Category: More hoaxers

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Oprah Gets Snowed: Why Was She Not Made Aware of The Race Card Being Played?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Previous posts on Oprah’s intervention here and here.

We will have a detailed takedown of the large number of disputable claims made today on Oprah Winfrey’s show posted here in a day or two. 

Meanwhile, we must say that it was a pretty weird experience to witness Oprah Winfrey, of all people, being taken in by the “of course the black guy did it” meme.

• Is she aware that the poor black guy Rudy Guede has no prior convictions and that all three have had prior brushes with the police?


• Is she aware that there is NO reliable evidence that the poor black guy Guede has ever done drug dealing or burglary in Perugia or for that matter wielded a knife?


• Is she aware that there is no REMOTELY feasible scenario under which a lone wolf like the poor black guy Guede could have done this crime all alone?


• Is she aware that there is EXTENSIVE evidence that Knox and Sollecito rearranged the crime scene and moved Meredith’s body - while the poor black guy Guede was reliably reported at a disco?

There seems to be a nasty race card deliberately being played here to deflect blame from Amanda (remember Patrick Lumumba?) which Oprah’s staff should have picked up on in a mere 15 minutes of research.

This was the REAL story here - that blaming it all on the black guy is a theory that just doesn’t fly - and Oprah should have been onto this one like a hungry dog onto a bone.

Hopefully next time she will be.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Oprah, Perhaps Your Guests On Today’s Show Could Explain This Very Tough One Away

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click here for Finn MacCools’ chilling analysis of Amanda Knox’s first call to her mom the day after.

Finn posted this incriminating piece of work on TJMK last July, and ever since, it has awkwardly lurked like an elephant in the room.

The prosecution never really required a smoking gun to prove the Knox-Sollecito case. To those in the courtroom who heard all the fine details, the totality of the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to guilt.

But for anyone for whom it hadn’t, this strange story of the call that suddenly wasn’t came as close as anything in the evidence to a smoking gun. One that Edda Mellas may have dropped to around two years ago, as Finn shows.

One that that in most courts around the world would almost by itself result in case closed.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Oprah Winfrey, Please Discuss The Case With Jeanine Pirro, Anne Coulter, And Now Tina Brown

Posted by Peter Quennell

Next Tuesday [today] at 4:00 pm the influential American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey will weigh in at last on the case.

There is a growing history of high-profile American media personalities like Oprah being misled and thus misleading on the real strength of the evidence (and it is very strong.)

And then going publicly silent. Apparently more than once, behind the scenes, very angrily.

Unquestionably, Oprah Winfrey helped Barack Obama to get elected. She is very powerful. And the self-made billionaire is famous for getting very, very angry behind the scenes if given wrong facts or lied-to.

In fact Oprah is probably the last woman in America that anyone would want to lie to.

In the past few months both prominent American media personalities and entire American networks and publishing empires have got deeper into the hard evidence, and seen for themselves that justice in this case has been done.

These days, no media personality or media empire in the United States seems to want to be the last one standing in defense of a probable charming psychopath.

• Larry King of CNN has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• Geraldo Rivera of Fox Cable has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• Jane Velez-Mitchell of CNN has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• The New York Times has reported very fairly since this fiasco.
• CBS TV dropped its series of very biased reports after this fiasco.

Now Oprah is famous for being a voracious reader. And we know that her crack production team and possibly Oprah herself have been studying this website and our sister website the PMF forum.

There is a mountain of objective evidence on these two websites, and we will not be at all surprised if Oprah and her team get right on top of it and blow the faux defense right out of the studio.

Additionally, Oprah and her production team would do well to consider phoning Oprah’s fellow media stars Jeanine Pirro and Ann Coulter and now Tina Brown.  All three consider the case to be closed. And the verdict to be a perfectly fair one.

Knox killed Meredith quite horrifically. Knox was rightly found guilty. And without further ado, Knox should get on with serving her time.

