A list of members of an Internet cheating website yielded the names of two Arkansas lawmakers as well as the name of a recently retired Arkansas Supreme Court justice.
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Earlier this week, the group that hacked into AshleyMadison.com -- a website that caters to marital infidelity with the motto of "Life is short. Have an affair." -- released the user information. The website claims to have 39 million users. Computer security experts say the released information appears to be a legitimate copy of the website's data, but much of it includes user names, addresses and email addresses that were not verified when users signed up. The data also include credit card transactions.
On Friday, staff members of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analyzed the hacked site's raw data -- which was obtained by the paper's information-technology unit and then isolated for credit card transactions for Arkansas addresses -- and found the names, emails and address information for two current state representatives, Reps. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, and John Baine, D-El Dorado.
Lowery said Friday that he did use the site but that he thought it was merely a dating website and didn't know it was a niche site for cheating spouses.
Baine, who announced Thursday that he was not seeking re-election, did not respond to calls or messages Friday for comment.
The list also included the name "Judge Donald L. Corbin," and listed a Little Rock address of 625 Marshall St., which is the mailing address for the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The activity on the Ashley Madison account for "Judge Donald L. Corbin" went from late September through late January this year.
Justice Donald Corbin, who joined the state's highest bench in 1991, retired at the end of 2014. There was no answer at a number listed for Corbin's Little Rock address. A message sent to the email account listed in the data was not returned Friday.
One Ashley Madison account registered to a "John A. Baine" of El Dorado was active from 2011 through the end of 2014.
There also was another account for a "John A. Baine," also of El Dorado, that was active from February 2014 through July 2014.
Rep. Baine did not return multiple calls to both his office and his listed home phone. He did not respond to a message sent to his House of Representatives email.
Baine, an accountant for Murphy USA Inc., was first elected to the Legislature in 2012 after spending more than a decade on the Union County Quorum Court.
On Thursday, Baine announced that he would not seek re-election, citing growing responsibilities with his job and family.
"It's a good time to go home," Baine said Thursday.
Lowery said he joined in November 2011 after a long separation from his former wife. Once he realized that a divorce was "imminent," Lowery said he joined the site because it sounded like other dating websites.
"I was embarrassed that that information has come out. The marriage was technically over, and you know ... the holiday season is a hard time for someone going through a divorce or newly divorced, but that's not to justify it," Lowery said. "Looking at it, a period of being alone at the holidays, I made a poor choice in how to address that."
Lowery, who is in his second term as a legislator, said that he used his profile several times and sent messages to other members but never met with anyone from the website.
In a formal statement released later Friday, Lowery asked friends, family and constituents for "grace and forgiveness."
"As I told supporters when I first announced for office in 2012, I am a flawed individual and I do the best I can each and every day to overcome my personal shortcomings. I regret using this path to seek companionship and fully admit my irresponsible curiosity," Lowery wrote. "I never met anyone through the site and I never used what are typically portrayed as the more sordid aspects of the site."
In Arkansas, more than 6,000 unique names were used on the site. Users from Little Rock, Fayetteville, Rogers, Conway and Bentonville were most active, according to an analysis of transactions.
Avid Life Media, the Canadian company that runs Ashley Madison, said it is working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Toronto Police Services and the U.S.' FBI to investigate the data breach.
"This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality," the company said in a Tuesday statement. "It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities."
Hackers who call themselves Impact Team posted the user data earlier this week. The hackers first threatened a data breach in July if Avid Life Media didn't take down AshleyMadison.com.
On Thursday, former reality-TV star and social conservative Josh Duggar admitted to a "secret addiction" to pornography and infidelity after it was revealed that Duggar was a member of the website.
Metro on 08/22/2015