Overview: This page exclusively covers the 500 or so zombie lies in Knox's English-only 2013 book. See this page for Knox's zombie lies to media and paying groups.
Category: The wider contexts

The Amanda Knox Book: Could Her Book Legally Entangle These Four?

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[Image above: Curt Knox, Ted Simon, Robert Barnett, and David Marriott]


It seems probably that in every legal system on Earth, enabling or encouraging or inciting a crime may itself be a crime.

Could Amanda Knox’s forthcoming book be considered a crime, or more precisely a series of crimes? We wait to see what it says, but for starters its mere existence flouts Italian law. From our 22 April post:

Italy’s justice system so favors DEFENDANTS that it is perhaps the most pro-defendant system in the world. In fact many Italians feel its leniency has gone way too far. That is why there are these automatic appeals and why Knox could talk freely in court and have no cross-examination of her claims.

At the same time, officers of the Italian justice system are sheltered by huge powers hardly even needing to be invoked. The reason the law is so strong in this dimension is in part because a favored mafia tactic is to do what Sollecito and Preston and Burleigh have done in their books: slime the officers of the court.

Get that? Knox can talk her head off in court (as she did for two full days and many “spontaneous” interventions at the trial and annulled appeal) but because of a torrid history of false allegations against Italian courts, especially by the mafia and accused politicians, Italian law forbids her to do so outside in ways that misrepresent the evidence and impugn any officers of the legal system, prosecutors and prison staff counted in.

Sollecito’s book published six months ago made four kinds of mistake: (1) publishing for blood money while still accused; (2) including many false claims which contradict his own case at trial and will almost certainly contradict claims Knox makes; (3) defaming numerous officers of the court in freely accusing them of crimes - falsely, as his own dad admits; and (4) maligning the entire Italian justice system, the most popular and trusted institution in Italy with heavy protections at its disposal when it wants.

The criminal investigation into Sollecito’s book is under the wing of the same chief prosecutor in Florence who will oversee the re-run of the murder appeal. His investigation target is expected to be broad, and will certainly include the shadow writer and publisher and Sollecito’s own legal help. At the max, because Sollecito has impugned anti-mafia prosecutors and judges, he might face close to ten years.

PLUS the mitigating circumstances Massei allowed which brought his sentence down by five years will likely be disallowed by the Florence appeal court, adding five more years if the new appeal concludes guilt.

It seems an open secret in Perugia that Knox’s lawyers there have long shrugged off the US campaign and acted locally as if it really isnt there. They may or may not have attempted to forestall the book, though by now they certainly know it will make things far worse for Knox.

Sollecito’s lawyers have even more reason to know this as they are already under the gun, and they are probably sitting back and watching the trainwreck with ever-growing glee. 

Going forward, the prosecution is in a very sound and dominating position.

The evidence is very, very strong.  The Massei Trial Report is still unscathed. The Galati Appeal and the late-March Supreme Court decision absolutely destroyed the Hellmann appeal, and heavily implied that it had been bent. And the prosecutor who has been so unfairly maligned in the US has zero legal problems of his own, after Cassation nailed a rogue prosecutor for pursuing him and put his Narducci investigation back on track, and he was promoted and is set to be the Region of Umbria’s number one prosecutor very soon.

In contrast even without the albatross of the book Knox’s position was very weak.

She has already served three years for criminally lying to protect herself, and that sentence is subject to no further appeal. (Talk of taking it to the European Court is a joke.) Nobody in Italy will trust her word after that. As the post below this one shows, dozens of witnesses will speak up against any false claims. Who will testify on her behalf?

Also Knox seems intent on skipping the appeal, which is itself a contempt of court. And Sollecito, who has said he will be present, showed strong tendencies in his book to sell her short. If her book and her ABC interview are not roundly chastized on Italian TV as Sollecito’s was late last year, it will be a surprise. And complaints are already on their way to Florence - a prison guard she impugns in the book who earlier she herself had said meant no harm is moving forward. 