Friday, December 18, 2009

A Shoot-From-The-Hip Donald Trump Appears To Have Been Told Less Than The Full Truth

Posted by Our Main Posters

Click here and here for Donald Trump’s take on the case.

An expanded version appeared on the defunct Trump University website. The discussion thread there probably contains more strident anti-Italy comments than any other, ever, on Meredith’s case.

If you live in most parts of the United States you can go a thousand days without hearing even a single a racist or xenophobic comment. For the most part that is simply not how most people talk. Many have a real eagerness to travel and learn more and student exchange schemes have really rocketed.

There are still some immigrant tensions along the border with Mexico but these days that largely is it. The racial mix in the US is very good fun, it is a huge cultural and economic asset to the country, and there is lots of nice “ethnic” food and some real fun parades. The many young European and Asian women who visit New York say it is the nicest city in the world for them, because they feel safe and welcomed and nobody hits aggressively on them.

The big foreign targets that anyone older than 20 will remember were China, Russia and the Soviet countries. Those of course faded as villains. Since then the most villainously depicted in the movies made here have tended to be Arab. And even that seems to be fading.

So the extreme anti-Italian animosity deliberately and cynically fueled by the FOA campaign is really quite an outlier. The only other demon European country in the recent period was France, when the Prime Minister said war with Iraq was a bad idea, and much of that evolved into farce rather than real hatred.

Donald Trump’s property business went bankrupt in the late 1990s and his casino business went bankrupt last year - at which time his own board forced him out for being such really bad news. He really is not now someone of consequence as oppposed to high-profile. That is, if he ever was. 

Quite why Donald Trump leaped into Meredith’s case is frankly not at all clear. He clearly knows almost none of the real facts and he seems to have little to gain.

This strident anti-Italianism he is stoking is really sad, sick news.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

CNN’s Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom Nails Cantwell’s Ill-Informed Intervention

Posted by Peter Quennell

This is from Anderson Cooper’s nightly news show on CNN in the US.. Certainly it is one of the best.

Lisa Bloom appears at the 4 minute mark (and Barbie Nadeau after that) following Senator Cantwell’s various ill-informed charges. But in the space of less than a minute she really nails it.

Here Lisa Bloom stands up for truth, fairness to Italy, and compassion to the real victim. Meredith Kercher. .

 

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Is “Victims Rights Advocate” John Q Kelly Hiding Behind A Wall Of Silence?

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

We do hope not.

That would seem a very cowardly thing for New York lawyer John Kelly to do. And intensely disrespectful to the real victim here, Meredith Kercher, and her poor family.

We discussed this post on some wild-eyed claims John Kelly made on CNN’s Larry King (the YouTube of which has now been disappeared) with a dozen or so successful and very ethical lawyers who follow the case.

They all in effect concluded that John seemed to them to have acted either incompetently or unethically in sliming the judges and the prosecution and mis-stating the hard facts of the case. And that John really seemed to them to owe the Kercher family and the Italian authorities an explanation or an apology. 

They remarked that if the victim and her family in this case had been American and not British, then John Kelly would probably have been in front of a camera again within a day to say how very wrong and how sorry he was.

Of course the family are across the Atlantic in London and perhaps easy for John Kelly to ignore. But ignoring them WOULD seem to be rather cowardly.

Plenty of space here for you, John. When you decide to do the decent thing.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Smart Lawyers Are Asking: What On Earth Possessed Lawyer John Q Kelly?

Posted by The Machine

[click for larger image]

Many very smart lawyers have been dropping by TJMK for over a year now to get a good take on the case.

Many of them email to us, some of them post comments, and several have posted front-page posts. They appear to appreciate the dispassionate tone here, the huge caring for the real victim and her family and friends, and the genuine appreciation for how the case is being handled in Italy.

