Monday, February 18, 2013

Raffaele Sollecito Now Under Formal Investigation For New Crimes Apparently Unprecedented

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Breaking news. The Chief Prosecutor for Tuscany Dr Quattrocchi (above and below) has taken this investigation of Sollecito behind the scenes. Dr Quattrocchi is actually under no compulsion to make any of the Perugia and Rome complaints public before his investigation is complete. He has ordered all documents removed from the public domain. This is specifically to give the defense and their PR no advantage, and to make sure those others in Perugia who are going to complain about being defamed do so without harm.

Overview

This is a contempt of court case as court officials have been impugned. This is Wikipedia’s definition of “contempt of court” under US and UK common law.

Contempt of court is a court order which in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court’s authority.

Often referred to simply as “contempt,” such as a person “held in contempt,” it is the judge’s strongest power to impose sanctions for acts which disrupt the court’s normal process.

A finding of contempt of court may result from a failure to obey a lawful order of a court, showing disrespect for the judge, disruption of the proceedings through poor behaviour, or publication of material deemed likely to jeopardize a fair trial.

A judge may impose sanctions such as a fine or jail for someone found guilty of contempt of court.

We may now find out much more about the equivalent under Italian law.

When Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were released at the end of 2011, the prosecution filed a Supreme Court appeal within the allotted period. This automatically meant that Sollecito and Knox still stood accused of crimes until the Supreme Court finally signs off.

Typically Italian defendants in such a legal status get good legal advice, on the lines of “Shut up and keep your heads down. We need to be the only ones doing the talking here.” 

Here such advice may or may not have been forthcoming, but the public record strongly suggests it was not. In fact Sollecios entire legal team is credited by both himelf and his shadow writer Andrew Gumbel with helping. This is what Gumbel wrote in his Acknowledgments:

Donatella Donati in Luca Maori’s office gave up many hours to make the official documentation available and to present it all in a cogent order. She’s a largely unsung hero in this story and deserves recognition for her extraordinary efforts on Raffaele’s behalf. Giulia Bongiorno, Luca Maori, and Tiziano Tedeschi answered questions and made comments on parts of the manuscript.

In the same Acknowledgments Sollecito credits the following.

I was lucky to have a crack legal team who showed their devotion to the truth and, in some cases, did not even request payment. The team of lawyers and consultants included Adriano Tagliabracci, Francesco Vinci, Bruno Pellero, Francesco Introna, Giulia Bongiorno, Maurizio Parisi, Daniela Rocchi, Luca Maori, Donatella Donati, Marco Brusco, Aldo Poggioni, Delfo Berretti, Tiziano Tedeschi, and Antonio D’Ambrosio.

Interestingly, Luca Maori has already left Sollecio’s legal team, and all eyes are now on Giulia Bongiorno. Buy plenty of popcorn. Lawsuits could fly between lawyers and family. 

Since the end of 2011 Curt Knox’s forces seem to have have gone full steam ahead with their own vilifications of the Italian prosecutors, police, judges, and witnesses - in fact almost anyone who had any role in 2009 in finding them guilty, or came to believe that was a fair finding. Ourselves included.

In late 2012 Curt Knox apparently invited all the most fervent of these attackers to Seattle, including Frank Sforza and Bruce Fischer, as some sort of reward for their legally very ill-advised campaign. Buy plenty more popcorn. Lawsuits could fly here as well. 

Raffele Sollecito’s forces in Italy had been a lot more restrained.

But at a stroke, the shrillness of Raffaele Sollecito leapfrogged that of Amanda Knox’s forces, with the publication of his book Honor Bound by Simon and Schuster in English in the UK and US last September,

INSTANTLY the book became notorious in Italy, because excerpts were read out by an Italian reporter in New York on the national television show Porta a Porta. Raffele Sollecito’s father Francesco was on that show, and he was increasingly forced to admit a key claim in the book was invented. It simply never happened. His son made it up.

