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Category: Hoaxes Knox & team

Demonizations By Knox: Trashing Of Many Fine Italians - But Only In English

Posted by Our Main Posters

The IP director, mafia poodle Luca Luparia, obviously did no due diligence.

1. Why Italians Dont Know The Real Barbaric Knox

Amanda Knox is surely one of the most dangerous demonizers and prolific liars on the planet.

On a daily basis she puts others down and elevates herself up. Stirring bigotry is her whole career now. She is making big blood-money bucks out of damaging others.

This is how the virulent million-dollar Knox public relations campaign labored mightily to stop Italy and Italians from ever finding out what the addled and bribed US and UK media were saying about them day-to-day.

Click for Post: How The Strongarm Public Relations Resulted in Most Of The Media Getting It Wrong

Click for Post: “Million Dollar Campaign” To Try To Influence The Jury Is Being Widely Reported To A Startled Italy

Click for Post: Knox Public Relations Manager Starts Premature Crowing Years Before Legal Process Ends

Click for Post: Tomorrow Could See The Beginning Of The End Of The Rampaging “Public Relations” Campaign

Much of the virulent Knox PR output could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

2. Knox’s Massive Demonization Rampage

Knox’s English-only book (read it here in Italian now) contained AT LEAST 500 LIES as our indomitable legal reseacher Chimera highlighted here.

Knox never, never, never admits that she rightly served three years for accusing her kindly boss of murder. And in continued defiance of the Italian Supreme Court, Knox refuses to pay Patrick the E100,000 awarded for destroying his life.

But Knox very freely accuses others of terrible behavior and actual crimes.

In Knox’s book she accuses Sollecito, her defense lawyers, her flatmates, police officers and analysts, witnesses, prosecutors, judges, prison staff, on and on. Examples here:

(1) “Mayor” Prosecutor Mignini—framed her, (2) Prosecutor Comodi—framed her, (3) Officer Ficarra—abuser, hitter, (4) Officer Napoleoni—accused of perjury, (5) Interpreter Donnino—duplicitous double agent, (6) Court interpreter—useless, (7) Officer Chiacicelli—framed her via the knife he found, (8) DNA analyst Stefanoni—accused of withholding data, and incompetence, (9) Other CSI people (though not Guede evidence), (10) Dozen of unnamed police Nov 6, (11) defense lawyers Dalla Vedova and Ghirga—alleges they ignored complaints, (12) Witness neighbor Nina—who heard screams, (13) Witness Quintavalle—lying shop owner, (14) Witness Curatolo—lying drug addict, (15) Judge Matteini—jumping to conclusions, (16) Employer Patrick—kind of deserved what happened to him, (17) Prison guards—sexual harassment (Agiro is the only one named), (18) Prison medical staff—commit sexual assault and leak private information, (19) Flatmate Filomena—drug use at home, (20) Flatmate Laura R—drug use at home, (21) Judge Micheli—incompetent pre-trial judge who runs a “farce” of a court, (22) Judge Massei and his panel—idiot trial jury, (23) Witness Kokomani—deranged drug dealer, (24) Spiderman Guede—committed attack alone, (25) Co-defendant Sollecito—the doofus boyfriend, (26) Postal Police—clueless and incompetent, (27) Reporters, in fact virtually everyone in the media, (28) Lawyer Biscotti—Guede lawyer an opportunist, (29) Kercher family—cold and unforgiving, and whatever else, (30) Officer Battistelli, framed her, (31) Officer Finzi, framed her, (32) Officer Profazio, framed her, (33) Donald Trump, wrong politics.

Most of these could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

3. How Knox Falsely Accuses Italian Officials Of Crimes

In early days Dr Mignini went to great lengths to give Knox a break as he believed she was mental or on a cocaine high.

Inventing a crime he could have been fired for or imprisoned was Knox’s way of paying him back

Click for Post: How Amanda Knox Falsely Accused Dr Mignini Of A Felony

Prison staff treated Knox very well. Accusing them of crimes is how she and her team paid them back.

Click for Post: Serious Felony Charge Of Deliberate HIV Leak Was In Fact A Knox Defense-Team Hoax

And Knox lied on a grand scale to the Nencini appeal court, accusing the police who were actually very kind of TORTURING her.

Click for Post: Demonizations By Knox: Multiple Ways In Which Her Email To Judge Nencini Is Misleading

These and many others could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

4. Examples Of The UK And US Media Facilitating Knox

Click for Post: Slanted Associated Press Parroting Of Knox PR Campaign Release Achieves Over 800 Google Hits

Click for Post: Inaccurate Report By The Associated Press Carried By Over 2,000 Media Sites

Click for Post: Another Highly Misleading Associated Press Report By Colleen Barry Appears on 700 Media Websites

Click for Post: Demonizations By Knox: OGGI Charged For Article Conveying False Claims To Italy

Click for Post: Demonizations By Knox: How A Mismanaged VICE Media Failed To Check Out The Facts

Click for Post: Obstruction Of Justice? How The Guardian Poisons Public Opinion Against The Italian Courts

Click for Post: Knox’s War Of Aggression Against Italy: Questions For Media To Nail Her Once And For All

These and many others could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

5. A Couple Of The Too-Few Objections From Italy

Click for Post: Million Dollar Campaign And American Media Come Under Intense Ridicule By An Influential Italian

Click for Post: It Seems Italy’s Anger Only Grows: Read La Nazione’s Editorial Today

Note for Modena readers: more to come

Posted by Our Main Posters on 06/10/19 at 10:22 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, Police and CSI, The prosecutors, The judiciary, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 5 No pack attack hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 22 Exonerated hoax • Comments here (7)

Illustrating How Batshit Crazy The Curt Knox/David Marriott Public Relations Is Now

Posted by Chimera

I’m Marriott’s Parrot, For Now In Charge

David is out of office right now. He is sitting naked with Curt and Chris in the sauna, trying to lose that manic redness which is so telling.

Our incessant jeering at Italy is losing too much traction. So David has asked me to keep repeating these new talking points, parrot-like, until even the dimmest bunny Karen Pruett gets up to speed.

Talking points #31779

For those of you who believe that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are sex killers, and who doubt that Rudy Guede did the horrible crime alone, or that Mignini was a dedicated prosecutor, I will fully explain all the discrepencies in the case. Please bear with me.

For those of you claiming that AK and RS are pathological liars, trying to evade responsibility for a horrible deed, you need to see things from their point of view, and keep an open mind. Again, please be patient.

If after reading these explanations, you are still convinced that AK and RS were involved in Meredith Kercher’s murder, then you are by definition too clueless to be helped and part of the problem.

1. This should have been an open and shut case

According to Amanda (May 2014 interview with Chris Cuomo), Rudy Guede was “known to police” for doing many burglaries where he climbed through second story windows, using a rock to break in, and wielding a knife. It made no sense that he wasn’t the immediate suspect for Meredith’s murder, however, we have 3 alternatives that explain it.

(a) Perugian police truly did not see any connection between second story break ins with knives and rocks, and second story break ins with knives, rocks, and a dead woman. The logical connection was too simplistic to make.

(b) Perugian police did know about Guede’s habit of second story break ins using knives and rocks, but thought it so minor they never bothered to write it up.

(c) Perugia is filled with people who commit second story break ins using knives and rocks. This is normal. It would take time to get around to Guede.

However, I am not sure which explanation Amanda believes is true at this minute, or what is her best truth. Rotate the three of them. And blame the police.

2. “Spider-Man” burglar Guede chose his latest target well.

According to Sollecito (Honor Bound book), Guede “knew” that the 4 women in the upstairs part of the house would each have 300 Euros after the end of the month for the rent. He also knew where Meredith kept her money, and he knew it would all be in cash. He knew that the house would be empty for the holiday, and it would be a great opportunity to break in and steal the money around 8:00 pm when everybody is still around.

You might ask how Guede had this inside knowledge, or how Sollecito knew it either, or how Sollecito knew that Guede knew. After all, Guede and Sollecito did not know of each other, right? Though they lived 100 meters apart. And actually only one flatmate was out of town. Hmmm. And 8:00 pm is kinda an odd choice for a breakin time and Filoemna’s window the worst place. Label all such pesky points irrelevant and rush on to the next subject.

3. “Spider-Man” Guede knew of marijuana growing downstairs.

Source is RS’s “Honor Bound” book. Guede was attracted to the house because he knew about the drugs. And being a drifter and drug dealer (according to Knox, Sollecito and FoAK), it made sense to target the home. After all, who would report their drugs stolen in a home robbery.

So, the drug dealing serial burglar ignored the drugs in the bottom floor, climbed up to the second floor, but didn’t take anything. He just took a dump without flushing, attacked Meredith, and then left. Label all such questions as irrelevant as Guede is obviously such a bad guy. Again blame the police and move to the next subject.

4. Serial “Spider-Man” burglar Guede really is Spider-Man.

For those of you who used to watch cartoons, you’ll know that Spider-Man would sometimes mutate into an actual spider, and would grow 4 extra arms, all with super strength. That is how at one and the same time Guede kept Meredith restrained, kept her from screaming, held 2 knives at opposite sides, and from behind assaulted her.

Pesky critics have wondered about this: few defensive wounds, no ligature marks (Meredith wasn’t tied down), no sign she was drugged or knocked unconscious as signs to be skeptical, no DNA. However, they clearly did not watch the right cartoons when they were younger. Six arms is the answer to this.

5. Rudy Guede got a break by testifying against Knox and RS

His false testimony was the bulk of the reason they were convicted. It also got his sentence reduced from 30 years to 16.

2008 - Guede gets 30 years (short form equivalent of life) from Judge Micheli
2009 - Guede offers to testify against AK and RS, but prosecutors say no
2009 - Sollecito and Knox get 24 years (with extra time for sex-crime, staging, theft and callunia)
2009 - Appeals court reduces Guede’s time to 16 years (24 same as AK and RS, with 1/3 off deduction)
2011 - Guede is finally called by the prosecution to appear at AK and RS 2011 appeal

So obviously Mignini gives Guede the break for testifying, but doesn’t actually call Guede in 2009. Or maybe he gave the break with action pending, hoping there would be an appeal in 2011 and that he might be needed. This is not rocket science.

6. Guede fiendishly took a separate trial under Judge Micheli

Even though Guede’s plan all along was to frame Knox and Sollecito for Kercher’s murder, he was so freaked out that he asked to sever his case, and go for the short form trial separate from their trial which then involved them framing him.

