New Article on Frischling's Arrest

A follow-up article in "The Day" with more details!

http://www.theday.com/article/20110607/NWS01/110609665/1047

Niantic consultant charged with larceny

By Karen Florin

Publication: theday.com

Published 06/07/2011 12:00 AM

Updated 06/07/2011 02:15 PM

A Niantic man who calls himself a “globe hopping professional photographer” and consultant to large global airlines is accused of altering an invoice to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from a La Jolla, Calif., consultant he was working with on a social media project.

Steven Frischling, 35, of 49 Sea Breeze Ave. was charged last week with second-degree larceny and first-degree forgery. He posted a $25,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned June 15 in New London Superior Court.

An arrest warrant affidavit prepared by state police detective Christopher Greer indicates that Frischling was hired by Addison Schonland of the Innovation Analysis Group (IAG) in La Jolla to collaborate on a blogging project for KLM. As the lead consultant on the $22,000 project, Frischling entered into a verbal contract with Schonland in which he was to receive 75 percent, or $16,500, and Schonland was to get 25 percent, or $5,500.

Schonland told investigators that Frischling altered the bank accounting routing information so that he received the entire $22,000. Frischling then told Schonland he deserved the full payment because IAG had failed to provide the promised “back end support” for the project and his business reputation had been damaged by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) investigation in 2009. Frischling, author of a travel blog called “Flying with Fish,” had been investigated for disseminating TSA search rules/protocol without authorization.

Questioned by police, Frischling said he had simply corrected errors on the IAG invoice at the airline’s request and provided his personal bank account number because he could not contact Schonland.

This is humorous.

First, how was Frischling's "business reputation" damaged by the TSA investigation, and what does that have to do with anything?

Second, his claim that he simply was correcting errors on the invoice: Obviously the police did not buy that lie, but it shows you how bold Frischling is with his lies. It's like he never thinks anyone will ever check anything he says. All they had to do was contact KLM and ask if it was true that the airline had requested that "errors" be corrected, and Frischling would be find out.

Thirdly, if he couldn't contact Schonland, why would his first step be to change the bank account numbers to his own? Who does that? If this was really a misunderstanding in any way, the police would not have chosen to pursue felony charges.

Finally, all this flies in the face of what he has been posting. He has repeatedly said that he did all the work and it was all pitched, executed, etc by him. What does that tell you? That he feels he was entitled to the full amount, period.

He tweeted this the day after his arrest:

The yfrog link goes to this screenshot of the description of the blog:

Remember that the blog ended suddenly and mysteriously at this time. Obviously KLM canceled the project on their end, or Frischling probably would still be writing it, don't you think?

Frischling's outright stupidity never fails to astonish us. Think of how much money he could have potentially made if he had simply acted like a normal individual. We're not in the industry but can still see that writing the official blog for an airline like KLM must be pretty prestigious. He could have gone on to start blogs at all kinds of airlines and raked in way more than $5,500 or whatever the disputed amount was.

Did someone drive a railroad spike through this guy's brain? What is wrong with him?