Saturday, September 13, 2014

Those Channeling Funding To RS And AK Should Definitely Take Note Of This

Posted by Our 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.














Comments

GoFundMe essentially had a role in swindling $40,000 out of trusting people on false pretenses. I dont know if any of the contributors want their money back but the small print in GoFundMe’s terms of business make this very hard.

I was really astonished at the huge sums Ergon drew attention to that were being extorted out of RS and AK supporters, often many thousands of dollars out of each trusting person.

The very kind and likable Bettina who now posts here paid to fly Sforza to Hawaii feeling he was hard done by and then face to face found out what an abusive cynical monster he really is.

Others in Seattle and in Canada north of Seattle were treated the same way before Sforza panicked and took a flight (or was made to take a flight) back home - where more legal problems were in wait.

Undoubtedly this entire sleazy financial picture (driven hard by Fischer) will one day be out in full view. Meanwhile? For one thing, ignore Knox’s PayPal link on her misleading site.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 02:12 PM | #

Used and then rebuffed by Knox exploiters in the US, Sollecito was trying to set up a business in Lugano in an Italian-speaking arm of Switzerland that extends into north Italy. He may have tried that via an aunt in Cyprus too.

First he was banned from Lugano personally for not having the right permits (Switzerland has its own rules, it is not in the EU) and then several weeks ago the plug was pulled on his corporate entity because there was no financial movement and the required capital had not been paid in.

We look and look and try to find evidence that the Sollecito family has great wealth. The deceased mother had some, but I am not convinced of that as far as Francesco is concerned. He lives in a nice bungalow now, but the two places where Sollecito grew up are quite modest apartment houses near the center of his town (Bisceglie). See the images of the first one below.

It also seems to me RS has considerable delusions of superiority about how competent and valuable his computer skills are. Either you make it in your 20s in that game or you are on the shelf. Chris Mellas was said to have arranged for Microsoft to interview RS. Gimme a break.


Bekow: RS’s first childhood abode, an apartment on a Bisceglie main street.
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Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 02:27 PM | #

Excellent article Peter. Thank you very much. It is really great that GoFundMe has now banned RS from its services. I think that PayPal should now follow that lead and terminate AK’s account once and for all.

To All: Don’t forget to sign up to Paypal and make DAILY complaints/suggestions about Amanda Knox’s use of PayPal:

https://www.paypal.com/us/ewf/f=pps_prohib

If you don’t want to sign up for paypal you can also call them to report Knox at 1-888-221-1161 or at 1-402-935-2050 (if calling from outside the U.S.). Thank you.

Posted by Johnny Yen on 09/13/14 at 02:29 PM | #

Thanks to your sharp eyes too Johnny for spotting the story the instant it went live.

Anti-bloodmoney (Son of Sam) laws were not mentioned as being on GoFundMe’s corporate mind but if they werent they could be soon.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 02:36 PM | #

Lawyers acting as lawyers normally dont have to pay back fees in which bloodmoney was involved.

But if they were only acting as marketers (Robert Barnett) or PR shills (Ted Simon) then they are not legally immune.

Maybe expect next for Robert Barnett to return his fee for marketing the book under the false pretense that it told the truth?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 03:22 PM | #

If Cassation confirms Nencini several of our lawyers have posted that they expect Knox’s extradition to happen fast fast by normal legal means.

But if there are unsavory political doings in Rome or Seattle or Washington DC the independent Italian justice system can instead issue a worldwide Interpol Red Notice for her capture.

And they can also apply this immense financial squeeze to the full - for sure they will apply some to make Knox pay the awards against her - Patricks has not been paid for over a year..

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 04:10 PM | #

A couple of days after Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were found dead I was on my way to Sydney and Hong Kong for work. As I had a scheduled day in LA I rented a Miata convertible at the airport and headed up to the foothills to have a look.

Simpson’s mansion in Brentwood was easy to find, but Nicole’s place two miles south was much harder. Her area was noticeably more downscale and I had to say that set me against OJ who I had previously liked.

The only barrier around either house was a police tape across the steps at the street end of the path to Nicole’s place. There were no other rubberneckers around, not one, though I read that in the weeks after thousands turned up and both houses were cordoned off.

The trial could have been held in that area but for some reason the prosecutors chose to have it downtown where the jury pool would predictably have found it hard to vote against OJ.

