Monterey County Nonprofit Owner Says She Was Scammed by Biden Accuser Tara Reade

Lynn Hummer, founder and president of the Watsonville-based Pregnant Mare Rescue, remembers a woman named Tara McCabe emailing her in 2014 and asking if she could help out and volunteer with her nonprofit.

Things started out fine, but Hummer says the relationship frayed after two years—once her volunteer had taken more than a combined $2,000 from Hummer herself and the rescue organization. Hummer says she grew to believe that the woman was constantly playing the angles or trying to run a scam.

“She was always in crisis, always looking for money,” Hummer says.

That woman, Tara McCabe, is better known these days as Tara Reade.

Reade is the former Joe Biden aide who has accused her ex-boss, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, of sexually assaulting her in 1993. Hummer told her story to Ed Krassenstein, one half of the Krassenstein brothers, who posted a story about Hummer’s experiences to the site Medium.

Hummer has since learned that the pro-Biden Krassenstein brothers duo has a less-than-stellar reputation, having been banned from Twitter last year for operating fake accounts. None of that changed how Hummer felt about their finished product—the details in their post, she says, were all correct. “They did a good job,” Hummer says of the Krassensteins. “They got the facts right, and they got the timeline right.”

In 2015, Hummer says Reade fell in love with Charm, one of the horses Hummer had rescued. Reade asked Hummer to let her take the Charm home and also waive the adoption fee. Hummer agreed. Hummer says that Reade later called an out-of-county veterinary doctor, racked up $1,400 in vet bills and tricked Pregnant Mare Rescue into paying Charm’s medical bills by having them sent to the nonprofit, where the bookkeeper paid up without understanding the backstory or asking any questions, Hummer explains.

Prior to that, Hummer says that Reade repeatedly begged for money. She says she ended up lending Reade more than $800 on three occasions—none of which Reade ever repaid. Additionally, Reade once hid her car on Hummer’s ranch to avoid having it repossessed, Hummer says. One time at a fundraiser, Reade hid a raffle ticket jar under a table to ensure that she would win the drawing by only entering one ticket, Hummer says.

The bottom line, she says, is that Reade can’t be trusted.

“I feel in my heart as an American citizen that this woman is a very big fraud,” Hummer says. “In my opinion, she’s very dangerous, especially in this year, this time.”

Foals Rush In

Reade was born locally, in Monterey—as she recently told interviewer Megyn Kelly in a sit-down interview posted to YouTube.

In the discussion, which focused primarily on Reade’s allegations about Biden, Reade accused Biden of digitally penetrating her in a Senate hallway. Reade first went public in April 2019 with allegations of sexual harassment, including how Biden would touch her shoulder and run his finger up her neck. In March of this year, Reade came forward with an additional charge, one of sexual assault.

Reade, who voted for Biden’s opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the 2020 presidential primary, has said that she filed a formal complaint and told three colleagues about Biden’s inappropriate behavior—but not about the sexual assault.

Those former colleagues have all denied hearing a complaint of any kind. The Senate personnel office does not have a record of such a complaint, nor does Reade herself. The Biden campaign also says it has no record of the complaint, and Biden has emphatically denied that the assault ever happened, with the former vice president recently telling MSNBC that anyone who believes Reade “probably shouldn’t vote for” him.

Reade could not be reached for comment. But her lawyer Douglas Wigdor—a Republican, who donated to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign—tells this news organization via email that “sadly, unsubstantiated attacks” like Hummer’s “will have a chilling effect on other survivors grappling with the prospect of coming forward.”

In the absence of an independent and nonpartisan investigation from the Democratic National Committee, Wigdor, who represented several sexual assault victims of Harvey Weinstein, says that Reade is “exploring next steps in an effort to get to the truth.”

Hummer has taken a lot of phone calls about her experience. Many callers come with their own agendas, and some are looking to poke holes in Hummer’s narrative. Some of Hummer’s friends think she should be more careful about which calls she takes. But Hummer stresses that she has the receipts and emails to back up her version of the events, and regardless, she says she’ll share her experience with anyone who will listen.

