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Sunday, September 14, 2014
Analysis #1 Of Testimony Of Marco Chiacchiera, Director, Organized Crime Section, Flying Squad
Posted by Cardiol MD
Dr Chiacchiera with Dr Comodi explaining reason for charges in another case
Overview Of This Series
Yet another vital translation which will be posted in the trial testimony areaof McCall's great Wiki. This again is translated by the ever-dedicated main posterr ZiaK.
Although I graduated as a medical doctor I also graduated as a lawyer, and was often in courtrooms. For this post and the rest of the Chiacchiera series I am wearing my lawyer's hat to point out what strikes me in Prosecutor Comodi's questions, Marco Chiacchiera's testimony, and the cross-examinations by defense lawyers.
Prior Preparations And Procedures
Under the Italian Code, before the beginning of the trial phase in Italy, the parties file a brief, detailing all evidence they want to present – the parties have to indicate by name every witness and precisely what these will be asked. The aims include creation of a Record of Admissible Facts.
Also under the Italian Code, both the defendant and the prosecutor can cross-examine each other's witnesses. The Judge may choose not to admit any testimony that appears patently superfluous, reject irrelevant or improper or irregular questions – such as leading questions, and Inadmissible Hearsay – and also ask questions to the witnesses and experts.
Ground Covered In Dr Chiacchiera's Testimony
- (1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.
(2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the "break-In" to Romanelli's room was faked.
(3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.
(4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito's house.
(5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito's and the evidence that it is the murder knife.
My Assessment Of This Court Exchange
It is immediately obvious to me that this witness is a skilled witness; as such, and given his deep hands-on involvement in the immediate investigation this witness's testimony is credible. My assessment therefore is that this was a very good and unflinching witness and that Dr Comodi shows no signs of leading the witness or seeking other than a truthful record.
I have seen prosecutors examine witnesses differently but dont believe the resultant record would have been superior. This would have stood up well in any American court.
Public Prosecutor Comodi [MC]
MC: Dr Chiacchiera, you carried out your duties where, when, at what moment of the events?
MaCh: I was and am the director of the Organized Crime Section of the Flying Squad and I am the vice-director of the Flying Squad. The Organized Crime Section is a branch of the Flying Squad that deals with … the term, I think that in this place [i.e. the court] it is enough to say that it deals with organized crime. However, I am also the vice-director of the Flying Squad, for which [reason] I deal with, in the case of need, everything that is necessary [for] the various aspects.
{Witness supplies 5 items of relevant information that Examiner should elicit at beginning of examination.}
MC: Can you tell the Court how you became aware of events, who called you, when you became involved?
{Examiner asks another triple-question}
MaCh: Yes.
{Witness simply answers question as worded by Examiner}
MC: For now, start to tell us, then maybe I will intervene [NdT: i.e. interrupt with further questions] if necessary.
{Examiner, asking no Q, instructs witness, suggesting provisional forbearance if witness does not make interruptions necessary.}
MaCh: On the fateful day, at around 12:33, I had gone to the cemetery with my mother. The operations room called me immediately after the discovery of the body.
{Witness begins appropriate narrative response, but Examiner interrupts}
MC: So the 113? [NdT: 113 is the Italian State Police emergency number]
{Examiner interrupts witness with a Q, suggesting witness's receipt of call from an emergency number, but suggests wrong source-number}
MaCh: 110. The operations room of the Questura called me, and informed me of the happenings in an initially obviously very summarized manner. They said to me that there was a suspicious death, a young woman who lived in via della Pergola. I rushed to the place directly in my mother's car. I didn't stop by at the Questura, I didn't go to get the service [i.e. police] car. I got myself taken to via della Pergola. We took about 15 minutes from the cemetery to there, ten fifteen minutes. In the meantime, I phoned the deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, in the temporary absence of the director, Dr Profazio, who arrived later, who was … he was enjoying a period of leave, and with deputy Commissioner Napoleoni we arrived almost at the same time. We arrived almost simultaneously at the premises. Forensics, too, arrived almost at the same time at the premises.
{Witness supplies correct source-number and resumes interrupted narrative response}
MC: The Perugia Forensics?
{Examiner questions witness's correction, as if to verify and to ensure accuracy of court's record}
MaCh: The Perugia Forensics, I highlight, yes.
{Witness emphatically agrees with Examiner's question}
MC:[They were] alerted by you, or ...?
{Examiner pauses mid-Q, inviting witness to guess complete Q, or is interrupted}
MaCh:Alerted by the operations room, and also alerted by me.
{Witness responds to invitation, or interrupts with A to assumed complete Q}
MC:So you arrive, and who do you find?
{Examiner's 1st simple Q.}
MaCh: I found there ... there was already deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, there were also a few of Meredith's co-tenants. There was Amanda Knox, there was Raffaele Sollecito. There were two young men who were, I believe, the friend of the boyfriend of one of the co-tenants. In short, there were a few people who had already been inside the house. There was the Postal Police.
{Witness answers Q in reasonable detail}
MC:In the person of…?
{Examiner seeks more detail re specific Postal Police Personnel}
MaCh: Battistelli and another of Battistelli's colleagues. Inspector Battistelli, with whom there was immediately a discussion in order to understand what were the reasons for his intervention there, because it is not normal to find the Postal [police] in a crime of this sort. And he explained to me immediately what was the reason for his intervention. The origin of the, shall we way of his intervention, was due to the discovery of a pair of cellphones in a period of time, I believe, of an hour, [or] two, I don't recall clearly, that were one in the name of one of Meredith's co-tenants and one in the name of, later it [sic] … I mean the SIM [card], obviously, the cellphones' SIMs, the cards, they were in the name of a co-tenant and the other in Meredith's [name]. The co-tenant, however, then told us, we then ascertained that both of the cellphones in fact were used by Meredith. And already that was, how shall we say, a first detail on which we began to reflect because, in fact, that was an element than in some way made us [become] immediately occupied/involved from an investigative point of view.
{Witness responds to Q and includes relevant amplifying narrative, anticipating probable future Qs re cellphones}
MC: So, excuse me, also if the Court already, shall we say, knows this, because others have reported it, on this point however, where were the cellphones found?
{Examiner seems to interrupt with simple Q to clarify specific relevant fact not yet reached}
MaCh:Inside the garden of a villa that is in via Sperandio.
{Witness responds appropriately}
MC:In via Sperandio.
{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}
MaCh: A villa that ... I am Perugian, [and] honestly, I didn't even know there was a villa there. I'm Perugian, and I swear that I would have sworn [sic] that behind there was a wood.
{Witness flounders, seems unable to be more specific}
MC:A field
{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}
MaCh: It [was] the first time that I went in behind there. Instead, I see a marvelous old mansion with an enormous garden that gives ... that is almost adjacent to the street – the street that leads towards Ponte Rio. Anyone from Perugia understands me maybe.
{Witness seems to be in informal conversational mode}
MC: From the structure of the fencing/enclosure, could you tell, shall we say, whether it was possible to throw these cellphones from the street, or whether it was necessary to enter the garden itself?
{Examiner engages witness, and asks Q to clarify how cellphones got into that garden}
MaCh: Yes, obviously, we checked that. In fact, immediately, in short, the detail that seemed, how shall we say, of great investigative interest was that [very point], besides other details that I will go [into] a bit [sic], so to speak, also to give the impression of what the immediate impact was that we saw in the moment when we found ourselves in a situation of this type. So, deputy Napoleoni immediately entered inside the house in order to check it for herself. I did it [entered] shortly afterwards, also because [as] you will imagine that in that moment whoever was there had to notify all those who [sic], amongst whom Dr Mignini who was the Public Prosecutor on duty, and immediately give orders so that the correct checks are carried out. Because it was not just a crime scene that had to be analysed immediately: there also had to be, how shall we say, correlated with the information that we had got from via Sperandio – because the entry of the Postal [police in the case] originated with via Sperandio. And so we immediately asked ourselves: "Ah, what are these cellphones belonging to poor Meredith doing inside the garden of a villa?" And then And then immediately after, we asked ourselves, obviously, what might be the profile of the possible, or probable, murderer, and we discussed/talked about the crime scene. The crime scene immediately seemed fairly strange to us, if you wish [NdT: literally "if we wish" in Italian, but meaning the same as "shall we say", "if you wish", "so to speak" etc.]
{Witness responds to Q with detailed narrative}
{Examiner asks ambiguous Q, probably wrt crime scene seeming "fairly strange "}
MaCh:Because the door did not show… the entry door to the villa did not show signs of break-in. The we checked …
{Witness seems to decipher ambiguity correctly, begins narrative response, but is interrupted by Examiner}
MC:We are not talking about the villa on via Sperandio obviously?
{Examiner interrupts with Q, apparently not comprehending Witness's narratives}
MaCh: For the love of god! It was called a "villa" … (overlap of voices), let's say the house, of the house on via della Pergola there was no forcing/break-in. We found a forcing on the window. The window is this one, on the side of the house. I don't know if you've seen the house? Anyhow, it is this one on the side of the house that can be seen immediately when you come down the slope from the gate. Logically reconstructing the thing, a hypothetical prowler [NdT: literally "ill-intentioned person"] who entered the house, breaking the glass with a rock - because inside the room, which was Romanelli's room, which was the, shall we say, hypothetical arena of the entry, was completely in utter chaos. For that reason, what should we have hypothesized? That the hypothetical prowler took a rock, managed to throw the rock; the shutters, the external ones, the external shutters were not …
{Witness is exasperated at Examiner's apparent incomprehension, is repeating his previous testimony, but is interrupted by Examiner}
MC:The dark-green wooden ones?
{Examiner interrupts with Leading Q re colour of external shutters. Now begins a confused and confusing colloquy. The arrangement of Filomena Romanelli's window, with Outside, and Inside Shutters, the Broken-Glass-Frame in-between, and the glass-splinters on the window-sill is complicated and needs a picture-exhibit that the witness can refer-to; this is apparently not provided, leading to the confusions}
MaCh:The dark-green wooden ones were half shut, for which reason [he] must have had an aim like "Pecos Bill" [NdT: a cartoon Wild West cowboy], takes aim and throws that rock, smashes the window. After, he climbs up and does a turn on the little slope, and has to clamber up towards the window on the smooth surface, it seems to me, that from the ground up to the window there are two and a half metres-three [metres]. And then would have said: "bah, in short" [sic]. Yeah, well, the thing seemed to us…. in short, the first hypothesis that the investigator normally does, finds a level of unlikelihood of this kind of happening. After which, we looked at the house and we saw that an entry of a potential prowler [ill-intentioned person], still reasoning on the hypothesis…
{Witness amplifies narrative response but is interrupted by Examiner}
MC:Of theft.
{Examiner inappropriately interrupts, incorrectly guessing what witness was about to say}
MaCh: Of theft ending badly. Of theft that then degenerates because the burglar in some way thinks that he will find no-one in the house and instead finds a person, and then it degenerates … We saw that there were easier means of entry, without wishing to bore you, but behind the house there was the possibility of climbing in a much easier way, without being seen by people that might have passed in the road. Let's remember that, in short, it was not very late; quite the contrary. Normally people passed there, for which reason, if [he] had done it, the thing would probably have been seen. That thing there, as an hypothesis, we didn't immediately discount it, that's clear, because it's a good rule to never discount any hypothesis. But we immediately considered that it was not a priority.
{Witness corrects Examiner's wrong guess, amplifies and seems to end narrative response}
MC:Dr Chiacchiera, I interrupt you. (The witness is shown an exhibit.)
{Examiner, seems to acknowledge her habit of interruptions without actually interrupting, while introducing an unspecified exhibit. This introduction seems very informal, because Exhibits are normally identified by an assigned title.}
MaCh:Ah! I didn't remember it as being so big.
{Witness recognizes unspecified exhibit}
MC:Precisely! You saw it? This is the rock that ...
{Examiner engages witness, stating it is "the rock".}
MaCh:Yes, but it has been some time I have not, how shall we say, yes, I saw it. Absolutely.
However, it's big, it's huge.
{Witness engages Examiner, commenting on how large the rock exhibit is}
MC:Do you consider that it could be this?
{Examiner ambiguously (what are "it" & "this "?) asks witness's opinion}
MaCh:I believe so.
{Witness seems to overlook ambiguity of Q with vague A)
MC:I try …
{Examiner begins to speak but is interrupted}
Judge Massei [GCM]:How?
{Court interrupts as if to ask Q how Examiner 'tries'}
MC:It is this. Yes, it is this one that was collected, yes, that was found.
{Witness seems to confirm that exhibited rock is the rock found in Filomena's room}
GCM:So the rock is shown. [NdT: an "aside" for the court records?]
{Court formally announces admission of rock-exhibit, seemingly trying to reduce confusion caused by informal dialogue}
MaCh:Inside the room where we then found the rock…
??:But what was the question about the rock?
{Witness amplifies that rock had been found in a room, but enquires re rock Q, exposing confusion caused by informal dialogue}
GCM:If this was the rock. And the witness said ...
{Court begins explanation to confused witness}
MaCh:I said yes. Yes.
{Witness interrupts Court - confusion reigns}
GCM:You saw it? You saw the rock?
{Court asks witness 2 Qs, trying to clarify that 'it' refers to 'the rock' that witness saw.}
{Witness confirms that witness had previously seen the rock introduced into court as an unlisted exhibit.}
GCM:When you saw it, where was it?
{Court proceeds to clarify confusion re where the rock was when witness originally saw the rock}
MaCh:The rock [was] in the room of Romanelli.
