Category: 4 No firm DNA hoax
The Rise And Fall Of “Frank Sfarzo” And His Disastrous Trip To The US And Canada
Posted by Ergon
[Frank Sforza riding high in his first days in the US]
Part II on Frank
My Part 1 post in this series is just below this post, and others will follow. Much of this first emerged on PMF dot Net. TJMK has posted about Frank in early days, and about the Seattle court.
Who is the real Frank Sfarzo?
Born July 04, 1963, in Rome, his real name is Francesco Sforza. This is confirmed by his passport data which I saw. He tried for years to hide it, and it is of public interest since, when arrested for assault, he again, deliberately misspelled his name. Like Bruce Fis(c)her, he tried to hide his many slanderous and libelous accusations on his blog behind the handle ‘Frank Sfarzo’.
The son of a doctor (like Raffaele Sollecito) he got a degree in philosophy from the University of Perugia (Candace Dempsey, Murder In Italy). Then his peripatetic lifestyle took him from Florence to Naples, a stint in the US, and work as a director of production in the troubled 2006 movie And Quiet Flows The Don.
When the Meredith Kercher case broke late in 2007, he was the first blogger, on his new site Perugia Shock, to write about the case. Moving back from Florence to Perugia, he managed a student flophouse, then he lived with his mother in a flat paid for through her pension check - his pattern for some time had been to live off the patronage of women.
These articles are based on a series of posts I wrote on PMF dot Net - the SfarzoGate Papers. They are also based on interviews of many people who knew him personally - one common theme was how financially insecure he was, often to the point of stealing from their wallets/purses, and getting caught shoplifting from a local Coop store (September 06, 2010)
[Perugia Shock in 2008 stiil supportive of Meredith, sarcastic of Knox]
Insertion into the case
Despite receiving lots of moneys from US supporter networks for his local intelligence (I saw evidence that pointed to a leak from inside the Questura, for which the prosecutors began an investigation against him in January 2009) his big dream was a) to own property and b) write a book/movie about the case.
It was this that drove him into the arms of the Friends Of Amanda (see forthcoming Part III about their support for him and his blog Perugia Shock coming shortly) and to literally “˜turn on a dime’ in 2008 from being convinced of Amanda Knox’s guilt (he has always maintained Raffaele Sollecito’s relative innocence) to becoming, not just a pro-Amanda Knox blogger, but allying himself with the anti-Mignini forces in Perugia who wanted to impede his Monster Of Florence murder investigation.
The war upon Dr Mignini
The MOF series of ritualistic sex based murders took place in the Florence area in the 70’s, and it fell to the prosecutor Dr Giuliano Mignini, with ace criminal investigator Michele Giuttari, to carry on the work of earlier prosecutors. Much of the misreporting on the MOF case was sourced to Mario Spezi, who, allied with American writer Doug Preston, started a campaign of slander against Mignini from 2006 on that continues to this day.
My sources tell me that Frank knows Spezi quite well, and as well he is allied with the Berlusconi forces who wanted to carry out their attack on the Italian judiciary. But, seeing how Doug Preston supposedly got a movie deal with Tom Cruise’s company, then after that with George Clooney, to film The Monster Of Florence, he hoped to have a similar movie made about the Amanda Knox case, with him working on it of course.
Neither movie looks to be made now, which adds to much bitterness in some quarters.
[Knox in Seattle with Frank; she came to mistrust him]
The Perugia domestic dispute
Then, as tends to happen, the wheels came off the PR bus. Frank’s sisters, concerned about how he was taking advantage of his mother, tried to intervene, he became abusive, the police were called for the domestic dispute September 10, 2010; he went ballistic, and attacked them.
It was this incident, with the resulting assault charge he has managed to avoid so far, that he has spun into a web of lies about “˜Mignini’s persecution’ with the assistance of his muse, Candace Dempsey, author of Murder In Italy, the Friends Of Amanda Knox and Bruce Fischer, the co-owner with Sarah Snyder of the for profit Innocence-Anywhere (formerly Injustice In Perugia) website.
[The initial accomodation the Mellases hoped Frank would accept]
His begging for money
His sisters having whisked his mother off to their own home, he was without funds and about to lose his apartment. From a begging e-mail of Frank’s, Feb. 23, 2012: “They knew my sister was against me, the women in my family are unfortunately bad, you guys are saving me, I will always be grateful, I will be filing the complaint to have “˜Piggy’ and his gang tried, I will write the movie about this case, we will do great things together”.
He also claimed it was his sisters who were stealing the family funds, and that Mignini’s actions in the Meredith Kercher case were “˜criminal’ (which is the reason for the criminal defamation lawsuit he must now appear for in Florence).
Pleas for financial assistance ensued, along with hints he might be closing down his rejigged website and moving to the United States for “other journalistic projects”. He actually asked for 10,000 Euros through Bruce Fischer’s website!
His attempt to move to US
The reality was, Italy beginning to pall, and with the outstanding assault charge, he hoped to make a permanent move to the US, with the help (he thought) of his prominent American supporters.
Funds began to flow, and by my estimation he has received “˜donations’ in the tens of thousands of dollars. Which never, sadly, was enough. Just one Canadian supporter, who was abused by Frank after arrival, sent him 7000 dollars (confirmation posted by him on dot NET) in the form of 500 Euro monthly payments, plus his return air ticket.
[The Vashon Sportsmens Club where Frank & the FOA met]
Frank arrives in Seattle
The supporter gave the date of his arrival at Seattle Air Port July 20, 2012, along with fellow Knox supporter Dr. David Anderson, with whom he’d been staying in Perugia.
Frank managed to invite himself to the Mellas household, promising to reveal all about the investigation that would blow it wide open. He also claimed to have copies of the Amanda Knox “˜interrogation’ by the police and PM Mignini, which also, turned out to be a lie.