I guess 33 is his unlucky number: 33 years sentence and $33 million award against. What RS and AK could have been looking at if their crime was committed in the US.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/14 at 05:15 PM | #

GoFundMe has shut down Raffaele’s site. Wow! About time. And Knox may soon be shut out of PayPal. Thank you Johnny Yen for getting the word out. This is huge. People and cons are abusing a worthy system.

Every killer wants a defense fund when they already have recourse to court appointed attorneys. How many of the donations go straight up their nose or inhaled substances when not the liquor cabinet calling it legal stress relief? Or Dominican Republic beaches?

Guilt runs the entire show of hiring paid gun attorneys to defend a family’s false honor for the wild child. These baddies are manipulators. Wise up, parents. The only people who deserve money are Arline and John Kercher and Meredith’s siblings, and their lawyers.

Posted by Hopeful on 09/13/14 at 05:47 PM | #

Thanks for another good article…

Does anyone know the $$ amount in judgements against Amanda Knox at this point? Someone said it was huge, but, I have no idea…

Onward…

Posted by Bettina on 09/13/14 at 08:48 PM | #

Interesting points about O.J. Simpson.

However, I don’t totally understand the parallels.

I note that you neglected to mention that there were 7 men found guilty of involvement in the Las Vegas robbery crime; 5 of these men escaped custodial sentences entirely (despite the fact that 2 of these men were armed).

You also neglected to mention that in 2009, Judge Gerald Rosenberg ruled the memorabilia in question from the Vegas Hotel room was O.J’s property, and that these items should be immediately returned to him!

Clarence Stewart was convicted of the exact same crimes as O.J. and released after 2 years.

Posted by Rocket Queen on 09/13/14 at 10:54 PM | #

Bettina, 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.

Posted by Popper on 09/13/14 at 11:14 PM | #

VAT and CPA must be paid on all the above sums, so more than that, we probably go over USD 6 million

Posted by Popper on 09/13/14 at 11:15 PM | #

Hi Johnny Yen

OK I went to Paypal but being computer dumb I couldn’t find where exactly I can stop Knox even though I spent about fifteen minutes on it. Help please

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 09/14/14 at 01:00 AM | #

Hi Johnny and Grahame

The post was amended to suggest that the Paypal button already has been disappeared. See the second image. Unless you can spot traces of it elsewhere the battle is in effect already won on this.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/14/14 at 03:59 AM | #

Hi Rocket Queen

Good points. The fact is that in the US there are no strong recent parallels to Knox’s situation unless you know of any. No other perp ever made financial gains up in the millions that we know of.  No other perp has been allowed by their help or watchful judges to be so foolish.

No US lawyer was ever hired by the Knox-Mellases purely to give the Knox entourage good legal advice, so presumably they got none. Limited people, overcome with hubris, trying to do their own lawyering.

Its not clear that Ann Bremner was ever paid anything for her work which was factually and legally unsound anyway and like Judge Heavey she hit the ground very heavily emotionally invested in Knox and politically campaigning. Ted Simon was hired purely for PR purposes and Robert Barnett was hired purely for book-marketing.

Our well-founded first mention earlier this year of the huge threat of the Son of Sam laws definitely seems to have jolted them. Bruce Fischer, a non-lawyer, tried rather desperately to deny such laws applied to them. Smarter people have been very silent.

Knox will be made to pay the awards against her somehow, though lawyers tell us she may in turn have grounds for action against Marriott, Ted Simon, Robert Barnett, and Linda Kulman (her shadow writer) for their roles in helping her get in this mess. Plus the publishers.

This is made worse for her because the UK and Italian editions were canceled by the UK and Italian arms of the publisher (a Rupert Murdoch subsidiary) AFTER the Cassation ruling that annulled Hellmann came out. So its not like nobody ever realised the book was defamatory. If you have the book, take a look at what she says in chapter 10; it is also linked to in this post.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_12_why_prosecution_and_defenses/

That entire defamatory chapter was made up; nothing that she claims there ever happened. None of the investigators committed those crimes.

Knox herself, her parents, David Marriott, Ted Simon, Robert Barnett, Linda Kulman and the publishers could each have insisted that the entire book or at least that chapter should be run past her Italian lawyers for due diligence, but they clearly didnt. (Same failure of DD with Sollecito’s book.)