{Witness specifically testifies, for witness's first time, that when witness originally saw the rock, the rock was in Filomena Romanelli's room}
GCM:How far from the window? Can you say?
{Court continues to seek clarification using double-Q.}
MaCh: A few centimetres [NdT: "un palmo" = "a hand's width"] from the window sill, under the window, from the wall where the window is.
{Witness testifies clearly in answer to Court's 1st Q of above double-Q.}
GCM:So from the internal perimeter wall, from where the window gives onto it, a "hand's breadth". So 20 centimetres…
{Court apparently begins to seek verification of witness's testimony, but is interrupted}
MaCh:Mr President ....
{Witness begins to Interrupt Court}
GCM:... away from it approximately.
{Court finishes his interrupted statement}
{Witness agrees with Court's completed statement}
GCM:And this is the rock. You remember it.
{Court states his understanding in form of Qs.}
MaCh:Yes, yes, yes, yes. That is the rock.
{Witness impatiently agrees with Court's understanding}
MC:At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it corresponds thus to the one that was collected [as evidence].
{Examiner makes statements in form of Q, seeking verification of resemblance of exhibit-rock to original rock}
MaCh:At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it absolutely corresponds. If it was collected, I think that ...
{Witness begins narrative agreement with statements of Examiner, but is apparently interrupted by Examiner}
MC: Very well. WITNESS [sic? Should be MaCh?] and Romanelli's room was a complete shambles. The clothes were on the floor, the glass was strangely on top of the clothes, the [glass] shards were strangely on top of the … on the windowsill, let's put it that way.
{Apparent Transcriptional confusion attributing to interrupted witness narrative the interrupting .statement of Examiner}
MC:The outside one.
{Examiner seems to amplify statement of Examiner wrt which window-shutter witness had been referring-to}
MaCh: The outside one, precisely. The one that is between the shutters and the shutters [sic. NdT: "imposte" in Italian, but this can also mean shutters, or flap, as in the inner "scuri" shutters, or he may mean the window-frame itself, with the window-panes, given his following description], the green shutters and the shutters, the broken ones in short, where the glass is. The shutters – the wooden ones. The rock was a bit too close with regard to the wall if I [were to] throw it from least two metres. Unless it was lobbed [i.e. thrown in a high arc]. But in that case it's rather unlikely that it would smash the glass. For that reason, I repeat, in the context of immediate likelihood, this one …
{Witness agrees with Examiner that he was referring to "The outside one", continuing with narrative of reasoning, but is interrupted by Examiner…}
MC:Yes, it's true. These are considerations. However they are considerations, shall we say, that refer [sic], because they are reasoning/lines of thought that are formed in the "immediacy" of the events [NdT: i.e. "in the immediate aftermath". NOTE: throughout the text, a number of speakers use "immediatezza" (lit. "immediacy") to convey a number of meanings, from "in the immediate aftermath", or "in the immediate surroundings", or "very soon after", etc. I will translate them appropriately according to the context, without further explanation of the use of "immediatezza"], in order to proceed in one direction rather than another.
{Examiner, interrupting witness, apparently agreeing with witness's reasoning. While Examiner is apparently stating his own argumentative reservations re the possible evolution-in-time of witness's changing lines of reasoning, he is interrupted by Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito defense lawyer:}
Giulia Bongiorno [GB]: I never like to interrupt an examination [of a witness], however if one wanted, between the Public Prosecutor's hypotheses, to do that [sic] of demonstrating that from a ballistic point of view it is not possible, then the ballistic expert should be called.
{GB interrupts Examiner to comment that Witness and Examiner are expressing opinions on Ballistics that require the testimony of a Ballistic Expert.}
MC:But in fact, his considerations are not the considerations of an expert: they are the considerations of an investigator who made certain deductions in the immediacy of the events.
{Examiner argues that witness's testimony is that of an investigator's temporal train of thought.}
MaCh:It happens to us too, at times, to reason/think rationally …
{Witness joins colloquy, amplifying Examiner's argument.}
GCM:These reasonings/deductions, then determined your investigative activity in one direction rather than in an …?
{Court seems to invite further amplification by witness}
MaCh: Yes, obviously, Mr President. I was trying to ... (overlap of voices) it is a premiss/basis to be able to then, how shall we say, reach – I won't say conclusions – but in order to try to understand what our way of broaching the thing was, there and then. We had, I reassert, reasoned immediately also on via Sperandio. So the first thing, I may say, [was] the unlikelihood, or at any rate it was not the top priority hypothesis, the one of a prowler/ill-intentioned person entering. The open door without signs of break-in. But above all, a young woman who is [sic] probably killed in her own room, nude or almost nude, with a wound of that type, in a lake of blood, covered with a duvet. I repeat, the door was not smashed/wrecked, there's a broken … a window broken with a thrown rock, how can I say, it's obvious that we immediately found this situation as … (overlap of voices).
MaCh:… particular.
{Witness further amplifies narrative}
GCM:You formed these considerations, and what did they lead you to?
{Court asks simple Q.}
MaCh: That very probably the author or authors knew the person, or at any rate that the author or authors did not enter … did not enter from the window-pane of that window.
{Witness responds with his conclusion that the authors of the faked break-in did not enter from the window-pane of that window.}
GCM: Excuse me a moment, just to give some guidelines, but of the evaluations that the witness is expressing, obviously it's not that they can be taken account of, however we will acquire them [for the trial files] in order to understand the investigation activities, the appropriateness of the investigations that were carried out, directed in one way or in another, there you go. However, maybe, … there you go, yes, maybe if we can manage to keep with the bare essentials this will help everybody.
{Court proceedings seem to have been diverted into a free-for-all colloquy, with multiple participants chiming-in, and creating confusion. Court-President, GCM, now politely intervenes, apparently trying to restore order, ruling that the professional evaluations made by the witness, testified-to by the witness, should be admitted for the trial files. The appropriateness of the witness's evaluations can be dealt with separately and later.}
This segment of Chiacchiera's Testimony re the Crime Scene, which he believed had been remodeled by the criminals to dupe Investigators into believing that there had been a burglary, committed by a single criminal, is paused here because it is so prolonged.
Analysis of Chiacchiera's Testimony will continue in a future post.
Archived in Officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, The timelines, Knox's alibis, Sollecito's alibis, Real crimescene, Other physical, The many hoaxes, The Guede hoax
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Now Raffaele Sollecito As Well As Amanda Knox Is Using A PayPal Link To Encourage Donations
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
Sollecito And Knox Paypal Accounts
Please check out the images at bottom here. As of today Knox's PayPal account still exists.
At the same time Sollecito has created a new one as GoFundMe dropped his solicitation page. PayPal and their own Italian lawyers are likely to regard these two accounts as hot potatoes when the following implications are shared with them.
Imperiled Bank Accounts
Each PayPal account will point behind the PayPal scenes to a bank account, which as this example among many others describes can be seized by American and Italian authorities.
The Government wants the seized properties to be handed over to the authorities, and claims it's permitted under U.S. law. This includes the bank account that was used by Megaupload for PayPal payouts. The account, described as "DSB 0320," had a balance of roughly $4.7 million (36 million Hong Kong Dollars) at the time of the seizure, but processed more than $160 million over the years.
"Records indicate that from August 2007 through January 2012 there were 1,403 deposits into the DBS 0320 account totaling HKD 1,260,508,432.01 from a PayPal account. These funds represent proceeds of crime and property involved in money laundering as more fully set out herein," the complaint reads.
PayPal refused to channel payments to the hacker organization Wikileaks and 14 members of the hacker group Anonymous who attempted denials of service attacks (DOS) against PayPal were charged and pleaded guilty.
Strong evidence that law enforcement will work hard to help prevent the use of PayPal for activities it considers illegal.
How It Gets Worse For Them
Knox is already a convicted felon for life for calunnia with no further appeal possible. Under PayPal's terms of service that by itself seems sufficient grounds to bounce her. From Paypal's rules for Donate buttons:
Note: This button is intended for fundraising. If you are not raising money for a cause, please choose another option. Nonprofits must verify their status to withdraw donations they receive. Users that are not verified nonprofits must demonstrate how their donations will be used, once they raise more than $10,000.
Neither have publicly specified in even the least detail who will get what and why out of the funds raised by this Donate button intended for good causes (think charities).
How It Gets Worser For Them
The pitches on the Knox and Sollecito websites are essentially the same as in their two books which are both riddled with demonstrably false accusations, for which Sollecito has already been charged and for which Knox will also in due course be charged.
The charges against Sollecito are a mixture of calunnia and diffamazione, which are explained at the bottom here, and the charges against Knox are expected to be the same.
In effect then this is seemingly not only Knox and Sollecito attempting to profit from crimes, but attempting to profit from crimes based on highly fraudulent accounts of those crimes for one component of which (as pointed out above) Knox has already served three years in prison.
How It Gets Even Worser For Them
"Defense Fund" implies the money being raised is all going to their Italian lawyers. If the lawyers accept such payments as fees that could become a problem for them.
The same thing applies if any of the money raised goes to David Marriott, Ted Simon and Robert Barnett. It is now radioactive. They will presumably know this - know that they cannot profit from proceeds which are illegal under Son of Sam laws and obtained on fraudulent pretenses.
And In Fact Even Worser For Them
If Cassation dismisses the final appeal of Knox and Sollecito (for which the grounds seem very flimsy) they will each be liable for the millions in damages which Judge Massei imposed as modified by Judge Nencini.
Donations legally labeled bloodmoney cannot under any circumstances be used to pay damages. Knox and Sollecito would have to generate new funds to pay the damages awards by legal earnings or by voluntary or forced selling off of any assets.
The Bottom-Line Liabilities Here
The financial liabilities Knox and Sollecito are presently incurring for themselves include (1) payment of all fees for legal and PR help in the US and Italy; (2) the clawing back of all bloodmoney profits from their crimes; (3) the payments of millions in damages as assessed by Judges Massei and Nencini; and (4) further fines and damages that are expected to result from their two books.
Under the post below Popper posted this partial calculation for Knox; the forfeit of bloodmoney and possible future damage awards are additional.
Massei gave (and Nencini confirmed) provisional damage to father and mother of Meredith of Euro 1 million each, to brothers and sister Euro 800,000 each, to PL Euro 50,000 and to the owner of the flat Euro 10,000.
To this it must be added more for the legal costs in Appeal and Cassazione, so a total a bit short of Euro 5 million, about 6 million dollars.
VAT and CPA must be paid on all the above sums, so more than that, we probably go over USD 6 million
Together with the forfeit of bloodmoney and possible future damages imposed, this adds up to around the $10 million estimated in this post. Sollecito's burden would be less, somewhat more than half of that.
Explanation Of Calunnia And Diffamazione
The charge of calunnia (art. 368) has been commonly translated as "slander" in the English/US media. This translation is incorrect, however, as calunnia is a crime with no direct equivalent in the respective legal systems.
The equivalent of "criminal slander" is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone's reputation. Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.
The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence. Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint, while calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.
The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code: while diffamazione is in the chapter entitled "crimes against honour" in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties, calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled "crimes against the administration of justice", in a section that protects public powers.
Click for larger image
Archived in The former defendants, Raff Sollecito, Diversion efforts by, The Sollecitos, Sollecito's book, The many hoaxes, Italian justice hoax, No-evidence hoax, The wider contexts, American context
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Friday, September 12, 2014
Those Channeling Funding To RS And AK Should Definitely Take Note Of This
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
GoFundMe has dropped this page of Sollecito's which was soliciting funds under false pretenses
The increasingly tough American bloodmoney laws (Son of Sam laws) were described here and here.
These laws are operable at the federal level and in most states. The tendency is for the laws to be made more and more tough, and to spread the net of who could be charged more and more widely.
Book publishers and TV networks have armies of lawyers who usually step in smartly to stop them being party to illegal money flows. All American TV networks have codes of ethics which prevent fees being paid that reward a crime.
The bloodmoney net could be spread widely in the Perugia case if the Republic of Italy requests the invoking of these laws against Knox, Sollecito, their families, and the in-it-for-the-money opportunists such as Sforza, Fischer, and Moore.
Their PR help also appears to be at risk, along with the shadow writers, book agents and publishers of the two books.
Sollecito might have got a blessing in disguise then when GoFundMe the private-purposes fundraising site closing down his begging page (image above) after around $40,000 had been conned from the sheep.
GoFundMe did that as part of a move to keep the company and the site away from controversy and the long arm of the law. This move is fairly typical of a broad trend on the internet as courts increasingly sentence harrassers, abusers, swindlers and money-grubbers to tough terms.
Making money out of crime has never been a walk in the park, and anything gained rarely goes very far.
Trying to make money illegally is fundamentally why OJ Simpson (images below) is serving a term for armed robbery east of Reno in Nevada - and in that case he considered the property he was robbing at a Las Vegas casino hotel was actually his own.
In his case his wife and a friend were found slashed to death at her home a mile or two from his. Simpson nearly fled the country before trial, then he won an acquittal at criminal trial, and then he was convicted at a wrongful-death civil trial. Wikipedia explains.
On February 5, 1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica, California, unanimously found Simpson liable for the wrongful death of and battery against Goldman, and battery against Brown. Daniel Petrocelli represented plaintiff Fred Goldman, Ronald Goldman's father. Simpson was ordered to pay $33,500,000 in damages. In February 1999, an auction of Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other belongings netted almost $500,000. The money went to the Goldman family.
To avoid ever making any of the required payments to the Goldman family, Simpson squirreled assets and income away.
The items he wanted back at the point of a gun at the Palace Station hotel and casino would have been worth a lot. But instead this foolish financial crime could cost him up to 33 years.