[The FOA publicity planning meeting inside the bar]
His first accomodation
Offered a bunk in Chris Mellas’s boat parked in his driveway, he threw a fit, and demanded to be housed in their home.
Where he ended up, staying with them for two months beginning July and including the Canadian interlude. Judge Michael Heavey who also had been sending regular monthly contributions (I am told around 300 Euros) escorted him around Washington State, then took him and Dr. Anderson to another of his pro-Knox anti-Mignini Rotary Club Club meetings on July 25, 2012.
The problem was that the Mellas clan and Bruce Fischer had already planned the big Vashon Island get together at the Vashon Sportsman’s Inn, Saturday July 28, 2012, to plan and coordinate the PR push for the shortly to be released books, and thank her supporters.
Therefore, not wanting to risk a blowup, they tried to placate him, while complaining to themselves about his behavior.
Knox stepdad Chris Mellas even told the Canadian supporter that Frank was a “˜difficult house guest’, this a week after he’d arrived (!) while Candace Dempsey, sitting next to them, nodded agreement.
[The FOA publicity group photo inside the bar. Some in hiding, we have other photos]
Frank Sforza and Amanda
Frank sat all day next to Amanda, who seems in her pictures to have a horrified fascination with Frank, who posed front and center for many group photos, and grandiosely boasted how he was going to “˜reveal all about the gang of criminals’.
The supporters, who numbered over 60, including Judge Heavey, Steve Moore, Tom Rochelle, Joe Bishop, and Bruce Fischer, all lapped it up. Later, when the infamous finger salute Group Photo was taken, it was with the instruction to “send a message to Mignini”. Shouts of “Pignini” rang out.
Frank was working very hard after that to find a way to stay in the US. He looked into obtaining a Green Card, but most of the female supporters were already married/not interested. Photos taken of him with them at the time show an adoring, rapturous group, though that changed after the stories came out.
[Frank points to Screech Rum bottle from “Bill Williams” in kind host’s house. He looks very angry]
Frank’s Canadian interludes:
His first visit over the border for a week, went well. His Canadian supporters, one of whom, “Bill Williams” (a Canadian reverend) posts thousands of Groupie posts, met him with a bottle of “Screech Rum”.
The second visit, though, was when it all began to unravel.
A Canadian border service agent intercepted Frank, and, not believing his story why he was visiting Canada, seized his passport, and ordered him to report back to the agency the next day, August 25, with his Canadian sureties, “Bill”, and “Peter”. He was allowed to stay over, but things began to unravel after that. (I saw the passport seizure document)
Frank became increasingly erratic. Not satisfied with the money already received from his host, “Peter”, he requested a “˜business loan’ of $25,000 to set up a beach bar. “Peter”, a successful retired businessman, was struck by Frank’s lack of business acumen, said the plan was unfeasible, and declined.
Frank Sfarzo, who had never held a long term job or owned property in his life, began to insult him, calling his $750,000 home a “˜barn’ and other personal insults. Yet all he did in the nearly a month he was there was watch soap operas all day long, plus work on his blog, which his supporters helped him edit.
In the end, when one of Frank’s tirades became too unbearable, his host, concerned for his safety, called the RCMP at 4:00 AM in the morning, who then escorted Frank, uttering threats of “suing” everybody, to the border, and expelled him from Canada. He is now barred from entering the country. In turn, Frank accused his 71 yr. old host of sexually molesting him! The police didn’t believe him, of course.
Frank is back in Seattle
Frank returned to Seattle, where he was asked to leave the Mellas home after making a pass at Amanda Knox. Chris Mellas famously called him a “mooch” and an “exploiter”, and asked the Hawaiian supporter to delete Amanda’s personal information from Frank’s telephone, but everyone was too scared of him to do much else.
Frank then stayed a few days Edda Mellas’s sister, Janet Huff’s home (he calls her and her daughter a “˜bitch’) then various homes until he ended up in a rooming house owned by another supporter, at 2283 Viewmont Way W. Seattle, on a three month lease beginning October 01, 2012 at $525 a month (paid for by the FOA, Frank’s funds were running low)
[The hotel where Franks kind host paid his bill]
Frank’s Hawaiian adventure
Frank’s visitor’s permit running out, he accepted an invitation from another American supporter, then a long standing member of Bruce Fischer’s forum. He thought she was rich, she thought he was a misunderstood soul who corresponded with her regularly (she paid for a month’s rent, sent a ticket as well to Kona airport).
Frank arrived November 08, 2012, on a seven day ticket. He was due to return November 14, but his plans were to get married, and obtain a Green card.
Surprise. She wasn’t rich, wasn’t interested in marriage, and lived off the land in a little mountain community. He started the usual pattern of verbal abuse. They were peasants, she was a “˜loser’, etc. The people there were going to beat him up, she saved him from that. Even the dogs hated him.
Trying to salvage the trip, she took him to a hotel room (which she paid for) for the last day on the island. Frank started with the abuse again, struck her, she fled to the desk and called the police. She just wanted him removed and to catch his flight, he threatened to sue the police, they arrested him for assault. He claimed she threw luggage at him, but it was she who had the bruises to show to the police. She fled the room right after.
He was held overnight, released the next day and told to appear in court the next week on assault charges. Which he did, and she, just wanting to have him leave the island, declined to press charges, which can still be reinstated, should she chose to do so. Copies of all his arrest warrants and charges have already been published on PMF dot NET and PMF dot ORG.
