Category: Conti & Vecchioti

Correcting Netflix 14: Omitted - Any Mention Of Big Red Flag In Forced Closing Of Vecchiotti’s Laboratory

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Netflix’s Amanda Knox is an extreme example of misleading bias by cherrypicking. This post is another in our ongoing series, the mothership for material for this media-friendly page online soon.



This post is one in our ongoing series.

Amazingly EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO Dr Carla Vecchiotti became quite possibly the most discredited DNA expert in the world, when news about her appalling lab conditions exploded in Italy. 

In their narrow-minded fanaticism to make Dr Mignini the most reviled prosecutor in the world - and Nick Pisa the most reviled reporter - the producers somehow left that awkward fact out of their report entirely. She and Dr Conti are given major time in the film to misrepresent key evidence. 

Netflix’s own due diligence (if any; we think not) missed all of this entirely. Now thanks to Netflix the misrepresented evidence and Vecchiotti’s discredited opinions of the Scientific Police labs are being given credence as hard fact worldwide.

KrissyG in her own excellent review of the movie summarised the conditions that led to the lab being closed down. It happened directly because the Carabinieri DNA experts Dr Barni and Dr Berti appointed for the 2013-14 Nencini appeal (which Netflix also omitted any mention of) visited the place to inspect it, and to pick up some key evidence, a DNA sample from the knife.   

They made mention of what they encountered in their report and in court testimony. That was nearly three years ago (January 2014) long before the final cut of the movie and long before the sale to Netflix was a done deal.

In our view this HAD to be yet another deliberate dishonesty. 

2. Catnip’s Translations Of Main Italian Reports Of Lab Closing

Catnip kindly provided us with these translations of some of the Italian news reports 18 months ago.

The March 2015 report from News 24

The Medico-Legal Institute of Sapienza University in Rome was closed down this morning.

For some time it has been known that unhygienic conditions were the norm in the Institute and the Rector of the University has decided today, in anticipation of NAS findings, to shut down the entire mortuary.

Sapienza’s Institute did not have adequate space to accommodate the large number pf bodies and quite often they had to be spread out along the corridors.

The hygiene rules were onerous and the building inadequate. It was for this reason that the Public Prosecutor’s Office had ordered a detailed report by NAS which would have presented their findings within a few weeks.

The Rector of the University, Eugenio Gaudio, has pre-empted the PPO’s expected closure of the Institute. The closure, explains Guadio, had been necessary to prevent the raising of legal questions as regards the autopsies being carried out, which would have risked the results being no longer reliable in future.

During the NAS inspections, even cadaver remains from 1990 had been found, a serious anomaly due to, as the mortuary attendants explained, the fact that no one had ever reclaimed the bodies. Another serious problem at the Sapienza Institute is the huge disorder that reigns inside the building, where, in point of fact, cadavers are to be found out in the corridors.

The March 2015 report from Corriere.

Rome: bodies in the mortuary corridors, Medico-Legal Institute of Sapienza closed

The Rector’s decision anticipates the MOSSA by the Prosecutor’s Office which has been investigating conditions at the Medico-Legal Institute of Rome’s flagship university

by Giulio De Santis

ROME ““ The University of Sapienza’s Legal Medicine Institute has been closed for health reasons. The decision has been made by the university’s Rector, Eugenio Gaudio, who made the order before the Prosecutor’s Office could make a move. At Clodio Place the investigators, in fact, are expecting the filing of a report by NAS, where serious hygienic shortcomings by the management of the Institute are highlighted.

Unreliable autopsies?

The closure has been necessary to head off the raising of questions relating to future autopsy results that would have risked being unreliable. The problems discovered by the Carabinieri of the Health and Food Adulteration Unit ““ and noted to the university administration ““ relate to, in fact, the equipment, starting with the tables, intended for carrying out autopsies, which have deteriorated during the course of time. The oldest have been in the building since the early 1980s while those acquired more recently go back to ten years ago. Even the instruments used to examine the cadavers have deteriorated and should be replaced.

Cadavers in the corridors

During the inspections, remains of cadavers preserved since 1990 were found. An anomaly due to the fact that no one had ever reclaimed the bodies. The other problem raised by the doctors at the Institute and revealed by NAS is the disorder that reigns in the Institute, where it is possible to see cadavers in corridors due to the lack of space in which to store them. Sapienza has now promised to proceed with restoration works. There is lack of certainty though on the end point by which the Institute will become operative again. There is no compulsory time limit but the university has guaranteed a return to normality by the beginning of May.

Transferring the bodies

Contributing to the uncertainty are Sapienza’s empty coffers and the collection of funds is expected to be complicated. In the meantime, to try and minimise the impact of the closure, autopsies will be carried out at the Tor Vergata Institute directed by Professor Giovanni Arcudi. The bodies have already started to arrive in the last few days in the mortuary of that university and in some cases the work has been given to specialists from the Gemelli Polyclinic. A case file has been opened by the Prosecutor’s Office and assigned to Antonella Nespola who in October had already ordered the sequestration of the mortuary. The decision to close the Institute has been communicated to the Prosecutor’s Office, who is caught out by the choice.

The March 2015 report from RAI News.

Rome, Medico-Legal Institute closed. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating health conditions. The decision of the Sapienza University Rector Ettore Gaudio. Cadavers from 1990 found.

Cadavers in the corridors because of lack of space for storing them, serious health issues in the management of the Institute. For this reason, Sapienza’s Medico-Legal Institute has been shut down for health reasons. The decision was made by the university’s Rector, Eugenio Gaudio, who made the order before the Prosecutor’s Office could make a move. At Clodio Place the investigators, in fact, are expecting the filing of a report by NAS, where serious hygienic shortcomings by the management of the Institute are highlighted.