Yes this does seem odd at first glance. Sollecito supposedly didn’t know Guede. Amanda had no contact, despite once crossing paths (see December 2013 email to Nencini). Three people who don’t really know each other are all convinced the other is trying to frame them. And they are so spooked, none of them agree to testify fully. Really all such questions only for subtle minds and we have only a few of those to convince. Move on to the next subject. And blame the police.

**************

7. Amanda Knox was actually the perfect patsy for the crime. Keep in mind that she had only been in Perugia for about 5 weeks, never did drugs, and was overwhelmed by the emerging events. She was 20 years old, but was ‘‘just a kid’’ (May 2013 interview with Diane Sawyer).

Okay its true police officer Rita Ficarra seemed to contest this, saying that Knox spoke Italian, and during her interviews spoke to her only in Italian (2009 trial transcripts). But be realistic, Knox is not a native Italian speaker, and being a 20 year old kid, didn’t know she was expected to cooperate fully, though actually she entered the conversation with Ficarra very eagerly to point her to seven other possible perps.

8. Knox was also a target to blame for other reasons. She was a foreign exchange student and her single language course would result in a full year of transfer credits (Waiting to be Heard book). However, her mind is easily rattled (though not by use of drugs, dont mention them). She is prone to having visions about vaguely remembering someone killing her friends (her 2007 statement), and isn’t sure if she is at home, or if her boyfriend is. She also has trouble with her truth, her best truth, the real truth, the truth she thinks is closest to the truth.

Yes depending on which pesky statement of hers you read, either she left Raffaele’s alone to meet Patrick, or she is not sure if Raffaele is with them. And she thinks she remembers being outside Meredith’s room, with her hands over her ears to drown out the screams.

Many people have accused Amanda of being a bullshit artist, and of being deceptive. However, she is taking creative writing, and it teaches her to think in possibilities, and that her feelings are what matter not hard facts.

9. Knox’s odd hygiene habits also made her a perfect target. Apparently, she was in the habit of leaving her blood around the home (menstrual blood I assume. Ew.). (read her November 2007 mass email). However, this came back to haunt her as Rudy Guede left tons of Meredith’s blood throughout the upstairs floor, and some of the spots happen to be where Amanda left hers. Ew, I know. Hence the mixed DNA in several places. But Amanda wasn’t a total slob, she liked to wipe everything down out of cleanliness, including her own lamp which, for some reason we forget the explanation of, ended up in Meredith’s locked room. And of course, Rudy, being a man, took a large interest in a woman’s period habits.

Police and prosecutors have claimed that mixed blood and absence of normal fingerprints are evidence of a struggle, and partial clean up. They completely misconstrued Amanda’s quirky ways, and Rudy’s diabolical nature. Here again, blame the police. Foolish police.

10. Much has also been made about the email that Amanda sent on November 4, 2007 to about 25 people. It was a long, rambling, illogical message, and many of the recipients were learning for the first time Meredith was dead. Both the tone, and content raised eyebrows.

But really it makes perfect sense. Her internet plan only allows her so much data, so she must use it wisely like this. Besides, separately emailing all those people would take a lot of time, and hey, she had to get on with her life. Besides, there was some Ooh-la-la with Raffy, and a ukulele that needed strumming, though no time for Meredith’s memorial. Bottom line: just Amanda being Amanda may work here again.

11. Sollecito made a great frame-up victim as well, due to his faulty memory. There was the added bonus that he was the boyfriend of Knox, who also had memory problems. Sollecito’s mind is so scattered, that to this day he has trouble remembering where he was when the murder ocurred.

Pesky facts for us here.

RS claimed he was at a party (not sure which one)
RS claimed he was with AK at his apartment (AK isn’t sure if she read or made love)
RS claimed AK went out and asked him to lie for her (November 2007 statement)
RS refused to say where AK was (Massei 2009 and most of Hellmann 2011)
RS claims he has questions about her account (February 2014 interview)
RS claims he meant AK was only with him that “evening” and not “that night” starting at 9:00 pm (July 1, 2014 press conference)

Obviously, claim what total sh*t Sollecito’s brain is. What better person to blame this on, one who is too confused and lacks any real sense of time. Dump on him.

12. Sollecito received a lot of attention for bringing a knife into the police station, and it was determined later that it could be one of the knives used on Meredith Kercher. Raffaele, quite lucidly, wrote in his book (Honor Bound), what kind of idiot brings the murder weapon to the police station?

Okay, normally we would agree with Amanda, that this case is actually not complicated. However in this case, Knox is also right, things are actually more complicated than they appear (see her September 2013 Daybreak interview). In this case we point out that Guede took Sollecito’s knife, on the offhand chance he would have to kill someone. He then broke into Raffy’s girlfriend’s home, killed her roommate, cleaned the knife, and then returned the knife to Sollecito, all without Raffaele noticing.

13. On a related note, Sollecito also sees things that ‘‘his mind made up.’’ When asked about Meredith’s DNA on his knife, he envisions that Meredith came to his apartment to cook, and that she pricked herself. Even though Sollecito realizes later that it didn’t happen, it still kind of comes up in his mind.

It is not proof of a coverup! RS and AK are just doing some hard drugs that make them vaguely remember or confusedly remember things. Both were on and off high right through to being arrested but we need to hide that. Amanda had a terrific drug source and a cash-free way of paying for them. So blame the police. It was really the pressure from the police, and the pressure of being in solitary confinement, that addled their brains.

14. Guiliano Mignini was the prosecutor in the original trial. He has taken flak in some U.S. circles for trying to railroad two innocent ‘‘kids’’ (in reality 20 and 23), when he should have focused on the 20 year old ‘‘man’’ who really, really did it. Here is proof of this gross misconduct.

During the investigation of the house, Mignini told CSI’s to be careful collecting evidence that would incriminate Guede, but ordered them to mishandle evidence that would incriminate Knox and Sollecito. Apparently Mignini is so wise, he can glance at evidence and know who it came from.
Mignini pressured Knox to incriminate Lumumba, despite his being at home right then. (Read her November 6, 2007 statements). Apparently, when he did come in, his mere presence was so overwhelming, that Knox proceeded to write out two more statements.
Despite what must be a very time consuming job as a prosecutor, Mignini apparently moonlights as Perugia’s Mayor (Waiting to be Heard book).

Mignini telepathically caused Judge Claudia Matteini and Judge Ricciarelli to decide Knox, Sollecito (and at the time, Lumumba), were such dangers that they should be locked up in preventative detention. He also caused the psychologists to give bad reviews regarding AK and RS mental health, despite not being there.

Mignini caused Knox (December 2007 interview), to give wildly contradictory statements when he questioned her with her attornies squirming right there.

Mignini caused the Italian Supreme Court to agree (April 2008), with Judge Matteini that AK and RS should remain locked up.

Mignini caused Knox (see her June 2009 testimony), to behave in a cold, callous and deceptive manner, and get the Massei court to completely disbelieve anything she said. Hey, blood is YUCKY, but AK only knew Meredith for a month, and good grief she just wants to get on with her life.

Mignini had the Italian Supreme Court (March 2013), annul the 2011 Hellmann verdict, despite not being present.

Mignini had the Florence Appeals Court (January 2014), confirm the 2009 conviction, despite not being present.

Mignini will likely cause the ISC to confirm Nencini’s ruling (coming in March 2015), despite not being present.

Mignini is as we all know omnipresent and all-knowing.

So to summarize the main points here

Guede is known as a knife and rock using burglar, yet the police don’t suspect him.
Guede naturally had inside knowledge about the large amount of cash inside the home.
Guede is a drug dealer, but didn’t break into the room he knew had drugs.
Guede used his 5 or 6 arms to overpower and restrain Meredith.
Guede got a reduced sentence, for not appearing against Knox and Sollecito.
Guede tried to frame AK and RS, but feared they would frame him.
Knox is just a kid, who didn’t know how to behave properly or speak Italian.
Knox is scatter-brained, but only when asked pointed and direct questions.
Knox has the quirky habit of leaving blood around the house, and wiping everything else clean.
Knox just likes to get it all out, so she doesn’t have to repeat herself a hundred times.
Sollecito has trouble remembering even today where he was during the murder.
Sollecito’s knife was stolen, used in the murder, then returned to him.
Sollecito had a vision that Meredith pricked herself while cooking, it was caused by police pressure, in solitary confinement.
Mignini is apparently the Mayor as well, and has railroaded RS and AK, despite not being involved in the case for years.

So there you have it. Proof to widely propagate that an evil prosecutor and evil police can team up with a serial super burglar, and the result is two completely innocent kids are railroaded for a murder they did not commit.

FREE KNOX AND SOLLECITO NOW!!!!!

Posted by Chimera on 01/09/15 at 10:21 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR • Comments here (10)

Legal Problem For Knox: How Tough American Laws Could Wind Back Blood-Money Profits & Spendings

Posted by Our Main Posters

The 40-Plus State Son-of-Sam Laws

David Berkowitz or Son-of-Sam as he called himself during his killing spree is a convicted American serial killer. Watch a documentary at bottom here.

In New York State (where Knox’s publisher is) and Washington State (where Knox herself is) and about 40 other American states Son-of-Sam has a much-exercised and now rarely-challenged law named after him.

After early challenges and some revisions, many of those State Son-of-Sam laws continue to be strengthened and almost all are enforced regularly. From Wikipedia:

A Son of Sam law is any American law designed to keep criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes, often by selling their stories to publishers… Son of Sam laws are designed so that criminals are unable to take advantage of the notoriety of their crimes. Such laws often authorize the state to seize money earned from deals such as book/movie biographies and paid interviews and use it to compensate the criminal’s victims…

In certain cases a Son of Sam law can be extended beyond the criminals themselves to include friends, neighbors, and family members of the lawbreaker who seek to profit by telling publishers and filmmakers of their relation to the criminal. In other cases, a person may not financially benefit from the sale of a story or any other mementos pertaining to the crime””if the criminal was convicted after the date lawmakers passed the law in the states where the crime was committed.

Son-of-Sam Laws In The News

The Son-of-Sam laws are in the American news almost daily. See these for example:

Here is an article about the admitted killer Jodi Arias who could have otherwise been in line to profit from a movie showing her killing of her former lover Travis Alexander from her point-of-view.

Here is an article about the former university football coach and male rapist Jerry Sandusky who may be writing a book to benefit himself and his family.