[Seattle Municipal courthouse where Frank was supposed to attend trial December 31, 2012]
Denouement:
When the news of his arrest broke, there was shock all around at PR central and Bruce Fischer’s ORG. Bruce tried to cover it up, deleted his forum member’s allegations (I found and saved it in the hour it was up)
I expressed sympathy on PMF dot Net, she read it, contacted me, and the rest, as they say is history. Bruce tried to intimidate her by revealing her past sexual history, which Frank passed to him (so she posted it herself, she’s a victim of sexual assault, and decided she didn’t ever want to be a victim again)
Then when Peter, the Canadian host spoke up on her behalf, Bruce tried to pass it off as “˜just too much to drink on both sides’ and this caused an uproar in his own forum, as members, appalled, quit in droves. And some of them, contacted me.
Of course, Bruce, who likes to intimidate and abuse, (as former friend Steve Shay found out) allowed Knox “˜family friend’ Karen Pruett to reveal the accuser’s identity, even though we had obscured her name in our reporting.
Frank got into an argument with two men at the rooming house who called him out on his behavior, he sucker punched one from behind and bit another, a disabled person. He was arrested and charged with assault, held overnight, arraigned the next day, probable cause found, and he was told to appear in court December 31, 2012. Which he didn’t, having fled back to Italy.
Just like in Hawaii, he provided false ID and was charged as “Francesco Sforca” though we were able to locate the court records anyway. His supporters say he was stopped at the border from returning, but that is a lie. He was in Italy throughout that time, my sources tell me. Someone is out $2,500 bail money.
[Seattle airport where Frank took off from after arrest, never to return]
Postscript
Francesco Sforza, also known as Frank Sfarzo, who travelled with and left behind files, photos and videos of a murdered girl in three different cities, should know that all his “˜property’ has been forwarded to the authorities to return to their rightful owner, whoever that might be. I do not know whether that forms or is part of an investigation into his activities, nor do I care.
(To be continued in Part III, Frank Sfarzo and the FOA, due sometime this weekend)
Posted by Ergon on 12/09/13 at 07:59 PM •
Permalink for this post •
Archived in News media & movies, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Raff Sollecito PR, Heavey, Bremner, Francesco Sforza •
Comments here (45)
Our Call To Editors Of London Magazine To Check Facts Before Propagating Crazy Nigel Scott Theories
Posted by Kermit
[Above: Lib-Dem Haringey Town Councillor Nigel Scott, the writer of Liberator’s conspiracy theory piece]
Liberator Magazine
24 Alexandra Grove
London N4 2LF
Attn: the Editors
Dear Sirs,
Before you accept an article concerning a far away murder investigation and trial (well, Italy is farther away than the Channel Islands), you should ensure that your writers,
1) have correct facts, and
2) are not being used by a foreign lobby which has basically stated that it will try to force an extra-judicial solution to said trial.
I have read the version of Nigel Scott’s Liberator article as is reproduced on a conspiracy theory website
I have no idea what brought Scott to become interested in this case, nor who briefed him on the content of his article, but he breezily and frivolously brushes over the very wide and heavy set of evidence against American Amanda Knox in the murder of her English roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 (Scott doesn’t hide very well the fact that his article has little to do with Kercher’s murder, and much to do with the defence of convicted murderer - pending appeal - Knox).
When Scott says, “When Knox, who was by then locked out of her flat because it was a murder scene, bought clean knickers, this was interpreted as casual disregard for her dead friend”, well that’s not the whole truth. Knox was joking with her boyfriend in the policestation, hugging and kissing him, and also performing cartwheels there. While she has not been convicted for showing “casual disregard” for her roommate, if you are looking to talk about Knox’s casual disregard for her dead friend, it would be better to cite the best examples.
Scott says, “When police learned that Knox’s mother was on her way to Italy to support her, they arranged an all night interrogation session to break the pair”. This is absolutely not true. Only Knox’s boyfriend was invited to the policestation on 5 November 2007, not Knox. She voluntarily accompanied him and was in a public waiting room. Shortly after he admitted that Knox’s alibi did not coincide with his, police interviewed her since she was there, and she soon admitted (not in an overnight interrogation session) that she indeed had been at the scene of the crime.
Scott says (repeating well-known pro-Knox talking points): “Mysteriously, they (the 5-11-2007 interviews) were not recorded, although they seem to be the only interviews that were not recorded during the whole case.” In fact, I believe that no witness interviews were recorded of any of this case’s witnesses. As soon as Knox and her boyfriend incriminated themselves and they turned from witnesses into suspects, the 5-11-2007 interviews were stopped due to their lack of legal representation. I believe that all suspect interviews were recorded from then onwards (the few that occurred .... both Knox and Sollecito quickly invoked their rights as suspects to not respond to questioning during the investigation).
Scott continues by deriding the DNA evidence. Contrary to what Scott writes in your magazine, the bra clasp contains abundant DNA of Knox’s boyfriend Sollecito. No special testing procedures were required to detect that. The “Double DNA Knife” which contains both the victim’s and Knox’s DNA did require special procedures, and independent specialists are currently reexamining the knife. Until they return their report, there is no reason to sell the idea that LCN DNA evidence - which is used in other jurisdictions - is inacceptable.
Pro-Knox writers have slimed prosecutor Giulano Mignini, not questioning his legal processes, but describing him as “mentally unstable” and other such personal accusations. When as a citizen (not in his role as a prosecutor) he has tried to defend his honour, the pro-Knox lobby seems to have arranged for the US-based “Committee to Protect Journalists” to write to the Italian authorities criticising the fact the Mignini defends himself.
Scott writes about “the real murderer”, Rudy Guede, as if Guede was a person totally unrelated to Knox and Sollecito. The same investigation and the same body of evidence which convicted Guede in his trial (he opted for the fast-track version, instead of participating with Knox and Sollecito in the long trial), is the body of evidence which convicted the two lovers. Although Scott holds up US private detective Paul Ciolino as some sort of holder of truth, even as Ciolino announced on CBS in the USA that Amanda Knox had never met Guede and didn’t know him (which for some time was the “official” Knox media posture), Knox was admitting in the courtroom what was already widely known to followers of this case: that she knew Guede, had smoked drugs with him and been to a party with him in the flat below hers.
