Correcting Netflix 27 Omitted - State Department Monitored Knox 2007-11; Zero Ill Treament Reported
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, where nefarious things go on
1. State’s Prodigious Monitoring Of Knox
The State Department through the Rome Embassy monitored Knox in court and prison for four years.
From late 2007 to late 2011. Usually, when drugs are involved in a local crime by an American national, the US embassies and consulates are not allowed by their rules to play any role.
Knox herself never denied drug use, in fact she made it part of her defense. So why did the consulates even monitor Knox? We dont know yet.
The cost to the US taxpayer was huge. Here is our estimate.
Such monitoring could have averaged three days work each month allowing for travel, and 3 or 4 times that during the Massei trial. Monitoring Knox could have cost $1000 a day in staff costs and hotels and travel and meals every time.
Make that say $48,000 in 2008, $120,000 in 2009, $48,000 in 2010, and $96,000 in 2011, for a total over $300,000. American taxpayers had to pay this, again seemingly against rules as this case involved drugs.
Nevertheless, for the truth we strive for on our sites, there was actually a big plus. The monitors from the Embassy never ever reported anything wrong in the situation of Knox.
2. Knox Apologists Try To Hijack State
After Washington State Senator Cantwell failed Knox (see links 1, 2 and 3 below) the Knox apologists kept trying to bend the State Department to Knox’s advantage in at least five ways.
(1) They obtained the first of the emailed reports from the Rome Embassy, obviously hoping that they would reveal something wrong. They didnt. Journalist Andrea Vogt obtained numerous other cables under the Freedom of Information Act. Again nothing was reported as wrong. See links 4, 5 and 11 below.
(2) The daffy Knox apologists Michael Heavey, John Douglas and Steve Moore ran an ill-attended presentation on Knox’s supposed woes in a room for rent at the Congress. Someone from State was said to be there and to promise to open some doors. A second presentation is said to have been offered at State. See link 6 below.
(3) An anonymous “official” source in the State Department persistently attempted in the media to pour cold water on the case on behalf of Knox. Ergon tracked him down. He proved to be merely a low-level clerk in the Department’s offices in Hawaii. See links 7 and 8 below.
(4) A campaign was run to try to get American lawyers and legal commentators to say that Knox was being subject to a second and a third trial, and that under American law this was double jeopardy. So any extradition requests from Italy should be stonewalled. Several agreed, many others did not. See links 9 and 10 below.
(5) They handed over a wildly inaccurate “petition” to a gullible Assistant Secretary of State with numerous signatures that proved to be fake. We pointed out ten inaccurate claims and the petition went nowhere at State. See link 12 below.
3. Did Any Of This Make Italian Justice Look Bad?
In fact no, not at all. Perhaps it was US taxpayer money well spent if it shoots the numerous lurid conspiracies in the foot.
The campaign just might possibly have mattered if in 2015 the Supreme Court had ruled the other way and an extradition was the subject of a request. However various lawyers observed that the Extradition Treaty is very tight and written in such a way that politics could not interfere.
Given Sollecito’s furtive shenanigan in the Dominican Republic in December 2013 it looks like his mafia chums beat the State Department to the punch and in that way the Supreme Court outcome was fixed.
Netflix definitely should have informed viewers that the American government did all this monitoring and yet proved nothing wrong. No sign that Knox was being framed. But predictably Netflix did not.