And many of them really like how we have presented the evidence,  technically and logically. Some have even said that they would love to have the likes of Kermit, Brian, Nicki, Finn, and Pete and, well, myself at their elbow when preparing their own trial arguments and presentations.

Without any exception now they are remarking to us that, yes, there really IS a strong case against Knox and Sollecito, and the defenses have left dozens of questions unanswered.

So it was a jaw-dropping experience for them to see John Q Kelly, a respected Manhattan defense lawyer and strong proponent of victims’ rights, bound onto Larry King’s show on CNN and make wild-eyed accusations like this one.

KELLY: “My thoughts, Larry, it’s probably the most egregious international railroading of two innocent young people that I have ever seen. This is actually a public lynching based on rank speculation, and vindictiveness. It’s just a nightmare what these parents are going through and what these young adults are going through also.”

John Kelly then, seemingly rather nervously, tries hard to paint Amanda Knox as the victim. The name of the real victim, the one who died very slowly and painfully, clutching her neck while the life-blood ran out, barely passes John Kelly’s lips.

John Kelly appeared to know little of Italy’s very careful pre-trial process or the very damning Micheli report. or the strong case the prosecution presented or the real facts about Mr Mignini or anything about Amanda Knox’s lifestyle in Perugia or her disastrous stint on the stand that persuaded nobody in her favor.

And he seemed to know nothing at all about the amazing and hyper-talented young woman who went by the name of Meredith Kercher.

Let us examine each of John Kelly’s claims on Larry King’s show to see if they make any sense.

KELLY: “Well, as I said, it’s almost because Amanda showed too much stoicism after the death of her roommate, who she barely knew. These were two girls living together less than eight weeks.”

“And, you know, Larry, you’ve always seen this in these murder cases and things like the husband didn’t cry enough, or they weren’t upset enough when the children went missing. This is one of these things where, I guess, under the Italian culture, she did not respond the way they wanted her to respond. And they sort of put together a case with, you know, gum and toothpicks to try to make a case against her. And it is outrageous.”

I do recommend that John Kelly actually takes the time to read the eyewitness accounts of Amanda Knox’s behavior in the days following Meredith’s murder. There were a LOT of odd actions. For example mere moments after Meredith’s lifeless and mutilated body was discovered, Knox and Sollecito were kissing and caressing each other.

Many have come to feel that her bizarre and callous actions then point to a psychological disorder, perhaps a form of psychopathia, and they were certainly something that Prosecutor Mignini rightly and understandably found very strange:

“When those present go outside after the body is found, Knox and Sollecito are also outside, intent on kissing and caressing each other, as they did subsequently during police searches.

“A very strange way of behaving which started the very moment the victim’s body was found . . . and at a time when all the other young people were literally overwhelmed by that discovery,” said Mignini

(The Times, 18 January 2009).

It wasn’t just Mr Mignini or the Italian officials who found the behavior of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito strange:

“I found Amanda’s behaviour very strange,” said Robyn Butterworth”¦ “I found it difficult to be with her because she showed no emotion when everyone else was really upset. We were all crying but I didn’t see Amanda cry,”

“She and Raffaele were kissing and joking together, there was laughter at some point, I remember Amanda stuck her tongue out at Raffaele. She put her feet up on his lap and they were kissing and cuddling and talking.”

“Amanda kept saying “˜I found her, how do you think I feel?’...She seemed proud to have found the body. I heard her say that Meredith was in the closet with a blanket over her. I also remember her talking on the phone and she was saying things like “˜It could have been me.’”

Another friend, Natalie Hayward, had expressed the hope that Miss Kercher had not suffered when she died. Miss Knox allegedly replied: “What do you think? She fucking bled to death.”

Amy Frost, another witness who had flown in from Britain, testified that at the police station Ms Knox was “giggling” and kissing Mr Sollecito. “I remember Amanda sticking her tongue out at him. She had her feet on his lap,” the court was told. Ms Frost said that Ms Knox’s behavior at the police station was “inappropriate”, as if she had “gone crazy”....