“Of course, now I’ve learned that some are in the Trump camp and they’re gonna support the story,” she says. “And I keep telling people, ‘For me, it’s not about any of that. It’s about showing this woman for her true colors. I think she’s really dangerous. I think she dishonors women. She could affect a presidential campaign. That is heavy stuff, regardless of how I feel about the candidates. I’m waiting for someone other than the Krassensteins to make the story. I’ve talked to the Rolling Stone. I’ve talked to Politico. I’ve talked to the Washington Post. I’ve talked to CBS, NBC. I’ve talked to Atlantic.”

On Friday, Politico broke a story about Reade, outlining her pattern of apparently leapfrogging from one California property to another, often leaving her aggrieved landlords and other acquaintances feeling manipulated or deceived in her wake.

Hummer says McCabe repeatedly bragged about her work on behalf of Biden. Other skeptics have noted that Hummer liked and retweeted praise for Biden, including his work combating sexual assault. “I’ve always been conflicted about Joe Biden,” Reade told Kelly in their YouTube chat. “I didn’t want to talk badly about him, and I wasn’t ready to tell my history with Joe Biden at that point at all.”

Reade also said that Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women act was very important to her. Last year the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office cited Reade as “a domestic violence expert,” who “provided critical testimony” in achieving a conviction for a man who assaulted his girlfriend.

Truth or Mare

In her discussion with Kelly, Reade remarked that it’s been oddly “freeing” to watch skeptics dig into her past and excavate skeletons from her closet, including the details of her bankruptcy. Reade’s bankruptcy case unfolded over the course of 2012, when Reade was living in Santa Cruz’s Midtown. She owed $400,000 in various debts, including taxes, according to court documents.

Hummer’s account of her experiences with Reade is corroborated by local attorney and fellow equine rescuer Kelly Klett, who briefly had Reade as a tenant in the late spring of 2018. Klett checked in with Hummer just before Reade moved in. Hummer warned Klett about her own experience with her former volunteer. Reade ultimately only stayed with Klett for a couple months before moving out.

“She misrepresented her financial status and couldn’t pay,” Klett says.

While living in Klett’s home, Reade damaged a fountain on the property. She pleaded with her landlord to return her full deposit, promising to repair the fountain herself. Reade never fixed the fountain, Klett says. Klett says Reade also took some of her law books. At this point, Klett says she doesn’t expect to ever see those books again.

Hummer says she last saw Reade at a local feed store in October 2018. Reade said hello, Hummer remembers, but she ignored her onetime volunteer.

In regards to her own claims, Hummer says she never filed a report with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. She also never seriously considered taking Reade to court.

“Well, number one, that takes money,” Hummer explains. “I’d rather spend it helping horses than chasing after someone who I know doesn’t have a dime. Number two, it takes resources. We don’t have any staff. We’re small. I have a bookkeeper and a barn manager and me. We’re the three main peeps. I don’t have someone doing my internet and my blogging and someone else doing my social media. That’s not how it works.”

Additional reporting by Jennifer Wadsworth.

30 Comments

  1. > “Of course, now I’ve learned that some are in the Trump camp and they’re gonna support the story,” she says.

    Which story is the Trump camp supporting?

    The one that torpedoes Joe Biden’s nomination and gets him booted off the ticket?

    Or the one that keeps Joe Biden on the ticket so Trump can run against a corrupt, befuddled, horndog patsy?

  2. I think they’re ALL lying.

    Biden
    Reade
    McCabe
    The Krassenstein Brothers
    Bernie Sanders
    Politico
    Washington Post
    CBS
    NBC

    Ironically, since they’re all such instinctive liars, the story about Joe Biden is probably a lie.

    The truth is, we’ve uncovered a five minute span of Joe’s life where he was actually chaste and truthful at the same time.

    • *thumbs up”, SJOUTSIDETHEBUBBLE!!

      Whatever happened to “Believe all woman”?? Did it suddenly dawn on people that women DO lie, just as do men?? If so, FINALLY!!