4. Further Reading On Our Site
1. US Overreaction: Amanda Knox’s Own Lawyer Groans “That’s All We Need, Hillary Clinton”
2. US Overreaction: State Department (Foreign Office) Rebuts Senator Cantwell’s Claims
3. Our Letter To Senator Maria Cantwell: Please Don’t Take Precipitate Action Till Full Facts Are In
4. Amanda Knox’s Supporters Obtain Rome Embassy Cables About Knox, Prove Of No Help
5. Andrea Vogt Obtains New Rome Embassy Cables From State, Still Showing Zero Concern About Knox
6. Knox Apologists Attempt To Bend Congress; But Nobody Important Turns Up
7. Did The State Department Really Offer Assurances To Amanda Knox She Never Would Be Extradited?
8. So Is James Moninger The One Moonlighting As Anonymous Spokesman For Dept Of State?
9. Tip For The Media: In Fact Knox Extradition Is Likely To Be Readily Granted
10. The US Lacks Legal Authority To Decline To Deliver A Guilty Knox To Italian Authorities
11. Journalist Andrea Vogt Highlights Non-Damning Nature Of Rome Embassy Cables About Knox
12. Ten Of The Ways In Which The FOA Petition That The State Department Accepted Is Dishonest
Posted by Our Main Posters on 11/21/17 at 04:39 AM in Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, 12 Rabid media hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, 21 Nasty prison hoax, Hoaxers: media groups, The Netflix hoax
Tweet This Post
TweetComments
To links 1 & 2 on Senator Cantwell it’s suggested we add in this 3rd (noble work!) which we know helped her staffers to encourage her to move on.
This is what happened next. Nothing. Senator Cantwell did move on.
She was also rebutted by reporters who had actually been at the trial, and who pointed out that Sollecito is ITALIAN so whither anti-Americanism there?
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/23/17 at 05:14 PM | #
Remember over 1/4 of the trial - the autopsy and the barbaric nature of the attack - was behind closed doors.
That was at the Kerchers’ request. In fact they asked for the whole trial to be behind closed doors but around 3/4 was not.
This allowed Knox to repeatedly attempt a daffy charm at her PR’s behest - which sure disappeared in a hurry when she came across as brash and callous on the stand.
Stuff leaked out. Through their media, Italian observers could get pretty accurate depictions of what was being said in court. TV reporting was good and there were some live feeds from open court.
We had several people in court and we followed closely the objective reporting of Barbie Nadeau, Andrea Vogt, Ann Wise, Nick Pisa, and John Follain.
Even so, most Italian observers had us beat.
So the Massei Report which went public in March 2010 came to us as quite a shock (as did Micheli in Jan 2009) for its vivid detail on the autopsy and the barbaric nature of the attack.
How much of the American media translated that report?
Precisely none. Only the much missed PMF dot Org group led by Peggy Ganong did that. And not only that - they did a 40 page summary too.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C818/
Still, the English-language March 2010 reporting on the Massei Report was very good so far as it went, see below.
But this was three months after the trial and only on a very few websites. The Associated Press which reaches 2000 sites was weak.
By then many in the US and UK along with Cantwell had moved on, with wrong impressions locked in.
It was five months later in August 2010 that the PMF translation of the Massei Report came out. And only in Nov 2014 did the Wiki team release this.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/evidenceoverview
At any time in between, it was hard to knock down the “there is no evidence” meme, or at least not enough to quell reasonable doubt.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/23/17 at 06:30 PM | #
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I started mine with hot tea, pumpkin pie and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on live stream. Doesn’t get much better than that. The Charlie Brown and Peanuts characters are back, and Scrat from Ice Age, Spiderman, all the cute floats, bands, and people as candy canes walking on stilts. Happy Santa waved as he ends the parade with the Macy’s now gold stars. It’s a lovely pageant begun in 1924 and still growing.
____________
Thank you Peter Quennell for the link to a post by Cardiol M.D. which discussed the open door to Filomena’s room. Cardiol really dissects the issue.
He says, “It is implausible that Knox tried only Meredith’s door and not the others” (if she was concerned about who was in the house).
Another striking proof that Knox lied about her trip to the cottage on November 1st morning is in Cardiol’s post. He said:
“Amy Frost testified that hours after the body was discovered Knox told her that she had never had a shower, because when she noticed the blood, that SEEING THE BLOOD (my emphasis) had stopped her from showering.”
Yet Knox’s entire story is built around her famous shower at the cottage, right down to details of forgetting her towel and shuffling her wet feet on the bathmat.