The unsubstantiated accusations and garbage that Scott writes continues, mostly following the pro-Knox camp’s exact template to blow fog over this case.
Knox and Sollecito (together with co-accused Guede) were all found guilty of murder and sexual assault. Knox and Sollecito are in the middle of their mult-level appeals. Knox’s Italian lawyers have apologised for the vilifying noise which comes from the American lobby and which they state hurts her (it should be said that probably most Americans don’t care about this case, or if they have followed it, many believe that Knox is guilty). The only reason that the American people around her continue to partake in this campaign must be because they know the purely legal strategy is lost and an extrajudicial solution must be sought (i.e., the intervention of the State Department). Not-so-independent Paul Ciolino stated as much at a recent pro-Knox event in Seattle. Another explanation are the growing commercial profits arising from this case as pro-Knox personalities write books and sell screen rights. Either way, it’s sad that a magazine with a political vocation such as Liberator gets associated with such antics.
Scott writes: “The Kercher family employed their own prosecutor, as is permitted in Italy, who has joined in cross examinations and also briefed the media.” It is indeed dreadful when a representative of the British public such as Nigel Scott suggests in Liberator that a berieving London family, the Kerchers, should refrain from representing themselves as a private party to this case as is their right, given that it was their daughter and sister who was brutally murdered. What has come over this man? Does he want the Kerchers to just go away and get over their grief?
Most importantly, does the editorial board of The Liberator want to be associated with the sort of gibberish that Scott repeats from the “Friends of Amanda” US-based lobby group?
I wish you well with your magazine. I hope that you are able to find the right sort of content in the future for the readership you really care about. I hope you do get concerned about your magazine being referred to on the “injusticeinperugia.blogspot.com” site and being associated with a text-book case of media manipulation (do a google search on: marriott “amanda knox” “paid media”
... Gogerty Marriott is the US marketing company running the Knox PR campaign. In fact, on their website, Gogerty Marriott use the Amanda Knox campaign as commercial example of their services).
Please, get worried. Please feel free to contact me with any issue concerning this email.
I remain, yours sincerely,
Kermit
Posted by Kermit on 06/22/11 at 05:10 PM •
Permalink for this post •
Archived in News media & movies, Hoaxes against Italy, 4 No firm DNA hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, More hoaxers •
Comments here (14)
Why The FOA’s Increasingly Hapless Steve Moore Should Probably Stay Well Away From TV
Posted by SomeAlibi
Steve Moore’s presentation in the recent Case for Innocence forum in Seattle to a small bunch of undergrads and other parties left me nearly speechless.
I consider that the number of errors in Moore’s presentation were so numerous that it was quite astonishing that this was the work of a man who claims he has been involved on this case for a year and who claims he has professional experience in law enforcement.
A big statement but it’s not one that’s hard to justify. Steve Moore will be our principal witness. He will repeat for you, if you watch the above youtube video, at least six absolute howlers of misstatement, misunderstanding and exaggeration and many other medium sized ones.
Worst of all of these, he states a core aspect of the prosecution case (proof of the staged break-in at the cottage due to broken glass being on-top of clothes that had already been tossed on the floor) completely upside down. 180 degrees wrong and back to front… and he does it repeatedly in a way that makes it impossible to conclude anything else than he doesn’t actually understand central and important points of evidence against the person he would seek to help. For a law enforcement or legal professional, that is a serious issue.
Let’s begin:
Steve opens by asserting he has been involved with sticking away nine people to a sentence of life without parole. Crassly, and I think he thinks it is humorous, he states that “two of them have completed that sentence” (think about it - he means they are dead and is seeking to have a laugh about it) “..and seven remain in prison.” He is met with not a single titter. Steve gets really crass by having another go at the same joke: “Actually the other two remain in prison too, they’re just not aware of it.” Deafening silence.
Remember Steve is the guy who positioned a bible, an ammo clip and a mortgage statement behind him in interview (seriously) and whose wife Michelle likes to remind people he’s a sniper? All part of the tough-god-fearing-guy image. The dead-convicts thing is part of the same swagger. I’m really impressed myself. How about you?
In passing, shall we reflect that if you’ve been in the FBI for nearly 25 years and were a “supervisor”, nine sentences of life without parole is really rather surprisingly low?
At 41:20 of the YouTube clip, we start to see an old line used before: “Just prior to the conviction my wife said “˜I’ve seen some things that concern me’”. Steve goes on to say that he said to Michelle “I will prove within a day that she’s guilty” but that this turned into two months of investigation where he concluded “she” *(Amanda) was not. Three issues with this:
- I don’t know a single law enforcement professional or lawyer who would ever say to you that they could prove someone was guilty or not guilty in a single day review of a capital crime case. It’s just not feasible and anyone who does this for a living knows this. The hyperbole is off the charts, as per usual.
- Steve’s story about Michelle’s challenge and the “one day” proof doesn’t match anything he wrote on the Injustice in Perugia website where instead he said “But then I began to hear statements from the press that contradicted known facts” which led him to investigate. Which one is it? A one day challenge or a gradual accumulation of knowledge and investigation?
- In fact, as we know, Michelle herself let slip that the Moores were “approached” by Bruce Fisher, a pseudonym for the person who runs Injustice In Perugia, and when this was pointed out on PMF.org that it flatly contradicted the previously announced statement (a wifely challenge to a husband with no prior contact), that same day, she deleted her entire “Michellesings” blog from the web ““ all of it ““ to remove what she had said in what bore a remarkable resemblance to a panicked action.
It was further underlined when Michelle subsequently re-created her blog with just a single letter difference in the title. That give away on the internet undermines the whole story of how Steve Moore, from LA, got involved in this case which he has told many times (in various versions admittedly) in public.