This was no behavior just slightly out of the ordinary. It was nothing remotely like stoic. John Kelly’s assertion that the Italian authorities fabricated a case against Amanda Knox simply because she didn’t respond the way she was expected to in Italy seems pretty ridiculous.

Amanda Knox actually made herself into a suspect because she admitted that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed, and she voluntarily admitted that she was involved in Meredith’s murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007.

The police already strongly suspected that Knox and Sollecito were involved in Meredith’s murder because they had given contradictory and conflicting witness statements and their telephone records proved that they had told the police what Sollecito himself described as “a pack of lies”.

Now for John Kelly’s next claim.

KELLY: “There’s no forensic evidence. There’s no physical evidence…. There’s no substantive evidence whatsoever against Amanda….”

“I think the only forensic evidence they had was a small portion of Amanda’s DNA on the handle of a knife in Raffaele’s apartment, where she was all the time. And it’s not even consistent with the murder weapon that was used.”

“The murder weapon was a three and a half inch knife. This is a six and a half inch knife that had a minute portion of Amanda’s DNA on it, and inconclusive tests that on the tip of it there was some of Meredith’s blood.”

There are so many factual errors in John Kelly’s comments above that it is hard to know where to begin. For starters, John Kelly contradicts himself by saying there is no forensic evidence, and then saying that the knife is the only forensic evidence.

The knife sequestered from Raffaele Sollecito’s apartment is in fact compatible with the deep puncture wound on Meredith’s neck. This was a point that even the defence forensic experts conceded.

The tests on the DNA found on the blade of the knife were not inconclusive. Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni testified at the trial that the DNA on the blade of the knife has been reliably identified as Meredith’s

Both Dr. Renato Biondo, the head of the DNA Unit of the scientific police, and the Kerchers’ own DNA expert, Professor Francesca Torricelli, provided independent confirmation that this forensic finding is accurate and reliable.

The double DNA knife is far from the only piece of incriminating forensic evidence.

There were five instances of Amanda Knox’s DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood in three different locations in the cottage, including in Filomena’s room where the break-in was staged.

Furthermore, there was a woman’s bloody shoeprint compatible with Knox’s foot size on a pillow in Meredith’s room. This bloody shoeprint was not compatible with Meredith’s own foot size.

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp.

Two bloody footprints were attributed to Raffaele Sollecito. One of them was revealed by luminol in the hallway, and the other one was easily visible to the naked eye on the blue bathmat in Meredith’s and Knox’s shared bathroom.

Now for John Kelly’s next claim.

KELLY: “There’s no opportunity.”

Actually there was. Plenty. Amanda Knox’s and Raffale Sollecito’s mobile phone activity on the night of the murder point to their making an opportunity. They both turned off their mobile phones at approximately at 8.40 pm, shortly before Meredith was killed and turned them on again the following day at around 6.00 am - although they claimed they slept in late.

They both claimed conveniently that they couldn’t remember much about the period during which Meredith was killed because they claimed they were suffering from cannabis-induced amnesia (whatever that is) though what they actually did claim to remember differed wildly between the two of them.

Even now after the defense phase of the trial the defendants STILL don’t have credible alibis - despite three attempts each. Sollecito is still refusing to corroborate Knox’s alibi that she was at his apartment all that night - in Sollecito’s last alibi, he claimed that Knox left his apartment at 9 pm and returned only at around 1.00 am.

Now for John Kelly’s next claim.

KELLY: “There’s no confession.”

Actually there is. John Kelly clearly hasn’t read Amanda Knox’s handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007 which was entered in evidence. In that, she voluntarily admitted that she was present at Meredith’s murder: “Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith’s death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.”

Strong victims-rights proponent John Kelly appeared on the Larry King show to rant and make wild claims without seeming to have even a basic grasp of the facts. Really that was a pity.