Here is an article about OJ Simpson, the former footballer and convicted killer of his wife and one other, who is essentially in prison now for trying to circumvent a Son-of-Sam law mandating payments to the families of his victims.

How Son-of-Sam Laws Work

Here from the Criminal Lawyers website is a generic description of how such State laws work.

Each state’s law is different, but here some of the things you may see in any particular Son of Sam law:

What’s covered? Practically just about anything a criminal defendant might gain or profit from his crime. Some state laws generally define “profit from crime.” For example, a law may state it’s “any property obtained through or income generated from the commission of a crime.” Other states are very specific and may, for example, state “profit of crime” is money or other property with value a defendant may receive for a book, movie, television show, play or newspaper article about the defendant and his crimes.

Who’s covered? In some states, only the criminal defendant is covered. In other states, members of his family are covered, too. They may be related by blood or by “affinity” or kinship, such as a spouse or father-in-law. The idea is to make sure a family member doesn’t get the money and hold it for the defendant.

Payment. Most states require the person paying the defendant - the book publisher, movie producer, etc. - to pay the money directly to a court or special state agency, like the state’s Crime Victims Assistance agency. The money is held in a special account for the crime’s victims.

Getting the money to the victims. In most states, once money is deposited, the court or the state agency in charge of the money notifies victims the money is available. In other states, the person or company paying the defendant must notify victims. Either way, victims are usually notified by ads or “legal notices” in local newspapers where the crime was committed. It’s also possible the names of specific victims may be found in the court records connected to the case, and those victims may get personal notification, such as by mail.

Ten Grave Weaknesses In Knox’s Position

Under these 40-plus Son-of-Sam state laws Amanda Knox and her agents appear to be in an extremely weak legal position. Here are 10 reasons.

prior

Waiting To Be Heard

serious misstatements

And Amanda Knox still has her greedy paw out for contributions. See her highly misleading website. Tread warily, folks. Up to 40-plus investigators could come calling at your door…

Early Death To Any Political Support

American politicians almost all favor the Son-of-Sam Laws. The thought of a convicted killer profiting is something almost 100% of American voters wont tolerate. Anything that encourages crimes and the flouting of laws is a really big American no-no.

And if Knox is trying to assemble any bought-and-paid-for political support to resist extradition, such political support will dissipate in a heartbeat when Son-of-Sam again rears his head.

Not a very nice slippery slope for Knox. On multiple counts she looks like a sure-fire loser.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 06/18/14 at 11:01 AM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, The legal followups, US etc related, Hoaxes Knox & team, Hoaxers from 2007, Amanda Knox #1, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2, Raff Sollecito #2 • Comments here (24)

Trashing Of Italian Justice To Bend Trial Outcomes And How The Republic Pushes Back

Posted by Our Main Posters

A big mob trial in Italy

1. Those Who See To Trash Italian Justice

Based on murder and incarceration rates there are not so many bad guys in Italy. But those who are bad can be very very bad.

Those with a vested interest in taking Italian prosecutors and police down a peg to affect trial outcomes can be bunched into seven groups.

The three regional mafias;
A few defense lawyers and well-funded defendants;
Politicians shielding corruption;
In some instances the freemasons.
Those wanting investigations like MOF/Narducci to drop dead;
Muckraking magazines like Oggi;
Some anti-Italy foreigners.

None of them are simply pro-Amanda or pro-Raffele. All of them have hidden agendas, and all are under the constant eye of law enforcement.

Any of the above can join forces. Fighting institutions that make the public safe can make for strange bedfellows. Those attempting to trash justice can use any or all of three prongs in their attacks.

1) Assassinate the prosecutors and judges assigned to mafia cases. Over 100 in recent years have been assassinated.

2) Bend the laws in parliament. Bent laws excessively favoring defendants have greatly affected this case.

3) Flame the justice system and those who work for it. The pro-Knox pro-Sollecito campaign has definite mafia fingerprints.

Italian justice has adopted powerful if usually latent ways for law enforcers to push back and try to arrive at just outcomes.

If officers of the Italian courts are publicly accused of crimes in the media while a legal process is playing out, and the claims are malicious and untrue, this is not a civil matter (defamation, slander or libel).

It is a criminal matter (in the UK and US too) for which sentences can include long prison terms.

If the officers of the Italian court who are attacked are very senior and have an anti-mafia role they are REQUIRED BY LAW to request a criminal investigation by a chief prosecutor to take place.

They essentially have no further role themselves after that, except to provide true testimony in court.

A range of measures is then available to investigating chief prosecutors, up to and including invoking the powers of the Council of Magistrates and even the President of the Italian republic.

2. Trashing Of Justice In Perugia Case

If we look closely - a lot closer than all the UK and US media look, and most of the Italian media - we can spot attempts to further the interests of all seven of these groups in the campaigns against justice for Meredith and especially against justice for the Monster of Florence victims.

The three mafias have their toe in the door in various ways including but not only the mafioso witness Luciano Aviello (on which more below), and the Narducci 22 including Spezi, and the editors of newspapers like Oggi who have long done their handiwork for them.

The defense forces and the well-funded, sneering, money-grubbing defendants Knox and Sollecito are very well-known to us here; their myriad dirty tricks go as far back as early 2008 and the list has not yet stopped growing.

The Berlusconi loyalist and fervid Knoxaholic Rocco Girlanda wrote to the President, asking that he order that the Perugia prosecutors be investigated; Girlanda also tried to cut the national police budget before he was voted out of office..

Both the judges in the annuled appeal were freemasons and our main poster Yummi described the furtive freemason fingers in the pie (some freemasons ally with mafias and feud strongly with catholics, which Perugia police and prosecutors are) in his well-researched posts here and here.

Those who wanted the MOF/Narducci investigations to drop dead used the ever-willing “useful idiot” Doug Preston to ridicule the investigations in a strident book and numerous media appearances; also they tried hard to take down Dr Mignini, their most recent nemesis though the Supreme Court has totally reversed that for reasons explained here.

The notorious editor of Oggi has a long history of sneering and essentially fact-free reporting, aimed at undermining the courts and the police; playing to his advantage, there is a smallish but terminally paranoid readership for such conspiracy myths in Italy.

And as for anti-Italy foreigners with their fingers in the pie, well, where to begin? Doug Preston? Michael Heavey? Nina Burleigh? Candace Dempsey? Greg Hampikian? Paul Ciolino? Judy Bachrach? David Anderson? Joel Simon? Bruce Fischer, and his vast operation?

All seven groups were happily on a roll up to around the end of 2011, when Knox and Sollecito were released, and many (including Curt Knox’s PR guru David Marriott, Hampikian, and Fischer) prematurely declared that they had won total victory.

But it is astounding how much matters have reversed in the past year and a half. Take a look at the state of play for them as it is now.

3. Pushback In Meredith’s Case:

The Italian Supreme Court is nothing if not remorseless in its mandated pursuit of justice and the truth. We saw this the other day when a prison sentence was allowed to stand against the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who had long thumbed his nose at the courts.

We also saw it in the convictions allowed to stand against the many CIA operatives and their Italian counterparts who kidnapped Abu Omar and flew him for torture to Egypt. Though most of their sentences were permitted to be reduced, most are still left with a felony record for life - and the lead CIA operative is now a world-wide fugitive.

We can now see this same strong reaction against contempt of the courts in the Meredith Kercher case and the Monster of Florence case and the hairbrained “defense” campaigns nominally run for the perps in those two parallel cases.

Italian officials have various reasons to believe not only that Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox are surely guilty, just as Judge Massei described, but also that they and their American supporters are foolish pawns in some much bigger and even nastier games, and deeply in over their heads.

In its annullment of the Hellmann/Zanetti appeal and its instructions to the Florence Palace of Justice, Cassation reveals its own suspicion that some very unsavory elements may be attempting to take the Italian justice system down a peg and it wants fast decisive action to stop this. A high-stakes new trial described at bottom here is a first huge warning shot.

Knox has served three years, will be labeled a felon for life, faces an enormously tough new appeal against an excellent prosecutor, and has her name on a book which commits against Italian officials THE EXACT SAME CRIME she served three years for: false accusations of crimes. She is expected to be charged soon by Bergamo prosectors.

Sollecito in his own book committed some of the same crimes as Knox did in hers (did we mention criminal enterprise?!) plus another one (accusing the prosecution of wanting him to roll over on Amanda) which his own father has renounced on national TV. He is expected to be charged soon by Florence prosecutors.

Everybody involved in the writing and publishing of the two criminally defamatory and very self-serving blood-money books (illegal in Italy) could soon be about to take a fall, both in the Italian criminal courts and in the US civil courts. The foolish publishers and deal-makers included, of which Curt Knox himself is one.

If neither RS nor AK turn up for the new appeal in Florence later in September, they risk warrants being issued for their re-arrest. If they DO turn up they could well turn on one another, and their books will help the prosecution and hamper the defenses no-end - with those mad claims, how can they possibly take the witness stand?

Criminal defamation charges are still pending against Amanda Knox and against both of her two biological parents. Corruption charges are pending against Francesco Sollecito and Raffaele’s sister Vanessa for attempting to use political means to up-end the Perugia prosecutors.

Judge Hellmann has been eased out ignominiously, and Judge Zanetti demoted. Conceivably both may face charges, along with Conti & Vecchiotti and maybe Hampikian. And all the defense lawyers are in a ton of trouble for helping AK and RS to write their books, Giulia Bongiorno especially. The former MP Rocco Girlanda is of course long gone.

Many of the Knox defense forces have exited or ended up as being of no consequence: Frank Sfarzo (now on the run from the law in the US and Italy); Halkidis and Hampikian (see the Machine’‘s posts below), the hapless two Moores, the proven phoney Bruce Fischer, and so on and on.

And US officialdom, not least the State Department and the US Embassy in Rome, still show not the slightest interest in intervening. Any judge is expected to approve extradition of Knox if her refusal to face trial and prison is sustained in face of a final guilty verdict.

4. Pushback In Monster of Florence Case

Yummi mentioned some pushback in the post linked to above, including the trouble rained down on the heads of the prosecutor and judge who put on trial Giuttari and Mignin, whose convictions were scathingly reversed by a very angry Supreme Court.

The Narducci case was put back on track by the Supreme Court and a prison sentence seems a sure thing for Mario Spezi and up to 2 dozen others. A prison sentence might be incurred by the delusional weakling and serial defamer Doug Preston.

