Did charter school chief lie about online forum?

It is a lesson I should have learned long ago: e-mails can come back to haunt you.

Parents at the Cambridge Lakes Charter School have forwarded me an e-mail Larry Fuhrer apparently sent to a parent at the school.

Fuhrer is the board chairman, chief executive officer and executive director of the Northern Kane Educational Corp., the organization that runs the charter school.

The e-mail appears to contradict statements Fuhrer made in a June 3 article in the Daily Herald.

In that article, Fuhrer denied that either he or Northern Kane was responsible for shutting down a series of online forums for parents at the Pingree Grove school.

"Northern Kane did not send anything to Forumer," Fuhrer said, referring to the Web site that hosted the last forum, which was shut down.

But that's not what Fuhrer said in an e-mail he apparently sent three days earlier.

In the May 30 e-mail, Fuhrer seems to admit to squashing the forum with the threat of legal action.

"The blogger who gleefully lifted and published the copyrighted material violated intellectual property law and abridged the school's right to control its document," the e-mail reads.

Here's the key sentence: "Forumer received appropriate legal notice because the blogger carried only a pseudo identity, and you can see their responsive action."

It appears the e-mail was copied to Community Unit District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt.

The parent who started the third charter school forum, Destiny Lewis, forwarded me another e-mail apparently from Limez, the anonymous CEO of Forumer.

The e-mail seems to offer further proof Northern Kane shut down the forum.

"The cease and desist letter was sent by the lawyers of Northern Kane Educational Corp," the e-mail reads.

"As you understand, Forumer does not want to get involved in any unnecessary litigation, so please address your further questions to Northern Kane Educational Corp and Lori G. Martin."

Setting the record straight: Usually, when people think I have misquoted them, they give me a call or e-mail me. But I found out about my latest alleged mistake in the Cambridge Lakes Charter School's e-newsletter.

In a newsletter dated June 6, there's a nice little mention of me in a section titled "Daily Herald Article."

The newsletter claims I misquoted Fuhrer in a June 3 story when I wrote, "'We would never, ever punish the kid for the actions of their stupid parent,' Fuhrer said."

According to the newsletter, Fuhrer actually said, "Jameel, you're stupid for asking the question would we punish the students for the behavior of the parents."

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I found Fuhrer's backtracking hilarious.

Just a note of advice: If you're going to complain about being misquoted, at least try to mimic the original sentence structure of the quote when you concoct a new one.

Believe or not, I'm comforted by the fact that it's my word against Fuhrer's.

Because, honestly, whom do you think the parents are going to believe?