We call 5WPR chief Ronn [sic] Torossian an "incompetent superflack" for a reason, people. He and his firm are not just annoying; they are actually incompetent at the practice of public relations. The latest, and sweetest evidence: 5WPR just got stone-cold busted for impersonating people (including a Rabbi!) in a blog comments section on behalf of a (soon-to-be-former, if they're smart) client. We have an email in to Ronn for comment, but this evidence makes a pretty good case that 5W is a bunch of mindless trolls:

Hey look, there's a new interview out with entrepreneurial success story Ronn [sic] Torossian, head of 5WPR. "The person who succeeds at 5W is someone who would find their way out of a room without a window or door. And do it quickly," he says. Oddly, that makes perfect sense. [PRNewser; RonnTorossianPR.com]

Back in March, we wrote a long post about incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian of 5WPR calling his former HR director Melissa Weiss a "stupid cunt," and being generally disreputable. The lone defender of Ronn in that case was one of his employees, Christine Garabedian. She wrote in to say Ronn is a great boss, and called (the victim!) Weiss a "jealous" single girl, ending with, "PS Melissa I just got engaged- Now are you even more jealous of me :)." LOL! At the time, several people urged us to go after Garabedian for her meanness, but we refrained, because she seemed like a peripheral figure. Well, we tried. But now she's out there pitching her own wedding to celebrity magazines as a "great story." Poorly! Oh, this is just pure gold:

"It's not uncommon for 33-year-old Ronn Torossian, the founder of PR firm 5W Public Relations, to overhear employees talking politics when he walks into his company's cafeteria...Says Torossian, 'People have a right to express what they want, within reason.'" Reasonable: "YOU STUPID CUNT." Not reasonable: "contacting 5W clients for comment." [Entrepreneur]

A pitch to a reporter from the serially incompetent 5WPR begins: "Almost 100 years ago, before the Spanish conquest of the Andes, the Incas created an agricultural paradise." Wait, did she just leave off a "0" there? No, because the Inca empire's pinnacle came in the 15th and 16th centuries. It's just pure stupidity.

So, who's the latest shady character being represented by incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian's PR firm? It's Pastor John Hagee, the John McCain-supporting zealot who's currently under fire for saying "in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine." Hagee—a strident supporter of Israel, to the point of insanity—argued that Hitler was a "hunter" sent by god to help get the Jews back to the promised land. It's a good thing that he's retained the steady hand of 5WPR to help him through this controversy:

Oh, excellent, poor Joe Francis and his Girls Gone Wild franchise will now almost definitely not have to pay any damages for releasing a Hooker Gone Wild video featuring former Gov. Eliot Spitzer call girl Ashley Dupre, because he has produced a video of Dupre totally consenting to the whole thing. The video was filmed just outside a shower, logically, and Dupre looks almost definitely drunk. Also, she's only 17.

This email has been floating around for a week or so, but we're going to run it as a public service. It was first circulated by a PR guy named Peter Shankman as a classic "How Not To Pitch A Reporter" lesson. In this case, the email pitch below was sent to a hedge fund reporter. That is to say, a professional journalist who spends his days chronicling the ins and outs of the secretive high finance world. So one might have expected that a PR firm would cull its email blast list just a bit before it went to work on behalf of its "Long Island based car shop" client. But no! Pitches like this are why reporters hate PR people. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH PR AGENCY THIS CAME FROM? The full pitch (to, again, a hedge fund reporter), and the stunning reveal of the agency's identity, after the jump.

The New York Times' big front page investigative story on Sunday about the tight connections between ex-military "analysts" on news programs and the Pentagon's PR machine was a solid re-affirmation of most people's suspicions that they, along with much of the media at large, were all play-acting in the inevitable march to war. The piece was hugely comprehensive, but it did lack the input of one man: incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian, head of the press-friendly agency 5WPR! Luckily, Ronn has chimed in with his advice to all of you who may have been upset by the story of undercover warmongering propaganda: chill. It's all just PR 101.

Employment opportunity: 5WPR is looking for an HR director! I wonder if that's because incompetent superflack and 5W CEO Ronn [sic] Torossian fired his last HR director, filed a lawsuit against her, called her a "STUPID CUNT," and scared off potential clients? Well it could be anything, really. Good HR directors are hard to find! The full job ad is below, so apply right now.

Incompetent and angry superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian and his agency, 5WPR, are all about creating powerful connections among the real movers and shakers in New York. So if you're a client or "FRIEND OF THE FIRM"—and if you are, you have some serious self-examination to do—you're invited to a special 5WPR Speaker Series event featuring Dr. Keith Ablow, succinctly described on his website as a "Forensic psychiatrist and author of thrillers." His topic for the evening? "Friction in the workplace and the necessity for conflict/resolution and chemistry building." What better subject for a night with Ronn, a man popular with employees, potential clients, the media, and feminists alike? Anyone lucky enough to attend this ironic event, please send us a report. The full—and predictably ineloquent—invitation is below.