The false claim by his son that Francesco was made to repudiate - it reappears over many pages - concerned a claimed deal engineered by his family and offered by the prosecution to Sollecito.

The deal he claimed was to roll over on Amanda Knox, and if Sollecito did so, he would be home free.

Following the Porta a Porta show, the book (obtainable on UK Amazon, where many false claims are repeated in the reviews) began to make its rounds in Italy. It took some time before many official parties accused of crimes by Sollecito obtained copies and started to explore their own legal possibilities. They are apparently still far from finished.

At the end of last week, the Chief Prosecutor for Tuscany Giuseppe Quattrocchi received the first official request from Perugia, which is to investigate 12 very serious claims in the book against the prosecution and the legal institutions of Italy. The complaint nominates a number of witnesses.

The Prosecution office of Florence now has a maximum of six months to investigate whether there is a case against Sollecito and other named parties. If so, they will steer it through the hoops of the Italian process.

The potential ripple effects of this appear to us to stretch on and on. They could come to engulf both legal teams (credited in the book with helping) and all of the PR for both defendants. Sollecito’s publisher and shadow writer are specifically named in the complaint

If Amanda Knox is not let off the hook by the Italian Supreme Court late in March (the outcome we consider most likely, given the great strength of the appeal) the smart way for Knox to go in light of this could be to junk all her websites, her book, and her interviews, and throw her supporters under the bus. Plus maybe get smarter lawyers - the aggressive and inexperienced Dalla Vedova does her no favors.

Keeping Amanda Knox’s head out of this deadly new line of fire may be very late - but maybe better late than never.



Comments

He has rightfully earned himself this great honour!

I do not think any lawyer in his senses will ask his client to talk nonsense ad nauseam. He must have been told to keep his mouth shut (perhaps excepting for kisses) but he has most likely ignored their advices.

Medicine and advice, the bitter they are, the better.

Posted by chami on 02/18/13 at 06:17 PM | #

It gets even worse. If Sollecito’s legal team collapses, the Cassation decision on the appeal could be postponed for many months.

All eyes will then be on Knox. What will she get up to in the meantime?

Maybe write a book about Sollecito? She probably already has a doll of him full of pins.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/18/13 at 06:23 PM | #

These twelve contempt-of-court passages in the book are just the tip of the iceberg.  We counted around 40 where Sollecito appeared to accuse officials of crimes.

They are not very hard to spot if you know the case and have the book. If all of those passages are complained about, Sollecito could be kept busy the rest of his life regretting this and paying for it.

We actually had a rogue prosecutor here in the US, Mike Nifong, in North Carolina. He made the false accusations of rape against the Duke Lacrosse team.

I followed that case closely and it seemed to me (and most people) clear as day that Nifong was spinning a non-event to get re-elected.  But the media really pussyfooted. The NY Times even came down on his side for a long time.

The point here is that you risk accusing American prosecutors and cops and other officers of the law at your great peril. Go Google and see if you can find any. 

There is no way Moore and Fischer and Sollecito and Sforza would have escaped an arrest warrant if they had run their crazy campaign against any prosecutor here in the US.

Moore and Fisher must have thought they were immune, and had a licence to slime and make things up, because Mignini & company were on the other side of the Atlantic.

Then Sollecito swallowed their Kool Aid, and pushed things way too far. Now look where they all are.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/13 at 12:46 AM | #

We wont be posting the first complaint in English after all. Sorry. This explanation was just added to the post:

*******

The Prosecutor General in Florence is actually under no compulsion to make any of the Perugia and Rome complaints public before his investigation is complete. He has ordered the document removed from the public domain.

This is specifically to give the defenses no advantage and to make sure those others in Perugia who are going to complain do so with a clean sheet of paper and without harrassment.

It may also be intended to keep the yammering FOA remnants silent for the first time in five years.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/13 at 01:08 AM | #

Thanks for that update Peter. I had missed the fact that a complaint had also been filed from Rome.