The “theory” of the MOF case Dr Mignini has good reason to hold is that the murders were not those of one single serial killer. This perception of a shadowy self-protecting group is absolutely mainstream in Italy, and is reflected in the excellent Guittari book on the case (Il Mostro) which could soon with good reason (it tells the truth) push the silly Preston MOF book off the US and UK bookshelves.

That theory is espoused by all the current prosecutors in Florence.

The one media outlet which never fails to take an anti-prosecution stance, Oggi, Is being investigated and could be put on trial for publishing Knox’s false charges against the Perugia and national police and prosecutors and may have problems hanging in there.

Dr Mignini looks set to be promoted to becoming the next attorney general of Umbria, the region of which Perugia is the capital. And the hold of the freemasons and the mafias over Italian justice is not getting any stronger, just as most Italians prefer.

5. Pushback In Related Cases

Former Sollecito witness Luciano Aviello could be the direct cause of a lot of people ending up in jail.

His trial for perjury and contempt of court is happening now in Florence. His trial has been fast-forwarded as a direct result of the Supreme Court declaring that getting to the bottom of his erratic day in court in 2011 with too-familiar mafia-type allegations must be a top priority. His forthcoming defense is expected to be explosive.

We have posted extensively on Aviello since he first surfaced. A mafioso since his teens in Naples, now aged about 40, he has spent most of his adult years in prison. (He is back there again right now - for killing a dog and extortion.)

As police and prosecutors all know, Aviello has a very long record of making things up to try to give himself some breaks and to keep in with the mafia. He has been repeatedly convicted for perjury.

He was the witness summoned by a hapless Giulia Bongiorno to try to arrive at an explanation that fits with the prevailing conclusion of the Supreme Court that THREE people had attacked Meredith on the night.

What Aviello came up with on the stand was that his own missing brother and one other habitual criminal had unintentionally committed the murder. They were trying to steal some artworks, but they got the address of the house wrong.

Raffaele Sollecito was so thrilled at this (palpably false) testimony by Aviello that he says in his book that he sent Aviello an embroidered handkerchief, perhaps because Aviello has urges toward a sex change operation.

On the witness stand in mid 2011 Aviello really roasted the police and prosecution in mafia-type terms for failing to come down on his side and follow up on his allegations (actually they had already followed up, but found nothing).

Then two fellow inmates at his prison near Genoa testified for the prosecution that he had told them that the Sollecitos had offered or paid large bribes for any false testimony helpful to their boy getting sprung.

Extraordinarily, Judge Hellmann brushed all of this under the rug, and hurried on to other matters less embarrassing to the Sollecitos and Bongiorno. This REALLY caught Cassation’s attention as there have been strong suspicions in Perugia and Rome that Hellmann and/or Zanetti were in the pocket of one of the families.

Why did the unqualified Judge Hellmann replace the excellent Judge Chiari, suddenly and inexplicably decided upon by Chief Judge Di Nunzio? Why are seemingly all of the lead players bending things to the Knox-Sollecito side freemasons?

Were Hellmann and Zanetti and Aviello and Aviello’s fellow inmates among those who received some sort of inducement to bend RS’s way? What was Giulia Bongiorno’s precise role in all this?

Directly, Aviello could be in a position to bring down both families, both defense teams, and both appeal judges. He could even make a guilty verdict for RS and AK a sure thing.

Criminal enterprise indeed. We will continue reporting. Oh and make sure to watch your back, Luciano.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 08/15/13 at 01:36 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, Raff Sollecito, The officially involved, The legal followups, Sollecito followup, Knox followup, Italian related, Hoaxes against Italy, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, 10 Mignini MOF hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 31 Aviello hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 33 Sole attacker hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Raff Sollecito PR, Heavey, Bremner, Francesco Sforza, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2, Raff Sollecito #2 • Comments here (37)

Contrary To Reported Claim By Amanda Knox There Is Zero “Wave Of Defamation Suits”

Posted by Peter Quennell

No defamation suits have begun. But actually it is WORSE. And Knox would be suicidal to leave her story unchanged.

Bob Barnett and Ted Simon and anyone else presumably trying to give Knox good advice might like to take note. Canada’s National Post is reporting this:

Her book, which earned her an advance of almost $4-million, also risks inflaming Italian public opinion, offending the nation’s judges and triggering a wave of new defamation actions by the police and prosecutors she accuses of framing her.

“People asked me if I would change the book and I said absolutely not “¦ I am not going to change my story just because someone is threatening to sue me but I mean “¦ it sucks. It sucks and it sucks.”

Defamation, slander and libel refer to private, personal, civil suits against other persons who tell a malicious untruth. Knox and Sollecito are not (or not yet) facing anything like that.

Each through their unwise books and interviews has sparked a single investigation by a Chief Prosecutor (in Florence, Verona and Bergamo) into whether they are in contempt of court.

Those who would seek to undermine the due process of the Italian justice system and the proper functioning of the courts (very, very rare now) in this or the associated Monster of Florence case seem to include all of the following:

The three regional mafias;
A few defense lawyers and well-funded defendants;
Politicians shielding corruption;
In some instances the freemasons.
Those wanting investigations like MOF/Narducci to drop dead;
Muckraking magazines like Oggi;
Some anti-Italy foreigners.

None of them are simply pro-Amanda. All of them have hidden agendas, and all are already under the eye of law enforcement. Fighting institutions that make the public safe can make for strange bedfellows.

It has also especially in Italy led to powerful if usually latent ways to push back.

It is a criminal matter (in the UK and US too) for which sentences can include long prison terms.

If the officers of the Italian court who are attacked are very senior and have an antimafia role they are REQUIRED BY LAW to request a criminal investigation by a chief prosecutor to take place.

They esentially have no further role themselves except to provide true testimony in court.

A range of measures is then available to investigating chief prosecutors, up to and including invoking the powers of the Council of Magistrates and even the President of the Italian republic.

Knox and Sollecito both seem to have point-blank accused a number of officers of the court of crimes. In Deputy Prosecutor General Mignini’s case, he has been accused by both of them. The most serious:

By Sollecito of offering an illegal deal to make him sell out on Knox. Both Mignini and Sollecito’s father categorically stated that this was a criminal lie.

By Knox of illegally interrogating her about Patrick with no defense lawyer present. But the trial record shows Mignini was not even in the room.

These seem to be about as open-and-shut as contempt of court cases can ever get. “Sollecito and Knox, did you make these false claims or not? Yes or no?”

If the answer is yes, they’ll lose any criminal case in the blink of an eye. Thereafter many private or civil defamation suits can be expected.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/19/13 at 10:08 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, The prosecutors, The legal followups, Knox followup, Hoaxes against Italy, 3 No evidence hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2 • Comments here (25)

Alarm Bells Ignored: Overconfident PR And Lawyers May Have Led To That Shock At Cassation Outcome

Posted by Our Main Posters

Amanda Knox has seemed to us more stunned than confident since she got out of Capanne. Her father mentioned that she was not given the whole picture there.

But we have been surprised in recent weeks at how the defense lawyers and spokesmen and especially Raffaele Sollecito and Giulia Bongoirno and Carlo Dalla Vedova and the PR flunkies were seemingly seeing the Supreme Court appeal as a forgone conclusion in their favor, a blip requiring no change in the end game.

Here are 20 warning bells that we think they might have missed or heard wrongly which contributed to a shocked and ill-prepared reaction to the Cassation ruling, and each of which a team of hard-nosed lawyers not befuddled by PR might have heard and responded to quite differently.

Barbie Nadeau’s book

It may not surprise you to learn that Giulia Bongiorno has not had a very winning record at Cassation, and as far as we know the other lawyers have no experience of winning there at all.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 04/01/13 at 09:57 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in The officially involved, The defenses, Appeals 2009-2015, Cassation 2013, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 11 No court bent hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 30 Alessi hoax, 31 Aviello hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Raff Sollecito PR • Comments here (18)

In An ABC Report Did Curt Knox & Edda Mellas Just Smear The Prosecution Appeal As “Harassment”?

Posted by Peter Quennell

That headline above is actually about a statement Knox’s parents made about Dr Galati a year ago.

They may or may not have just repeated it. Watch the video here. That is a video of a report broadcast today on ABC’s morning show. The claim comes at the 2:00 minute time point.

ABC is the Knox-Mellas’s current pet poodle among the American media, and (with the brave exception of Ann Wise on their website) ABC has consistently with extreme bias reported only the Knox-Mellas side of it.

So the new claim may well be accurate.

There are already dozens of recorded instance of ABC slamming the Italian police and prosecution - in effect accusing them of crimes. Are ABC and the Knox-Mellases really wanting to head down this slippery slope some more? Right now?

Note how the bar has been seriously raised for any false accusations of crimes by Italian officialdom in this case.

While the Knox Mellases only face a calunnia (criminal defamation) trial for a previous instance, Raffaele Sollecito is being investigated for contempt of court for allegedly illegally attempting to interfere with an ongoing legal process.

Guilt on that charge can put perpetrators away for a long time. Ted Simon, are you asleep at the switch? Et tu, Signori Dalla Vedova e Ghirga?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/24/13 at 11:37 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Hoaxes against Italy, 3 No evidence hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2, Hoaxers: media groups, ABC Network • Comments here (0)

False Allegations Against Italian Officialdom Sparking Increasingly Tough Legal Reaction

Posted by Our Main Posters

David Marriott? Chirs Mellas? Doug Preston? Curt Knox?

Maybe none of the above. But whoever came up with the hairbrained idea that a pedal-to-the-floor assault on the officlals handling the case would lead to a tranquil outcome for the accused was maybe not thinking very well on that day.

The Italian System

We have gone over the impressive characteristics of the Italian justice system again and again. It is THE most popular and trusted institution in Italy - and by a wide margin.

It is a very fair, carefiul and painstaking system, staffed by well-trained professionals all the way up from cops through investigators through prosecutors through judges through the Supreme Court to the President of the Italian Republic himself.

The Italian system may be the least likely justice system IN THE WORLD for rogue police or rogue prosecutors or rogue judges to hijack it and bend things their way. Even ex-PM Berlusconi tried but his charges still plague him.

Prosecutors again and again see their cases tested in front of administrative magistrates, and those magistrates make all of the decisions. Everything is very public, and judges explain how they decided (ask a typical US or UK jury to do that!) and how they arrived at their theory of the crime.