At 43:22 Moore makes a baseless overstatement ““ “[Rudy Guede] was a known burglar who had 5 to 6 burglaries in the last month”. We have to stop the clock here and be very serious: this is an exaggeration which neither I nor anyone I know who has a good handling of the facts of this case has ever stated. It was once stated by a Daily Mail journalist many moons ago, the same Daily Mail the Friends of Amanda revile for other articles but *it never made it into evidence* because of course it wasn’t true. And by this time, in 2011, one needs to know the *evidence* not repeat baseless conjecture because it supports “your” case. Please reflect for a second”¦
Guede is accused of being in a school without permission for which the police didn’t even bother to prosecute, so it wasn’t a burglary. Bzzt. We all know he handled a stolen laptop but there was no suggestion of a burglary related to it, as much as one can see the hypothesis.
We know that another witness said someone like Guede was in his house but he was discounted as unreliable. I am a vociferous critic of Guede but one cannot take a law enforcement professional seriously who massively inflates evidence. “5 or 6 burglaries in a month”? NO-ONE in the case, in the official body of evidence, has ever suggested that.
Such a suggestion from a law enforcement professional is hugely undermining if it can’t be proven, and it can’t. Nor has it been ever suggested by Amanda or Raffaele’s own legal counsel. If this was stated in court without proof (and, again, there is none), we would all rightly expect that to destroy the credibility of that law enforcement professional. Baseless assertion is a serious issue.
Moore then suggests that Meredith came home after Guede broke in. Sounds prima facie reasonable, but again, anyone who knows the evidence and is familiar with the scene knows that the green outer shutters were open and the gate and the walk up the drive faced that window. And Meredith didn’t see the broken-into window? Oh really?
Rudy Guede, a burglar standing directly in front of an open window apparently half-pulled one shutter to, but left the other open three open and himself clearly visible from the drive when “tossing” Filomena’s bedroom - without taking anything? Then how about Amanda Knox, walking in day-light up to the house the next morning who claims she didn’t see the open shutters.
It is over one hundred feet from the gate to that window, and on the 2nd of November, the shutters were open on the left as we look in and marginally more shut on the right. This is consistent with the police statements at the time and it is trite to say, no, they haven’t been opened by the police.
The left hand one (right as Massei relates from a direction of looking *out* from the house) is “half-closed in the sense that fully open is with it pushed against the outside wall. The right hand one as you can see is marginally more shut.
Can you really imagine a burglar who has climbed up to the shutters to open them, then climbed down and gone up to the drive to find a rock, then climbed down under the window and up again before miraculously getting in without a scratch, nick or spot of DNA would turn round inside and partially close the right hand shutter but not close the left hand one? It makes literally no-sense.
Amanda Knox asks you believe that as she walked 100+ feet up the drive she didn’t notice it either. That’s the first time. The second time she returned to the cottage she was already “panicked” about the open door, the evidence of blood and unknown faeces and was returning to the cottage. And she walked up the hundred feet again and didn’t notice… again. Nor did Raffaele who was so concerned he suggested they return notice?
I suggest to you there’s more than enough reason Amanda has her hand to her face looking at the open shutters in this picture taken on 2nd November! (Please note, this image has IBERPress logo on it. I am linking it on another website, not created by us, which is publicly available and presumably asserts fair-use, but all rights are acknowledged by this site).
You’d leave that open as a burglar would you, facing the gate and the road? Total nonsense. And no, again, it hasn’t been moved.
Steve then suggests, in contravention of every banking security protocol I’ve ever heard of, that Guede, while having just murdered someone and held two towels to her neck in panic at that, then completely relaxed and phoned Meredith’s bank with her own mobile phone to try to get an ATM number *while still in the cottage* based on the mobile cell records.
Have you ever heard of a bank that will give you your pin number over the phone without substantial cross-checking of private passwords / other information that Guede couldn’t possibly know about Meredith? Moore also neglects to mention that Rudy would also have to have phoned Meredith’s voicemail two minutes before, something the call records show.
The reason for this suggestion is that Steve is trying to support the defence case for a time of death for Meredith that is incompatible with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s involvement. Steve neglects to mention that Amanda and Raffaele tried to establish an alibi for a time of *11pm* for their dinner at Raffaele’s flat which was destroyed by Raffaele’s own father who stated that Raffaele mentioned matters relating to having completed dinner at around 8.30pm. No-one at this panel talk ever heard of *that*...
Steve and others suggest Amanda and Raffaele dated for 2 weeks. The only people who disagree with this are Amanda and Raffaele’s team, who state one week. Ho hum. Not really important. Just sloppy.
Steve suggests that what the prosecution alleged in the trial was that Amanda and Raffaele “Decided for the first time that they are going to do a threesome” with Rudy Guede. Again, anyone with the slightest knowledge of this case knows the prosecution never alleged this “threesome”. They alleged a sexually aggravated murder of Meredith Kercher. A threesome? Where does Moore get this stuff from?
Again, totally undermining of his credibility. How many black marks are we up to? I’ve lost count. To be fair, Paul Ciolino the P.I. who has worked on the case and belongs to the FOA started covering his mouth during Steve’s presentation. In body language terms, that’s not terribly supportive…
On this topic of the threesome he’s invented in his head that no-one else mentioned, Steve states: “They decide to choose a burglar whom they don’t know real well ““ they’ve only met once. Raffaele had only met him that day. Raffaele said ‘that’s a great idea, lets bring this guy who is a burglar whom I don’t know and he can have sex with my girlfriend’”.