Our take is that Sollecito may have squirreled away some of his gains, and Knox may have squirreled away much more. US law enforcement is capable of finding those payments if asked and if Knox's family and paid help don't press her to cough up.
Hopefully it will be made to sink into that Knox's panhandling (she is still at it via her website via Paypal) was not such a good idea.
Archived in The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Rudy Guede, Officially involved, Other legal processes, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, Knox's book, The Sollecitos, Sollecito's book, The many hoaxes
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Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The Knox Interrogation Hoax #13: The First Two Opportunities Knox Flunked: Matteini & Ricciarelli
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
Judge Matteini and Judge Ricciarelli each held key hearings in November
1. Previously In This Series
Post #1 sets out the two versions of Knox's sessions at the central police station on 5-6 November 2007.
The first version has in total about two dozen eye witnesses, and it is the one that prevailed at the Massei trail and throughout all of the appeals - Hellmann in 2011 (this part was not annulled), Casssation in 2013, and Nencini in 2014. Cassation in 2013 made Knox's verdict and sentence of three years for the false accusation against Patrick final.
The second version lacks any independent witness, although Sollecito makes some claims in his book that could be assumed to help Knox. There seems no sign that Knox's own lawyers in Perugia have ever bought into any part of it, they have never lodged a complaint, they did not pursue it in cross-examination, and they have even cautioned against it.
Knox's lawyers seemed jumpy when Knox pursued elements of it (unconvincingly to the court) in her two days of testimony in July 2009. Despite this, it is still sustained by Knox herself (in several contradictory versions) and by a number of PR campaigners.
Posts #2 to #9 quote the relevant trial testimony of the six investigators (scroll down) who had the major roles in the 6-7 November sessions.
2. The Pre-Trial Hurdles Knox Failed
Do you know how many major opportunities before her 2009 trial started Knox was given to get the murder charges dropped? This is not something Knox supporters trumpet about, if they even know.
In fact there were six, and Knox dismally failed them all.
In 2007 there were (1) the Matteini hearing and (2) the Ricciarelli hearing in November (see below) and (3) the Mignini interview in December. And in 2008 there were (4) the separate Knox appeal and Sollecito appeal to the Supreme Court in April, and (5) the first Micheli hearings in September, and (6) the second Micheli hearings in October, which dispatched Knox and Sollecito for trial.
In all six instances Knox's team also had the opportunity to get the charges against Knox for calunnia against Lumumba dropped.
3. The Hearings by Judge Matteini
1. Summary Of The Hearing
This key post by Nicki describes how every one of the numerous hoops Italian police and prosecutors must jump through is presided over by a guiding magistrate.
Finally, in this ultra-cautious process, if the investigation has not been dropped and the guiding magistrate is confident that the police and prosecutors have made a case, they can then order it submitted directly for short-form trial (as with Guede) or for a trial judge (like Judge Micheli) to decide if there is a case for a long-form trial.
At this point, 9 November 2007, the police investigations were far from done, and the existence of Guede was not yet known (though Knox hinted at him on 6 November) let alone the role he is serving 16 years for.
The investigations continued through the summer of 2008 with Judge Matteini re-entering the process repeatedly. Even after the summer of 2008 additional witnesses were being sought and several including Kokomani and Quintavalle only came forward later.
On 9 November 2007 Judge Matteini had before her the police summaries of evidence and witness and suspect statements. Knox and Sollecito were placed under arrest on 6 November and she had held separate hearings with Knox, Sollecito and Patrick with their lawyers present on the day before (8 November)
2. Sollecito's statement for his hearing
Knox presented no written or oral statement to Judge Matteini on the very strong advice of her lawyers. Sollecito wrote one out. In various ways it separates him from Knox.
Sollecito had seen his lawyers on 7 November in Capanne Prison. Sollecito was extensively interviewed by Judge Matteini (translation pending). He also submitted in advance a new statement for his own 8 November hearing which famously starts off "I wish to not see Amanda ever again."
ʺI wish to not see Amanda ever again.
I met Amanda at a classical music concert which took place at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, about two weeks ago. I then met her again at the bar ʺLe Chic": I went to this pub 2‐3 times just to see Amanda since she had told me that she worked there.
A romantic relationship had taken shape and we have lived together since the first day at my house, and she would go back to her house at Via della Pergola more or less every other day to pick up her clothes and talk with her girlfriends. I have never met the man who runs the pub ʺLe Chicʺ and I did not know anything about the pub; I do not even know who worked there. I used to accompany Amanda to work at the pub around 22‐22.30 and then I went back to pick her up at 24.00‐00.30.
I met Meredith at Amandaʹs house since they were friends and they lived together, besides her also Filomena and Laura lived there. We ate lunch at her house sometimes, and sometimes we ate at my house. While dinner [instead] always at my house or out. On 1 November, Amanda woke up before me. I went to see her later since she told me she wanted to go home to talk with her girlfriends.
I arrived at about 13‐14 and there was Meredith who was wearing a pair of jeans which belong to her ex‐boyfriend who was in London, Meredith went out at around 16:00 and we stayed, and we went out at around 18:00.
I point out that I make use of cannabis and I make use of it on every holiday, and whenever I need it. I am an anxious person. I do not remember how much I smoked, I certainly did [smoke] one at Amanda's place, and at my house every time I felt like.
At 18.00 we went out and we went to the [city] center passing by Piazza Grimana, Piazza Morlacchi alla Fontana and Corso Vannucci. We remained in the center until 20.30‐21 and then we went to my house; I do not remember at what time I had dinner, I think I had dinner together with Amanda.
I remember Amanda received a few text messages on her phone and she replied. I do not remember whether the message arrived before or after dinner. Then she told me that the pub was closed, unlike every Tuesday and Thursday and thus she did not have to go to work that day. Iʹm not sure if Amanda went out that night, I do not remember.
About that night I remember that the pipe under the sink had unlatched and, while I was washing things in the kitchen, the floor flooded, I tried to dry the floor and then, on Amanda's suggestion, I let it go. I worked with my computer and then I went to bed. I received a call from my father, who calls me every night before I go to sleep, I do not remember if he called me on the landline phone or on the cell phone.
The next morning Amanda woke up before me, she woke me up telling me that she wanted to go take a shower at her house because she did not like my shower. So she went out and I remained to sleep. She went out at around 9:30 to 10:00. Later she came back, she rung at my door and I woke up. I remember that she had changed her clothes and she was now wearing a white skirt while the day before she was wearing jeans. She carried a mop with her to clean the floor.
I finished drying up the floor. I do not remember if we had breakfast together before or after. Amanda told me that she had found the front door wide open, with blood stains and that therefore all this was strange. She told me to go to her house to see what had happened, we got there and I was agitated.
She opened the front door [and] I noticed that Filomenaʹs door was open with broken glass. The bathroom was clean except the bathmat and the sink which was stained with blood, she told me that someone had cut himself/herself or they were menstruating. The only thing that I noticed [is] that Meredith's door was locked with the key and I tried to enter the room from the outside, while I was doing this Amanda was leaning over the railing to try to reach the window; she had knocked repeatedly and calling [sic] Meredith ʹs room.
I tried to look through the keyhole and saw that there was a duffel bag and an open wardrobe‐door. Then I told her to call her girlfriends. I then called my sister who is an inspector and she told me to dial 112 [Carabinieri] and I gave [them] Amanda's phone number. We remained out of the house to wait for the arrival of the Carabinieri. Some officers of the Postal Police arrived who wanted to talk to Filomena. When the officers of the Postal Police arrived we were out of the house. I remember I called 112 before the arrival of the Postal Police officers. I spoke with the officers of the Postal Police and Amanda too if she could understand what they said; I reported [to them] that there was something wrong by showing that Filomenaʹs bedroom door was wide open with broken glass on the floor and the door of Meredithʹs room was locked.
Filomena arrived with her boyfriend and some friends of hers. The Postal Police officers broke down the door of Meredithʹs room and they said that they had seen a foot and some blood. Then the Carabinieri arrived.
I previously made a false statement because I was under pressure and I was very agitated, I was shocked and I was afraid. I point out that on 5 November I was very agitated when the agents asked me questions because they put me under pressure. I confirm that on the night of 1 November I spent the night with Amanda. I do not remember if Amanda went out that evening. At 20.30 we were at my house. I got it mixed up.
I remember that Amanda must have come back [home together] with me. I do not remember if she went out. My father calls me every day and I find it strange that he did not call on 1 November. I fail to understand why my prints are there; I [did] not enter that room; I was not wearing those shoes on 1 or 2 November. The one who killed her must have had my same shoes. They are rather common shoes.
In my Internet blog where there are some of my feelings and in particular where I quote the Monster of Foligno [2] who came from the Onaoasi College, that was just irony.
With regard to the faeces in the bathroom, I did not see them since I did not enter the bathroom, I was outside [the bathroom] and I leaned with my face toward the toilet bowl. Amanda got scared and she jumped on me and told me that the faeces were no longer there compared to before [sic] when she had gone to take a shower.
I walk around with a knife that I use to carve trees. I have a collection of knives in Giovinazzo. I also have katanas, [but] they are blunt swords. Itʹs a passion that one about knives. I have always carried a knife with me in my pocket since I was 13 years old.
I do not remember exactly if that Thursday night she went out, I remember well that I was on the computer more or less up to 12.00 smoking my joints. I am sure that I ate, that I remained at home and that Amanda slept with me.
I have two knives, the one the Flying Squad seized is the one that I carry when I wear these garments; when I wear other clothing I carry the other knife; these two are my favorite knives. The Flying Squad put great psychological pressure on me. The first time we went to the police station we were kept there the whole night. I categorically rule out that I have ever entered the room where the victim was found.
On 8 November Knox's lawyers had just been appointed. Knox and her lawyers were perhaps at a disadvantage in the hearing, having just met. But Judge Matteini was not fact-finding and her only decision was to remand the three (including Patrick) in prison. Knox's opportunity to talk came on 17 December 2007 in Capanne before Dr Mignini (see Post #15).
On 6 November Amanda Knox had submitted three statements all linked to in Part 1 here and all written at her own insistence. Judge Matteini disallows these for use against Knox but allows them for use against others, later confirmed in a Cassation ruling which oddly was claimed as a new victory by Knox forces. The statements were never ruled illegally obtained.
3. Matteini Report: The Full Version
A new translation of the Matteini report with emphases in bold of what is especially significant appears at the bottom here under "Click here for more".
4. The Panel of Three Judges Chaired By Judge Ricciarelli
Judge Riciarelli chaired a panel of judges on 30 November 2007 and, with more evidence, the findings were more forceful than Judge Matteini's.
For example the panel labeled both of the two dangerous with Knox demonstrating having several personalities. For the first time a court stated that the physical evidence pointed toward a group attack.
We have not yet obtained any transcripts or final report, but the hearing was reported on at length in Italy. Significantly, Knox and her defense are not reported anywhere as having made her 6 November "interrogation" an issue. So nearly a month has passed since the "interrogation" and Knox has seemingly still not complained to anyone, including her lawyers and family.
CNN Cable News carried a report in English on the Ricciarelli panel which included the following.
A panel of judges in Italy said an American student held in connection with the killing of Meredith Kercher should stay in police custody because evidence suggested she had "fatal capacity for aggression," Italian media reported Wednesday.
A court ruled last week that Amanda Knox, 20, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 23, must remain in jail after lawyers for the pair appealed for their release.
Massimo Ricciarelli, president of the panel of three judges that gave last Friday's ruling, published the reasons for his decision Wednesday, Luca Maori, a lawyer for Sollecito confirmed to CNN.
In his ruling, Ricciarelli said Knox's detention was justified because evidence showed she has multiple personalities, according to the Italian daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera, which published transcripts of the ruling on its Web site.
Corriere della Sera reported the judge as saying that Knox has a "high, we could say fatal, capacity for aggression."
"(Knox) has a disposition to follow whatever drive she has, even when they can end up in violent and uncontrollable acts," the ruling said, according to the paper.
Ricciarelli added that all the evidence suggested Kercher was killed by someone she knew, the paper reported, and investigations suggested that more than one person carried out the killing and that the villa where the body was found had not been broken into….
According to the newspaper, the ruling said the lack of evidence of a break-in "proves that the killer did not have to exercise any type of violence in order to enter the house, having used the keys or having been allowed in by the victim herself."
A report issued more than a week ago by an Italian judge suggested Kercher may have been sexually assaulted at knifepoint before she was killed in her bed.
In the excellent book A Death In Italy John Follain included this below. He leaves out that the panel concluded that there must have been several attackers though CNN above and Italian media did report that.
30 November 2007
Amanda and Raffaele's hopes of freedom – a fortnight earlier both had made a new appeal for their release – were drastically dashed by a panel of three judges headed by Judge Massimo Ricciarelli. The judges endorsed much of Mignini's reconstruction of the murder and decreed they should stay in prison.
Their ruling was scathing in its analysis of Amanda. She had 'a many-sided personality – self-confident, shrewd and naïve, but with a strong taste for taking centre stage and a marked, we could say fatal, ability in putting people together.' She acted on her desires 'even when they can lead to violent and uncontrollable acts.'
As for Amanda's statements since Meredith's death, they were a 'constant attempt to do and undo, to say something and then immediately deny it, as if she wanted to please everyone. Such behaviour seems to be the result of slyness and naïvety at the same time.'
