Tony Krvaric, San Diego Republican Party chairman and head of the party's state budget committee, "is the co-founder of Fairlight, a band of software crackers which later evolved into an international video and software piracy group that law enforcement authorities say is among the world's largest such rings," says the online news website Raw Story in today's (April 29) edition. The story was written by Miriam Raftery, a senior investigative reporter for the site who lives and writes in East County. She had been working on the story for several months when she came upon an anonymous email that went to conservatives titled "The Secret Life of Tony Krvaric." It alleged that Krvaric, using the alias "Strider," founded a company named Fairlight PC "to illegally crack and distribute copyrighted software." In her narrative, Raftery explains how Krvaric, born in Sweden, came to the U.S. in 1992 and brought along his favorite slogan: "Kill a Commie for Your Mommie." In 1992, after some people were arrested for credit card fraud, Krvaric abandoned the PC business, but set up Fairlight Trading, according to Raftery. That firm concentrated in trading computer parts, but was in "a legal gray area," says Raftery, In late 1997, Krvaric left that business and went into securities. However, in 2004, a Fairlight PC co-founder said Krvaric was still in charge of Fairlight PC, according to the article. Raftery notes that when she asked Republican headquarters where to find Krvaric, a worker told her to go to [email protected], an address he lists with the Registrar of Voters. Krvaric wouldn't respond to Raftery's questions, but sent an email to fellow Republicans, saying, "Apparently there is a hit piece floating around on me, 'exposing' my wild high school, teenage years." He describes the computer club of his youth and his later business "selling computer and video game chips and accessories." He blames the publicity on "the democrats, labor or someone else."