"The number of resumes from media folks seeking to transition to PR in recent months has been nothing short of shocking to me. Simply a tremendous amount of resumes floating around this way (particularly among TV folks)."—5WPR CEO Ronn [sic] Torossian, on his blog yesterday. Questionable decision-making skills, media folks!

On Wednesday night, I had a meeting with Juda Engelmayer and Adam Handelsman, two top executives at Ronn Torossian's 5WPR, to hear them out. The meeting could accurately be described as "strained, but civil." I told Handelsman—who sold his own firm to 5W in 2004, and is now a partner in the agency—to send me a letter outlining his objections to our coverage of Ronn and 5W, and we would run it. His email came last night, and it is reproduced in its entirety below.

5WPR CEO Ronn Torossian has forwarded us an email from Doug Imbruce, CEO of theU and CollegeOTR—the company that decided not to hire 5W previously, as reported in our last item. Click through to read Imbruce's entire email to 5W, in which he apologizes for the headache and objects to our characterization of their relationship. Though minutes later, Imbruce emailed us to add: "But, for the record: We are not hiring 5WPR as a direct result of the behavior of their CEO, and I am shocked he forwarded that email to you prior to me reaching out."

We received a lovely email last night from Stephanie Burton, the editor-in-chief of CollegeOTR, a college blog network. Burton tells us that she and her boss were looking for a PR firm to get them some visibility, and someone referred them to 5WPR, helmed by incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian. When they asked the agency about Ronn's bad press, "They brushed off our concerns about Ronn's reputation and blamed "jilted" news reporters for the bad press," she writes. [An interesting formulation: reporters who dislike 5W for legitimate reasons are "jilted!"] CollegeOTR eventually decided not to hire Ronn and 5W. And now, after learning more about his "Cunt" related history (summed up here)," she says, "The fact that we even considered working with him is more than slightly nauseating." That's edumacational! And after the jump, Ronn speaks out (and gets spoken about)!

Softcore porn king and "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis was set free today after spending the past year in a Nevada jail. He pleaded no contest to charges of filming naked underage girls, and was let off with time served . Who is he turning to to rehabilitate his shattered image during this critical period? None other than woman-cursing flack Ronn [sic] Torossian's 5WPR, home to more than a few disgruntled ex-staffers. Francis worked with 5W before, and I guess the whole "women as stupid cunts" angle does fit in with his normal M.O. Rock on! [TMZ] UPDATE: And here is Ronn's perfectly tone deaf quote to the media about Francis:

Incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian is a busy man. When he's not suing his former employees (another one, yesterday!) or calling one of those employees a "STUPID CUNT," he has to run his firm, 5WPR. So what is life at 5W like? Judging from the tips we've gotten from former employees, we'd describe it as: Shouty and unhappy, with a mild chance of being embarrassed by a stripper.

When Ronn [sic] Torossian, the incompetent superflack and 5WPR CEO who reps characters ranging from softcore porn king Joe Francis to nutty televangelist Benny Hinn Ministries, sued his former HR director Melissa Weiss last week, he was using a classic PR tactic: getting out ahead of the story. Ronn alleged in his suit that Weiss helped an employee leave 5W, thereby violating her contract. But Weiss has her own side of the story: that she was fired because she protested extensive, ongoing labor violations at 5WPR. What we know—because we have the evidence—is that on Friday, Ronn sent Weiss an email threatening, "You will pay for the rest of your life for trying to ruin my business." The subject line read, "YOU STUPID CUNT."

A quick note regarding incompetent superflack Ronn Torossian's lawsuit against his HR director: There's much more to the story, including a fully separate set of allegations from the HR director against Ronn and 5WPR. We are assembling the details for a full report. As always, if you have further information on Ronn, 5WPR, or his tiff with his HR director, Melissa Weiss, please email us.

5WPR CEO and shouty flack Ronn [sic] Torossian has filed a lawsuit against Melissa Weiss, his recently departed HR director, for helping a 5WPR employee look for another job. Let's make this clear: While Weiss was in charge of 5W's human resources department, the suit alleges that she was simultaneously helping a 5W account executive look for a job with another firm. The evidence consists of several emails between her and the other (now former) 5W employee, Maureen Lynch. Lynch tells us the suit is "a complete lie" and that the emails are unrelated. We have a call in to Weiss' attorney. On one hand, it's understandable that Ronn wouldn't want HIS OWN HR DIRECTOR—who was hired just last month—steering employees towards the competition. On the other hand, what would it say about life at 5W if that actually happened? From a PR standpoint, it may have been wiser to keep this quiet. Oh well! Ronn is seeking $360,000 in damages on each of three counts in the suit. After the jump, the smoking gun (?) emails that make up the evidence.