For the judges, there was no burglary at the cottage. Only Spiderman, they said, could have entered the cottage through Filomena's broken window. Why would a thief have got rid of Meredith's mobile phones so soon after the crime? And why would a killer take the phones with him in the first place, only to abandon them a short distance away? Meredith's killers had taken them from the cottage, the judges surmised, because they didn't want the phones to ring there. The killers needed to pretend to call Meredith after her death, and they didn't want their call to help track her down to her room.
'The killer did not have to exercise any type of violence in order to enter the house, having used the keys or having been allowed in by the victim herself,' the judges said. Meredith was killed by someone she knew, and probably by more than one person.
Raffaele had lied in claiming to have called the police before they arrived at the cottage. Nor had he gone to bed the previous night at about midnight or 1 a.m. He had spent a turbulent night, so much so that he had switched his mobile on again very early and received a message from his father at 6 a.m. – it was a goodnight message, clearly sent when the mobile was switched off and for that reason had reached him only the next morning.
The judges mocked Raffaele for claiming he could recall spending a long time at his computer as well as smoking joints on the evening of 1 November. Appearing before the judges themselves a few days earlier, he'd given new details of his time at the computer which, they remarked, 'clearly conflict with the pitch darkness that would have reigned in his mind after taking the drugs, unless he suffers from a particular pathology – the selective loss of memory.'
An expert's analysis of Raffaele's laptop showed there had been human activity between 6.27 p.m. and 9.10 p.m. when the film Amélie was screened. There was no trace of human activity between 9.10 p.m. and 5.32 a.m. – 'a formidable corroboration of Raffaele's involvement' as the dawn activity, they said, pointed to a virtually sleepless night.
In his blog, Raffaele had failed to distance himself from serious criminals – he'd praised a convict who killed two boys – and above all he'd proclaimed his desire for 'big thrills'. The judges also mentioned the photograph of him in which he brandished a cleaver. Violence, they concluded, attracted him. Both in his behaviour and in his wavering statements, which often fell into line with Amanda's 'dream-like' accounts, Raffaele had shown himself to have a fragile temperament, 'exposed to impulses and outside influences of every kind'.
Click here for more
Archived in The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Officially involved, Police and CSI, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, The many hoaxes, Knox interrog. hoax
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Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Italian Prime Minister Renzi Will Push Measures To Speed Up Justice
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
In a move popular not least among those who are part of it Mr Renzi announces moves to speed up Italian justice.
Italian justice and those who work in it are widely trusted and respected in Italy. But a very humane system designed post WWII to give those accused a level of rights unique in the world has been even further tilted over the years by politicians passing laws to aid political and business colleagues in legal trouble.
Because there are now strong economic pressures, reforms may have a slim chance of parliamentary approval. In particular convicted perps' automatic right to two levels of appeal for most crimes could be pared back more in line with the US and UK where a judge must decide if there are any real appeal grounds.
Italian and US and UK lawyers among others have posted here on Italian justice about 40 times in the past six years. If you don't have time for the full 40 these posts with some American comparisons provide good coverage of the key basics.
1. Click here "They Were Held For A Year Without Even Being Charged!!" How Italian Justice REALLY Works
2. Click here Why The Italian Judiciary's Probably Less Prone to Pressure Than Any Other In The World
3. Click here Why The Prosecutors In Italy Are Relatively Popular
4. Click here Explaining How The Italian Appeals Process Works And Why It Consumes So Much Time
5. Click here Italian Parliament Is Now Moving On A Bill To Speed Up Many Trials And Appeals
6. Click here A Token Balance In The Italian System: The Voice In The Court For The Victim
7. Click here Compared To Italy, Say, Precisely How Wicked Is The United States?
8. Click here Interesting Tilts Of Marcia Clark And Alan Dershowitz Against US's Non-Professional Jury System
9. Click here The Terrible Weight On The Victim's Family Because The Italian System Is So Very, Very Pro Defendant
10. Click here Italy's Advanced, Effective, Humane Law & Order System Also Adopted By City Of New York
11. Click here Italy's Unpopular Politicians And Mafia Fellow Travelers Against Italy's Popular Justice System
12. Click here The US Lacks Legal Authority To Decline To Deliver A Guilty Knox To Italian Authorities
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Monday, September 08, 2014
Barbie Nadeau Movie "Face Of An Angel" Wins Rave Reviews; Knox Defense Freaks
Posted by Peter Quennell
Cara Delevigne is a student similar to Meredith who enables the truth after Meredith's death
Can we expect more conniptions from Knox? In the movie, Genevieve Gaunt portrays her fictional double as humorless, self-absorbed, and dull.
There is no Meredith part at the core of this BBC-sponsored commercial film. Instead Barbie Nadeau (to whom we owe many past posts) and director Michael Winterbottom have hit on a brilliant story device.
Melanie, played by the British supermodel Cara Delevigne (image above) is a British student in Siena (northwest of Perugia, Siena is a similar walled town and university) and guide to Simone, an America reporter (Kate Beckinsale), and to Thomas, a documentary film-maker (Daniel Brühl).
Thomas has come to Siena supposing that the story he wants to capture is the one that we all know (which was told pretty competently back in 2011 by Lifetime TV in which a plodding "Knox" also ended up looking dull, as a bright and funny "Meredith" ran rings around her in every way).
Thomas in light of his discussions with Simone and especially with Melanie finds himself refocusing his project on who the murdered victim really was, and on the cynical sharp-elbowed wars between various reporters and various media outfits who come storming in. He concludes they mostly had focused 180 degrees the wrong way.
A local blogger, an opportunist Frank Sforza surrogate, comes out looking particularly bad.
By the end of the movie, the face of the angel in the title is very much that of the talented, funny high-achiever who a jealous, bullying mean-girl may have caused to pass away.
And most of the media don't exactly look good.
The movie was unveiled at the Toronto Film Festival a few days ago. This is from the positive Hollywood Reporter review.
The action can be roughly divided into three parts following Dante's Divine Comedy. In the early scenes Thomas arrives in Italy and meets the lovely journalist Simone, who like Dante's Beatrice becomes his guide through Hell. She introduces him to the international reporters hanging around Siena hunting for scandal, and to an ambiguous local man (Valerio Mastrandrea) who frightens Thomas with his claims to know a lot about the murder.
In the central part, Purgatory, he meets the pretty student, part-time waitress and party girl Melanie, played like an overly exuberant teenager by Delevingne. Finally, as the film progresses to Heaven, Thomas identifies her with the purity of the dead girl. Anybody confused?
There are many good things in the swiftly-moving narrative, filmed with a hand-held camera to give a documentary look. Wandering through the narrow Medieval streets of the city, the hero is assailed by ghostly voices and monsters in moments of coked-up paranoia. Harry Escott's score heightens the poetic-exotic atmosphere of Hubert Taczanowski's lensing, particularly in the final scenes that read more like a tone-poem than narrative.
The UK Guardian (which had joined in the sliming of Italy and over-exposure of Knox more than any other newspaper in the US or UK) actually has a good first-hand report by Tom Kington and a good review by Paul McInnes.
Amanda Knox's lawyers threaten to sue if the movie taints Knox's good image.
What good image? Whose to taint? Nobody who actually knew her has ever had much good to say of Knox. And besides Italian TV has not purchased the film yet.
And sue who? The BBC? Good luck with that. The lawyers for Barbie Nadeau and the BBC will know that the 2011 Lifetime movie portrayed a pushy loudmouth at front and center for over an hour, and from that many viewers in the US and UK concluded Knox seemed a loose canon or worse. The same Perugia lawyers' legal threats back then went nowhere fast, and the movie didnt affect the (Hellmann) court.
Let the Knox lawyers worry about the dozens of people Knox slimed in her book. And the Italian and US prosecutors who may take her down for the world-record bloodmoney she has gained. And for the highly illegal stalking of Meredith's family by Knox and the vicious harrassment pack she leads around by the nose.
Harrasment and stalking of victim's families is an imprisonable offense, in Italy, the US and the UK.
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Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Sollecito Posting Of Knox's Diary: Is He Again Prodding Knox Closer To The Fire To Help Himself?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above and below: interiors of Capanne Prison built about a decade ago; Knox front-row right?
Another potshot in the escalating Knox/Sollecito wars?
In November 2007 in Capanne Prison Knox wrote prolifically in English in a diary. Sollecito has now aggressively put it online together with the official Italian translation, as spotted by the sharp eyes of main poster Nell
The diary was taken by prison authorities, apparently with no protest by Knox as she was pre-warned that her cell would need to be searched. The English original and an Italian translation were entered into evidence at trial, though the diary played no overt role of which we are aware.
Defense forces helpfully offered it around perhaps in the hope that it would make the authorities not look so good.
The diary then became the core of a 2008 book Amanda And The Others by Fiorenza Sarzanini, a prominent Italian journalist on the staff of the major newspaper Corriere.
The book was not entirely unsympathetic to the real Knox. But Knox's lawyers were seemingly concerned that her peculiar writings as riffed-upon by Sarzanini could subvert the preferred Knox image in court - though frankly that image was pretty daffy too.
The Knox team sued the holding company of Corriere. They won an award in the first round, then that was reversed on appeal, and then last year Cassation partially reversed that verdict, and Knox was granted an award.
Italian media reported all of this, but we didnt see any jubilant report in the US. Maybe because all Knox case-related income can be clawed back under US and Italian bloodmoney laws.
However, according to the Italian reports, Corriere's legal fault was held not to be one of copyright or of the privacy of Knox. It was in publishing passages in which Knox negatively highlighted others, such as the list of those she had had sex with, a no-no under Italian privacy laws.
The Sarzanini book is still on sale in Italy, and there was no court ruling that it had to be withdrawn. The same passages Sollecito has put online are also in Italian in that book. There seems nothing in US or UK law that would forbid publishing of an English-language version if Fiorenza Sarzanini wants to do that.
Ironically Knox with her own 2013 book seems to have run afoul of the self-same laws in her serial defaming of officials, and in due course she stands to lose much more than she had gained from that small award.
Knox's book was apparently put into Italian, though Italian and British editions were dropped at the last minute, days after Cassation ruled against Knox, in April last year. Oggi translated and published passages from the book which will see Oggi also taken to court.
Hard to believe but Knox's bamboozled shadow writer Linda Kulman and HarperCollins New York were reported as scrambling to remove a lot of defamatory passages from the US version before Knox's book went out.
We have posted several excerpts, which were pure fiction, and it is still the nasty work of a troubling psyche. Presumably that is Sollecito's point.
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Monday, September 01, 2014
The Knox Interrogation Hoax #12: Proof Released That In 5-6 Nov Session Knox Worked On Names List
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
This is the first part of Rita Ficarra's memo, please click for whole thing, translation is below.
It was this memo above all that convinced a row of Italian courts that Knox's calunnia accusation of Patrick was uncoerced, and that for that serious felony she should serve three years.
Kristeva kindly did the translation below. We described its extreme consequence (still constraining the Perugia defense teams today in non-support of Knox's heated-interrogation claims) in the Knox Interrogation Hoax Post #12.
This memo records the main outcome of Rita Ficarra's 75-minute summary/recap session (defenses conceded it was not an interrogation session) with Knox with an interpreter and two others present. Rita Ficarra wrote the memo some hours later, on the evening of 6 November, after she had caught up on some sleep.
It is based on a handwritten version Knox painstakingly evolved on a page of her notebook, which she then tore out and handed to Inspector Ficarra. That handwritten page is in evidence too.
The timing here is key. According to the testimony of Rita Ficarra and the interpreter Anna Donnino, the real work on the list only began around 12:30 after Anna Donnino arrived. It took all or most of the next hour. Knox obtained all the phone numbers from her mobile phone which she handed over to the others present at several points. (Those phone numbers are long disused.)
Annotation By Rita Ficarra
On 6 November 2007, at 20.00, in the offices of the Flying Squad of the Questura of Perugia. The undersigned Officer of P.G. [Attorney General], Chief Inspector of the State Police FICARRA Rita, notes that, as part of the investigation of the murder of British citizen Meredith KERCHER,
On the night of November 5th c.a. [current year], at approximately 23.00, while in the Offices of the Questura of Perugia, along with Amanda KNOX, waiting for the same to be heard in regard to the fact for which we are proceeding,
Learned, informally. news related to some male subjects who certainly knew MEREDITH and of whom Amanda gave indications on their respective residences—drawing roads and landmarks in her notebook – as well as their mobile phone numbers.
The same [Amanda] extracted these phone numbers from her mobile phone contacts and copied them on a piece of paper torn from her notebook and handed it to the undersigned.
The subjects indicated by Amanda were described as being:
PJ – Peter, a Swiss young man of Swiss nationality who certainly frequented Meredith and who would have surely been several times to their home; this young man dwelled in Via della Pergola, precisely in front of the "Contrappunto" club and close to the stairs and parking lot; mobile phone: 3891531078;
Patrik, owner of the pub "Le chic" where [the same] Amanda works. He too certainly knew Meredith. She was not able to provide an address but indicated that she had often seen him near the "rotonda [roundabout] of Porta Pesa, next to the Laundromat. Mobile phone number: 338719523;
Ardak, North African citizen of whom she gave no other indications other than his mobile phone: 3887972380;
Yuve, Algerian citizen who occasionally worked at "Le Chic" and would have dwelled in Via del Roscetto (near the residence of Sophie) phone; 3203758112
Spyros, young man of Greek nationality of whom Amanda does not give any indications other than the mobile phone: 3293473230
Shaky, Moroccan citizen who would have been working in a "pizzeria" and who frequented the pubs and discotheques frequented by Meredith's group of friends with whom they met at the pub or discotheque, friend of Sophie;
Lastly she informed of another South African young man, black, short, who plays basketball in the Piazza Grimana court, who would have, in one occasion, frequented the house.