The closure had been necessary to pre-empt questions being raised about the risk of future autopsy results being unreliable. During the inspections, cadaver remains preserved from 1990 were found. An anomaly due to the fact that no one had ever claimed the bodies. The other problem raised by the doctors at the Institute and noted by NAS is the disorder that reigns in the Institute, where it is possible to see cadavers in the corridors because of the lack of storage space.

The March 2015 report from Cronaca

Cadavers in corridors, Medico-Legal Institute in Rome closed
Rector Eugenio Gaudio’s decision: «Autopsy results at risk».
01 March 2015

There were cadavers in the corridors due to lack of space, as well as serious health issues in the management of the building. For this reason the Medico-Legal Institute at Sapienza University in Rome has been closed for health reasons.

RECTOR’S DECISION. The decision had been taken by the unicersity’s Rector, Eugenio Gaudio, who made the order before the Public Prosecutor’s Office could act. At Clodio Place, the investigators, in fact, are expecting the filing of a NAS report, where serious hygiene problems in the management of the Institute are highlighted. The closure was necessary to forestall questions being raised concerning future autopsy results which would have been at risk of being unreliable.

REMAINS OF CADAVERS FROM 1990. Inspections revealed remains of cadavers preserved from 1990. An anomaly due to the fact that no one had ever reclaimed the bodies. The other problem raised by the doctors at the Institute and noted by NAS is the disorder that reigns in the Institute, where it is possible to see cadavers in the corridors because of lack of space to store them.

The March 2015 report from Dagospia.

Sad corridors dimly lit. A room with refrigeration units from the 1980s, dozens of units occupied by the bodies of persons deceased by violent means and never recognised, never asked for, and, if foreigners, never repatriated. It’s here that, as many say, along the basement corridor it is even sadder: there’s no space inside and the cadavers are just left there, on trolleys, at times not even in mortuary bags. The smell, they say, is pungent and nauseating. To say nothing of the dissection tables and the equipment, or even the safety of the workers. Non-existent.

And so the Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation by NAS, the Carabinieri of the Health and Food Adulteration Unit [nucleo antisofisticazione e sanità ]. Eugenio Gaudio, Rector of Sapienza University “” of which the Medico-Legal Institute is a part “” and Domenico Alessio, Director-General of the Polyclinic at Umberto I University, have pre-empted likely legal orders deciding to shut down the building.

SAPIENZA MORTUARY

It received the latest body last Wednesday a little before midnight. The others “” like that of the young man squashed on Friday night by a bus in Piazza Venezia and dying in San Giovanni Hospital “” will all be, from Thursday onwards, taken to the Gemelli Polyclinic.

A truly disconcerting situation for the largest mortuary in the Capital, the Sapienza Medico-Legal Institute. Already by October month end Public Prosecutor Antonella Nespola had sequestered six operating theatres at the Umberto I University Polyclinic, which is close to the mortuary, and also placed the Medico-Legal Institute in her sights.

And «for possible contamination, likely compromised results, the building physically falling apart, cadavers in the corridors and inadequate equipment», they explain in the mortuary. «NAS inspected the mortuary when I was not even Rector» explains Eugenio Gaudio. «We are all hopeful that the restoration works will conclude as soon as possible: within two months».

MORTUARY

Eight years a scandal led to the lose of the operating theatre at Umberto I: not only were the health and safety conditions extremely bad (blood traces everywhere, building falling apart, a back and forth of funeral agency operators who were following the relatives of the deceased), but corneas were being stolen from the bodies, which in turn ended up having to be transferred from one place to another under armed guard. But today «we’re re-opening the Polyclinic dissection room» explains Gaudio. «I’ve put in an order for autopsy tables and new and modern equipment».

And even if the Rector highlights that the decision to close «had been taken in accord with the Health Director and Director-General of the Polyclinic, with all due care and authority» in the Public Prosecutor’s Office the news of the closure, which seems to have arrived with only 24 hours’ notice, has raised a storm. Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone plays it down. But he also explains that today or at the latest tomorrow «there will be a meeting at the PPO with the top layers of management from the Polyclinic and Rector Eugenio Gaudio». And in the meantime, «for now, Gemelli will be asked to handle the immediate exigencies».

The funeral undertakers who tell of the scene from hell are describing «flies and bluebottles attracted by the odour, doors that don’t seal properly and when you go downstairs at the least you almost fall ill», as a source who works in the mortuary recalls. «But even on the first floor, where the forensic pathologists work, everything has remained stuck at 40 years ago. To say nothing of the place where the evidence is kept: all heaped up on each other, contaminated according to me unusable».

EUGENIO GAUDIO

Captain Dario Praturlon, NAS Commander in Rome who last September on delegation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office carried out an inspection, explains that «we only had to check if there were health and safety irregularities: and we had found lots of them. The employers “” that is the Rector and the Polyclinic Health Director “” are obliged to fix up the building. To give the workers a safe place to work. We found none of all this». The first criminal charges are expected quite soon, although relating to previous management.


3. Lab Reopens Sans Vecchiotti

The lab has been closed for 18 months but now Corriere reports its reopening under the supervision of three prosecutors’ offices, making it all but impossible for either the lab or Vecchiotti to perpetrate further transgressions.

University’s Polyclinic takes over management of Rome’s mortuary instead of Sapienza University, while the forensic pathology department is now overseen by the three relevant Public Prosecutor’s Offices (Rome, Tivoli and Civitavecchia).

Posted by Our Main Posters on 10/23/16 at 10:00 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Evidence & Witnesses,  The two knives,  DNA and luminol,  News media & movies,  Movies on case,  Hoaxes against Italy,  4 No firm DNA hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  More hoaxers,  Hoaxers from 2009,  Conti & Vecchioti,  Hoaxers: media groups,  The Netflix hoax • Comments here (16)