NYTimes Column on Providence Hogan Inspires Generosity

The power of the press?

As , the column Ginia Bellafante wrote about Providence Hogan, "The Outcast of Brownstone Brooklyn," galvanized support for the woman who admitted to stealing $82,000 from the P.S. 29 PTA.

The Brooklyn Paper reached out to Bellafante for comment , and found the author surprised by the financial support her piece garnered for its subject.

“The response to [the story] from locals was largely critical,” she told the Brooklyn Paper. “It wasn’t necessarily evident that she had many sympathizers — not to mention financially generous ones.”

Indeed, many locals felt her column had inappropriately cast the rest of the PTA (mothers, not fathers) as vengeful.

One PTA member and P.S. 29 mother, Ariane Ben-Eli, .

"In her attempt to paint a sympathetic portrait of Providence, Ms. Bellafante lobs grenades at what she describes as 'the better kempt, the right and righteous' sorority of Cobble Hill mothers."

The piece painted a picture of Hogan as a woman who'd had a tough life, and the author went so far as to argue against a jail sentence for her. 

"Allow Ms. Hogan to repay her debt on a realistic timetable and require her to perform community service at a school with few of the benefits available at a place like P.S. 29."

Bellafante told the Brooklyn Paper she did not consider her piece to be “inappropriately sympathetic.”

But regardless of how some people in the community felt about the column, others turned to their wallets in search of a way to support Hogan.

"Ms. Bellafante's article stimulated some people to come forward and advance money to her," said Hogan's attorney Stephen Flamhaft on Tuesday, who added that he himself had been representing Hogan "almost on a no fee basis."