At the tail end of this meeting, after all this work had been done, Knox was gently told that in his own interview, Sollecito's account of his movements on the night Meredith was killed now departed from her own.
A short period of extreme uncertainty followed.
Then Knox's message in response to Patrick showed up in her outgoing texts, although she had just said there was none, and she was asked who he was. Those four others present had no prior knowledge of Patrick and no reason to attach to him any blame.
Knox's conniption then began, in which she accused Patrick of the crime. Her accusation was repeated again and again. She then insisted on drafting her first formal written statement accusing him. It said she went out implying that she left Sollecito alone which is a claim he has now and then tried to gain from.
This series: where next? Next, one post summarising the conclusions of all the courts. Then a series of posts quoting Knox and many other (Preston, Douglas, Moore, Clemente, Fischer, on and on) over five years, falsely claiming the police were brutal and none of the above was so.
False accusations of crimes are chargeable; so we look forward to seeing their responses to all of this. Knox for sure will be charged. Three years in prison - and nothing at all sunk in? The opposite of smart.
Archived in The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, Knox's alibis, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, The many hoaxes, Knox interrog. hoax
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Monday, August 25, 2014
The Knox Interrogation Hoax #11: Why Prosecution And Defenses Never Believed Knox's Version
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
Famous criminal lawyer Dr Giancarlo Costa - did he depart Knox's team with doubts about her?
Recapitulating Our Purpose
In Post #11 below we hinted at two items - in fact, they are two documents - that resulted in a sharp drop in Knox's credibility.
We said this about how Knox's Perugia lawyers were affected.
It seems impossible to know about these items, and yet still believe that Knox was telling the truth. Lawyers often encourage their clients to tell the truth and good lawyers never encourage their clients to lie. And yet here Ghirga, Dalla Vedova, Bongiorno and Maori would have known from latest early 2008 that Knox's claims on the "interrogations" were in fact made up.
And if so, they must have asked themselves, why? Why did Knox have to lie? In all the legitimate legal processes, meaning all those except the Hellmann appeal, the defense lawyers were seen by close observers to be dispirited and lacking the full punch that the certainty of innocence can bring.
Knox was lying. And they all knew. No hard proof, but it explains the timid cross-examinations. And it was the buzz around Perugia maybe put out by the Sollecito faction for which there is a sort of soft proof.
The one heavyweight among Knox's lawyers, a prominent criminal lawyer from Rome called Dr Giancarlo Costa, who was with her at the 6-hour 17 December 2007 questioning (which we turn to next) inexplicably departed from her team early-on, leaving her with the much less experienced Ghirga and Dalla Vedova.
Sharp-eyed Andrea Vogt and Barbie Nadeau both noticed that no mention of Dr Costa was made in Knox's book. Late in 2009 and again late in 2011 Andrea Vogt interviewed him, and he seemingly suggested that Knox might have been better served at the end of the process by a negotiated plea, in effect similar to Guede's. (If so, he is now proved right, and the remaining Knox lawyers or her family made a very bad call.)
We said this about how all the prosecutors and all the judges were affected.
In the years that followed since, these two items helped to changed legal mindsets, from Prosecutor Mignini, to Judge Matteini, to Judge Micheli, to Judge Massei, to even Judge Hellmann, and so on to Cassation and the Nencini appeal.
Describing The Two Incriminating Items
Now we turn to the two items, the two documents, the two elephants in the room. They are rock-solid confirmation of all the testimony by investigators in Posts #2 to #9, and in days of defense cross-examination they were not argued with. They were correctly guessed by several emailers. They are of course:
(1) Rita Ficarra's notes of the 12:45 session
Inspector Ficarra wrote up these notes at 8:00 pm on the evening of 6 November, about six hours after Knox and Sollecito were carted off to Capanne Prison.
This was long before she knew she would be contradicted and years before she knew she would be accused of criminal actions. The notes were in evidence, and it was clear during cross-examination that the defense teams had studied them.
She recorded a description of the session in direct line with her testimony in Hoax Post #2 and Hoax Post #3 and Hoax Post #4. It anticipated perfectly the scenario that emerged from other investigators present.
(2) Knox's hand-written list of seven names
She wrote these out along with maps and annotations. The list had very obviously been created over a prolonged period of time. This must have occupied all but the final minutes of the session, at which point she lost her cool, had her first conniption, and fingered Patrick.
Here again from Post #2 is the testimony about it by Rita Ficarra. GCM stands for Judge Massei and GM stands for Dr Mignini.
RF: At that point I say to her: "for me it is important then that we write these [names etc down], that therefore, since you are waiting [NdT. i.e. for Raffaele], let's go do a follow-up to the recap that you have already given me, have already submitted to me". So I go to the office, that is to say, I go into the office room, and we begin to write.
GM: Listen: before continuing, she wrote a note?
RF: Yes.
GM: The note: you can, I believe you can consult/examine/refer to it.
GCM: Yes, certainly, it is permitted to consult/examine/refer to her records.
GM: I am referring to everything that that note reported.
RF: Yes, I've already said that, in effect… The note of 6 November, at 2000 hours, I made it in the evening because having then not slept for two days, I went [straight] to bed in morning when I finished. Morning and afternoon.
The first part I've already related and it gives me indications about these boys, about non-Italians, about a certain PJ Peter Svizzero, who had seemingly been several times in their home and who lived nearby the area of via della Pergola 7.
Patrick, of the [sic] owner of the pub, Le Chique [sic], where she herself worked, I've already said, she gives me the mobile-phone information.
Then she speaks of a certain Ardak, a North African citizen, and gives me the mobile-phone information.
A certain Juve, an Algerian citizen, who worked occasionally at the Le Chique [sic] pub and who apparently lived in the vicinity of the home of another of the victim's friends.
Sofie [sic]; also for him she gives me the mobile information.
Spiros, a young lad of Greek nationality, for whom she givers me only the mobile-phone information.
Shaki [Hicham Khiri], a Moroccan citizen who works in a pizzeria, frequents the [same] pubs [as those] frequented by all the girls of the victim's group, and [is] also friends with Sofie [sic].
She furthermore reports about a black South African boy, short, who plays basketball in the Piazza Grimana court, [and] who on one occasion had apparently visited the home of the boys who lived underneath the apartment.
So Knox eagerly devoted considerable time to recalling and explaining who Peter Svizzero, Patrick, Ardak, Juve, Spiros, Shaki and a South African [Guede, disguised] were, with maps to some of their places and phone numbers thrown in. She was talking and writing at the same time. The four investigators needed to do little more than sit watching.
Contrast The "Explanation" In Knox's Book
In her book Knox makes no mention of any of the above.
Fom 2007 to 2013 when her book came out, Knox's tendency was to expand upon and embellish her own explanation for her conniption and fingering of Patrick.
This was despite the fact that her two-day stint on the stand in July 2009 focussed exclusively on this was disbelieved by the Massei judges and by most Italians who watched.
It was also despite the fact that she served three years for this with her guilty verdict confirmed even by Judge Hellmann labeling her a felon for life.
It was also despite the fact that after the 2009 trial those investigators she had impugned at trial sparked new charges still to be faced in a Florence court.
It was also despite the fact that more charges for her 2013 book and her Oggi interview are expected to be added by the chief prosecutor in Bergamo.
Amazingly, she was still digging herself in deeper as late as 2014. By far her longest, most self-serving and most surreal version of the session appeared as Chapter 10 of her book.
This chapter is 20 pages long and consists of page after page after page of invented dialogue. Everybody has long known that the last few pages were Knox's malicious invention.
That the rest of the pages are too is also dead-certain.
Neither Rita Ficarra's notes nor Knox's list of names with maps and notes,one of which she created and both of which were repeatedly testified to right in front of her, are even mentioned anywhere in Knox's book.
This dishonest dialogue and mass accusation of crimes is what Knox and Linda Kulman give us instead:
Police officer Rita Ficarra slapped her palm against the back of my head, but the shock of the blow, even more than the force, left me dazed. I hadn't expected to be slapped. I was turning around to yell, "Stop!"—my mouth halfway open—but before I even realized what had happened, I felt another whack, this one above my ear. She was right next to me, leaning over me, her voice as hard as her hand had been. "Stop lying, stop lying," she insisted.
Stunned, I cried out, "Why are you hitting me?"
"To get your attention," she said.
I have no idea how many cops were stuffed into the cramped, narrow room. Sometimes there were two, sometimes eight—police coming in and going out, always closing the door behind them. They loomed over me, each yelling the same thing: "You need to remember. You're lying. Stop lying!"
"I'm telling the truth," I insisted. "I'm not lying." I felt like I was suffocating. There was no way out. And still they kept yelling, insinuating.
The authorities I trusted thought I was a liar. But I wasn't lying. I was using the little energy I still had to show them I was telling the truth. Yet I couldn't get them to believe me.
Huh? Really? In fact only four were involved. The conversation was low-key. The list of names did emerge. Knox was never yelled at or hit, as her own lawyers publicly confirmed. And Rita Ficarra and others describe some exceptional kindnesses shown to Knox, before and after she spontaneously became disturbed, which at trial Knox confirmed.
Knox and Linda Kulman give us twenty more pages of this mass accusation of crimes, which not one witness confirmed or any court believed, more than enough to occupy the entire session, leaving no time for all the work on that list of names which was the sole point of the session and undeniably exists.
Archived in The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, Knox's alibis, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, The many hoaxes, Knox interrog. hoax
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Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Fine Report On One Of Numerous Cases Much Harder To Explain Than Poor Meredith's
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
Strange case indeed. Please click above and then scroll down for a smart presentation by the BBC.
It shows how difficult police work can be, and how there really can be false confessions. Unfortunately, police work is not helped when there are false claims to false confessions.
The 2009 trial transcripts show that Knox was definitely not pressed (in less than two hours, during which she was mostly making a list of seven possible leads) into a false confession (actually a false accusation of Patrick) like the examples here.
The capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, is to the west (in the position of eight o'clock on a map of Iceland) and the peninsula here is south-west of Reykjavik, in the United States direction.
The BBC is a regular peruser of TJMK. To their great credit they recently aired the excellent, highly objective documentary by Andreas Vogt and Paul Russell on Meredith's case.
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Friday, August 15, 2014
Legal Timeline Of The Main Case, On Which The Next Ruling By Supreme Court Could Be Final
Posted by catnip
Cassazione (Supreme Court of Italy) seen from the east across the Tiber River
Todays Status
The Supreme Court is due to rule, possibly in the autumn, on what might be the final appeal by Sollecito and Knox on grounds which have not been published. Main steps prior to this:
November 2007
Meredith Kercher is found violently killed in her home while studying abroad in Italy. Her housemate, Amanda Knox, and Amanda's friend Raffaele Sollecito, as well as Amanda's boss, Patrick Lumumba, are arrested. A fourth person, Rudy Guede, is tracked down and also arrested. Patrick Lumumba's alibi is confirmed and he is released.
December 2007, January 2008
Due process hearings authorise the continuation of preventative custody for the suspects, on the grounds of flight risk and possibility of tampering with the evidence.
October 2008
Preliminary Hearing Court, Perugia, Micheli presiding – after investigations have completed, the committal hearing finds there is a case to answer and remands Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to stand trial on the charges of :
- (A) aggravated murder in company of Meredith Kercher
(B) illegal transport of a knife from Raffaele Sollecito's apartment
(C) aggravated sexual assault in company of Meredith Kercher (later folded into charge (A), on the grounds of being part of the same criminal event)
(D) illegal profiting by possession, to wit: of a sum of money approx. €300 and of credit cards belonging to the victim, and her mobile phones
(E) simulation of a crime, to wit: staging a break-in in Filomena Romanelli's room
(F) Amanda Knox, in addition, calunnia, for falsely claiming, knowing him to be innocent, Diya Lumumba also called "Patrick", of being the author of the murder
Rudy Guede is tried summarily "on the papers", as he has requested the expedited trial procedure ("fast-track" trial) and is found guilty of charges (A) and (C), and not guilty of the theft, charge (D), and sentenced to life, automatically discounted to 30 years for choosing the expedited trial procedure.
December 2009
On appeal to the Court of Appeals, Perugia (4/2009, on 22 December 2009), his sentence is reduced to 24 years, automatically discounted to 16 years, the aggravating factors of the charges not being found by the court. His final appeal, to the Supreme Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, is rejected (7195/11, hearing of 16 December 2010, reasons handed down 24 February 2011).
December 2009
Court of Assizes, Perugia, presided over by Massei – finds Amanda and Raffaele guilty of all charges (except the theft of the money and credit cards) but without the aggravating factors applying, and sentences them, with mitigating factors included, to 26 years for Amanda, and 25 years for Raffaele (the extra year for Amanda being for the calunnia).
October 2011
Court of Appeals of the Court of Assizes, Perugia, presided over by Hellmann (after a last-minute replacement) – trial convictions quashed, except for the calunnia charge against Amanda (charge (F)), where sentence was increased to time served (3 years); both prisoners released (4/2011, decision 3 October 2011, reasons handed down 5 December 2011).
March 2013
The Supreme Court of Cassation (25/3/2013) found the acquittals on charges A&C, B, D, and E to be unsafe, and annulled that part of the decision, remanding the matter to the Florentine jurisdiction, as per the usual cascade rules, for a fresh determination, and rejected Amanda Knox's appeal on the charge (F) conviction and sentence.
