In the comments to our post on sextortionist Jessica Wolcott’s victim—some mustachioed dude at Pepsi you’ve never heard of and probably won’t hear of again—we’ve apparently heard from his daughter, Nikki. Now we can’t vouch that this is definitely the victim’s daughter, of course. But the comment is completely earnest, and actually a bit sweet. Seems genuine enough. And we have some reason to believe that a Niki Wandschneider does exist, and may well be the Pepsi dude’s daughter. Click through this link and tell us what you think. Do we have the real Nikki?
More importantly, Nikki, if you’re out there, it’s us, DealBreaker. We’d love to hear more from you. Send us an email to tips@dealbreaker.com.
Pepsi
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Extorted Pepsi Exec’s Daughter Reaches Out To DealBreaker (Probably)
By John Carney
Jessica Wolcott is not just an extortionist. She’s also a model/market/entrepreneur—at least according several loan requests she made on the website Prosper, which brings together small lenders with borrowers. From March through April of this year, Wolcott placed six ads on the website seeking between $10,0000 and $20,0000—requests totaling $90,000—giving a variety of reasons why she needed the money and what she planned to do with it.
The young woman who pleaded guilty to extorting a Pepsi executive after meeting him over craiglist wasn’t exactly shy about including lots of pictures with her loan requests, including the one you see to you left. Some of the pictures seem designed to show her as as a sweet young thing who volunteers as a Big Sister, while others are clearly attempts to look sexy and provocative.
Gawker last night reported on the Prosper profile and noted that there were even more pictures on Craiglist but, of course, these are long gone. The New York Post this morning reports that Jessica apparently lied about a lot of things in her loan requests.
She claimed in those postings that she had a $60,000 marketing job, modeled for Pantene Pro-V shampoo, had a Johns Hopkins University chemistry degree and that her parents were dead.
But court records reveal Wolcott’s mother is alive, and a Johns Hopkins spokeswoman said Wolcott never matriculated there.
Court records also show Wolcott was evicted from an apartment in April for not paying her rent.
Jessica’s Borrower Profile [Prosper.com]
This morning the New York Post names the extorted executive as Gary Wandschneider, a divisional vice-president of Pepsi Bottling Co. According to Forbes.com, Gary pulled in nearly $3 million in cash compensation last year and was awarded stock options worth about another $3 million.
Well, that’s somewhat less exciting than the idea that it was the CEO of a major company. But the good news is that thanks to help from our readers, we were on the right track! We had narrowed it down to a handful of companies based in Westchester, including the Pepsi Bottling Co. So good work team!
‘Pop’ Tart Scams Bigwig [New York Post]
Forbes.com Profile: Gary K Wandschneider [Forbes]
Yesterday we wrote some nice things about the new CEO of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi. We said she was smart. We said she looked smart. We said she was from India. We said that people said she played well with others (although at least one commenter objected to this characterization).
You know what? All that sugar made us a bit ill. What’s more, in the back of our minds we kept thinking that there was something else we knew about dear Indra. It was on the tip of our tongues, or at least the tips of our blog-typing fingers, but we just couldn’t get it. Maybe she gave money to charity? No. It wasn’t that. Or had a private plane tackily decorated? Nope. That’s not it either. Too many “third” martinis with lunch were giving us afternoon amnesia.
Well, now we’ve sobered up and we remember—Indra gave America the middle finger last year. She was the commencement speaker for Columbia MBAs last march, and her talk included describing each major continent with one of her five fingers. As it turns out, in the mind of the new CEO of Pepsi, America is the middle finger. Many interpreted the content of her speech as sending a “blame America first” message, which Pepsi’s media spinners eventually got around to denying. But then again a lot of the people complaining about the speech were neoconservative types who are a bit quick on the “unpatriotic trigger.”
So does Indra Nooyi still think America deserves the middle finger? Was this ever a fair characterization of her remarks? Is Pepsi’s denial plausible? Was this all a neocon plot to promote Coke? Below are some links to the controversy.
The pause that enrages [Powerline]
The Raspberry Statement [Powerline]
‘Anything but pro-American’? [Armavirumque]
So Pepsi named Indra Nooyi as it’s next CEO, succeeding former marine tough guy Steve Reinemund. She will be the fifth CEO in the company’s 41 year history. Everyone says she’s very smart, and smart for real—not just because they’re profiling her for being born in India and having that “brainy chick” look. She’s also supposedly good with people.
Pepsi’s done well recently by branching out into the wider junk snack food market, decreasing its dependence of sales of sugary-bubbly drinks for profits. Some folks were surprised at the timing of the announcement. Reinemund’s only been at the helm since 2000 and at age 57 is only seven years Nooyi’s senior. He’s generally considered to have had done an excellent job running the company. Word is that Pepsi was worried they’d lose Nooyi to a competitor if she wasn’t promoted quickly.
PepsiCo names Nooyi CEO, Reinemund to retire in May [Reuters]
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