Curt Knox, Ted Simon, Robert Barnett, and David Marriott may end up in the crosshairs of the anticipated investigation for enabling or encouraging or inciting the book. And if Knox is handed extra years because of their zero due diligence, she may have a malpractice case against Simon and Barnett.

We hope their fingers are crossed.

Posted on 04/29/13 at 04:52 AM by Our Main Posters • Click here for my past posts, via link at top left.
Archived in Defendants in court,  Amanda Knox,  The officially involved,  The defenses,  The wider contexts,  N America context,  Hoaxes against Italy,  9 Mignini v Knox hoax,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  16 Interrogation hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Knox-Marriott PR,  Hoaxers from 2011,  Amanda Knox #2,  Hoaxers: media groups,  ABC Network
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Demonizations By Knox: Book Claims About Prison Traumas Contradicted By Many Solid Sources

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[Above and at bottom: an animated Amanda Knox in red t-shirt at a prison rock concert]

1. Knox Claims: Hell-hole Of Sin And Debauchery

That opening remark of a preview by the National Enquirer of Amanda Knox’s forthcoming book has been widely parroted in other American media reports.

Putting out new claims in the book like that is apparently considered to be worth the huge risk of extra years behind bars for contempt of court described in the post below this one.

Still, the US edition was sanitized after the annullment by the Supreme Court of the Hellmann appeal, and the UK publication of the book was canceled altogether.

So what are these remaining shock-horror claims? We intend to post commentary on them all.

Several concern Knox’s time in Capanne Prison where, it should be remembered, she actually served a three year sentence for lying. This was a sentence recently ratified by the Supreme Court, for criminal lying about the involvement of Patrick Lumumba in Merediths murder.

Main prison claim 1: sex advances by staff

One of the prison claims made public names a now-retired senior prison guard who Knox now claims asked her for sex. Actually this is hardly new news. Knox made the claim but in a far weaker form in 2011.

Then as CBS reported she had in fact concluded the guard was not even serious about sex. He was seeking to understand her.

Investigative journalist and CBS News Consultant Bob Graham, reading from Amanda’s letter to him: “”˜He was fixated on the topic of sex, with whom I’d done it, how I liked it, if I would like to do it with him. When I realized that he really wanted to talk to me about sex I would try to change the subject.’”

Correspondent Peter Van Sant: “What does this letter say to you about what she’s been going through?”

Graham: “It says in a time when she was clearly traumatized by the events of the death, the murder of her flatmate, that there she was, an innocent abroad, because she was innocent, she is innocent”¦ and here she was being pressured, further pressured in a prison system, a system that at least she should have had some degree of safety.”

Graham, reading Amanda’s letter: “I realize that he was testing me to see if I reacted badly, to understand me personally. He wanted to get a reaction or some information from me. I did not get the seriousness of the situation.’”

Knox’s claim seems to have left Italians contemptuous. “Yet more lies.” Here is a commentary on Knox’s claim of sexual harrassment in Il Giornale.

AMANDA: “THE WARDER WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH ME”.

Nino Materi - Monday 15/04/2013 - 15:38.

And in the end do you want to see that we will have even have to compensate Amanda Knox for the “psycho-sexual” abuse suffered in prison in Perugia? By now we have become used to everything in the ugly story of the murder of poor Meredith Kercher.

But you really need a strong stomach to get used to the idea that the girl from Seattle should even be earning millions of dollars with true-story book (“true” in a manner of saying) which rummages in the trash of the Perugia thriller. A literary destiny which associates Amanda with the other key character at the crime scene: that Raffaele Sollecito author of a another true-story book (once again “true” in a manner of saying). Sollecito’s memoir is entitled Honour Bound: my Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, while Amanda’s “best-seller” is called Waiting to be Heard.

Pages in which Amanda ““ among other things ““ tries to make herself out to be an ingenuous, modest creature actually “molested” by the sexually implicit sayings of a supposedly dirty-minded prison warden. Amanda writes, or the ghost writer does, “The screw would ask me with whom I had had sex, he wanted to know how many boyfriends I had and whether I wanted to go to bed with him.” The period referred to is when the American student was in the Perugia prison following the first stage sentence for the crime of Meredith’s “friend”.