January 2014
Court of Appeals, Second Chamber, Florence, presided over by Nencini – trial convictions on the non-calunnia charges upheld, therefore sentence increased to 28 years and 6 months for Amanda (11/13, decision 30 January 2014, reasons handed down 29 April 2014). All convicted parties to pay the relevant compensation to the various injured parties. Appeals to the Supreme Court of Cassation have been lodged.
Associated Timelines
See the posts here and here on the timing of events arrived at by the trial judges.
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Thursday, August 14, 2014
Questions For Knox: Ted Simon Gone? With Legal And Financial Woes Will The Other Paid Help Stay?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Paid help Robert Barnett, Linda Kulman, Carlo Dalla Vedova, and Luciano Ghirga
Knox seems to badly need several kinds of professional help.
But Ted Simon simply parroting the foolish Steve Moore and the foolish Bruce Fischer was not really what we had in mind. If Ted Simon really is Knox's ex-lawyer what a legal and financial mess he leaves behind.
In America there is a common legal remark on TV: that the coverup is often worse than the crime. It is often for the coverup that perps get sentenced to the longest time - often that is the only sentence they get.
Had the Knox and Sollecito forces been smart enough to take the route Dr Mignini hinted at in 2007 - that this was a hazing with sexual humiliation that spiraled out of control - and shown remorse as Guede to some extent did - the two might have faced lesser charges, been out early, and brought to an early end some of the terrible agony inflicted on Meredith's ailing family over nearly seven years.
The paid and unpaid help might now be doing just fine.
But of course the smart route was ignored. The coverup for Knox seems totally on the rocks. Italy holds all the cards. As described in the past several posts, legal and financial nightmares for the Knox and Sollecito paid and unpaid help could be ahead. For one thing, they could all end up unpaid.
- Remember, the prosecution case presented at trial in 2009 was powerful and decisive, and the defenses were so demoralised in the summer and fall that two defense lawyers were said to have nearly walked.
- Remember, the Knox forces never tell you this, as Steve Moore etc make inane charges about corruption on the prosecution side, but the ONLY known corruption in the case was on the defense side.
It is openly known in Italy that the judicial appointments to the 2011 appeal court were corrupt. It was a hijacked court.
Judge Chiari and Prosecutor Comodi both publicly made this quite plain, Dr Galati said Cassation would set things right, the CSM edged Judge Hellmann into retirement (where he still waffles on with trademark incompetence) and the Supreme Court did set things right, with the unique ferocity that we saw.
Knox's serial lying in her own coverup was very well known (after all, it was for lying that she served three years) but the flashmob attempts at coverup based on her invented claims went on regardless, even escalated in the past several years with the arrival of new dupes. Saul Kassin and John Douglas and the seriously out-to-lunch Jim Clemente come to mind.
The Knox book bizarrely parrots Steve Moore and Bruce Fischer, presumably with Ted Simon's okay. Now it has put her paid help's problems on steroids. All of them including Ted Simon could be legally and financially liable in several different ways. The past several posts described some of those.
Take for example this statement Knox puts into the public domain about her Perugia lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova, in which she is accusing him of all people of falsely accusing police and prosecutors of crimes:
Carlo [Dalla Vedova], who'd never sugarcoated my situation, said, "These are small-town detectives. They chase after local drug dealers and foreigners without visas. They don't know how to conduct a murder investigation correctly. Plus, they're bullies. To admit fault is to admit that they're not good at their jobs. They suspected you because you behaved differently than the others. They stuck with it because they couldn't afford to be wrong."
Really? He said that?
Read all the transcripts at trial and Mr Dalla Vedova's public statements nowhere near resemble that. They were careful, honest and respectful, to say the least. He had numerous opportunities to complain. But he didnt, not once.
As we've remarked in the posts just below, back in 2008 he and Mr Ghirga had to publicly advise Knox to please not keep inventing things. So to this claim of Knox, when her book comes up for trial, what can Mr Dalla Vedova say?
Either he committed a new crime or his client did?
There is a good reason Giulia Bongiorno is not defending Sollecito for his own radioactive book. On that, she has already jumped ship.
Last one out the door, please turn off the lights.
Archived in Questions For Knox, The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer
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Monday, August 11, 2014
US Measures Available To Italy To Secure Wrongdoers Without Argument
Posted by Peter Quennell
The US Federal Department of Justice from the Washington Mall
The post just below described in part how the twin justice systems are stacking up against the perps.
For Amanda Knox there are not one but three more ways in which the legal landscape is more tilted against her.
First, Bongiorno and Sollecito are clearly going for a "get-out-of-jail-early" tactic coupled with a "I-never-bought-into-a-murder" tactic. They dont seem to be maliciously dropping Amanda Knox in it, but they are sure signaling that it's every perp for themselves now, and that fighting a legitimate system and process is going nowhere.
Second, even before filing a request for extradition, Italy can request Interpol to issue a worldwide Red Notice for her capture. A Red Notice instigated by Italy is what got the CIA operative Robert Lady scampering out of Panama and experiencing a miserable life on the run thereafter - so much so that he has actually talked about suing the United States government (unlike Knox he had a contract).
Third, working through the United Nations body in Vienna that advances and harmonizes national justice systems, Italy and the United States and other closely aligned countries have arrived at these supportive legal arrangements for the enforcement of verdicts in one another's countries.
See page 61 onward for the help the US offers. In effect, upon Italy's Ministry of Justice filing the application, the American Department of Justice (with the FBI, just across Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Federal Marshals as its enforcement arms) would pick up the responsibility for tracking down the millions Knox would seem to owe
[Page 66] Enforcing Order to Seize Criminal Proceeds:
Under U.S. law (Title 28 United States Code Section 2467), the United States has the ability to enforce foreign restraining and forfeiture orders pursuant to an MLAT request or pursuant to requests made under certain multilateral conventions, including the 1988 Vienna Convention, the U.N. Convention against Corruption, and the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The crime for which the property is to be restrained and ultimately forfeited must be one that would subject the property to forfeiture under U.S. law, had the underlying acts been committed in the United States. To restrain the assets, the requesting country must provide in the MLAT/convention request a copy of the restraining order from the requesting country's court that specifically identifies the assets in the United States to be restrained, or in the alternative, an order which restrains all of the assets belonging to the accused…
The relevant US body is this one: Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice, 1301 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005 (not in the DOJ main building below).
Freezing all of Knox's assets till her dues are paid would mean no credit cards, no cash, no way to pay lawyers, no way to buy food or clothes or pay rent, no way to pay for internet use and a cellphone and trips, and no way to present a clean credit record to any prospective employer so no income coming in.
If it doesn't come to that, it will be because those who can guide Knox step in now to break it gently and get her to do the right thing.
Above Italian Ministry of Justice, below American Department of Justice
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Friday, August 08, 2014
False Claims By Amanda Knox & The Book Team May End Up Costing $10 Million
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
Book agent Robert Barnett forgets to exult about marketing the defamatory Amanda Knox book
True Costs Of The PR Bandwagon
Not solely for crimes of her own making, but there is a potential $10-million-plus bill that Knox & co may be stuck with.
- $5-plus million in costs and damages awarded against her by the Massei trial court and confirmed by the Nencini appeal court, incuding unpaid damages of nearly $100,000 to Patrick which Cassation already rendered final.
- $4 million for the book payment arranged in seeming defiance of Italian and American bloodmoney laws (called Son of Sam laws in the US), big bucks in financial donations from other misleading fundraisings (see the Knox website), and yet more big bucks for civil damages (see one defamation action described in the post under this one.)
A Self-Damaging Trend
It seems Amanda Knox can be extremely hard to shut up. Back in 2008 Knox's own Perugia lawyers had to ask her publicly, via the media, to please shut up and stop inventing things.
After her conniption at Perugia's central police station on 6 November 2007 she not only insisted on writing out three statements, she also babbled for large parts of the next five hours. That was despite attempts to calm her down with camomile tea and carbohydrates.
Then came her two calamitous days in mid 2009 on the witness stand (see more below) and her leaked diaries (which actually did nail one malicious lie not her own), and her bizarre video, and multiple reports of her other doings in Capanne, and multiple interviews ever since.
One of which has entrapped Italy's Oggi as we can see here and here.
A Possible Legal Scenario
Knox's own lawyers (who dont seem to have read her book in draft) also never backed up any of her claims at trial. Read the transcripts and it is pretty obvious that they were very very careful not to do so.
Even the partisan Judge Hellmann concluded Knox was lying and both he and Cassation confirmed Knox's three-year prison sentence for calunnia. To that there is no further appeal, and of course the time was served.
The precise timing of the Knox book's release represents another potential millstone. It came out after Sollecito's book had been sent to Florence prosecutors for investigations, and also after British and Italian editions were cancelled by HarperCollins's own lawyers, and also after the Italian Supreme Court reverted Knox's status to "guilty pending any final appeal" leading to her appeal which failed last January.
Red flags were up all over the place. Even other better-advised American publishers were emitting warnings.
Absent Knox's team getting good advice and withdrawing, settling, and apologizing, Knox and HarperCollins could be targeted by those Knox defamed. Then HarperCollins could target Mr Barnett and Ms Kulman. Mr Barnett and Ms Kulman could then target Mr Knox and Mr Marriott and Mr Simon.
Finding fault with Knox's book is like shooting fish in a barrel. See our previous post. Here are ten further examples.
Instances Of False Claims
1. False Claim: Knox On The Framing Of Her Kindly Employer
This is the lie that was universally disbelieved and for which Knox served three years for. See our still-emerging Interrogation Hox series. The objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt is ahead of us on this one.
[Knox] writes that she had a flashback to the interrogation, when she felt coerced into a false accusation. "I was weak and terrified that the police would carry out their threats to put me in prison for 30 years, so I broke down and spoke the words they convinced me to say. I said: 'Patrick - it was Patrick.'"
In her memoir, she describes in detail the morning that she put that accusation in writing, and says the prison guard told her to write it down fast.
Yet in a letter to her lawyers she gave no hint of being rushed or pressured. "I tried writing what I could remember for the police, because I've always been better at thinking when I was writing. They gave me time to do this. In this message I wrote about my doubts, my questions and what I knew to be true."
2. False Claim: Dr Mignini Portrayed Knox As A She-Devil
During the rebuttals, on December 3, each lawyer was given a half hour to counter the closing arguments made over the past two weeks. Speaking for me, Maria criticized Mignini for portraying Meredith as a saint and me as a devil
Really? Prosecutor Mignini said that? So why did the entire media corps report that it was said by Patrick Lumumba's lawyer Carlo Pacelli? As the BBC reported:
[Mr Pacelli] added: "Who is the real Amanda Knox? Is it the one we see before us here, simple water and soap, the angelic St Maria Goretti?"
"Or is she really a she-devil, a diabolical person focused on sex, drugs and alcohol, living life to the extreme and borderline - is this the Amanda Knox of 1 November 2007?"
So even Mr Pacelli didnt compare Knox to Meredith, or simply call Knox a she-devil to her face. He asked rhetorically if she was a she-devil or a saint. Not exactly unheard of in American courts.
And remember he was addressing someone who would have been quite happy to see Patrick put away for life, cost him two weeks in a cell, entangled her own mother in a cover-up, destroyed Patrick's business and reputation world-wide, still hasnt paid him money owed, and for lying about him served three years.
Prosecutor Mignini in fact never called Knox anything at all. We can find no record that he did. Again and again he has denied it. And he had no personal need to prosecute Knox, and certainly no need to frame her, despite many pages Knox devotes to trying to prove the reckless claim that he did.
3. False Claim: Dr Mignini Ascribes Crimes To Satanic Cults
Actually Dr Mignini has been repeatedly seen on Italian national TV saying satanic cults are rare and he has never originated even one such claim.
Dozens of others had suspected and talked about a satanic cult behind the Monster of Florence murders for many years before he investigated one loose end in the case. He did correctly not ascribe those murders to the work of a single serial killer - the man Doug Preston and Mario Spezi seemed to be framing to create for themselves worldwide adulation, only to end up bitter and mean when caught red-handed.
A Sollecito defense lawyer (Maori) emerged from a closed meeting with Judge Matteini and among other heated remarks originated the malicious claim that Dr Mignini was seeing something satanic.
4. False Claim: Knox Portrays Her Success On The Witness Stand
No success to anyone present. Knox devotes many pages to trying to make herself look good on the witness stand at the trial in mid-2009.
But Italians who could follow in Italian in real-time ended up trashing her phony performance up there. Read what they saw here and here.
It didnt convince the Massei court judges or Nencini court judges or the Supreme Court judges - or even the Hellmann court judges, those of the annulled appeal. Knox served three years.
5. False Claim: About Knox's Medical Examination After Arrest
The objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt reporting.
"After my arrest, I was taken downstairs to a room where, in front of a male doctor, female nurse, and a few female police officers, I was told to strip naked and spread my legs. I was embarrassed because of my nudity, my period - I felt frustrated and helpless."
The doctor inspected, measured and photographed her private parts, she writes - "the most dehumanising, degrading experience I had ever been through".
But in the 9 November letter to her lawyers, she described a far more routine experience.
"During this time I was checked out by medics. I had my picture taken as well as more copies of my fingerprints. They took my shoes and my phone. I wanted to go home but they told me to wait. And that eventually I was to be arrested. Then I was taken here, to the prison, in the last car of three that carried Patrick, then Raffaele, then me to prison."
Amanda Knox (arms up) at one of various concerts she attended in Capanne prison
6. False Claim: Capanne Prison was A Hellhole Of Sin And Debauchery
That opening remark of a book review by the National Enquirer was widely parroted in other American media reports.