The real victim here, Meredith Kercher, could use a heavyweight like him in her corner right about now.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Producer Of CBS Reports On The Case “Crazy, Desperate, Stupid, And/Or Unscrupulous” ?

Posted by The Machine

[click for larger image] 

Meet Joe Halderman. A CBS producer in New York. He now stands accused of blackmail.

None of the four US networks that have attempted coverage of Meredith’s case has a good record for impartial reporting, or anything remotely like a firm grasp of the prosecution evidence as actually presented.

Not one of them seems to be aware of the very careful pre-trial process or the very damning Micheli report. 

Nevertheless, the overall records of NBC, ABC and CNN seem to show some slight attempt at balance.

NBC produced two extremely good Dateline documentaries, which still represent the standard to beat. ABC has a reporter in the court in Perugia, Ann Wise, who we often quote on TJMK because her reporting is generally impartial and good.

And although CNN aired the one-sided Larry King Show last week, and the wild-eyed Jane Velez Mitchel panel discussion (now disappeared from YouTube) in which the lunatics appeared to be running the asylum, CNN did have some good reporting in the early days of the case, and we hear they will attempt to report better.

CBS undeniably is the worst of the worst.

CBS has repeatedly spread bias and misinformation and slimed Italian professionals and witnesses, and for that matter Italy itself, throughout the past two years.

Here is our post on one disaster of a CBS report. And here,  here,  here,  and here are our posts on another.

Joe Halderman of CBS (above) co-produced both of them.

Several weeks ago, Joe Halderman was arrested and charged with blackmail for apparently attempting to stiff CBS comedy host David Letterman for two million dollars.

Mr Halderman, a producer for the real-life crime show 48 Hours, entered his plea as he appeared in court in Manhattan on a charge of attempted grand larceny.

Speaking earlier, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said that the offence, if proven, was punishable by a prison term of five to 15 years. “Our concern here is extortion and that’s what we’re focusing on,” he said.

Mr Halderman was arrested following an undercover police “sting” operation at a New York hotel, during which he was allegedly recorded setting out his blackmail demands to Letterman’s lawyer.

Now it is being reported in New York that Joe Halderman’s story is taking a really bizarre turn.

One of the last 48 Hours stories that CBS Newsman and accused David Letterman blackmailer Joe Halderman worked on - airing just one month before he allegedly launched his plot to extort the late-night host - involved a ransom scheme…

It’s a run-of-the-mill true-crime tale of murder and deception, but it features one detail that seems strange in retrospect: The sister of one of the victims, who never got her brother’s remains from the Philippines after his murder, at one point received creepy anonymous e-mails from someone claiming to have her brother’s ashes, and offering to sell them to her….

The strange thing is, in the story Halderman reported, the ransom scheme goes haywire: The man behind the e-mail ends up attracting attention to himself and gets arrested for Rios’ murder….

We came across the weird synchronicity between Halderman’s day job and his after-hours scheming while going through his old 48 Hours segments and looking for signs that they may have been produced by someone crazy, desperate, stupid, and/or unscrupulous enough to engage in blackmail.

Hmmm. Apparently Joe Halderman is crazy, desperate, stupid, and/or unscrupulous enough to mislead a large segment of the American population about the real facts of Meredith’s murder.

Real crime seems a small step from there. 

Three others who Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau might also want to keep a close eye on are CBS junior producer Sara Ely Hulse, CBS reporter Peter Van Sant, and CBS consultant detective Paul Ciolino!

All have shown themselves extremely ignorant of the basic facts of the case.

Email exchanges with the obviously obsessively pro-Knox producer Sara Ely Hulse have suggested to us that, among many other key facts of the case, she was not aware of the following:

• Amanda Knox had a criminal record in Seattle.
• Amanda Knox had met Rudy Guede on a number of occasions.
• Amanda Knox was not questioned for 14 hours without an interpreter.
• A woman’s bloody shoeprint in Knox’s size was found on a pillow in Meredith’s room.