Yet Amy Frost testified that Knox told Amy she had never had a shower.
Knox told Amy Frost she had never had a shower!!!
So Knox is lying about the shower. She must have gotten careless and loose in talking with Amy, not seeing her as a threat or before she had thought through the implications if she said she had not been in the cottage that morning.
Let’s not doubt the testimony of Amy Frost. She must have been deeply impressed and reactive when hearing Knox discuss the blood of her dear British friend, Meredith.
They had been together the previous night having apple crumble, pizza and a good time watching The Notebook movie.
Amy would not have misheard such intensely personal things about her good friend’s blood that Knox was talking about (whether Knox knew it was Meredith’s blood or not).
Amy Frost refutes Knox’s shower story completely.
Posted by Hopeful on 11/23/17 at 09:25 PM | #
Hi Hopeful
Yes good ol’ Macy’s. Inspired theme for a parade. The Black Friday sales in NYC are now a bit nuts. Macy’s is among the stores that open their doors right after midnight and some avid shoppers will shop till they drop right through the wee hours.
Here is the Amy Frost testimony - it seems it was actually Raffaele who was dropping her in it here.
GM: Listen, did you meet Amanda and Sollecito at the police station?
AF: Yes, I recall that Sophie was called to be interrogated and I and Robyn were sitting together. We saw Raffaele but didn’t know who he was. He approached us and said: “I am Amanda’s boyfriend”, he said “Amanda was at my house last evening, last night, and then went home this morning to Meredith’s house, he said she had noticed that the front door was open, and went to the bathroom, saw that there was blood, and also that there was ... she used the word “shit”... interpreter: “which I translate as ´‘merda’ (shit, crap), in the toilet.
GM: (Incomprehensible - Outside microphone) he said that to you?
AF: No. She had decided not to take a shower because she had seen the blood and had to return to his house. Then both of them had gone to Meredith’s house. Then she tried to kick in the door of Meredith’s room. And then he also said that for both of them it had seemed strange that the poo in the toilet had disappeared.
GM: Before we go on, one more question. So it was Raffaele who told you this?
AF: Yes.
GM: So Raffaele told you that Amanda had seen the blood and therefore had not taken a shower.
So lemme see: She had to forgo the shower to race back to RS’s with the news, but then had breakfast first?!! Gimme a break. The girl is weird.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/24/17 at 12:03 AM | #
The State Department handled the entire case by the book - with the exception that as drugs were involved it should not even have been involved.
The Knox apologists became pretty frantic about this by-the-book approach at times by actual observers of the strong case at trial, and turned to mocking and belittling officialdom, never a good idea..
(1) See the self-important elected judge, Michael Heavey, who tried repeatedly to go over the State Department’s head while grasping little about the very strong case presented in court and ignoring the two teams of defense lawyers.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/judge_heaveys_open_letter_to_italy/
No impact at all. Even his friends took to avoiding him.
(2) Here’s another mafia tool, Colleen Conway, going on about the State Department while grasping little about the very strong case presented in court and ignoring the two teams of defense lawyers.
https://www.groundreport.com/how-the-us-state-department-failed-amanda-knox/
... from 2007 through 2011, the Office of the Legal Adviser [at State] seems instead to have been run alternately by a confederacy of dunces, a ship of fools, and a pack of those chimps with typewriters who, in a million years, may or may not reproduce Shakespeare.
(3) Here’s yet another mafia tool, Michael Scadron, going on about the State Department while grasping little about the very strong case presented in court and ignoring the two teams of defense lawyers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2XU6QnS1po
http://wrongfulconvictionnews.com/why-wont-the-state-department-speak-up-for-amanda-knox/
The rebuttals of Heavey linked-to above apply to Conway and Scadron too.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/24/17 at 12:29 AM | #
Interesting regarding the State Department. Did she think no one would check this claim when she hit the media circuit? Guess no one did.
And she ‘‘didn’t’’ take a shower because she saw the blood?! Oops….