In the Perugia case the judge for Guede developed one theory of the crime, the judges for Knox and Sollecito at trial a second, and the the judges for knox and Sollecito at first appeal a third. In fact none of them swallowed the tentative prosecution theory wholesale, though many of our lawyers found it quite sound.

Those Who Attack

Now we have three Italians either already facing charges or soon to face charges - Mario Spezi, Frank Sforza and Raffaele Sollecito, each in several suits. These are in addition to the three Americans who have already been charged - Amanda Knox, Edda Mellas, and Curt Knox.

So the present total is six.

Mario Spezi

Spezi is the Italian sleuthing partner of the American fictionalist Doug Preston who for his uninvited interference in what was an ongoing police investigation of the Monster of Florence case has faced legal woe after legal woe in recent years.

Spezi has already lost one defamation suit to the former MOF investigator and prominent novelist Michele Giuttari, he must in February face another, and he may have to face up to another half dozen more after that. We don’t expect Spezi’s losing streak to end any time soon.

Frank Sforza

Sforza hides behind the name Frank Sfarzo as an intemperate and rarely accurate blogger on the case. He brings no known professionals skills to the task. He is reported to be the target of criminal charges relating to alleged abuse of the sister and mother with whom he lives. His unsavory reputation and desperate finances mushroomed openly the other day, when he was reported in personal confrontations while visiting Canada and Hawaii.

Sforza now faces a defamation suit as well, for claiming to the whole world via Doug Preston and Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York that he was being persecuted by a prosecutor back in Perugia. The prosecutor was not even involved. Seems to us an open and shut case.

Raffaele Sollecito

Sollecito still stands accused in Meredith’s death unless and until the Supreme Couirt signs off. It may not do that any time soon.

Flowing from his new book, Sollecito will apparently face a ton of defamation woes in the next few weeks. These may come to ensnare his defense team (who are credited with helping put together the book) and his shadow writer, his Seattle supporters, and his publishers Simon & Schuster of New York.

Our emerging book corrections page shows how riddled with wrong claims we find Sollecito’s book. We estimate up to 300 wrong claims. If and when Sollecito sees all the defamation charges filed, we will know from court filings who among Italian officialdom claims passages in the book defame them.

What Next?

Maybe the cases against these six could eventually all dry up and then there will be no more. But we sure wouldn’t lay any bets. Do an Internet search and you’ll instantly turn up plenty more defamatory idiocy. Many media sites may be very vulnerable and may be sued to retract and pay up.

Italian anger is riding high - and it sure ain’t against the prosecutors or cops.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 12/19/12 at 07:42 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in The legal followups, Sollecito followup, Knox followup, Italian related, News media & movies, Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Raff Sollecito PR, Preston & Spezi, Francesco Sforza, More hoaxers, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2, Raff Sollecito #2, Hoaxers: media groups, CPJ Joel Simon • Comments here (4)

Why The Media Are Wrong To Rely On Amanda Knox’s Family For Impartial and Accurate Information

Posted by The Machine

1 False claim-making endemic in support of Knox

In many posts we have been addressing the myriad false claims of Knox & family that, lies that now number up in the hundreds.

Here is a post listing just some of the false claims that have been made by Amanda Knox herself, and here is another post that in effect lists many more.

Here is a post listing just some of the false claims that have been made by Raffaele Sollecito himself, and here is another post that in effect lists many more..

And here are 150 questions for the two perpetrators posted by our great Powerpoint creator, Kermit, just prior to their conviction. If reporters had sought answers to all of those, they might have once and for all nailed down the truth from the two, and made clear what REALLY happened.

Edda Mellas is already charged along with Curt Knox with making things up, in that pending case about slandering Amanda Knox’s interrogators. And as Finn MacCool seems to have got all the facts right in this post on Amanda Knox’s calls with Edda Mellas, it seems surprising that she is not also charged with perjury.

It’s a great pity that not more media people have put aside their emotions, and actually analyzed the numerous wild claims that come pouring out of Edda Mellas. The fact that so many professional journalists have given her a free pass and never challenged, cross-checked, or probed her claims is especially shameful.

Why has Edda Mellas been able to make so many false claims in the media without being challenged?

One primary reason according to the Daily Beast is because journalists are required to give certain guarantees about positive coverage in order to gain any access to Amanda Knox’s family: “Of the handful of American journalists in Perugia in late 2007 and early 2008, none got access to the Knox family without certain guarantees about positive coverage.”

And another reason why Edda Mellas has been able to get away with repeatedly propagating the same core false claims is that the journalists in the US who have interviewed Edda Mellas are almost completely ignorant of the basic facts of the case. They haven’t bothered to find out enough about the case to be in a position to challenge what she says.

In fact any journalist - in fact, anyone interested in the case - can check the veracity of her claims against the official court documents, including the Micheli Sentencing Report of January 2009 (summarised on TJMK in English) and the Massei Sentencing Report of March 2010 (very soon available on PMF and TJMK in English).

And they can check the claims against the objective reporting of the various respected Rome-based journalists who speak fluent Italian and who actually attended the trial - the only Rome-based English-language reporter who has ever filed biased reports was Peter Popham, who seemed reflexively anti-Italy, and who was withdrawn two years ago.

2. Numerous False Knox-Family Claims

This analysis focuses on the claims that Edda Mellas has made in interviews with Larry King on CNN, Chris Wragge on CBS, Linda Byron on King 5, and The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone. There are other videos and text interviews that we could have drawn examples from.

Edda Mellas on CNN’s Larry King Live

Edda Mellas and Curt Knox appeared on Larry King Live shortly after the verdict last December. You can see them in the videos above and below. The timing here corresponds to the time counter at bottom-left of the video.

False claim 1 “The prosecution had changed the motive four times during the trial. and at the end they finally had to say we don’t have a motive but it doesn’t matter.” (minute 4.22 above)

Barbie Nadeau pointed out that the prosecutors had changed their theory, but only rather slightly:

“The prosecution lawyers began their case in January 2009 by arguing that Kercher was killed during a sex game gone awry. When it came time for closing arguments, they had changed the theory slightly, trying to make the case that Knox resented her prissy British roommate and killed her in hatred” A sex attack was still involved.

Prosecutor Mignini also suggested that a hards drug like cocaine might have been involved, and certainly never said that they didn’t have a motive. Co-Prosecutor Manuela Comodi said that she didn’t know precisely what the motive was, but certainly never claimed that there was none.

False claim 2: “He (Rudy Guede) all of a sudden had money that he didn’t have earlier in the day” (minute 3.22 above)

Edda Mellas is plucking “facts” out thin air with this claim. No evidence was presented at any court hearing that showed that Rudy Guede suddenly had money that he didn’t have earlier in the day on 1 November 2007.

False claim 3: “There is no murder weapon.” (minute 4.32 above)

Judge Massei indicates in the sentencing report that Amanda Knox’s judges concluded that the double DNA knife, the larger of the two indicated by Meredith’s autopsy, is indeed the murder weapon.

It is totally compatible with the deep puncture wound in Meredith’s neck, and according to a number of independent forensic experts, it contained Meredith’s DNA on the blade..

False claim 4: “The Italian Supreme Court found the interrogation illegal” (minute 7.54 above)

Though this claim has been repeated in different ways, the Italian Supreme Court has NEVER ruled that Amanda Knox’s interrogation either as a witness or a suspect was illegal. In the suspect interview, she had both a lawyer and interpreter present.

False claim 5: “They admit to the fact they really have no physical evidence” (minute 7.54 above)

As it took the prosecutors four or five months to present it, they have never admitted that they have no physical evidence. The stop-start-stop nature of the defense phase of the trial showed how very telling the evidence was.

False claim 6: “They believe Meredith was killed at about 9.30pm” on Larry King Live (minute 0.54 here)

The prosecutors didn’t claim this at the trial. According to Mignini’s timeline, which he used when presenting his scenario for what happened to the judges and jury at trial, Meredith was killed at about 11.50pm.

False claim 7: Amanda Knox didn’t know Rudy Guede (minute 1.02 here)

Unbelievably, Edda Mellas claimed that Amanda Knox didn’t know Rudy Guede despite the fact that Amanda Knox testified IN COURT that she had met Rudy Guede on several occasions.

Here’s the actual court transcript:

Carlo Pacelli (CP), Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer: In what circumstances did you meet him (Rudy)?

Amanda Knox (AK): I was in the center, near the church. It was during an evening when I met the guys that lived underneath in the apartment underneath us, and while I was mingling with them, they introduced me to Rudy.

CP: So it was on the occasion of a party at the house of the neighbors downstairs?

AK: Yes. What we did is, they introduced me to him downtown just to say “This is Rudy, this is Amanda”, and then I spent most of my time with Meredith, but we all went back to the house together.

CP: Did you also know him, or at least see him, in the pub “Le Chic”, Rudy?

AK: I think I saw him there once.

CP: Listen, this party at the neighbors, it took place in the second half of October? What period, end of October? 2007?

AK: I think it was more in the middle of October.

False claim 8: Rudy Guede’s DNA was in Meredith’s purse (minute 3.16 here

Edda Mellas’s claim that Rudy Guede’s DNA was in Meredith’s purse is completely untrue. According to the Micheli report, which was made available to the public in January 2008, Guede’s DNA was found on the zip of Meredith’s purse and not inside it.

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False claim 9: “Even the Italian Supreme Court ruled that her rights were repeatedly violated.” (minute 5:32 above

The Italian Supreme Court has NEVER ruled that Amanda Knox’s rights were repeatedly violated. Not even her own lawyers claimed that, and no complaint was ever lodged.

The first of Knox’s two written statements couldn’t be used against her simply because she wasn’t represented by a lawyer when she made it - and she volunteered that statement, in a seeming state of panic, when she was told Sollecito was no longer supporting her alibi..

We continue next with Edda Mellas making claims in an interview for the CBS Early Show.

Whilen Edda Mellas was in Perugia, she was interviewed by CBS’s Chris Wragge. (Embedding of this CBS video YouTube on sites like TJMK is disabled, which suggests that CBS might be worried that the claims made were wrong and they should have been challenged on-air.)

False claim 10: The double DNA knife is incompatible with the wounds on Meredith’s body. (minute 0.16 above)

In the interview Edda Mellas made the following claim: “The knife they think is the murder weapon is way too big and demonstrated how it had to have been a much smaller knife that caused all the wounds.”