The seemingly extremely amateurish detective Paul Ciolino was responsible for conducting the farcical experiment in Perugia in the first CBS documentary linked-to above where he could not even get the STREET right before claiming this was a railroad job from hell.

And reporter Peter Van Sant channeled some of the worst libels about Prosecutor Mignini - baseless claims about satanic sects and so on - without even being able to spell Prosecutor Mignini’s name properly!

It seems to us very odd that both Sara Ely Hulse and Paul Ciolino appear to be members of the Free Amanda Knox Facebook group. Does CBS have any guidelines at all on ethical matters or standards of reporting?

On second thoughts…. Do we REALLY have to ask?

Above: CBS reporter Peter Van Sant who repeated online unfounded libelous smears about Prosecutor Mignini

Above: Junior CBS producer Sara Ely Hulse, an obsessed Knox fan who participated in CBS’s two fiascos.

Above: CBS consultant Paul Ciolino who ran a farcical test in Perugia and also slimed prosecutor and police

Above: Indecisive CBS producer Doug Longhini who with Joe Halderman produced CBS’s two fiascos

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

The Vilification Of Prosecutor Mignini Clearly Continues To Misfire

Posted by Peter Quennell

In this recent post we included an amazing statement from Mr Mignini.

A number of sources then confirmed that he and we had it exactly right in that post and that the claims of the American writer of the lurid “Monster Of Florence” are nasty, mischievous, and simply don’t check out.

Sources tell us Mr Mignini may have sharp elbows - but he is also very fair and careful, rarely leaks or does anything just for the publicity, does a great job for Perugia (where he is rather popular), and really respects the victims of crimes and and their families - in this case, Meredith and her family who repeatedly sound like they respect him.

Now La Nazione is reporting that Mr Mignini is again aggressively fighting back against the so-far-fruitless campaign to vilify him. 

He is planning to sue a Joe Cottonwood, seemingly a publicity-hungry carpenter and occasional journalist in California whose knowledge of the case would apparently not even cover a postage stamp. And who seems to feel he has a license to shoot his mouth off slanderously in Italy, regardless of who actually gets hurt.

The publisher of his uninformed take on the case in Il Giornale will apparently also be sued,

From La Nazione:

According to the American writer [Cottonwood] among other things, “perhaps in Italy there is a hatred of American college students who give joy to madness. Amanda will pay not for her guilt or innocence, but because of popular resentment towards rich and superficial Americans. The murder of Meredith Kercher is one of those mirrors that reflect the prejudices of the investigators.”

The last time that the prosecutor had moved for legal action was in January, when the West Seattle Herald described him as “inadequate” and “mentally unstable”. In that case, in a move that many had regarded as completely understandable as well as justified, the prosecutor saw fit to start concrete legal action.

And now the same judge [Mr Mignini] is preparing for a new legal battle after suffering yet another attack from the disparaging “‘stars and stripes”. Mr Mignini and his colleague Manuela Comodi are preparing an indictment for after the conclusion of the trial, which resumes in mid-month this month.

Nice going by the fatuous Joe Cottonwood. For those of a less xenophobic frame of mind here actually is the evidence. A series still far from complete.

Friday, July 10, 2009

The Birthdays of Amanda Knox And Of Meredith

Posted by Peter Quennell

The ANSA news-service provided this description of Amanda Knox’s birthday party in Capanne Prison, seen above.

Meredith was born in December 1985, in Southwark in south London and she would now have been 23 and a half - and would have just graduated from Leeds University.

Her whole life would have been ahead of her. Instead, back in December not one media outlet acknowledged her 23rd birthday.

The Knox and Mellas families have still not reached out to the Kercher family in their grief, and have seemingly avoided face-to-face meetings in the court.

Staged events like this birthday party contribute to a callous and insensitive aura in many eyes that they might do well to resolve