It really is amazing how one can just lie through her teeth for 10 years now. What causes that?
Shouldn’t she be putting those skills to better use? Lawyer/Politician/Marketing?
Posted by Chimera on 11/24/17 at 09:35 AM | #
Just to add to Hopeful’s comment, ‘shuffling her wet feet on the bathmat.’; guilty Knox confirms it was a BLOODIED bathmat that she used to shuffle to her bedroom. Then, whilst the BLOODIED bathmat was in guilty Knox’s bedroom, guilty Knox would have got changed, dried her hair, prepare her things for her trip to Gubbio then went to pick up the BLOODIED bathmat and then return it to the bathroom.
And we are to believe she still had no reason to be concerned.
Posted by DavidB on 11/24/17 at 12:14 PM | #
Oscar Pistorius has had his sentence of 6 years imprisonment increased to 15. Less time already served that’s 13 years and 5 months.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42107701
Posted by James Raper on 11/24/17 at 09:30 PM | #
Great news to me James. You also? Some relief possibly to one suffering victim’s family. Just not enough relief anywhere and especially not in Italy.
Let us hope that Reeva’s family dont have to endure any stalking by pro-Pistorius crazies. The Netflix team were of course avid stalkers.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/24/17 at 10:11 PM | #
Chimera: “Shouldn’t she be putting those skills to better use? Lawyer/Politician/Marketing?”
No corporation will touch her (or RS) and with good reason.
It is being observed that she and RS, and their whole bunch of crazies, are on the wrong side of a gang war, one involving some of the world’s most dangerous made guys.
And those at the top (like the anti-Sollecito faction currently) never appreciate their underminings of justice being made public.
So if Knox and RS and all the others go quiet or take off like rabbits, or choose to head back to prison, it will be, uh, pretty understandable. Anybody seen Fischer or Pruett lately?!
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/24/17 at 10:17 PM | #
Pete, thanks for the Court transcript, pointing out that Amy was actually quoting Sollecito when she stated that Knox had had no shower. It also corroborates the investigators’ statement re her odor that morning.
Posted by Cardiol MD on 11/25/17 at 02:02 AM | #
Hi Cardiol:
Odor? Ah, the cat-pee stink. A pretty sure indicator of recent cocaine use. She sure did not LOOK well-washed in the images after the cops arrived.
Her excuse for being at the house at all and not showering first at Sollecito’s (apart from the fact that hours before she had done so) in her 17 Dec interview left Mignini skeptical.
PM Mignini: Why did you go back home?
Interpreter: To take a shower and change her clothes
PM Mignini: Why didn’t you take a shower at Sollecito’s?
Knox: Did you see his shower? … It leaks [drops?] everywhere… It’s a dreadful shower… I hate to use it… and moreover all what I need to have a shower like shampoo is at my home…
Interpreter: Because it’s an ugly place, small, there is little space
PM Mignini: But you took the shower other times, but also during the afternoon you had one…
Knox: I prefer to take a shower at my home
Interpreter: She prefers to take a shower at her home, she also has clothes at home…
Remember this terrific analysis of Knox by Vivianna, which you liked, explaining how Knox seems to have simply have given up on factual innocence (and with all those suckers around, why not?) as compared to legal innocence?
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/The_Cuomo_Interview_Why_This_May_Be/
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/25/17 at 05:42 AM | #
Pete, your Interpreter-quote: “She prefers to take a shower at her home, she also has clothes at home…â€, highlights something about “interpreters†that is troublesome to me , because they are inserting their own opinions.
IMO, interpreters should emulate the professional conduct of Court Reporters, which would be to translate-literally what the witness actually said; literality-problems can then be sorted-out with the witness.
Sentences beginning “She said that…†are paraphrases, transforming the â€interpreter†from her/his proper role as a reporting witness,into an improper role equivalent to an “expert†opinion witness, confusing the legal issues.
The legal stakes are too high to accept this impoper role transformation, as our exchange exemplifies.