Edda Mellas’s claim above is simply not true.

Barbie Nadeau reported directly from the courtroom in Perugia that multiple witnesses for the defence, including Dr. Carlo Torre, conceded that the double DNA knife was compatible with the deep puncture wound in Meredith’s neck.

“According to multiple witnesses for the defense, the knife is compatible with at least one of the three wounds on Kercher’s neck, but it was likely too large for the other two.” (Barbie Nadeau, Newsweek).

“He (Dr. Carlo Torre) conceded that a third larger wound could have been made with the knife, but said it was more likely it was made by twisting a smaller knife.” (Barbie Nadeau, The Daily Beast).

Judge Massei categorically states in the judges’ sentencing report that the double DNA knife was compatible with the large wound on Meredith’s neck.

False claim 11: Meredith’s room was so tiny, there wasn’t enough room for four people in some kind of tussle. (minute 0.27 above)

In the same interview with Chris Wragge, Edda Mellas asserts that there couldn’t have been an attack on Meredith involving three assailants.

“The space available this crime happened is so tiny you can’t have had four people in that room in some kind of tussle.”

The Violent Crimes Unit itself used detailed images at the trial to show that there was more than enough room for an attack involving three attackers.

False claim 12: There is no evidence of Amanda Knox at the actual crime scene. (minute 2.06 above)

“Its the fact at the actual crime scene there is no physical evidence of Amanda; not a hair, not a fingerprint, not a nothing.”

The crime scene involves the whole cottage and it isn’t limited to Meredith’s room. Knox and Sollecito were both CONVICTED of staging the break-in and tampering with the crime scene.

Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence actually placing Amanda Knox in Meredith’s room on the night of the murder: the double DNA knife, and the blood she tracked into the bathroom, the hallway, Filomena’s room, and her own room.

According to two imprint experts, there was a woman’s bloody shoeprint on the pillow under Meredith’s body which matched Knox’s foot size.

Even Sollecito’s forensic consultant, Professor Vinci, claimed that he had found Amanda Knox’s DNA on Meredith’s bra.

False claim 13: “The DNA is so insignificant. It’s this tiny spot. It’s not blood.” (minute 2.16 above)

Three independent DNA experts - Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo, and Professor Francesca Torricelli - confirmed that Meredith’s DNA was definitely on the blade of the double DNA.

The DNA charts themselves show a clear and unmistakable match. Edda Mellas doesn’t seem to understand that DNA evidence almost always involves only microscopic traces of DNA.

Dr. Stefanoni testified at the trial that the DNA on the blade could indeed have come from Meredith’s blood.

We continue next with Edda Mellas in an Interview with Linda Byron on Seattle TV station King 5.

False claim 14: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito maintained the same story (minute 3.17)

Edda Mellas claimed in this interview with Linda Byron that Amanda Knox had maintained the same story for over a year when she was asked whether her daughter had lied.

In another interview with Linda Byron in November 2009, Edda Mellas bizarrely claimed that Amanda Knox hadn’t changed her story. KING 5 Investigator Linda Byron asked her: “Did she change her story?”

Edda Mellas responded: “No, no. For this whole year they have maintained the story - what they did that night. They stayed at Raffaele’s, they made dinner, they watched a movie. That’s it, that’s the story.”

Edda Mellas’s statement that Amanda Knox didn’t change her story and that she and Sollecito maintained the same story is yet another incorrect and misleading claim.

Knox and Sollecito both gave three different alibis. The posts on their alibis are linked-to up at the top here. Knox gave at least three different times for when she and Sollecito had dinner on the night of the murder.

Knox gave different reasons for writing her handwritten confession, and she gave different accounts of seeing the blood in the bathroom which contradict each other.

And most devastating of all, Sollecito stopped providing Knox with an alibi on 5 November 2007.

Sollecito is STILL nearly three years later refusing to corroborate her alibi. He clearly hasn’t maintained that Knox was with him at his apartment - actually he claimed that she went out for four hours.

False claim 15 : Amanda Knox wasn’t provided with an interpreter (minute 2.37)

Edda Mellas made this false claim, which has been widely propagated by Knox groupies, in an interview with Linda Byron on King5.

It’s not difficult to prove that this claim is completely false. Knox’s interpreter on 5 November 2007, Anna Donninio, even testified at the trial. And Amanda Knox herself spoke about her interpreter when she gave testimony at the trial.

Edda Mellas On ABC TV

We continue next with these claims of Edda Mellas on ABC TV.

False claim 16: “Amanda Knox is incredibly honest” (minute 11.25)

In an interview with ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas Edda Mellas claimed that her daughter is “incredibly honest”.

And Edda Mellas told The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone that “Amanda doesn’t know how to lie.”

In fact, Amanda Knox’s mobile phone records, data recovered from Sollecito’s computer, and corroborative testimony of numerous witnesses, provide irrefutable proof that Amanda Knox has lied - again and again.

For example, her lies about him directly led to Diya Lumumba, an innocent man, spending two weeks in prison - even though as recorded in prison she told her mother Edda Mellas that her claims were not true. .

False claim 17 : Amanda Knox could have left Italy, but she chose to stay and help the police.

In an earlier interview with Larry King in October 2009, Edda Mellas told him that Amanda Knox could have left Italy, but she chose to stay and help the police:

“After the murder, Mellas said, friends and family told Knox to leave Italy—to either come home or stay with relatives in Germany—but Knox refused because she wanted to help find the killer and prove that she had nothing to do with it.”

“Many people asked her to leave, but she said no. ‘I’m going to stay. I’m going to try and help, I’m going to try and finish school’ Mellas said.”

Edda Mellas’s claim is flatly contradicted by Amanda Knox herself, in the e-mail she wrote to her friends in Seattle on 4 November 2007:

“i then bought some underwear because as it turns out i wont be able to leave italy for a while as well as enter my house”

And along with one of Meredith’s friends who walked home with Meredith on the night, the police told Amanda Knox pretty promptly that as her status was (then) a primary witness, she was not to go anywhere.

The fact that Knox did stay was of little help to the investigation - in fact, she seemed to work hard to derail it - and one of her main concerns at the time, a pretty callous one, was whether she would be staying or moving out of the house and getting a rent refund.

False claim 18: Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not under the influence of drugs on the night of the murder (BBC Radio)

In an interview with BBC Radio after the verdict, Edda Mellas apparently stated that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not under the influence of drugs on the night of the murder.

This is despite the fact that both Knox and Sollecito had both themselves actually claimed they had smoked cannabis. The prosecution believed they might have been on a hard drug like cocaine, which also seems the general belief around Perugia.

3. And Some Conclusions

The fact that Edda Mellas has been able to propagate so many wrong claims in the media for so long without being challenged seems to speaks volumes about the naivety and unprofessionalism of her interviewers, and of the media organisations they work for.

As they usually do, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, King 5, and other media outlets should have interviewed objective crime-case professionals, who don’t have a vested interest in the case.

Instead they have relied again and again on Amanda Knox’s mother and other family members as primary sources.

Amanda Knox is not an innocent political prisoner who was railroaded in some Third World country for some very murky reason. She was unanimously convicted after a lengthy trial at which the evidence was absolutely overwhelming.

As the Christian Longo and Scott Peterson cases that we posted on below go to prove, seemingly quite normal people commit horrific murders. Probably the vast majority of murders are committed by people who to many seemed normal.

It seems downright perverse that some of the journalists who have interviewed Edda Mellas treat Amanda Knox as a victim, and with cloying sympathy ask “How is Amanda doing?” They wouldn’t dream of asking Charles Manson’s mum how the Manson girls are doing.

It is time for the sake of the truth, the legitimacy of the verdict, the relations between the US and Italy, and the peace of mind of Meredith’s family and friends, that from now on they hold Edda Mellas’s feet to the fire..

Posted by The Machine on 08/02/10 at 05:49 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Evidence & Witnesses, Various timelines, Real locations, Real crimescene, The two knives, DNA and luminol, Hoaxes against Italy, 2 Italian mileu hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 4 No firm DNA hoax, 8 No motive hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 18 No drug use hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 33 Sole attacker hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers: media groups, ABC Network • Comments here (32)

How The Strongarm Public Relations Resulted in Most Of The Media Getting It Wrong

Posted by Our Main Posters

PR manager David Marriott bumbles angrily

1. Underperforming Media

This is surely one of the worst cases of misreporting and malicious bias in all of media history. It’d be very nice (though don’t hold your breath!) if journalism schools and media owners examined the firestorm to stop it ever happening again.

Consider just the US hall of shame.

The CBS network and its 48 Hours division (the worst in broadcast media), the ABC network and its 20-20 division (pretty bad), the Fox business network and the self-infatuated Lis Wiehl (pretty bad), and Fox news on cable and the screaming Geraldo Rivera (very bad).

Also in the broadcast media, CNN and the screaming Jane Velez Mitchell (very bad), ABC and a snowed Oprah Winfrey (very bad), and King-5 Seattle and the terminally biased Linda Byron (consistently among the worst).

And among the print media Vanity Fair and the addled Judy Bacharach, the New York Times and the besotted Timothy Egan, Time magazine and the addled Nina Burleigh, and Marie Claire and the addled Jan Goodwin.

And please remember: this is the SAME media that turned a blind eye to the Micheli sentencing report on Guede, and appears to be trying hard to do the same (not one of them is translating it) to the Massei sentencing report on Knox and Sollecito.

2. Knox PR Chief Corrupter

Here is an excerpt from Barbie Nadeau’s fine new book, describing how the sharp-elbowed Knox/Marriott public relations bombardment warped Americans’ take on the case.

Coverage of the crime began to diverge on the two sides of the Atlantic. From the vantage point of Perugia, it seemed as though the Knox family’s American supporters were simply choosing to ignore the facts that were coming to light in Italy….

The American press hung back, at first, objective and somewhat disbelieving that such a wholesome-seeming girl could have any connection to such a sordid foreign crime, and then, as the family stepped up its defense, increasingly divided between two camps that would become simply the innocentisti - those who believed she was blameless - and the colpevolisti - those who did not. In Perugia, these labels governed access…

Of the handful of American journalists in Perugia in late 2007 and early 2008, none got access to the Knox family without certain guarantees about positive coverage. Within months, the family decided to speak on the record primarily to the American TV networks, often in exchange for airfare and hotel bills. Most of the print press was shut out. And the TV producers learned to be very cautious about being seen with people like me, lest the Knox family should cut them off.