Knox’s Italian lawyers have not ever given one ounce of support for her accusation (even denied them) except for their seemingly disdainful passing of Knox’s email (which repeated the accusations) to Judge Nencini. (For that they could be in trouble.)

Its made even worse for her because Knox cannot pay her awards out of bloodmoney, which will be forfeited anyway. She MUST find new money to pay the awards. And even worse, Knox faces new court action for the claims in her book for which new fines and awards of damages are expected.

In a more perfect world the US media would be onto this bizarre story, though they still havent even reported about Knox’s chum the drug kingpin or a very long list of other things. Andrea Vogt very helpfully and bravely posts about many such aspects on her own website but nobody is paying her for that work.

The Perfect Storm in the book of the same name consisted of three storm fronts. This consists of half a dozen. What does that make it?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/14/14 at 04:15 AM | #

Thank you Grahame. OK, if you have not yet signed up for paypal, you can do so for free right here:

https://www.paypal.com/signup/account

You will have to verify your email address. Then you will have to put in a bank account number and then get a small free deposit from paypal. Then you have to verify that deposit amount. It will be small and you can keep it and then you are signed up and ready to go.

After that go back to this url here:

https://www.paypal.com/us/ewf/f=pps_prohib

Click “email” and then when the email box comes up, select “Report Fraud/Prohibit Use”. As a subtopic select “Report prohibited items being sold using PayPal”.

In the URL (web address) of the site selling the items (optional) put in amandaknox.com, then in the message box type in something like this:

“Please ban the “Amanda Legal Defense Trust” from PayPal as it is supporting a convicted murderer named Amanda Marie Knox. Recently the GoFundMe.com site banned her co-defendant from its services so I think that Paypal should do the same for Amanda Knox. Thank you.”

Or just copy and past the above and then send it. You have to do the email as quickly as possible because the system will automatically log you out if you take too long. Repeat the above on a daily basis if you can, but don’t overdo it. Once a day should be enough. Let’s really do this. Thank you again.

Posted by Johnny Yen on 09/14/14 at 04:24 AM | #

Hi Pete. Thank you for your message. I think that she read my previous messages here and elsewhere and then took paypal off of her site for a little while to try to fool everyone into thinking that we had won this battle. But I just now checked amandaknox.com and the yellow “Donate” button was still on the top right and fully functional. So we have to keep on fighting the good fight. And this is a very good way to stop her. Let’s do it! Thank you again.

Posted by Johnny Yen on 09/14/14 at 04:31 AM | #

Hi Johnny

I do agree. We should try to arrive at total elimination of the Donate button. Here is the Knox site name’s registration:

http://truejustice.org/ee/documents/perugia/2014WhoisKnoxWebsiteHosting.htm

As usual Chris Mellas is using a proxy, in this case Domain Privacy Service, so we dont know who the host is - it could be a server in Chris Mellas’s office.

Still, there are some phone numbers and email addresses there that might be worth trying.

I think Son of Sam laws should always be mentioned, they make all professional concerns very nervous because transgressions are pursued by prosecutors as if they are felonies.

Any judge ruling on Knox’s extradition is not going to favor Knox’s panhandling, which would be brought to their attention by the Republic of Italy.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/14/14 at 04:50 AM | #

Thanks Johnny for the explanation about PayPal complaints/reporting.

Yep, her Donate button is live to PayPal.  I just checked.  I’ll report her misuse (illegal use) of PayPal services today.

Posted by all4justice on 09/14/14 at 04:54 PM | #

I have just read some very interesting information about using PayPal’s donation button on their site:

“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.”

I seriously doubt that AK and RS are registered non-profit organizations. And, of course, neither of them have demonstrated how any of their donations will be used. Therefore, both are violating PayPal’s Terms of Service.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donate-intro-outside

Posted by Johnny Yen on 09/15/14 at 04:09 AM | #

Hi Johnny

Good catch. That is now inserted into the next post.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/15/14 at 01:07 PM | #

Also just found many phone numbers, email addresses and mailing addresses for paypal here:

http://consumerist.com/2008/06/06/all-the-secret-paypalebay-email-addresses-and-phone-numbers-you-could-ever-want/

I’ve written to some of the email addresses. Some work but others don’t.

Posted by Johnny Yen on 09/15/14 at 05:23 PM | #

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