Posted by Cardiol MD on 11/25/17 at 09:34 PM | #
Hi Cardiol
Yes I noticed that and your principle is fine. To me though it seems (as quite often interpreting Knox) that the interpreter was playing catchup, Knox had already said that. See the second line?
Interpreter: To take a shower and change her clothes
Knox doesnt wait, she talks right over the interpreters, and seems to hold them in considerable contempt.
Anna Donninio, you recall? She got trashed. The one at trial got shoved aside.
Whatcha think?
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/26/17 at 01:38 AM | #
Pete re “Whatcha think?â€
I think that too much is lost in translation.
We would lose less if we had 4-D, audiovisual records of the multiple transactions in dispute.
(When my wife worked for CBS, they marvelled at the “50 ways†she could utter the word “Ohâ€.)
I do recall Anna Donninio, but not that she got trashed.
I do remember some anonymous interpreter mistranslations e.g. when Meredith’s mother was being interviewed, a question to her was mistranslated with a shocking result.
Knox did talk right over interpreters.
In order to do that she had to hear them interpreting.
As you know, U.N. interpreters sit in a sound-proof room, and their words are audible only by ear-phones. If they do simultaneous, “verbatim “ translation this would be better than the interpretations in Knox’s various Italian circumstances.
Posted by Cardiol MD on 11/26/17 at 06:10 PM | #
Hi Cardiol
Yes in the Italian courts the interpretation was not (or not meant to be) simultaneous. Talking over non-simultaneous interpreters = to lose the advantage of being able to think first.
At the 6/7 Nov 2007 “interrogation” Knox chattered away over Anna Donnino in a sort of Italian. (Knox and followers then trashed Anna Donnino - blamed her repeatedly for brainwashing Knox into fingering Patrick.)
At the 17 Dec 2007 interview with Mignini many of Knox’s answers were huge, hundreds of words long, and she had to be stopped to allow for interpretation. That was real catchup.
At trial, Knox shoved the interpreter aside after an hour or two. BIG mistake. Apart from giving herself no time for careful answers, Knox’s Italian was said to be like fingernails on a blackboard for some native speakers.
From her arrival Meredith was way ahead of Knox on the Italian fluency front - probably one source of the jealousy. (My guess is Meredith had 20-30 IQ points over Knox.)
Right about UN interpreters. They are regarded with some awe for their abilities.
In my UN days in Europe I managed meetings where the lingua franca was Russian which I dont speak (and many east Europeans only spoke with some distaste, but however), so there was an interpreter in a booth for just one guy (not uncommon in the UN; tho usually the one guy would be Chinese).
At breaks many broke into English. A decade or two ago those who were first with good English could be pretty proud of it; it was forbidden in Russian and east European schools till the wall came down.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/26/17 at 06:45 PM | #
Elizabeth Smart is the blonde Mormon girl who was seemingly kidnapped in 2002 and seemingly held for nine months.
A new documentary and movie about this may be misfiring on her - many online comments are running against her and her extreme victimhood is coming off to them as phony.
I have just posted my own take on her FWIW at the end of this thread now 6-plus years old.
26 November 2017. The cold case (because it was seemingly solved) of Elizabeth Smart suddenly heats up again.
Elizabeth Smart appears throughout a two-hour documentary, like Knox on Netflix, that we are seeing rotating on cable TV describing her victimhood on steroids.
This is a precursor to a Lifetime Movie (Lifetime made quite a good one of Knox) now in production, which Elizabeth Smart was said to be disappointed not to star in.
Hmmm…. Now I might have phrased the top post slightly differently.
Her version of the kidnapping from her bedroom is that the guy breaks in with no alarms going off, finds her in the dark (amazing), holds a knife at her throat for the next x hours until they are way up the hillside. Rapes her 3-4 times daily. Chains her up and starves her.
So to the problems pointed out in various Comments.
The guy had met her earlier that same day; had he made an arrangement? Why the initial odd behavior of the parents that makes sense only if they thought she was a runaway?