But as interest in the case grew, an odd assortment of American talking heads attached their reputations to Amanda’s innocence. An aggressive support group called Friends of Amanda (FOA) formed in Seattle, headed by Anne Bremner [and on the sly, Judge Michael Heavey.

Very quickly, [PR manager David] Marriott lost control of the situation. As he spoon-fed the Knox-approved message to American outlets that couldn’t afford to send correspondents to Italy, those of us on the ground in Perugia began passing his contradictory e-mails around as entertainment during the long days in the court. In one instance, Marriott confirmed to me that ABC News had paid for Amanda’s parents to fly to Perugia in exchange for exclusivity. When I confronted my friend Ann Wise, an ABC producer based in Italy, she quickly passed on the leak. ABC got a denial from him that he had ever told me this—despite the fact that I had an e-mail to prove it.

Similarly, in the spring of 2008, he told me that the Knoxes would not give interviews, and then Rachel Donadio of the New York Times had a sit-down with Amanda’s father, Curt Knox. Marriott told me that Rachel must have door-stepped Curt in Perugia; she confirmed that Marriott had set up the interview for her. What Marriott failed to realize was that the Italy-based press corps was a close-knit group that could not be played against each other.

Meanwhile, the networks started vying for the Knoxes’ attention with their own legal analysts. Among the first was Joe Tacopina, a sexy Italian American New York lawyer… In the spring of 2008, Tacopina came to Perugia as a paid consultant for ABC News to investigate the real story behind the Kercher murder, and I interviewed him for Newsweek in Rome in March. He said he was acting as a consultant to the family, even though he was being paid by ABC, and he was the first to call foul on the missteps by Italian investigators.

But he also told me that deep down, he wasn’t sure about Amanda’s story. “Her best defense, I think, is probably going to be the truth. Am I saying she didn’t make mistakes? No. And do I know for a fact that she’s innocent? Of course not.”

That was the end of Joe Tacopina’s involvement in the case and the beginning of more aggressive message control out of Seattle. Andrea Vogt, a Bologna-based freelancer stringing for the Seattle Press-Intelligencer, wrote her own story about Tacopina’s behavior in Perugia, and Marriott quickly tried to shut her down. ...we began what would be a two-year battle against the Seattle message machine, incurring personal attacks and outright threats…

The push-back from Seattle ferocious, but the message discipline was imperfect. When Bremner told CNN that Amanda needed the U.S. State Department to rescue her, Marriott would simply quip, “Anne doesn’t speak for the family” or “I don’t keep up with what Anne is doing.”

Moreover, Amanda’s Seattle supporters began to compromise the work of her legal team in Perugia. On August 12, 2008, Seattle judge Michael Heavey wrote a letter titled “Request to transfer the trial against Amanda Knox out of Perugia,” using Superior Court of the State of Washington letterhead. The headlines in Italy incorrectly interpreted this as “American Judge Wants Trial Transferred to America,” which infuriated Knox’s local counsel. By the time Heavey retracted his letter a few months later, with an apology to the Italian Justice department, the damage had been done.

The Perugia judge who denied Amanda’s request for house arrest said that one of the reasons was flight risk and that “the American judge who would have to sign her extradition back to Italy” would not cooperate. Knox’s attorney, Luciano Ghirga, told reporters outside the courthouse in Perugia, “The American lawyers do not represent anyone here.”

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We like the Daily Beast book, for its splash of cold water on the media, and for its highly accurate accounting of the court proceedings and of the voluminous evidence the judges also describe in their report.

We also believe that although Meredith’s family did not participate, Barbie Nadeau has strong compassion for them, and a sense of real loss over Meredith.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 04/02/10 at 08:16 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in News media & movies, Excellent reporting, Hoaxes against Italy, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, 11 No court bent hoax, 12 Rabid media hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Hoaxers from 2009, Nina Burleigh, Hoaxers: media groups, ABC Network, CBS Network, CNN Network, NY Times, Time weekly • Comments here (13)

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports From Seattle On Knoxes & Marriott PR #2

Posted by The 411

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This below is a translation of this excellent report by La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano which was widely watched on Italian television.

Like the article below it also follows the typical mould of Italian reporting on Seattle - polite but seemingly doubting of the FOA claims about Amanda and the case.

AMANDA KNOX SPONTANEOUS STATEMENT: “In these days, I’ve reflected a lot about what I’ve wanted to say and what came into my mind. I wrote a question that maybe still puzzled a lot of people.”

ITALIAN ANNOUNCER VOICE-OVER: But it was the entire Meredith Kercher murder story that leaves many people puzzled in spite of the triple first-degree conviction of Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito, and Amanda Knox.

We went to Seattle to try to see if we could enter into the world of the American 20-something girl - angel for her family, devil according to the judges.”

The obligatory first stop is the office of David Marriott, spin doctor these past two years, who has handled media relations for the family. You can’t enter into the inner circle of the girl without passing by him first.

The first interviews are with the mother and father, separated [i.e., divorced] for 20 years.

CURT: “Amanda is a person who’s always been extremely real. As her parents, it wasn’t always pleasant to hear what was said. But, she wasn’t able to hide the truth. She’s someone who takes care of others, honest, as a study habit she has an intellectual approach to things.”

“With Raff, they met for the first time at a classical music concert. They went out for about a week, before Meredith was found dead. In such a brief period, you don’t transform a beginning relationship in to [the type of] scenario made up by the judges. You don’t go from zero to an orgy. It doesn’t happen in nature…. It’s not started out in an orgy manner.”

EDDA: “Amanda and Meredith were friends. She only said good things about her. They spent their time together, going to bookstores, or hanging out around town, reading and discussing books. Everyone will say that Amanda is a type of person who couldn’t hurt a fly. She couldn’t even do aggressive sports, because she doesn’t like violence. She’s affectionate with the elderly and children. She’s a kind human being.”

“The only direct contact we have now is 10 minutes every Saturday morning, in which we all try to tell her we love her and we all say “hi” quickly because there’s such little time. And then there are the letters. She’s written a lot of them to us, and we try to do the same.”

VOICE OVER: An important turning point for Amanda’s life was high school - attended at Seattle Prep, a Jesuit school attended by all the offspring of the upper middle class, which, later, would mobilize for The Cause.

We met Kris Johnson, her Literature teacher for two years, who let us see in the classroom where she taught, a letter, in very childish handwriting, that she sent from prison.

KRIS JOHNSON: “Amanda was an enthusiastic student who loved to learn..It really affected her. She sent me a lot of emails after class. She was simply excited by learning. She was fascinated by characters and people because she wanted to become a writer….as if she wanted to train for it, continuously. It is not at all possible that the person I knew in class could even THINK of the things that the media has portrayed.”

VOICE OVER: Before coming to Italy, Amanda studied at Washington University and she lived near campus. There she met and became friends with Madison Paxton, the official friend, the only one Marriot lets journalists come close to.

MADISON: “One of the reasons that we became such good friends is that we had opposite views of life and people. She’s a very trusting person, while I’m not. In the end, we balanced out each other.”

“As for her man-eater reputation, when she came to college, she had less romantic experience than the average student. In high school, she hardly went out with anyone, and in college, she had a total of two boyfriends.”

VOICE OVER: Not all of Seattle, however, is so united in their outraged defense of their famous fellow citizen. Among the despised critics of the family is Peggy Ganong, a doctoral student in French at the University, who moderates the forum “Perugia Murder File” where information is gathered about leading stories on the case.

PEGGY: “One of the things that aroused my suspicions was that the family issued a press release the day after the arrest. I found it strange- and interesting. And then I discovered that a Public Relations firm was recruited to manage the Amanda image - a firm known to use techniques, I don’t want to say unethical, but let’s say unconventional, in order to reach their objective.”

“I think that the incredibly one-sided coverage of the case in the American media is the result of this massive PR activity that cost more than a million dollars. What Marriott and the family have done was to say from the moment that the tabloids demonized Amanda, we’ve painted her as an angel. That’s why they’ve constructed an image of a typical American girl, which is probably just as false as the demonized image of her, which the tabloids have perpetuated.”

VOICE OVER: Ms. Ganong is not the only one to think that way, and to say it publicly. Among the skeptics, there’s Charles Mudede who’s in charge of the cultural pages of “The Stranger,’ a popular weekly newspaper…. We meet him at the Quarter Lounge, near his workplace.

CHARLES: “She didn’t grow up as the classic American girl. She played soccer, which isn’t a national sport here. In fact, it’s fairly non-traditional. And then, yoga, which speaks of a Far Eastern influence, rather than of praying.”

“You might expect from a classic American girl that she’d be very focused on the Christian side [of things] “”she on the other hand did a mixture of different things, typical of the liberal cosmopolitan girls of Seattle.”

PEGGY: “The reason why many of our well-known local people have mobilized in her defense, organizing fund-raising dinners, putting together groups of people on her behalf all goes back to Seattle Prep.”

“People who pay $13,000 a year to send their children to high school so they can prepare them to go to the best colleges do not want to see the value of that investment go down, as a result of that type of scandal. Seattle Prep was the school where Judge Mike Heavey’s daughter went, [a girl] who was quite friendly with Amanda. As were the children of Tom Wright. I believe worrying about saving the good name of the school is a good part of the [motivation behind the] ‘Innocentisti Movement’ in Seattle.

“Although it’s important that these influential people on her side have made a big splash, they don’t really represent the entire city.”

VOICE OVER: Anne Bremner, former prosecutor and current TV legal commentator is the spokeswoman for the Friends of Amanda, a site where counter-information regarding trial facts is continually updated.

ANNE: “An injustice in any part of the world is an injustice in all of the world. I personally felt it was important to lend a hand, to expose the absolute lack of evidence. In other words, someone who has absolutely nothing to do with this horrendous crime. What has happened since the verdict? Nothing, except to increase the passion, that much more. We will never, ever abandon Amanda.”

SUBTITLES OF STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS CONFERENCE - A REPORTER ASKS: “Today Senator Cantwell spoke of contaminated evidence”¦ of unsequestered jurors and a questionable prosecutor”¦ additionally, we’ve seen jurors wearing tri-colored sashes”¦ and there was anger in the Italian press and all this indicates that there hasn’t been a fair trial”¦and all of you in the State Department claim the opposite”¦”

VOICE OVER: In the meantime, they continue their tireless lobbying activity, recruiting the most varied of advocates. Senator Maria Cantwell has expressed such serious doubts about the judicial system, that Anti-Americanism contaminated the case, also making Hillary Clinton more aware of the case.