Over half of the Knox book is devoted to hammering home this theme. Maybe in a longshot hope that it will help to encourage the U.S. to refuse her extradition.
Italian prison conditions and treatment, Knox claims, were so bad that they made her life miserable. She says that at times she became very despondent, and even claims to have imagined doing away with herself.
However, Italian prison conditions except for occasional overcrowding are widely considered among the most humane, caring and rehabilitating in the world. Compared to US prison conditions, they are like night and day.
And this almost universal claim of every prisoner everywhere is contradicted by the media on which she and her family worked so hard; by prison staff and official visitors, and even by the US Federal Government itself.
(1) Contradicted by the extensive media reporting
Occasional despondency is not all uncommon among those paying their debt to society. And there is scads of reporting that Knox had adjusted well to prison.
Read all of this BBC report dated 2013 by the objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt. And read this by ABC News after Knox was found guilty in 2009.
Knox said that she felt "horrendous" the night that the verdict was delivered. "She said the prison guards did come in to hold her and make her feel better. She said the other prisoners were good to her," Thomas said.
The reporter said the prison is "extremely clean." Knox's cell, which she shares with another American who has been sentenced on drug charges, is small. "It had a little bathroom with a door, a bidet, a sink, a shower…. better than some of the things I've seen at summer camp or boarding school."
The women inmates are allowed to go to a hairdresser once a week.
The prison is a new facility, just opened in 2005. The women's ward has an infirmary, an entertainment room with a pool table and ping-pong table, and a library. There is also a small chapel. Outside there is a little playground for children with benches and toys because there are cells specifically for women with children. Currently there are two women in Capanne with children.
It was very widely reported over four years that Knox was given the opportunity to do all these many things rarely encountered in American prisons: Learn the guitar. Read a lot. Watch TV. Study foreign languages.
Do artwork (colored pictures of hands). Attend rock concerts where she was seen leaping up and down (images here). Attend classical concerts. Attend Christmas parties.
Knox even played a major part in the creation of a rock video with a rock group. Unfortunately for her, that video appeared to many to come close to a taunting murder confession.
And on various occasions Knox was quoted as saying prison guards were kind to her.
(2) Contradicted by the US Embassy and State Department
American officials monitored Knox in court and prison and never saw anything that would back up Knox's claim.
The objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt reporting.
State department cables, released through the Freedom of Information Act, show that between 2007 and 2009, three different high-level diplomats from Rome (Ambassador Ronald Spogli, Deputy Chief Elizabeth Dibble and Ambassador David Thorne) were among those reviewing Knox's case.
Embassy officials visited regularly. Records show one consular official visited Knox on 12 November, soon after her arrest. A few weeks later she wrote in her diary how the visits of embassy officials improved her experience….
In 2008 and 2009, she was visited by two embassy officials at a time, six times. Ambassador David Thorne, whose name appears at the bottom of cables in August, November and December of 2009, is the brother- in-law of US Secretary of State John Kerry (at that time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee).
If the diplomats knew anything of the "harrowing prison hell" Knox was going through (as one paper put it), they are keeping those reports under wraps. Neither Kerry nor any other prominent US politician has made any public complaints. Even today, her Italian lawyers maintain she was not mistreated.
This matters incredibly to Knox because it constitutes the official take of the US Federal Government. It will be front and center of State Department and Justice Department considerations when an arrest warrant for Knox is issued and extradition is requested.
(3) Contradicted by Member of Parliament Rocco Girlanda
Mr Girlanda visited Amanda Knox in prison approximately 20 times for the specific purpose (or so he claimed) of checking her prison conditions. In fact that was the only way he could legally visit her, although oddly enough a book and a number of other pro-Knox actions emerged - even a complaint to the President about the Perugia prosecutors.
After Knox was released late in 2011 Mr Girlanda specifically praised the prison staff in this statement.
Perugia Prison Police The Example of Professionalism.
The PdL Party member of parliament Rocco Girlanda praises the officers of the Perugia prison.
"I've had the opportunity to describe to the Minister of Justice, Nitto Palma, the great professional behaviour shown by the Perugia Penitentiary Police with regards to the court case that saw Amanda Knox as protagonist, a behaviour that I had always observed during the course of my visits to the Capanne prison in the last two years." So says Rocco Girlanda, Umbrian deputy of the PdL, after the conclusion of the appeal trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
"In recent months I have had the opportunity to make dozens of visits to the prison, which also included some of the petitions presented by the senior management of the premises and my commitment in this regard, always finding, that starting from the director Bernardina Di Mario, continuing with the Penitentiary Police commander Fulvio Brillo, up to the entire personnel employed, the helpfulness, the courtesy and their professionalism which allows me to say that Perugia is a model structure on the national landscape, managed and directed in the best way and with a large dose of humanity on the part of the staff employed."
(4) Contradicted by Knox's own Italian lawyers
Knox's lawyers Mr Dalla Vedova and Mr Ghirga visited her again and again during the 2009 trial and 2010 hiatus and 2011 appeal. Knox once again had dozens of opportunities to lodge complaints with them - lawyers who could have initiated Supreme Court action in response.
When Knox was released late in 2011 Mr Dalla Vedova and Mr Ghirga were interviewed by the TV station Umbria 24:
The lawyers: "she never complained about the prison".
Amanda Knox "has never complained about the conduct/behavior of the prison police supervisor" and "she has never mentioned his name": to say so are the defenders of the American woman, lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, commenting on what was reported by the tabloid The Sun. "
Ghirga said: "In the diary Amanda never makes the name."
Della vedova said: "We are grateful to the management staff of Capanne prison for their cooperation even given to the family's requirements. Amanda has never reported violations against her."
"She absolutely has received the correct treatment and the outmost solidarity, within compliance, especially in the prison's female section."
(5) Contradicted by prison guards and other inmates
In some interviews, the reporter Sharon Feinstein captures a view of a difficult, narcissistic, uncaring Amanda Knox which is very commonplace around Perugia. The real faults lie with Knox, in effect.
7. False Claim: About Knox's Persona And Mood Swings In Prison
The objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt reporting.
She says she was often suicidal, but recollections of prison staff and other inmates differ. Flores Innocenzia de Jesus, a woman incarcerated with Amanda in 2010 described Knox as sunny and popular among the children who were in Capanne with their mothers, and recalled her avid participation in music and theatrical events. She also held a sought-after job taking orders and delivering goods to inmates from the prison dispensary.
"Most of the time when we spoke during our exercise break, the kids would call her and she would go and play with them," de Jesus told me.
American officials monitored Knox in court and prison and never saw anything that would back up Knox's claim.
8. False Claim: Negative Attitudes Displayed By The Prison Staff
Agian, the objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt reporting.
"The prison staff are really nice," wrote Knox in her personal prison diary, which was eventually published in Italy under the title Amanda and the Others.
"They check in to make sure I'm okay very often and are very gentle with me. I don't like the police as much, though they were nice to me in the end, but only because I had named someone for them, when I was very scared and confused."
She described Italian prisons as "pretty swell", with a library, a television in her room, a bathroom and a reading lamp. No-one had beaten her up, she wrote, and one guard gave her a pep talk when she was crying in her cell.
Unlike the heavily-edited memoir, these are phrases she handwrote herself, complete with strike-outs, flowery doodles, peace signs and Beatles lyrics.
9. False Claim: The Positive HIV Result At Capanne Was Malicious
The objective Italy-based reporter Andrea Vogt reporting.
Both accounts also refer to the devastating but erroneous news from the prison doctor that she had tested positive for HIV, although her diary presents a more relaxed person at this point. "First of all, the guy told me not to worry, it could be a mistake, they're going to take a second test next week."
We also know that it was Knox's own team who leaked the HIV report and list of sex partners she herslf chose to create. Not the doctor or anyone else. No malice was intended, that is clear, despite her claims.
10. False Claim? Knox Was Pressured For Sex By A Prison Guard
One of Knox's prison claims actually names a now-retired senior prison guard who Knox claimed often asked her for sex. There are no witnesses, but he is now suing Knox for libel and Knox herself seems to have wrecked any defense..
Knox made the claim but in a far weaker form in 2011. Then as CBS reported she had in fact concluded the guard was not even serious about sex. He was seeking to understand her.
Investigative journalist and CBS News Consultant Bob Graham, reading from Amanda's letter to him: "'He was fixated on the topic of sex, with whom I'd done it, how I liked it, if I would like to do it with him. When I realized that he really wanted to talk to me about sex I would try to change the subject.'"
Correspondent Peter Van Sant: "What does this letter say to you about what she's been going through?"
Graham: "It says in a time when she was clearly traumatized by the events of the death, the murder of her flatmate, that there she was, an innocent abroad, because she was innocent, she is innocent… and here she was being pressured, further pressured in a prison system, a system that at least she should have had some degree of safety."
Graham, reading Amanda's letter: "I realize that he was testing me to see if I reacted badly, to understand me personally. He wanted to get a reaction or some information from me. I did not get the seriousness of the situation.'"
Knox's claim about pressure for sex seems to have left Italians contemptuous. Yet more lies from knox, the Italian Il Giornale labeled it.
Have a good weekend, guys. Hit the law books.
Archived in Other legal processes, Knox calunnia, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, Knox's book
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Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Questions For Knox & Team: Why Does Book Need To Smear Italian Officials So Blatantly?
Posted by Peter Quennell
HarperCollin's Jonathan Burnham and Claire Wachtell who edited and published Knox's book
1. Reminder For Knox Book Team
Presumably your team remembers this jubilant (and to Italy pretty insulting) book announcement.
It was made on the day when you agreed to pay Amanda Knox a rumored $4 million, for a "full and unflinching" account" of "her struggle to cope with a nightmarish ordeal" and you set out your hopes and intentions.
NEW YORK (AP)—Amanda Knox has a book deal.
The young exchange student whose conviction in Italy and eventual acquittal on murder charges made headlines worldwide has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story. The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release last October.
"Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system," HarperCollins said in a statement Thursday.
"Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates. She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life."
The book, currently untitled, is tentatively scheduled for early 2013.
"Many accounts have been written of the Amanda Knox case, and countless writers and reporters have speculated on what role, if any, was played by Knox in that tragic and terrifying sequence of events," HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said in a statement.
"No one has yet heard Amanda Knox's own account of what happened, and this book will give Knox an opportunity to tell the story in full detail, for the first time. It will be the story of a crime and a trial, but also a moving account of a young woman's struggle to cope with a nightmarish ordeal that placed her at the center of a media storm, and led to her imprisonment."
2. So Why Multiple False Accusations Like This One?
May we ask? Was truth too was in the contract, as Knox had just served three years for lying? Was due diligence on Knox's claims done before the book deal was done and the book shadow-written? What was expurgated at the last moment and why were UK and Italian editions halted?
Did your shadow-writer Linda Kulman and your editor Claire Wachtell got in touch with at least some of the mentioned people in Perugia? And where there were multiple accusations of crimes against Italian officials, did you give all the targets, or at least some of them, any chance at all to explain their side?
The Knox book has been out for nearly 18 months now. You have paperback and Kindle and audio editions. This very serious accusation of Dr Mignini in the box below has gone globally viral.
It is unique in the ferocity of an accusation that could wreck a prosecutor's career, even send him to prison. And it could cost Knox serious additional prison time if proved wrong - as it already has been. See below the quote for the truth. Not only was Knox not interrogated at all - Dr Mignini was not even there.
[This is from pages 90 to 92 on the voluntary recap/summary session.
Eventually they told me the pubblico ministero would be coming in.
I didn't know this translated as prosecutor, or that this was the magistrate that Rita Ficarra had been referring to a few days earlier when she said they'd have to wait to see what he said, to see if I could go to Germany.
I thought the "public minister" was the mayor or someone in a similarly high "public" position in the town and that somehow he would help me.
They said, "You need to talk to the pubblico ministero about what you remember."
I told them, "I don't feel like this is remembering. I'm really confused right now." I even told them, "I don't remember this. I can imagine this happening, and I'm not sure if it's a memory or if I'm making this up, but this is what's coming to mind and I don't know. I just don't know."
They said, "Your memories will come back. It's the truth. Just wait and your memories will come back."
The pubblico ministero came in.
Before he started questioning me, I said, "Look, I'm really confused, and I don't know what I'm remembering, and it doesn't seem right."
One of the other police officers said, "We'll work through it."
Despite the emotional sieve I'd just been squeezed through, it occurred to me that I was a witness and this was official testimony, that maybe I should have a lawyer. "Do I need a lawyer?" I asked.
He said, "No, no, that will only make it worse. It will make it seem like you don't want to help us."
It was a much more solemn, official affair than my earlier questioning had been, though the pubblico ministero was asking me the same questions as before: "What happened? What did you see?"
I said, "I didn't see anything."
"What do you mean you didn't see anything? When did you meet him?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Where did you meet him?"
"I think by the basketball court." I had imagined the basketball court in Piazza Grimana, just across the street from the University for Foreigners.
"I have an image of the basketball court in Piazza Grimana near my house."
"What was he wearing?"
"I don't know."
"Was he wearing a jacket?"
"I think so."
"What color was it?"
"I think it was brown."
"What did he do?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I'm confused!"
"Are you scared of him?"
"I guess."
I felt as if I were almost in a trance. The pubblico ministero led me through the scenario, and I meekly agreed to his suggestions.
"This is what happened, right? You met him?"
"I guess so."
"Where did you meet?"
"I don't know. I guess at the basketball court."
"You went to the house?"
"I guess so."
"Was Meredith in the house?"
"I don't remember."
"Did Patrick go in there?"
"I don't know, I guess so."