Good luck keeping these fatheaded shills silent though. Here’s one of their stars weighing in (on Mignini, of course) on the Honor Bound Facebook page:

Paul Ciolino: This asshole never ceases to amaze me.
Friday at 10:50am

Surprisingly, it hasn’t occurred to them to take this page, or any of the many other pages run by Sollecito, down.

Posted by louiehaha on 02/19/13 at 02:39 AM | #

Hi louiehaha

Capturing remarks like Ciolino’s is valuable and could be very useable in the new investigation.

Ciolino is a TERRIBLE detective. He has always been confused and boiled up about the case (and slobbery over Knox, like Heavey etc etc) and Kermit’s first post ever was how Ciolino got Madam Nara’s testimony about footsteps so wrong.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/powerpoints_1_a_cbs_trashed_witness_in_fact_looks_very_credible/

CBS later dropped their own online video with Ciolino, presumably it was too idiotic even for them.

Ciolino went way over the top at a Knox PR fundraiser (at Saltys on the West Seattle harbor waterfront) early in 2009 when he ranted on about Migni being an “out of control maniac”.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_friends_now_take_on_prosecutor_mignini/

Even Amanda Knox’s own lawyers chose to distance themselves from him.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/is_the_amanda_knox_defense_team_being_undermined/
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/why_attacks_on_prosecutor_mignini_are_really_simply_a_sideshow/

That was the one time Mignini ever threatened a personal suit, against the West Seattle Herald when they reported (and endorsed) the nasty thrust. The Ciolino claims eventually led to this.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/bbc_interview_mignini_comes_across_as_fair_decent_funny_and_quite_sane/

Otherwise Ciolino has been neutered, not least when his main colleague in the CBS unit was sent to prison for trying to shake down Dave Letterman the late night comic.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/producer_of_cbs_reports_on_the_case_crazy_desperate_stupid_and_or_unsc/

The last big report CBS did was this one - the silliest ever, which really made us laugh. It also sucked in (or so they said) the hapless Steve Moore and his equally hapless wife. Thereafter ABC became frontrunner and may air the AK interview.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/rumors_in_manhattan_about_ludicrously_bad_cbs_report/

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/13 at 06:21 AM | #

Hi again louiehaha

On this: “I had missed the fact that a complaint had also been filed from Rome.”

A first Perugia complaint is already filed. That is no secret, there was a press conference to announce that event, and there were reports in the Italian media.

http://www.lanazione.it/umbria/cronaca/2013/02/16/846251-mignini-querela-sollecito.shtml

Also it is no secret that Michele Giuttari intends to file a complaint.

As for all the others… well, you can easily pick ‘em by reading the book! Officers and experts in Rome are named. Their complaints may or may not be publicly announced, though the Chief Prosecutor in Florence has now said he prefers not.

As a direct result of the crazed PR the defenses will themselves be totally in the dark until the chief prosecutor’s finding comes out. The defenses too should read the book, as it seems they maybe didnt before.

Complaints can be made at little cost in cash and no public exposure by those that Sollecito wrongly accused of crimes. Complaints could be on their way about the rants of the Curt Knox campaign as well.

It seems fair to say that probably no website or media report attacking those who contributed to the 2009 trial and the appeal wont be examined and rants made Exhibit A and so on, down through the alphabet.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/13 at 04:15 PM | #

You called it!

http://perugiashock.com/ is marked private by its owner. If you were invited to view this site, please log in below. Read more about privacy settings.

