The email arrived just before lunchtime June 15. In it, a photo showed a tanned nude blonde bending over, underpants around her thighs. With seductive eyes, she gazed at the camera. Below the image was a list of her interests: "Role-playing, cuckolding, slaves, ATM piggies, verbal humiliation..." The subject line read, "Porn star... Jenny Santana Ballman want[s] a fight."
The email came from a 38-year-old Coconut Grove pilot and Internet-multimillionaire-gone-bust named Glenn Ballman. The sexpot in the photo was his wife, Jenny. Recipients included at least 30 parents of students at the elite St. Stephen's Episcopal Day School, where the couple's kids attend. The message also went to attorneys at one of Florida's most prestigious law firms, White & Case.
Some of the St. Stephen's parents were angry. Jenny had chaperoned field trips and attended morning flag ceremonies at the half-century-old school.
The email chronicles six days of text messages, apparently exchanged between Jenny and several men. It begins with the following note from her husband: "Times have been tight since the recession hit. [She] has been home alone for 28 days in May of 2009 when this starts. I am up in Canada starting a company, working very long hours, and sending everything home to make ends meet."
It continues with transcripts of text messages allegedly pirated
from Jenny's BlackBerry. The first one includes conversations with men
named Brad and Jeremy:
Update: Jenny Ballman claims Glenn penned the text messages himself. "Those are not facts, those are all written by him," she says.
They begin:
May 28
9:19 p.m.
Jenny to Brad: I am... I wish you were here.
Brad: Really? That would be nice... What would we do?
Jenny: I would love to talk and kiss for hours.
Brad: Sweet. Does it involve a Rolling Stones T-shirt?
Jenny: More bareback.
Brad: Delicious!!!
Side note from husband: "Are you kidding me? We're married with four kids and she's talking about doing more bareback with this guy?"
A few minutes later:
Jeremy: Just got home. Need to shower and have to get pretty for you. Lol.
11:05 p.m.
Brad: Did I lose you?
Jenny: Never.
Brad: You have questions to respond to.
Jenny: What's the question?
Brad: Do I have to share? And tell me more about the kissing.
Jenny: Share everything... I'm dying to kiss you.
Brad: Do I share you? You won't share me.
Jenny: No sharing... You are all I need.
Glenn Ballman is a big name in some circles. He's been profiled in BusinessWeek and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. As a brash 24-year-old in 1996, he founded an e-commerce site called Onivia.com and raised $600 million in an IPO. Then, when the firm's value dropped in 2001, he sold it, "picked up a helicopter license," and planned an "around-the-globe voyage," according to the Post-Intelligencer. "Ballman in many ways epitomized the dot-com CEO of the late 1990s," the paper wrote, "young, passionate, and full of energy."
He eventually ended up in Miami and became CEO of a financial services corporation called Genesis Exchange. It's unclear when he met Jenny, but in 2006, the couple paid $900,000 for a home with a kidney-shape pool a few blocks from Biscayne Bay in the Grove.
The family, like many, has recently experienced financial problems. In 2008, the IRS placed a $1 million lien on their house. This past February, HSBC Bank began foreclosure proceedings. And though Miami-Dade court records show Glenn once owned a private plane, none is registered to him with the Federal Aviation Administration today.
Glenn's email to the lawyers and St. Stephen's parents claims Jenny had an amateur porn career and went by the names "SexyLexus" and "Lexus888." She allegedly posted videos on NiteFlirt.com, an adult site where users pay for erotic videos.
And it wasn't just Brad and Jeremy who sparked Glenn's anger. An attorney named Victor, who works at White & Case, also likes to text:
May 29
8:37 p.m.
Jenny: Just got home and can't believe I'm buzzing!! At a kid's birthday party!!
Victor: Am laughing. Sounds like a good party.
Jenny: I would love to cuddle with you right now, smell u, kiss u, talk to u.
Victor: And much more. Me too... Not sure if I can go a day without seeing you again.
Jenny: I'm dying.
May 30
9:25 a.m.
Jenny: Slept in :) This is crazy. I go to sleep thinking about you, I wake up thinking about you... coño!
Victor: Agree :)
Saturday May 31:
7:48 a.m.
Victor: You didn't have to "forget" your bracelets to see me again. I am hard this morning thinking of you. I have a problem. P.S. I don't want either of us to see other people and I know it is early in the relationship. It is just how I feel and I want to get it off my chest.
Jenny: You're so funny... I love that about you. I guess I have to see you again. I just realized u didn't say u only wanted to date me... Should I take it back, rico suave?
Victor: No, I only want to date you :)
Jenny: Happy now. :)
3:34 p.m.
Jenny: Miss me yet?
Victor: Am reading in bed -- haven't left my house and haven't stopped thinking of you.
Jenny: I'm trying not to text u or call u. It's hard, but I hate playing the game, so there :) I'm going to grab dinner with a friend later. If you're around maybe I can see you.
Victor: My house is yours and always feel comfortable to come by.
Sunday, June 1
9:10 a.m.
Jenny: Trying to work out and all I'm thinking of is you.
Victor: Left you a voice mail with the same problem.
9:58 a.m.
Jenny to husband: Hey, I miss you...
Husband: Miss you back. Exhausted from working and can't wait to see you guys this weekend.
Jenny: Can you transfer money down today?
12:17 p.m.
Husband: Yes. I've transferred $6,000 down. There is just enough to cover everything this week.
Jenny: Awesome! Good job, Smorsies.
Side note from husband: "Smores is her pet name for me. I used to really like it."
3:20 p.m.
Victor: Thanks for calling. It brought a big smile to my face.
6:20 p.m.
Jenny: I want to ravage you.
June 2
7:06 a.m.
Victor: What time do I have to be at church and what do I have to wear?
Side note from husband: "I have to say this shocked me... Jenny is taking a guy that she met 14 days ago and has fucked four times to watch one of my four kids' graduation school play in the church with all of the other parents."
When the messages -- which must have taken hours to type into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet -- end, Glenn fills in the reader: "At this point, Jenny buys a new cell phone with the money I have just wired." He found all the text messages on her discarded BlackBerry.
Parts of the conversations described above have appeared without names on a website called Abovethelaw.com. The Wall Street Journal's legal blog even linked to it. And Miami's Daily Business Review ran a tepid story about the law firm's public relations nightmare -- again without naming names or providing details.
Neither Jenny nor Victor would comment about the situation. But Jenny told Abovethelaw.com her hubby encouraged her to sell porn because it brought in cash. "He told me to get back on to make money for the family... I think it turned him on, me doing it."
Reached by email last week, Glenn Ballman would say only: "The situation speaks for itself. I am disgusted by the whole series of events."
Parents who received the text messages are disgusted too -- but mostly with Glenn. A mother named Julie Seguin says, "It's pretty low of the husband."
Dad James Hawkins adds, "It should have been kept private."
Says Sheldon Lowe, father of a fifth-grader: "Do I stand in judgment of her? No. Did I enjoy hearing the story? Absolutely."
On June 29, after New Times began asking about the text messages, St. Stephen's Head of School Silvia Larrauri sent a mass email to parents. "I urge you to make no comment if you are contacted by the media." She added that the Ballmans were no longer St. Stephen's parents.
Contacted about the school's parent/porn-star policy, Larrauri responded, "Well, we do screen our parents... But I'm not sure you can screen for something like that."
