Saturday, October 22, 2011

The poster child for the narcissistic OWS revolution. Their motto: No responsibilities, everything for free.

Neighbors 'not surprised' 'hippie' left family to join Wall Street protesters


The Florida mom who ditched her banker husband and four kids to live in Zuccotti Park squalor is a hippie homemaker whose neighbors are horrified by her latest antics -- but are hardly surprised that she flew the coop.

Stacey Hessler, 38 -- a self-described “vegan freak” who’s into dreadlocks, roller derby and “unschooling” her kids -- acts like a self-obsessed college sophomore who never grew up, said a neighbor in her hometown of DeLand, Fla.

“I’m not disgusted she took off [to protest] -- because I’m not surprised,” seethed one next-door neighbor who asked that her name not be published.

“ ‘The Man’ she went up there to fight against is the bank where her husband works.

“She believes everything should be free,” the neighbor added.

The middle-aged flower child’s trip to New York to sleep under the stars with the Occupy Wall Street protesters waschronicled in The Post yesterday.

One angry neighbor said yesterday it was hardly surprising that Hessler would leave her kids behind and go radical.

“She’s very bizarre,” the neighbor insisted.

On her Facebook page, Hessler wrote about being a surrogate mom. She also boasted of a panoply of California-style beliefs.

She called herself a “radical unschooling mom of four, midwives assistant, roller-derby queen, rock-star musician, activist, dreadlock princess, African-bee keeper, organic vegan freak and a surrogate for the second time.”

Hessler has gotten even more hippie since she arrived in New York. In Zuccotti Park, she’s been sharing a tarp with a Brooklyn waiter and plans to stay “indefinitely.”

The waiter, Rami Shamir, vehemently declined to comment at his job last night.

While she doesn’t get much love from her neighbor, pals of Hessler clearly support her Occupy Wall Street outing.

One friend in New York called Hessler and her family “one of the most amazing and beautiful and loving families that I’ve ever encountered.”

The friend also explained how Hessler came to be part of the protest.

“She had been following this movement on her own through Facebook and YouTube and whatever, and she decided she wanted to come up to New York. And her family said, ‘Go, mom, go. This is what you want to do,’ ” said Lauren Napoli, 28, a waitress and home health aide.

“This is what she believes in, and she feels she needs to be here,” Napoli said. “She’s not being irresponsible.”

Napoli said Hessler and her tarp mate are not “bunking up in a little tent.”

“It’s not like that -- everyone who’s there, we’re trying to support each other, and when it rains you need to be under a structure.”

“I’ve been right next to her when she’s been on the phone with her kids,” she added. “It was [her youngest daughter’s] birthday recently and she called and said ‘happy birthday.’ ”

Napoli said she’s sure Hessler will return home -- “I’m sure eventually she’ll miss them and she’ll say, ‘My goal is done here.’ ”

Napoli said all in Hessler’s circle of friends are supportive of her political activism, helping getting her kids to activities.

And she’s also sure Hessler’s banker husband is on board with her demonstrating.

“From what she said to me, she said, yeah, her family supports her.”

Hessler wouldn’t comment yesterday, and her family remained mum as well.




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