Then, on appeal, Knox (and Sollecito) were acquitted and now Cassation has ordered a new trial for them both. Meanwhile Amanda has gone back to Seattle (from where she will obviously never return to Italy) and she is enjoying the proceeds of her new career as a writer, not to speak of being a guest of agony TV, where between tears she tells how she was persecuted in our country. And the more she cries, the more the audience hits the roof and the more Amanda’s bank account grows. No talk of repaying her debt to Italian Justice…

In the 400 pages published by Harper Collins, the New York publishers which obtained the exclusive on the memoirs of Amanda after paying out about three million dollars, there is no lack of titillating details. A perfect location: the cells of Capanne Prison. Here Amanda tells about “continual requests from a prisoner to start a lesbian relationship with her”. In other pages she recalls how “she was informed of being HIV positive shortly after her arrival in gaol”.

Then the shock-revelation about a prison guard who is now retired. Knox accuses him of ” doing nothing but talk about sex with her from the day she arrived after her arrest”. In a message to a girlfriend, the girl from Seattle tells how the man in uniform accompanied her on every medical visit, twice a day, and in the evening how he would call her up to the third floor of the prison to an empty room to chat. “He was obsessed with sex, with whom I had done it, how I liked doing it, whether I wanted to do it with him,” she writes in the book. “I was so surprised and scandalised by all his provocations that sometimes I wondered whether I was not misunderstanding what he was telling me. When I realized that he wanted to talk about sex I tried to change the subject.”

The guard is now suing the girl for defamation after Amanda said that she had been abused during the questioning. In an interview with Bob Graham, an English journalist very close to the Knox family, the guard admitted talking about sex with Amanda, but claiming that she was the one who introduce the topic: “I talked to her a lot, but only to calm her down. I asked her how many boyfriends she had had, but it was always she had to start talking about sex.”

Anyone who wants to rummage in the garbage, buy the book by all means.

Main prison claim 2: malicious sex-partner humiliation

The second main claim against a prison official concerned the preliminary results of a routine HIV test required of all prisoners and a list of sex partners. The list of sex partners was reported in the media in 2008 as if the prosecutor and prison doctor had engineered the result and then leaked it to the public. 

What did we find when we looked closely into this?

Knox’s own diary made quite clear that she was the one who decided to create such a list, and the list in fact seems to have been leaked by Knox forces.

Back then, even Knox herself exonerates the doctor and prosecutor.

Main prison claim 3: Italian prison conditions are unbearable

Italian prison conditions and treatment, Knox claims, were so bad that they made her life miserable. She says that at times she became very despondent, and even claims to have imagined doing away with herself. 

However, Italian prison conditions except for occasional overcrowding are widely considered among the most humane, caring and rehabilitating in the world. Compared to US prison conditions, they are like night and day.

And this almost universal claim of every prisoner everywhere is contradicted by the media on which she and her family worked hard; by prison staff and official visitors, and even by the US Federal Government itself.

2. Flood Of Rebuttals By Family, Lawyers, Numerous Officials

(1) Contradicted by the extensive media reporting

Occasional despondency is not all uncommon among those paying their debt to society. And there is scads of reporting that Knox had adjusted well to prison.

Here is a report by ABC News after Knox was found guilty in 2009.

Knox said that she felt “horrendous” the night that the verdict was delivered. “She said the prison guards did come in to hold her and make her feel better. She said the other prisoners were good to her,” Thomas said.

The reporter said the prison is “extremely clean.” Knox’s cell, which she shares with another American who has been sentenced on drug charges, is small. “It had a little bathroom with a door, a bidet, a sink, a shower…. better than some of the things I’ve seen at summer camp or boarding school.”

The women inmates are allowed to go to a hairdresser once a week.

The prison is a new facility, just opened in 2005. The women’s ward has an infirmary, an entertainment room with a pool table and ping-pong table, and a library. There is also a small chapel. Outside there is a little playground for children with benches and toys because there are cells specifically for women with children. Currently there are two women in Capanne with children.

