the buzz log

Did an ex-boyfriend of Maria Belen Chapur leak the illicit email exchange to a South Carolina newspaper? Or could there be yet another nefarious figure lurking in the already muddled tale of governor Mark Sanford?

Chapur, a former TV producer, confirmed in a June 28 statement that she is the Argentinian Other Woman. Her 200 words mostly focused on "evil act" of email hacking, which she blamed for destroying people's lives (as opposed to the affair itself). While she says she has a "firm suspicion" of who it is, she does clear the "one friend with whom I shared days in Brazil in the Rolex Regatta."

That should absolve the ex. The New York Times had pointed to him as the culprit just a day earlier, based on the word of Chapur's former boss. Rather than a man scorned and out looking for revenge, her former boyfriend also received the chain of lovelorn pillow talk which included Chapur's description of him as a "very nice guy, great heart" and her admission, "Unfortunately I am not in love with him. You (Sanford) are my love." Ouch. (Sanford, for his part, nobly declared he didn't want her to walk away from "some guy (I take it the younger guy you mentioned at dinner) because of me — and what we both have to see as an impossible situation," in between quoting I Corinthians 13 and referencing "The Thornbirds.")

Whoever sent the emails to The State, the action turned out to be moot. As mentioned in a previous post, the newspaper couldn't confirm them. It posted the exchange only after Sanford made his famous ramble to Argentina via the Appalachian Trail.

So why did Chapur's former boss, a Buenos Aires TV exec, accuse the former beau? Who hacked into her Hotmail? Should The State (and everyone else, including us) be ashamed of publishing the emails six months late, or publishing them at all? Whatever the answers, the South Carolina saga ain't over yet.