      The ones who believed Blasey-Ford’s inconsistencies/lies are the same ones who won’t believe Reade. You shouldn’t have believed EITHER story. Critical thinking is a lost art.

  3. The “Me Too standard is” she is a woman and as such she must be believed, sorry Joe Biden is guilty most be tried and must prove himself innocent.
    Sorry Dem’s GAME OVER!

  4. By this logic, peoples credit scores determine if their claims of sexual harassment are founded in truth.

    By this logic, Trump’s credit score over any of his accusers should clear him of any and all defamation.

  5. Even if there was no allegations from this woman, Biden is a sexual harasser,…so is Trump. Choosing between Biden or Bernie Sanders was easy. I voted for Biden. Choosing between Biden and Trump is easy too. I will vote for Biden. All these three men are horrible though! This woman is making Biden a favor. She is reviving a death campaign. After the corona virus, no one was talking about Biden. I feel the Bernie people still had some illusions about a Bernie option. They brought this issue to light. I feel this woman wanted to help Bernie. She is helping her harasser though! You see Bernie, people will rather vote for a sexual harasser than for a communist and antisemite.

    • > Biden is a sexual harasser,…so is Trump.

      FEXXY:

      May I suggest that you spend some time reading a couple of your bibles. Especially the part about not “bearing false witness against thy neighbor.”

      You seem to be witnessing that Donald Trump is a “sexual harasser”.

      How do you know this? Who told you? How do you know that the people who told you weren’t “bearing false witness?”

      • HOW DO I KNOW THIS BUBBLE? Who’s this phrase: YOU CAN GRAB THEM BY THE PUSSI IF YOU…” TRUMP, Biden, Clinton, Bush elder, (death guy) and many other male politicians are just a bunch of sexually perverted males. Their social status does not take their sexual perversions away. This is how the world has been since always. According to the Bible, there is nothing new. Only Jesus Cristo is deserving of our love and admiration. He was in the flesh to show us it is possible. All the flesh indulgences in is against the spirit. The earth will pass but not his teachings and his law. Try Jesus people; you won’t regret it!

  6. The question of who will become our next President is too important to be left up to the flawed judgment of the American people. Is Joe Biden a sexual predator? I don’t know. I’m just an idiot citizen. I can’t possibly have a meaningful opinion. We need to ask, “What does the science tell us?” We need to find America’s preeminent ObGyn (hopefully a relative of Dr. Fauci) who can, based on his expert analysis of the data, make a scientific determination as to who’s the best candidate.That way, based upon the science, we’ll understand who the correct candidate is. Then, each State’s governor would have the option of correctly filling out the ballots BEFORE they’re sent to the stupid voters to be mailed back.
    A science and data driven election will finally get us to the Utopia for which we’ve been longing.

    • Refreshingly satirical; thank you! (I wish that schools provided training in logical fallacies: in particular, when one cites the opinion of only one authority or “scientist” who happens to confirm one’s one bias on a given matter, and yet there are other equally credentialed authorities who disagree with that authority or scientist, the person citing the former has indulged in the fallacy of “argument to authority” and possibly even “argument to false authority.” But you’ll never hear that in the media, and likely never even in a school. People who aren’t scientists generally cite “science” or “scientists” only as a cudgel to silence dissent so that they don’t have to expose their own inability to make a cogent defense of their opinion.)

    • Are you trying to say that being poor means that it is ok to cheat dozens of people?
      She cheated a hard working family-owned grocery store out of $2300. A lawschool sued her for 23k.

      Being poor and acting like a criminal are two totally different things.

      • so you think its okay to prohibit eviction and suppress rent…

        thats poor cheating people out of thier money

        or causa justa and forced lease buyouts, more poor people cheating people out of their money

        all CA politics is justifying and codifying the poor cheating people out of their money

  7. The DNC is making a special announcement to the American people. We apologize for not being able to pick any candidate that can beat Trump. As a result we have decided to spend all $60 million raised for Donald Trump on Democrat big wigs so we can’t party like it’s 1999.

