AM on Friday morning, which would likely have been a commercial break during the Girard at Large radio program, the sexter that billed himself as “Richard H. Giard” replied to Little Mel.
“if you’d said yes? I wouldn’t have showed up and it my attempt to show you something about yourself wold have backfired.”
These are the words of a world-class hypocrite and coward operating at “11” on a volume dial that stops at 10. The sexter who has worried about a Fatal Attraction type scenario developing triggers a negative reaction in Little Mel who is appalled by the self-serving hypocrisy. She knew what the sexter was after on Wednesday night, and it wasn’t an opportunity to uplift her. But for her own strength in fighting off her attraction to the man she claims is Rich Girard, she believes, in my opinion, that a sexual tryst would have taken place.
Little Mel answers the post approximately an hour and a half later by asking, “Why did you feel you need to do that.”
The sexter replies that he has been following her posts on Facebook, “and you seemed to need a challenge that might change your focus to someone other than yourself.”
“Richard H. Girard” talks about his concern for her mental state after reading some of her posts, then says, “Can’t really focus on that now, doing an interview,” although if the sexter really is Girard, the time of that post was 8:55 AM and the Girard at Large radio show had only five minutes left to run.
The sexter of Wednesday night on Friday morning then continues to justify his behavior, pretending that he wasn’t really inveigling Little Mel for sex, but was putting her through some kind of moral test to boost her ego.
“Suffice to say I saw reason to act took a risk that might boost your evaluation of yourself.”
Little Mel dismisses the attempt by “Richard H. Girard” to play psychiatrist, then lays into him:
“But i’s cool attempt to subdtly shame me as a way to boost my evaluation or whatever,” she writes back. “Being sexually active or wanting sex doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“sigh….I give up,” Wednesday’s sexter responds at 9:47 AM. “there was no attempt to slut shame you, only to prove you could put the needs of others/what was right before your own personal desires. That boosts most people’s confidence and sense of self-worth.”
This post goes on an on with a bizarre exchange. “BTW, I don’t get paid for every counseling session, so I have no desire to see behavior in need of counseling continue until the next session….”
Is this actually the radio host Rich Girard, or some rogue therapist role-playing Girard? Or is the sexter just an expert at mind games?
“sorry, I knew it was a risk,” the long exchange by “Richard H. Girard” ends. The sexter than posts, “didn’t think you’d find a way to deprive yourself of your own accomplishment though./I guess I should have just left well enough alone.”
The dialogue between Little Mel and “Richard H. Girard” ends with two post by Little Mel, made immediately after the sexter’s last post:
“but what accomplishment am achieving? What does me turning you down have to do with anything? All it looks is you trying to set me up./And the thing is I generally always out others before me.”
The screenshots I received from a source end there.
This article appeared under another title in July 2014 on the Yahoo! News platform