Posted by louiehaha on 02/19/13 at 08:05 PM | #

Ha ha! I just had to get a screen cature of that. Keep an eye out for any more? I’m told a lot has already been disappeared from Fischer’s IIP.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/13 at 08:42 PM | #

Just a small Booster.
Here we are six years later and in spite of all the name calling and attacks upon this web site in general and Peter in particular plus the people who post here, we haven’t gone away. In fact at time has gone forward the research on this site and others has become more pronounced and focused. I just bet that originally the forces of evil supposed that we would simply lose interest and quietly fade away.
On the contrary, the people here who continue to delve into the sleazy machinations of Messrs Fisher/Moore/Preston etc; under the direction of the infamous Curt Knox have not stopped and neither will we.
It must be a burr in their collective horse blankets and so it should be.
So congratulations to Peter and everybody else who contributes here and points out the gaping holes in the defense.
The comparison of this site compared to the screaming hysterics of the pro Amanda bunch are palatable to say the least. So ‘BRAVO ZULU’ everyone.
Cheers Grahame

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 02/19/13 at 09:18 PM | #

Most interesting.  The noose does seem to be tightening and to continue the analogy, give these two enough rope ...

Posted by James Higham on 02/20/13 at 01:31 PM | #

UK newspapers might be digging deeper and concluding there was and is a strong case against RS and AK which they have not yet satisfactorily answered. Scroll down to comments by the Swiss lawyer turockandar.

**********

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7dHytrWqcs

First of all Amanda’s book ‘Waiting to be heard’ is coming out soon which may contain something of interest although Raff’s didn’t in my opinion. Second of all the English newspaper I work for commissioned me as a lawyer who speaks perfect Italian to spend some time in Perugia reading the 10,000 pages of the trial transcripts and other important materials to give an independent opinion on the case.

My position is not that Amanda is guilty of the crime itself but that there are many strange and unexplained facts such as the mixed blood drops, the changes in her version of events, the fact that Raff said that he had pricked M’s finger in HIS apartment when she had never been there and as for your claim that A and R had nothing to do with a worthless bum like G they spent their time getting high. AK slept with 7 men (including screwing one unknown in the train toilets) in a short period so neither of them were paragons of virtue as many Americans would like to pretend. 

We may never know the truth unless R finally admits that he alone was the killer but lets not let partisan positions occult facts.Amanda’s behaviour was so strange that she had managed to make most of her room mates and their friends really dislike her: I interviewed 23 people who had known her including Merlin bar owner and they all said that she was crass, at times rude, insensitive and twice violent so lets not try to paint her as some model student she acted like a crass, druggie slut.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/26/13 at 03:06 PM | #

One correction to page 26 of the “Today at TJMK” forum of IA as it appears on the Archive site.

http://web.archive.org/liveweb/http://www.injusticeanywhereforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1302&start=2500

Sollecito and Simon & Schuster and Gumbel are not facing possible charges of calunnia. This is not at the personal level.

They are being investigated for contempt of court by the chief prosecutor in Florence, as the result of a number of complaints from different officers of the court about false charges made against their offices in the book in an attempt to undermine an ongoing legal process.

Some of the complaints refer to wrong characterizations of the Italian system as a whole and not to individual offiers of the court, again in an attempt to undermine an ongoing legal process. The investigation could be extended to people like Preston who originally inspired some of the false statements.

The investigation has been taken behind the scenes (prosecutor’s choice) so that the defense lawyers wont know for months which passages are complained about or by who, and so peanut galleries like IA wont be able to misconstrue.

If Sollecito and Simon & Schuster and Gumbel are charged and tried, it would be by the Florence prosecutor, not by those who made the complaint. Similar cases occur in the UK.

This is something that could impact Sollecito quite negatively if a replay in whole or part of the second level (first appeal) is ordered. If he’s not guilty why make so much stuff up? His own father on national TV could not explain why.

Cassation will be aware of the investigation and the same Florence prosecution office is likely to handle any replay of the appeal.

We’re not the only ones noting the ominousness of this. It’s impacted the defenses and Sollecito and Sforza right now - they have all become noticeably un-talky, and Sforza and his site have disappeared.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/13/13 at 04:08 PM | #

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