"Where were you?"
"I don't know. I guess in the kitchen."
"Did you hear Meredith screaming?"
"I don't know."
"How could you not hear Meredith screaming?"
"I don't know. Maybe I covered my ears. I don't know, I don't know if I'm just imagining this. I'm trying to remember, and you're telling me I need to remember, but I don't know. This doesn't feel right."
He said, "No, remember. Remember what happened."
"I don't know."
At that moment, with the pubblico ministero raining questions down on me, I covered my ears so I could drown him out.
He said, "Did you hear her scream?"
I said, "I think so."
My account was written up in Italian and he said, "This is what we wrote down. Sign it."
This False Accusation In Knox's Book, Challenged
In multiple pages of testimony at trial four years prior to the book it was made crystal-clear that Dr Mignini was not even there then at the central police station.
See the hard facts summarised below. He was only called in later, after Knox insisted in writing her first false accusation, and his only roles were to warn Knox she needed a lawyer and to observe while she insisted on writing a second accusation.
- (1) Amanda Knox turned up at the Perugia central police station late at night, unwanted and grumpy, and was advised to go home and get some sleep.
(2) Inspector Ficarra later said if she really wanted, she could help, she could build a list of possible perps, in a recap/summary session (not an interrogation).
(3) For maybe 45 minutes, starting at 12:30 am (when the interpreter arrived), Knox quite calmly listed seven names along with maps drawn.
(4) Knox had a wailing conniption, which really startled the four others present, when Knox saw an outgoing text to her boss she had just said wasnt there.
(5) Police did what they could to calm her down, and she insisted on writing out three statements in supposed elaboration in less than 12 hours.
(6) She was warned she should have a lawyer each time, the second warning by Dr Mignini, but each time she shrugged off this advice and pressed on.
(7) Cassation ruled the first two statements could not be used to indict Knox at the murder trial, but all three could be used to argue her framing of Patrick.
Who believes this? The defense teams! Do read the numerous court transcripts of testimony describing events on that night. Not one defense lawyer challenged even one word of the above.
Legal Prospects For HarperCollins Of The False Accusations
Have you ever had any book out, ever, which slimes an American prosecutor? Which contains malicious lies long pointed out? Which you still heedlessly propagate?
Your prospects and Knox's are not pretty. This is what some of our own lawyers are suggesting. Italian obstruction-of-justice laws could be applied to HarperCollins and those party to it - note the legal fate of Andrew Gumbel the equivalent of Linda Kulman for Raffaele Sollecito.
So could the federal and state American Son of Sam laws requiring the forfeiting of all of that world-record $4 million in bloodmoney plus any fees paid to helpers like Linda Kulman and profits for HarperCollins.
Also there could be the invoking of Italian and American laws against the harassment of victims' families, a horrific ongoing crime against the Kerchers perpetrated by many (Knox included) which the misleading book certainly helps to stir up.
Archived in Questions For Knox, The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Officially involved, The prosecutors, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, Knox's book, The many hoaxes, No-evidence hoax, The Dr Mignini hoax, Knox interrog. hoax
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Saturday, August 02, 2014
Questions For Knox: Why Does Book Smear Others On Drug Use, Mischaracterize Your Own?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Once-effusive Knox book team Robert Barnett, Linda Kulman (shadow writer) and Ted Simon
1. Previous Reporting
Knox was discovered by police to be sleeping with a drug dealer for drugs since she met him on a train to Perugia.
That connection led them to him and directly helped to put him away. Please see our previous posts here and here.
2. Questions For Knox & Team
That hot potato of a book you put together and marketed for a rumored $4 million… did you exercise any due-diligence fact-checking?
What exactly did you tell the publishers to assure them? Hard truths or truthiness? Especially as the UK and Italian publishings were halted, for legal reasons, at the very last moment. And as Knox had already served three years for lying.
That Knox had been consorting with a drug wholesaler, Federico Martini, and sleeping with him (as she herself admitted in the diary her own team circulated) quite possibly in return for free drugs was right out in the open in court and in the Italian media way back in January 2009.
That was even before her trial really got under way and a full four years before you put together her book deal.
See our past three posts. Now new proof of Knox's dangerous doings has emerged with a first published police report, and the Italian media are now all over this.
The release in Italy of police wire-tap transcripts of conversations between Knox and this drug kingpin she was instrumental in imprisoning is said to be only a matter of time.
So are Italian TV crimeshows featuring persons with personal knowledge of Knox's shenanigans.
Please take a look at these key passages in Knox's book - your book - where she drops a small army of others in it for drug use and for unsavory measures to hide it.
Knox heavily disguises here that her own drug doings were way, way worse. You were surely not a party to this serial misleading?
If not, this could be just the right time to put real distance between yourself and Knox. She will unquestionably be charged with other false claims soon, and you would surely not want to be called to court as a person of interest.
It seems only fair to warn, if you dont already know, that these Knox fibs are only a very, very, very small fraction.
3. Twenty Book Quotes That Hide The Real Story
They said I wasn't the first roommate they'd interviewed. A guy they called "totally uptight" was interested in renting, until he found out they smoked—¬cigarettes and marijuana. "Are you okay with that?" Filomena asked. "I'm from Seattle. I'm laid back," I answered. "I don't smoke cigarettes, but I'll share a joint." A few minutes later they rolled one and passed it around. I inhaled deeply and relaxed.
Around our house, marijuana was as common as pasta. I never purchased it myself, but we all chipped in. For me, it was purely social, not something I'd ever do alone. I didn't even know how to roll a joint and once spent an entire evening trying. I'd seen it done plenty of times in both Seattle and Perugia, but it was trickier than I thought it would be. Laura babysat my efforts, giving me pointers as I measured out the tobacco and pot and tried rolling the mixture into a smokable package. I never got it right that night, but I won a round of applause for trying. Either Filomena or Laura took a picture of me posing with it between my index and middle finger, as if it were a cigarette, and I a pouty 1950s pinup.
What I didn't know when I arrived was that the city had the highest concentration of heroin addicts in Italy. I never heard about the high level of trafficking and drug use until I was in prison, bunking with drug dealers.
"Do you like marijuana?" I blurted. "It is my vice," Raffaele said. "It's my vice, too," I said. I loved the phrase in Italian. Raffaele looked surprised, then pleased. "Do you want to come to my apartment and smoke a joint?" I hesitated. He was basically a stranger, but I trusted him. I saw him as a gentle, modest person. I felt safe. "I'd love to," I said.
When I first saw [flatmate] Laura, she was dry-eyed. She came up and hugged me and said, "I can't believe it. I'm so sorry. I know Meredith was your friend." Then she sat me down and said, "Amanda, this is really serious. You need to remember: do not say anything to the police about us smoking marijuana in our house." I was thinking, You can't lie to the police, but I considered this anxiously a moment and then said, "Okay, I haven't yet. I won't."
When we finished, a detective put me through a second round of questioning, this time in Italian. Did we ever smoke marijuana at No. 7, Via della Pergola? "No, we don't smoke," I lied, squirming inwardly as I did. I didn't see that [flatmate] Laura had left me with any choice, and I felt completely trapped by her demand. I could barely breathe until the detective moved on to a new topic, and when he did, I was hugely relieved. I thought that was the end of it. Aside from what I said about our villa's drug habits, I told him everything I could possibly think of.
I didn't think I could take any more surprises, but they kept coming. Next, the police opened up a closet to reveal five thriving marijuana plants. "Does this look familiar?" they asked. "No," I said. Despite my earlier lie about not smoking in our house, I was now telling the truth. I was stunned that the guys were growing a mini-plantation of pot. I couldn't believe I had talked to them every day since I'd moved in six weeks earlier and they'd never mentioned it.
She led me through the waiting room and into the same office with the two desks where I'd spent so much time. As we were walking, she looked at me, narrowing her eyes. "You said you guys don't smoke marijuana. Are you sure you're being honest?" "I'm really sorry I said that." I grimaced. "I was afraid to tell you that all of us smoked marijuana occasionally, including Meredith. We'd sometimes pass a joint around when we were chilling out with the guys or with Filomena and Laura. But Meredith and I never bought any pot; we didn't know any drug dealers."
I replied to the message telling him that we'd see each other right away. Then I left the house, saying to my boyfriend that I had to go to work. Given that during the afternoon with Raffaele I had smoked a joint, I felt confused because I do not make frequent use of drugs that strong.
It was during this conversation that Raffaele told me about his past. How he had a horrible experience with drugs and alcohol. He told me that he drove his friends to a concert and that they were using cocaine, marijuana, he was drinking rum, and how, after the concert, when he was driving his passed-out friends home, how he had realized what a bad thing he had done and had decided to change.
We talked about his friends, how they hadn't changed from drug-using video game players, and how he was sad for them.
That night I smoked a lot of marijuana and I fell asleep at my boyfriend's house. I don't remember anything. But I think it's possible that Raffaele went to Meredith's house, raped her and then killed her.
Their theory seemed to be that I knew Guede from the time Meredith and I had met with the guys downstairs in front of the fountain in Piazza IV Novembre—the night Guede told the guys I was cute. He hadn't made an impression on me at all then. The prosecution hypothesized that, after that night, he'd gotten in touch with me, perhaps about buying drugs.
The prosecution's simple story was absolutely false, but it apparently rang true for the authorities. They added flourishes in the course of the trial—Meredith was smarter, prettier, more popular, neater, and less into drugs and sex than I was. For some of or all these reasons, she was a better person, and I, unable to compete, had hated her for it.
Laura and Filomena had always bought the marijuana for the villa's personal use. But when Filomena shrugged her shoulders helplessly on the stand, she made it seem that the only reason marijuana was in the house was because of me.
When Mignini brought up names of guys who'd come over, Laura replied, "Those are my friends." When he asked if anyone in the villa smoked marijuana, she said, "Everyone."
Carlo [Dalla Vedova], who'd never sugarcoated my situation, said, "These are small-town detectives. They chase after local drug dealers and foreigners without visas. They don't know how to conduct a murder investigation correctly. Plus, they're bullies. To admit fault is to admit that they're not good at their jobs. They suspected you because you behaved differently than the others. They stuck with it because they couldn't afford to be wrong."
In Quito, where she lived, Laura [another Laura, in Capanne, not flatmate Laura] had dated an Italian who invited her to Naples for vacation and bought her a new suitcase. When she landed at the Aeroporto Internazionale di Napoli, it was not her boyfriend who met her plane but the customs police. They arrested her for the cocaine they found sewn into the luggage's lining. The boyfriend, it turned out, had not only turned her into a drug mule, but had lied about his name. He was untraceable. She was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
Curatolo was recalled as a witness, but he came under different circumstances. The onetime homeless man was now in prison himself, on drug charges.... He confirmed that he was now in prison, adding, "I haven't quite understood why yet." Asked if he'd used heroin in 2007, he answered, "I have always used drugs. I want to clarify that heroin is not a hallucinogen.
Curatolo didn't know what he was talking about, poor guy. If my life didn't depend on his being wrong, I'd just feel bad for him," I reported. ""The broadcasts here are saying that he's a confused drug addict!" someone cried.
Archived in Questions For Knox, The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Public evidence, Use of drugs, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, Knox's book, The many hoaxes, No-evidence hoax, RS AK normal hoax
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Friday, August 01, 2014
The Knox Interrogation Hoax #10: ChallengeTo Readers: Spot The Two Landmines For Lawyers & Knox?
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
American supporters of Knox argue that the "interrogation" is a "she said/they said" situation. One in which it is Knox that tells the world the truth.
And that the police had closed ranks to hide a brutal hours-long session resulting in Knox framing Patrick and that the "lost" recording of the "interrogation" would prove that she is the one that is right.
There is, of course, no recording, as it was an impromptu recap/summary session, with someone who might or might not have relevant information for the police. No legal system in the world requires the taping of that.
But there is in fact hard evidence the other way, that the investigators told the world the truth. Two items. Each mentioned often and assumed as givens in Posts #2 to #9.
Even if the days of crushing testimony left undented by cross-examination which we have posted was not enough, these items prove that the first scenario here is the truth and Knox has ever since lied.
Because several defense lawyers remarked on them without debating them, in cross-examining all the investigators who had any encounter with Knox on 5-6 November, all the defense counsel unquestionably knew that the items lurked there in the evidence pile in plain sight.
It seems impossible to know about these items, and yet still believe that Knox was telling the truth.
Lawyers often encourage their clients to tell the truth and good lawyers never encourage their clients to lie. And yet here Ghirga, Dalla Vedova, Bongiorno and Maori would have known from latest early 2008 that Knox's claims on the "interrogations" were in fact made up.
And if so, they must have asked themselves, why? Why did Knox have to lie?
In all the legitimate legal processes, meaning all those except the Hellmann appeal, the defense lawyers were seen by close observers to be dispirited and lacking the full punch that the certainty of innocence can bring.
In the years that followed since, these two items helped to changed legal mindsets, from Prosecutor Mignini, to Judge Matteini, to Judge Micheli, to Judge Massei, to even Judge Hellmann, and so on to Cassation and the Nencini appeal.
If they are landmines, in the legal process they long ago went off.
And all along Knox should have known that the items exist, they were repeatedly talked about right in front of her in the court. But Knox makes no mention in her book, or in her appeals, or in her email to Judge Nencini, or in her appeal to the ECHR (we presume). How odd.
What were these items? Answers on Monday if nobody drops to them before. Good luck.
Archived in The former defendants, Amanda Knox, Officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, Knox's alibis, Diversion efforts by, The Knox-Mellases, The many hoaxes, Knox interrog. hoax
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