It was very widely reported over four years that Knox was given the opportunity to do all these many things rarely encountered in American prisons: Learn the guitar. Read a lot. Watch TV. Study foreign languages.

Do artwork (colored pictures of hands). Attend rock concerts where she was seen leaping up and down (images here). Attend classical concerts. Attend Christmas parties.

Knox even played a major part in the creation of a rock video with a rock group. Unfortunately for her, that video appeared to many to come close to a taunting murder confession.

And on various occasions Knox was quoted as saying prison guards were kind to her.

(2) Contradicted by Knox’s own mother

Knox’s mother Edda Mellas contradicts her on the experiences in Capanne. This was when Knox had been inside for two years.

They [the family] insist that she has tried to draw positives from her time inside, rather than wasting energy getting angry and resentful about the fate that has befallen her.

So it is we are told that she has whiled away the time by helping teach other inmates English and yoga and by learning to cook, to do needle-point and to play the classical guitar.

“˜She’s made it a time to learn, to learn about herself and the friends she has and the way the world works,’ says her mother. “˜She realises it’s not about her any more, she truly sees herself as one of the lucky ones in there.

“˜She sees women in there who have no support, or good lawyers, or even family, they have nothing.’

(3) Contradicted by the US Embassy and State Department

US Embassy staff regularly monitored Knox’s treatment both during trial and thereafter. She was given chances again and again to lodge complaints with an Embassy officer.

But as we posted here in June 2010 and here in May 2011 cables from the US Rome Embassy to the State Department in Washington DC released to reporter Andrea Vogt contained ZERO complaints.

This matters incredibly because it constitutes the official take of the US Federal Government.

It will be front and center of State Department and Justice Department considerations when an arrest warrant for Knox is issued and extradition requested both of which could happen soon.

(4) Contradicted by Member of Parliament Rocco Girlanda

Mr Girlanda visited Amanda Knox in prison approximately 20 times for the specific purpose (or so he claimed) of checking her prison conditions. In fact that was the only way he could legally visit her, although oddly enough a book and a number of other pro-Knox actions emerged - even a complaint to the President about the Perugia prosecutors.

After Knox was released late in 2011 Mr Girlanda specifically praised the prison staff in this statement.

Perugia Prison Police The Example of Professionalism.

The PdL Party member of parliament Rocco Girlanda praises the officers of the Perugia prison.

“I’ve had the opportunity to describe to the Minister of Justice, Nitto Palma, the great professional behaviour shown by the Perugia Penitentiary Police with regards to the court case that saw Amanda Knox as protagonist, a behaviour that I had always observed during the course of my visits to the Capanne prison in the last two years.”  So says Rocco Girlanda, Umbrian deputy of the PdL, after the conclusion of the appeal trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

“In recent months I have had the opportunity to make dozens of visits to the prison, which also included some of the petitions presented by the senior management of the premises and my commitment in this regard, always finding, that starting from the director Bernardina Di Mario, continuing with the Penitentiary Police commander Fulvio Brillo, up to the entire personnel employed, the helpfulness, the courtesy and their professionalism which allows me to say that Perugia is a model structure on the national landscape, managed and directed in the best way and with a large dose of humanity on the part of the staff employed.”

(5) Contradicted by Knox’s own Italian lawyers

Knox’s lawyers Mr Dalla Vedova and Mr Ghirga visited her again and again during the 2009 trial and 2010 hiatus and 2011 appeal. Knox once again had dozens of opportunities to lodge complaints with them - lawyers who could have initiated Supreme Court action in response.

When Knox was released late in 2011 Mr Dalla Vedova and Mr Ghirga were interviewed by the TV station Umbria 24:

The lawyers: “she never complained about the prison”.

Amanda Knox “has never complained about the conduct/behavior of the prison police supervisor” and “she has never mentioned his name”: to say so are the defenders of the American woman, lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, commenting on what was reported by the tabloid The Sun. “

Ghirga said: “In the diary Amanda never makes the name.”