Rather inauspicious logic, Steve. If they didn’t know him, they would not have known he was a burglar? Yet you transplant those words into the mouth of a fictional Raffaele Sollecito to make a cheap, but ultimately beautifully self-defeating, point. Amanda, of course, says she met Rudy many times in passing, as did Rudy about Amanda. I’m very interested that Steve also stated “Raffaele had only met him that day” because of course Raffaele and Amanda never admitted that. Where does that come from? Please tell”¦. Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
Moore then states that the prosecution case is that “Rudy goes in first and then Meredith screams. Then Amanda comes in and sides with the rapist.” Again, anyone with a perfunctory knowledge of this case knows that is not the prosecution case. This is hugely undermining because once again he is misinforming a public gathering on the case presented against Knox.
You can disagree with the case against Knox, but actually fundamentally misstating it? At this point, with so many marks on the board, I started asking myself… how is it possible that he doesn’t know all this?
And that question I still don’t have an answer to.
But it gets worse…
Now we get to one of the most egregious sections of the whole presentation and misleading of the audience: concerning the blood spattered apartment, Moore makes a major case that Perugian police released the picture of the vividly pink Phenolphthalein stained bathroom as being the *blood* stained bathroom where Amanda Knox showered.
Please watch the video and see how nakedly this is suggested. He juxtaposes the picture of the sink as it was on November the 2nd with the post-phenolphthalein shot and says that the prosecution alleged “that’s what Amanda saw, that’s it.. that’s what was really there. That’s when you start saying ‘oh my god’. Knowing that the jurors are not sequestered”¦ they released this and said ‘that’s blood’”.
Here’s how Moore presented it:
The fact that the ACTUAL pictures of the scene *he himself uses on the left* were in the core evidence bundle in front of the jury as prime exhibits as any lawyer or serious law professional should immediately appreciate is ignored. It must be ignored because of course otherwise no-one could come up with such a patently incoherent line of logic. I’m losing count of the pieces of lack of knowledge and logic by now. How about you?
Re the staged break in ““ “one of the most incredible lies I have ever seen in a court-room outside of Iran.” Have you been involved in an Iranian court proceedings Steve? No. Mo(o)re hyperbole.
Next, a baffling and possibly funny line of reasoning if the matter wasn’t so serious. Moore proceeds to state that it was “very obvious the stone was thrown from outside and busted the shutter open.” So far so normal as an FOA meme ““ no issue. Except he then goes on to state more than once “The Perugian police said that a rock was thrown inside the house [to] outside the house.”
Huh? To “outside the house”? Are you perchance suggesting that the prosecution were saying the rock was thrown from “inside to outside” the house, then they went down and recovered it and replaced it in the bedroom where it was found and photographed which you would have seen if you had a sound knowledge of the case? Because no-one else has ever said that ever Steve! Not once! Huh? Outside the house? My head hurts. Does anyone have any pills?
Then Steve makes a point of highlighting some embedded glass in the wooden frame of the interior shutter as evidence of a rock thrown from the outside-in, when, again, it is blindingly obvious to anyone that the broken window could have been actioned from inside with exactly the same result. He’s so carried away with himself that he doesn’t even notice. It’s not that unsurprising I guess because he hasn’t noticed the legion other mistakes he’s made so far.
Next statement “Anyone who thinks the rock was thrown from inside out is either an idiot or lying”. It’s simply not logical Steve; as anyone can see it would have been possible to smash the window from inside, whether you actually agree that happened or not. Again, baseless exaggeration. You don’t have to agree but stop with the hyperbole!
56 minutes in we get to a huge howler where Moore completely misstates the prosecution case on the staged break-in and doesn’t appear to have even thought about it enough to see the obvious logical hole in what he is about to say. In my original notes to this talk I jotted down “Amazing and astounding ““ doesn’t understand the clothes / glass point:”.
Moore says:
They [the prosecution] say that the reason they know that this was staged is because when they got there, there was clothes on top of the glass, the broken glass in the room. Well you’d think that the glass would be on top of everything wouldn’t you? Unless a burglar came in and started throwing things on the floor after the glass was broken. If you look on the bed you’ll see a purse. You’ll see the contents of the purse all over the floor, all over the bed. You will see that he went through her clothes hamper there, her clothes cabinet there, threw everything on the floor. That is why there are clothes on top of the glass. Why is that so hard?
Steve, you’ve stated this 180 degrees completely wrong. The prosecution case is that both the police and Filomena, Amanda’s flatmate, stated there was glass on top of clothes which had been apparently tossed by a burglar (not vice versa) and on top of a laptop that was closed but which had previously been open. The point is that it shows that the room was ransacked and *then* the glass was broken, proving the staging of the burglary.
In any court of law I have seen, if you can show a supposedly authoritative witness, who shall we not forget has been on this case for a *year*, has such a bad handle on the evidence, you can get a jury laughing and that witness completely discounted. This is, in my opinion, what Moore did to himself somewhat prior to this point, but by the end of this point, absolutely comprehensively. How is it possible to misunderstand the case so clearly? Ciolino and Waterbury both look very uncomfortable at this point.
Next point: a pearly Steve quote: “When is a murder weapon not a murder weapon? When the Perugian police say it is.”
Uhhh”¦ think about it”¦. That’s not actually what you meant to say, is it? What you meant is “When is a non-murder weapon, a murder weapon? When the Perugian police say it is”. Given Steve’s penchant for getting things upside down and arse-backwards, perhaps we should not be surprised, but call me a stickler for suggesting people get their arguments right. Steve compounds this 180-degree misstatement in the Q&A session by stating that the defence will try and throw a million things against the wall in the appeal and see if something will stick. The defence? Like those representing Amanda Knox, Steve? Huh? With the glass, the “murder weapon” and “defence” points, Moore appears to not be able to listen to what he himself is saying. It’s just… bizarre…
Steve then makes a big point about the Raffaele cooking knife being the wrong shape for the mark on the bedsheet without mentioning the fact that two knives were posited in the case. Nice and misleading. Still not representing the basics of the case to those assembled.