Why no physical signs on her of any of the above? Why did she not run away or reveal herself at a party she was at or at restaurants? Why did she say “I am not that RUNAWAY†to the police who accosted her? Why did she say to those same cops “What are you going to do with my FRIENDS?â€
My guess FWIW after some new reading:
Her father was an exceptionally hard micro-manager; she was so shy she was almost mute at times. She DID seek liberation from him and/or an adventure.
The kidnapper DID have illegal sex with a 14 year old, willing or not (she says it was willing but under threat) and for that he deserved his life sentence.
But she was treated more or less okay, and the very strong hold over her was solely “religiousâ€. We know now that polygamists have frequently kidnapped under-age girls uncomplainingly in that area and marry them, and/or build these holds over them.
Almost impossible to admit all of this to her family, though. So the lurid victim story evolves to appease them. Mojo above is right: poor Ricci DIED here, from a stroke after being falsely accused and locked up for a long period.
None of the Smarts including Elizabeth have ever seem concerned about that. They did him no favors. A death is a high price for an adventure.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/26/17 at 08:48 PM | #
Okay. The 90-minue Lifetime movie “I am Elizabeth Smart” has just come and gone along with the two-hour documentary “Elizabeth Smart A Closer Look”. Both play for free on demand on the system I have (Verizon Fios).
I had put Knox and Elizabeth Smart on different planets starting way back, so it was startling seeing Elizabeth act a clone of the Netflix Knox. Erk to that.
I wonder if she or the producers watched Knox; and said “Yeah that could really work for us too”. As maybe 80% of the Netflix reviewers came down pro-Knox anti-Italy, maybe not such a bad bet.
But she is turning some believers off too, check comments under the YouTube videos say this is a bridge too far (or many ‘000 words too far) and raising the problems with her story again.
To become a skeptic (like me now! tho I reckon she was between a rock and a hard place) check these links.
https://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/elizabeth-smart-victim-or-calculating-runaway/
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread990149/pg1
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/03/elizabeth_smart.html
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/elizabeth-smart-verdict/
https://ordinaryevil.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/what-lies-behind-the-veil-of-the-elizabeth-smart-case/
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/27/17 at 08:02 PM | #
Headsup: click on Martha Grace Duncan in the box at the top and the document now on our server will open and download.
Several emails from main posters have been really scathing, this has to be one of the worst. We give them to next week to read what we sent. Then, biff bam pow.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/29/17 at 04:38 PM | #
This is a copy for our records of the box that was at the top above this post. We will keep pressing for a rethink.
Breaking news. The Machine spots another law professor Martha Grace Duncan of Emory U Atlanta addled by Knox and also PR shill Nina Burleigh (see here and here). We’ve emailed her some links as a first step in disillusioning her.</b></center>
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/30/17 at 06:24 PM | #
Re Martha Duncan
Supposed to be a scholarly work. She lists the names of 16 research assistants, and acknowledges the input of 17 other people, who are all presumably students and/or professional colleagues of hers. Her base data is derived from reading news reports and articles in the american media as well as books on the case (and on others) available for sale in american bookshops, so her myopic slant is not surprising.
She is flogging a notion (the tribulations of adolescence) drawing (as if no-one else ever has) on personal experience and literature. The article, which is garbage, but which might have been interesting in another context, could have been written as a thesis by a trainee social worker or an immature student of psychology.
Difficult to believe she is actually a professor of law. I would have thought that this would be rather embarrassing to her faculty, but I suspect not (she has received an award for the article) and if so that is an indictment of the sad state of affairs in academia in the US.
Posted by James Raper on 12/01/17 at 01:31 PM | #
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Where next:
Click here to return to The Top Of The Front PageOr to next entry Correcting Netflix 28 Omitted - The Case Against RS & AK Is Actually Getting Stronger Still
Or to previous entry Correcting Netflix 26 Omitted - This Very Telling Knox Questioning By Dr Mignini #5