Della vedova said: “We are grateful to the management staff of Capanne prison for their cooperation even given to the family’s requirements. Amanda has never reported violations against her.”

“She absolutely has received the correct treatment and the outmost solidarity, within compliance, especially in the prison’s female section.”

(6) Contradicted by prison guards and other inmates

Some assiduous and highly vredible reporters captured the view of a difficult, narcissistic, uncaring Amanda Knox which is very commonplace around Perugia. The real faults lie with Knox, in effect. This report is by one of them. 

Prison guard Angela Antonelli saw Knox every day for two years and says she became closer to her than most. Antonelli paints an intriguing portrait of her, saying she survived behind bars with an almost astonishing degree of self-possession, burying herself in writing letters, singing Beatles songs and playing a guitar.
But it did not, she says, endear the young American to her fellow inmates ““ who took to calling her the Ice Queen.
“˜She never once cried when I was there,’ recalled the warder, speaking at her cluttered home in the city. “˜I often spent the nights there and looked into her cell through the hole to check on her and the others.
“˜Other people ask for tranquillisers, cry, shout that they didn’t do it, that they’re in pain, that they can’t go on. “Why did this happen to me?” they shout.
“˜Many prisoners bang their heads against the walls or even sew up their mouths, scream, vomit, cut their wrists. But she showed no reaction.’
This impression of extraordinary self-confidence and steadfastness is supported by fascinating correspondence seen by The Mail on Sunday, including one particular letter.
In letters written to her former boyfriend and co-accused, Raffaele Sollecito, Knox shows something close to contempt for her accusers and the overwhelmingly hostile public opinion in Perugia.
In one, written a year after the murder, she writes: “˜The truth is in plain sight THEY HAVE NOTHING ““ only their twisted imaginations.’ There is no mention of life in jail, of other prisoners, or indeed of Meredith.
A number of Knox’s prison letters to Sollecito were intercepted by the authorities in an attempt to gain some clue about the events leading up to the murder in 2007. This one, shown to The Mail on Sunday by Antonelli, had been among them.
Amanda Knox was obsessed with The Beatles, constantly singing their songs in prison.
Her letters to former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, which were shown to The Mail on Sunday by warder Angela Antonelli, were peppered with references to their songs.
She signs off one letter: “˜Let It Be! Here Comes the Sun!’
Her diaries, too, were littered with references to the band, together with doodles of flowers and peace signs.
The song she credits with helping her through her four years in prison was Let It Be, the final Beatles single before Paul McCartney left the band.
It meant so much to her that, according to warder Angela Antonelli, she tore out a page from her notebook and wrote out the lyrics, in English and Italian, and gave it to Ms Antonelli as a gift.
Writing in a clear and careful hand, her letter to Sollecito concentrates on the injustice of the charges against the two of them, and on her hopes of freedom.
She also refers to a dream about being greeted by President Barack Obama on her return to America.
She writes: “˜I dreamed he welcomed me personally, shaking my hand, back to the States.’
In prison, Knox kept herself to herself, said Antonelli.
While the majority of prisoners were attempting to make some sort of communal life together, she declined to socialise, preferring the company of her daily journal.
“˜Other prisoners made cakes, biscuits, pizza and always shared with their cellmates. Amanda ate what the others made but never made anything herself,’ the warder said.
“˜Also in prison people borrow each other’s clothes but Amanda never shared her clothes nor accepted clothes. In my view, she behaved as though she were superior and looked down on the others.’
After finding herself alone in a foreign prison, Knox’s caution is perhaps understandable ““ particularly as, before her acquittal, vicious media coverage in Italy had branded her a “˜devil’ whose alleged part in the murder was fuelled by sex.
But whether it is understandable or not, Knox’s reticence appears to have troubled those around her.
Antonelli said: “˜She absolutely never spoke about that night with anyone. She would not talk about Meredith’s murder. Amanda never once spoke about Meredith and never spoke about Guede.’
Rudy Guede was a drifter from the Ivory Coast who, in a separate trial, was convicted of Ms Kercher’s murder and who remains in prison.