As we approach the end of this car-crash, Moore makes a big point that “they say Amanda was in front of her and stabbed her like this”. He then mimics a vertical stabbing motion and makes a distinction of the lateral cut compared to vertical method of attack. But no-one ever said this definitively in court and Massei clearly states the blood spurts on the wardrobe (i.e. facing away from the attackers) are from the neck injury. Mo(o)re fabrication. How many is it now?
There is a chuckle-worthy moment where Moore uses the different exposures of pictures of the bra-clasp on the original investigation versus that taken on December 16th as clear evidence of “contamination”. A 2 second glance shows this is an exposure issue unsubstantiated by other pictures which again are in front of the jury.
Unsurprisingly, he then goes on to make the standard declaration that the gathering of the bra-clasp with Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA on it on December 16th “delay” as “apparently not important” to the prosecution. He neglects to mention that it was a sealed crime scene where the passage of time can have no effect on the forensic value of evidence *if no-one is within the sealed crime-scene*. He also neglects to mention the delay was due in substantial part to the requirement to invite the defence to attend…
To finish, a damp whimper after these major trumpetings of lack of knowledge and/or understanding: a statement about a pillow under Meredith’s body: “Guess what they found on there ““ semen and the police refused to test it”. It has been suggested but without testing, we obviously can’t know it’s semen. Again, serious legal professionals don’t make absolute statements like this about unproven evidence.
Amanda Knox is incarcerated for 26 years. As someone who has been involved in many defences of individuals charged with serious criminal matters, it is unacceptable to me that people willing to hold themselves out as prominent supporters of an imprisoned person who have experience in the law or law enforcement show that they don’t know, appreciate, or are able to process core aspects of the case against that person.
In my opinion, this performance was inexcusably weak and must raise serious questions about the judgement of those seeking to help Amanda. Would you want this sort of standard of knowledge held out as adequate, as representing a member of your core Home team? I sincerely hope not. Only the lack of knowledge of the case and the partisan support in the room stopped Moore from being extremely badly shown up in the Q&A session.
There’s a meme in the supporters of Amanda camp that says that pro-prosecution commentators cost Moore his job at Pepperdine. It’s nonsense. Moore got himself removed before most of us had ever heard of him.
Neither I nor anyone else I am aware of ever wrote to his *former* employer before he was fired. Nor did I write to them afterwards either because I considered they had a simple case against him and he’d like it if we were involved. Once I did write that I wanted to take down Steve Moore, by which I meant stop him posting misleading statements about the Meredith Kercher case using his career as credentials.
But following this performance at the Case for Innocence forum, in my opinion, it is quite evident that Steve Moore has done it comprehensively and totally to himself.
Posted by SomeAlibi on 04/24/11 at 04:43 PM •
Permalink for this post •
Archived in News media & movies, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, 6 No staging hoax, 8 No motive hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 15 Single alibi hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 17 Fake memory hoax, 18 No drug use hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 25 RS persona hoax, 27 Single alibi hoax, 28 Not at house hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 33 Sole attacker hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Hoaxers from 2009, Steve Moore •
Comments here (20)
The Seattle University Panel: Some Of The Ways In Which Steve Moore Got His Analysis Wrong
Posted by James Raper
I have watched the clip of Steve Moore’s address at the University of Seattle seminar.
1. Scenario of the crime
Steve Moore starts with the assertion that it is obvious what happened. Guede broke in via Filomena’s window and went to the loo.
Meredith comes home and is attacked, raped and murdered by him. Naturally he did not show a photo of Filomena’s window from outside the cottage. I wonder why?
Meredith came home at 9.30pm. She died some time after 11pm. Steve Moore does not elaborate as to what Guede was doing all the time in between. He sat on the loo for a long time and/or the sexual attack went on for a long time? Both unlikely hypotheses.
2. Concerning bleach
Then Steve Moore turns to what he states is “The Lie over the Bleach Cleaner”.
Whether or not the police/prosecution ever said that they thought bleach cleaner had been used is not clear to me. Whether or not they had, it was not something that they continued to insist on. No one smelt bleach at the cottage on the 2nd November.
In any event Steve Moore has his own argument (which, to be fair, I did follow) to demonstrate from the pictures of the luminol traces that there could have been no bleach used as a cleaning agent.
“No bleach, no clean up!” The fact that one can wipe away relatively recent blood/bodily fluids without bleach escaped him.
Having established that there was no bleach used he explains the luminol glow as being due to ..yes.. bleach!
3. The luminol footprints
Drawing on his claimed considerable FBI experience (yet to be validated by anybody) he asserts that luminol reacts to bleach as strongly as blood.
Experienced forensic experts say that they can often tell the difference because the strength of a reaction all depends on the concentration in bleach ““ bleach which was not used in a clean up and which no one detected by sense of smell.
He then goes on to say that bleach is commonly used as a household cleaner. Yes, the main constituent of bleach is chlorine or chloride, commonly used, diluted with other ingredients, in some household cleaning fluids, though of course bleach can be bought as bleach.
Steve Moore says that Amanda Knox took a shower on the morning of the 2nd November, standing in the shower basin in diluted bleach (very diluted after a shower, one would think) and then traced that around, accounting for the luminol glow.
You do not have to be terribly clever to see that if that was the case then the luminol glow would not be all that bright due to the dilution. One can see from the photos that the glow was in fact very bright.
One also has to wonder why straight from the shower she stepped in Meredith’s invisible blood (in fact she says she scooted from the bathroom to her room on the bathmat) without the diluted bleach degrading Meredith’s DNA.
4. Concerning TMB tests
Steve Moore asserts that Stefanoni lied about TMB tests. TMB is tetramethylbenzadine and it is used to establish whether a detected trace is blood or not.
The reactive process is the same as with luminol which has to be used to detect a trace in the first place. It is to do with the peroxadase-like activity of heme. The results look different however, TMB produces a change of colour whilst luminol produces a glow in the dark.