    We will blame the loss of the 2020 election on Joe Biden.

  8. One more thing. If Biden keeps adding the far left people to his agenda, I am going to stay home. This even if KAMALA is his running mate. FUERA AOC, Khanna, Omar, and the rest of Bernie’s crazy people. If we had wanted this, crazy Bernie would still be in the game. I demand this fake democrats OUT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Biden does not need these people. He needs the swing voters. The more he brings the Bernie people in, the more he will push these swing voters out. These far left issues are the reasons I have not donated to his campaign. If my option would be crazy Bernie or Crazy Trump, I would choose crazy Trump. This is how detestable Bernie and his people are!

    • Biden needs the far left to show up. Otherwise he is done. This is a VERY LIMITED sample so the conclusions probably aren’t worth much. The few people that are in the states that count are going to vote for Trump over Biden. They aren’t blaming Trump for the economic crash due to the Virus. Really they aren’t. There is one poll out saying only 30% are blaming Trump for the economic meltdown.

      You are having more and more people in states like Michigan and Wisconsin violating state shelter in place orders by Democratic governors. You can probably take it to the bank as of today that the swing states are going for Trump. Like the Ohio auto worker said “Obama told me that I wasn’t going to get my job back. Trump did”. I wonder who he is voting for.

      Sanders should have been the nominee in the first place. The DNC sold a bill of goods by getting Biden under the assumption that he can win the election. This assumes that all of those who voted for Sanders are going to show up and vote for Biden. That isn’t going to be the case. I suspect more of those who voted for Sanders will sit this one out. If they do then it is all over. Whether you like Trump or not, Trump has a following and Biden doesn’t.

  9. Hey, Jennifer, could you please give us all a little information about these new contributors like Jacob Pierce and others who are contributing recently. Are they SJI employees, stringers, what??? Knowing their credentials helps your audience to decide what to believe about what they write.
    For instance, Mr. Pierce’s contribution is basically a small part from a May 15 story on Politico written by Natasha Korecki, where the header called Ms. Reade a “manipulative, deceitful loser” and described input from several people.
    Thanks

  10. When Tara told the world that she had been abused by her father, Robert Moulton, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the world that she had been abused by her husband, Theodore Droneen, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the world that she had been abused by her co worker, Krystal Rojas, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the world that she had been abused by her boyfriend, Edward Franklin Walker, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the world that she had been abused by the Monterrey County YMCA, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the US Bankruptcy Court that she shouldn’t have to pay her law school loans and all her other bills, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told Betty Johnson and the Pregnant Mare Rescue that she didn’t steal from them, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told Vladimir Putin that she loved him, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told Bernie Sanders that she loved him, they didn’t believe her.
    When Tara told the San Luis Obispo Prosecutor that she didn’t mean to pass bad checks, they didn’t believe her.

    • Bubba, when Bill Clinton told the world he did not have sexual relations with that woman, they believed him. When Trump denied harrassing his accusers, they believed him. When Biden denied other sexual behaviors, they believed him. Victims of trauma that do not receive support attract these predators. She probably needs some emotional support. These perverts are past due on their mental health! All we have for the presidency is trashy guys.

      • > When Trump denied harrassing his accusers, they believed him.

        FEXXY:

        I still believe him.

        I know the progressive drones think otherwise, but progressive drones are notorious for having a tenuous connection with reality.

        I myself have personally observed FEXXY herself equating a sexual fantasy entirely within Trump’s head with “sexual harassment”.

        We know from the saga of Tara Reade that many “accusers” claiming “sexual harassment” are not credible.

  11. The article is about Tara Reade. So why the photo of a guy who looks vaguely like Jo Biden?

  12. Stop believing the media is your friend. Who gives a crap about Biden or Trump anyway? Hey, the woman sold her story to greedy media folk and made a few bucks. Good for her. Who cares?

  13. Bubba, trust the media and you will believe. The media will show your way to the truth.No need to use aquired brain skills as the media will inform of us of what is truth and what is not. Good luck!

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