Antonelli added: “˜Even if Amanda didn’t kill Meredith, she hasn’t done anything to help people understand what happened that night.
“˜She thought only about her own survival. She’s impenetrable, you will never be able to understand what really happened that night. Amanda showed almost no emotions.
“˜The only time I ever saw her being nervous was when she was waiting for her mother to send her the second Harry Potter book.
“˜She was really quite anxious, saying, “When is my book coming.”
“˜She lived through her books, she transported herself away through her books like her hero Harry Potter.’
She was not vain however, and other inmates were surprised that she appeared to make little effort with her appearance.
“˜People thought she was very good looking but she never mentioned her looks,’ said Antonelli, who at 62 has now retired from the Italian prison service.
Antonelli said that although Knox deliberately isolated herself from both her fellow prisoners and the staff, she became closer to her than to most others at Capanne.
Knox even gave Antonelli presents, including a doily she had made and a hand-written transcript of the Beatles song Let It Be. She got attached to me because I’m a maternal sort of woman,’ she explained.
“˜She tried to become close but I distanced myself.
“˜Sometimes I felt she was like a vampire because of her strong personality ““ as if she was trying to suck emotion from me.
“˜She was very different to other 22-year-olds who were in the prison. She knows what she wants and is very determined. I’ve never seen a girl like her, especially as she was so young. It was as though she was constantly doing a job interview, showing the best side of herself.’
There is the same sense of determination in the letter from Knox to Sollecito, dated November 11, 2008, seen by The Mail on Sunday.
She refers to her current “˜extraordinarily difficult’ experience and the ups and downs of life. Good will come of the situation she finds herself in, she assures Sollecito, and she will be brave and patient.
She tells Sollecito that her accusers just cannot look at themselves properly and see that they are wrong.
Last month Italy’s Supreme Court ordered Knox and Sollecito to be re-tried ““ in the light of which her decision to publish Waiting To Be Heard, with its criticisms of Italian officialdom, might be seen as something of a risk.
That said, it seems unlikely that she will ever travel to Italy to face the court.
Antonelli is clear that Knox was “˜never physically abused’ at Cappane, but she also says that “˜one guy asked her how she liked to be pleased in bed’ ““ which could support Knox’s claims to have been subjected to inappropriate remarks.
The man accused has denied any allegations of harassment.
Curiously, when Knox’s prison diary was published in Italy in facsimile form it gave little hint of the hardship she describes in her new book.
She wrote compulsively in her cell, maintaining her journal four times a day. The handwritten pages, complete with doodles and scrawled Beatles lyrics, say such things as: “˜The prison staff are really nice. They check in to make sure I’m okay very often and are very gentle with me.
“˜I don’t like the police as much, though they were nice to me in the end, but only because I had named someone for them, when I was very scared and confused.’
The someone she referred to was an innocent man ““ Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba, whom she falsely accused of murdering Meredith.
She later insisted the accusation was a result of police intimidation.
In fact, her prison diary, describes her Italian jail as “˜pretty swell’, with a library, a television in her room, a bathroom and a reading lamp.
No one had beaten her up, she wrote, and one guard gave her a pep talk when she was crying in her cell.
Today, she is an innocent woman; but to those who were with her in Cappane, she remained an enigma until the moment when, amid turbulent scenes at the Perugia courthouse, she was acquitted.
“˜Even when she was released, she didn’t say goodbye to a single person in the prison,’ recalled Antonelli.
“˜In my opinion she showed no compassion or sensitivity to others. She just walked out.
‘Is that human?’








Posted on 04/25/13 at 10:20 PM by Our Main Posters • Click here for my past posts, via link at top left.
Archived in Defendants in court,  Amanda Knox,  The wider contexts,  N America context,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  16 Interrogation hoax,  21 Nasty prison hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Knox-Marriott PR,  Hoaxers from 2011,  Amanda Knox #2,  Hoaxers: media groups,  ABC Network
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