Steve Moore was initially appalled to think that Stefanoni did not use the TMB test on the luminol revealed traces, but then it was discovered that she had and the results were negative as to blood.
Conclusion : she lied about the TMB tests. Why? According to Steve Moore because she knew the luminol test did not reveal blood. And was trying to conceal this fact.
I would be surprised if Steve Moore has read the trial records. What does Massei say? All I can find are the following:
Stefanoni did say that she could not be positive that what the luminol revealed was blood. Here I think that she was speaking very carefully as a scientist and leaving others to their conclusions.
I do not see that she was specifically asked about TMB tests re luminol so I cannot comment on that.
However Massei quotes Amanda Knox’s expert, Dr Gino, in the following terms :
With respect to the luminol positive traces found in Romanelli’s room, in Knox’s room and in the corridor, she (Gino) states that by analysing the SLA cards “we learn, in contradiction to what was presented in the technical report deposited by the Scientific police, and also to what was said in court, that not only was the luminol test performed on these traces, but also the generic process for the presence of blood, using tetramethylbenzadine .. and this test “¦ gave a negative result.
On being asked as to why generic tests like luminol and TMB might produce different results:
She added that in her own experience, analyses performed with TMB on traces revealed by luminol give about even results : 50% negative, 50% positive.
I would have thought that Gino’s statement is statistically meaningless unless we assume that we are talking about blood traces revealed by luminol.
So, in other words, the fact that the TMB tests were negative does not establish that the luminol-revealed trace was not blood.
From which I assume, since luminol and TMB have the same reactive process, that the prior luminol test takes precedence, be it that of course the trace might be vegetable or fruit juice, or bleach!- none of which, of course, are capable of producing a human DNA read out, whereas blood does.
Also I would have thought that if the reactive process is the same for both then the reactive process engendered by the luminol may not leave much for a subsequent TMB test ““ but then that’s just speculation.
I am no scientist, but then neither is Steve Moore really qualified to talk of the actual scientific process despite being in the FBI for 25 years ( he says). I think that the closest he gets to science is how to use an aerosol can.
5. Other claims
The following topics were also then discussed by Steve Moore : Bathroom photos, staged break in, murder weapon versus knife mark, and contamination. More of the same.
Posted by James Raper on 04/07/11 at 02:51 AM •
Permalink for this post •
Archived in Hoaxes against Italy, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 33 Sole attacker hoax, 34 Bad guy hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Hoaxers from 2009, Steve Moore •
Comments here (21)
Steve Moore Is Baffling Informed Case Observers On Both Sides Of The Atlantic
Posted by Peter Quennell
We posted a week ago querying claims first made by Steve Moore to Seattle investigative reporter Linda Byron.
Now everybody seems to be doing it.
Our own well-informed posters have been going through the various claims made to Linda Byron and reporters on the morning shows in the light of the Micheli and Massei Sentencing Reports. They have apparently not yet encountered even one Moore claim that can credibly be considered legitimate.
The lone wolf theory Steve Moore is trying retroactively to espouse was first ridiculed by our poster Kermit in his much-viewed Spiderman Powerpoints late in 2008.
And then it was methodically demolished early in 2009 by Judge Micheli, and again by Judge Massei in his own report released in Italian last March.
Our legal and law enforcement supporters in New York and Washington who have long followed Meredith’s case are also scratching their heads over Moore’s claims.
Why did he fail to master the Massei Report (which all of them have now read - and admire) before so vehemently going live?
Several also question the professional ethics and legal wisdom of accusing THE ITALIAN COUNTERPARTS TO THE FBI without hard proof of having fabricated evidence to prove his case.
And in Italy, there have been several sarcastic rebuttals.
The latest comes from Walter Biscotti as reported by Ann Wise for ABC.
Mr Biscotti is the effective lead lawyer for Rudy Guede - who, it should be noted, ended up with a sentence of only 16 years for acting smart and somewhat penitent, while Sollecito and Knox may eventually face up to thirty.
After former FBI agent Steve Moore came forward in the United States last week, appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and other U.S. shows to defend Knox’s innocence, Italian newspapers picked up on the interviews with banner headlines.
“Amanda, new accusations from the U.S.,” read the leading daily Corriere della Sera Saturday. “A former FBI agent, who carried out a private investigation, tells American TV: ‘Rudy Guede is the murderer and evidence was manipulated to make her [Knox] look guilty,’” according to the subtitle.
That was too much for Walter Biscotti, a lawyer representing Rudy Guede, the third person—along with Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito—convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007.
An indignant Biscotti contacted ABC News in Rome today in response to the headlines.
First of all, he said, he wanted to speak in defense of the Italian judicial system. “I think it is only right that I speak out in favor of the Italian justice system, of which I am a part,” Biscotti said, “and of the courts of Perugia in particular….
Biscotti took offense with statements made by Moore, a 25-year FBI veteran with international experience, implying that evidence was planted during the crime scene investigation.
“He said that investigators manipulated the evidence, an affirmation that would get you arrested in a minute, if you said it in Italy,” Biscotti told ABC News.
“It is a serious accusation against the Italian legal system and, as a man of the law, I cannot accept this,” Biscotti added…
Biscotti also took issue, as he has done repeatedly in the past three years, with attempts to put the blame for the murder solely on his client, Guede, whom, he says, he is defending pro bono.
He said lawyers for Knox and Sollecito told the media after every hearing in their year-long trial “there is no point holding this trial because these two are innocent, the only guilty person is Rudy,” and he criticized a list of U.S. legal experts who have spoken out about the case in the United States.
We know of not even ONE similarly qualified person who has READ the Massei Report and is not impressed and convinced by it.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/07/10 at 05:36 AM •
Permalink for this post •
Archived in Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 2 Italian mileu hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2009, Steve Moore •
Comments here (17)