Fortunately, she [Hillary] was too busy dealing with Afghanistan and Iran to offer an opinion on the matter. [There are] even VIPs, like Donald Trump, who proposed a boycott of Italy, until the girl comes home.

SUBTITLE OF STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS CONFERENCE: “Italy has its own justice system, different than our own.”

VOICEOVER: No one remembers one detail—that at least Italy doesn’t have the Death Penalty.

Nor does anyone seem to remember the many cases when America made great efforts to collaborate with Italian judges, including such times as [after] the Disaster of Cermes, and the [after] the killing of Agent Nicola Calferi by [American] soldier Mario Lozano.

Posted by The 411 on 03/04/10 at 04:19 AM • Permalink for this post • Archived in News media & movies, Excellent reporting, The wider contexts, Seattle context, Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Heavey, Bremner, More hoaxers • Comments here (1)

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports From Seattle On Knoxes & Marriott PR #1

Posted by Nicki

[click for larger image]

La Repubblica’s cool and objective reporter Riccardo Staglione visited Seattle recently to meet all the parties, and he filed this balanced and unequivocating report.

Seattle, In The World Of Amanda

By Riccardo Stagliano

Seattle. The fabulous world of Amanda Knox is a catalog of goodwill skits. Amanda, whose worst fault is to trust everyone. Amanda, so sincere as to become self-damaging. More about Amanda, comforting a lonely child and pampering her old zen master. All she wants to do is work and study more and more. She finds love at a classical music concert, not at a Black Sabbath rave.

Such a mirrored biography tends to become dazzling, to the point that it seems to have been rinsed in Photoshop. Only the end doesn’t add up. A retroactive, corny and sanctifying portrait to the point that one finds it natural to look for the scriptwriter’s signature. But the end doesn’t add up.

She has been convicted of murdering someone of her same age, stabbed in the house that they shared . A devilish tail springing out of her angelic body. As if the first part of the movie had been directed by Federico Moccia [an Italian writer and movie maker specialized in corny, sentimental plots] and the second part by Dario Argento [Italian horror movies director].

At the beginning of March, the first degree judges [judges for 2009 trial] will explain in the motivations of their sentence why they believe that this 20 year old from Seattle who went to Perugia for a student exchange is guilty. The Court of Appeal judgment will confirm or deny.

Here we ‘ll talk about the environment where the girl was born and grew up, and why in her city and starting from the same premises, some people have reached opposite conclusions about her, and how this event has put the US and Italy up against each other.

This low intensity war started in newspapers. With a scandalized Timothy Egan asking on the New York Times “In which century are we? Haven’t Jeanne d’Arc, the Inquisition and witch hunts taught a couple of things to civilized nations relatively to sexual hysteria with devilish nuances?”. Needless to say [according to Egan] we are the uncivilized hysterics.

Next it was the VIP’s turn, such as tycoon Donald Trump, who has recently proposed a boycott of Italy until the girl will be freed. And politicians such as Senator Marie Cantwell, who has expressed “serious doubts on the Italian judiciary system and the circumstance of anti-americanism that may have contaminated the process” and who has tried to involved Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, luckily too busy with Afghanistan and Iran to look into it.

This is the climate and it is the second thing to be noted upon arrival in this city after the scenographic skyscraper Space Needle: the direction of the reconstruction of this nasty story, very professional and entrusted to a proven spin doctor, whose fees according to local sources are about $ 100,000 a year. David Marriott is the journalists tamer that has been managing the family’s relations with the press for two years.

His first question is if one has spoken with anyone else and if so who they are. His black list has grown long with time. In order to finish up on this list, it’s enough not to go with the official tales, or to raise doubts or point out inconsistencies.

In his posh PR offices even the paintings speak eloquently. On a poster from the 40’s a soldier warns against the risks of espionage : “Someone has talked”. There, it’s important that only authorized people speak, and that they have been instructed about what to say.

The first to arrive in the meeting room is Kurt Knox, relaxed in his black leather jacket. After about 10 minutes Edda Mellas rushes in, breathless.

Mom and Dad, separated for 20 years, seem to only have in common the white plastic bracelets claiming “free Amanda”. And some key words that we’ll hear from the mouths of the other witnesses carefully selected by the PR people. “Amanda? Her main characteristic is to always say the truth, even when it is not convenient” they say, first the father and then the mother, his eyes dry, her eyes shedding tears. It’s the woman giving more details about how Amanda cannot simply restrain from commenting if she didn’t like a dress or a hair cut , how she is not capable to say those white lies that make life easier. A problem for a shrewd manipulator such as she has been described.

In the same way, how could she be a knife wielding murderer, she who is “incapable of violence?”. She didn’t even enroll in the kickboxing course that all her friends were attending, her mother recalls. ” If she found a spider in the house what would she do?” her father asks, with the expression of one who is holding a royal flush. “Well, Amanda would never squash one”.

The third quality of Amanda that is once again discussed is her being booksmart, more comfortable with books that with real life. Is such a girl capable of killing someone? Absolutely not.

Parents are clearly doing their job, a tough job nowdays, and that deserve respect. They meet only on Saturday mornings, just for the 10 minutes weekly call from the prison. Then, they stick to the defense line agreed upon with the communication strategist, and they are very careful and ready to bite their tongue when there’s something to say about Giuliano Mignini who has already sued them for some declarations believed to be slanderous

They are emotionally and financially devastated, says Kris Johnson, who taught Amanda English at Seattle Prep, the exclusive Jesuit high school which costs about $ 20,000 a year. She is number one on Marriot’s approved list. In the tiny cafe near the school where they serve cappuccino in cups as big as soup bowls she pulls out an envelope sent from the Capanne prison and sealed with a drawing of a laughing heart.

“Do you see the handwriting? How could do someone with such a handwriting harm anybody?” . In the two pages the ex student reasons with melancholy about the grey colors of winter she sees during her daily two hours outside her cell, with many more spelling errors than what one would expect from an honor student, as she has been depicted.

But the teacher tells me instead about the boldness of some Italian males when in 1972 in Florence they were proposing her to become their umpteenth lover. It’s not a casual memory and she explains: “Italian men have strange ideas about American females”. She is thinking about the jurors, the prosecutor, the public opinion that are all seeing a witch instead of the sensitive youngster that she knows. “She reads a lot of books, she thinks a lot. She could only attend one course but she was following two. She was writing me emails to comment on the classes. It was a pleasure to teach her”

The fourth word that she introduces is the adjective that Amanda university mates will use: “trusting”, even too much. Madison Paxton is the kosher friend, the one that the careful Marriot casting has approved. I met her at the Cafe on Ave, a couple of blocks from campus, very close to the dorms where she met Amanda in 2005.

“The main difference between us, what was really fascinating is I was very wary, she was the opposite.” An attitude that during the year and a half they were socializing was never a problem. This petite photography student, with honey colored hair and wearing dark shades, seem not to possess an ounce of malice. She would seem the ideal character witness, one everybody could believe. She tells of when Amanda was waiting outside the darkroom because she was afraid to return home alone at night. She is laughing thinking about Amanda as a man eater, she only dated a couple of boys when she was in college “actually a number below the average “.

And if the Italian public have remarked how she didn’t seem contrite during the trial, it’s only because they don’t know “the girls from the North West, they are raised not to cry in public and to behave like guys”. In a letter from jail, Amanda wrote to her not to despair: “even if I’ll be locked in here until I am 46, I’ll still have a big chunk of life ahead” .

If she’ll be freed earlier, one who is ready to hire her right away is Rick Kirsten. She worked for this art gallery owner for two months. but he’s betting on her qualities, as if he has known her forever. “I put an ad, I had 31 applications and I chose her. She used to finish her work in half the time and she would ask for more. And she knew how to deal with people”. His favorite episode-that Amanda’s parents recommended he tell me is about a 8-10 years old girl that seemed to be lost in the crowd at the gallery.

“I was getting ready to go to take care of her, but a client stopped me, and Amanda was there already and the child was happily laughing.” Not to speak of Amanda’s kindness to his father, a 90 years old painter and zen meditative that was often at the gallery

The beatification front is coherent and uniform. If the tabloids, especially the British ones. depicted during the first months after the murder the image of a heartless, shrewd and bad girl, the Foxy Knoxy from MySpace, then the American counteroffensive is aiming at an immaculate picture. Amanda Santa Subito (Amanda Saint Now).

One who definitely doesn’t tolerate it, breaking the city chain of solidarity is Peggy Ganong, a doctoral student in French at the university, a translator who has lived for 20 years in Paris, she is the spoiler who has taken up the task to dismantle the “consensus machine” on her internet forum perugiamurderfile.org. “I don’t know if the girl is guilty I only know that this rabid activity of image management to bleach her reputation is not convincing, actually, it is suspicious”

[Amanda’s] family - that between airplanes, lawyers, press offices appears to have spent more than $ 1,000 000, and claims it is deep in debts - is only partially responsible for the operation, as several local potentates whose path have crossed Amanda’s in the classrooms of the Jesuit high school have taken action to defend the future possible convict. It seems that Amanda was very fond of the daughter of judge Michael Heavy. He was the first one to write an outraged letter to the Italian magistrates and to inspire the group Friends of Amanda, together with Tom Wright, a tycoon with interests in the movies industry whose children were at Seattle Prep.

“In order to defend the reputation of an institution that prepares the local ruling class” Ganong explains, “they have organized fund raisers to pay some of the costs necessary to sell the image of the typical naive American girl which, regardless of how things went, it’s totally false”.

“We are not in Wisconsin, Kansas, Georgia nor in any other puritan area of the US. The middle class here is liberal, open, cosmopolitan…. Amanda was practicing yoga, she played soccer and was studying abroad. Not really typically American, but rather a Seattle behavior”, Charles Mudede from the weekly magazine the Stranger explains: “But it was more convenient to present her like a standard girl because this would have triggered national solidarity and the suspicion derived from the ignorance that America nurtures towards everything situated outside its border”.

Thus also subduing diffidence toward that other foreign land, adolescence, that for the average American is the dungeon of evil. Mudede is not ideologically a colpevolista, he has been to Perugia, followed the case and objects to the patriotic critics against the Italian judiciary system: “They had Lumumba, a black from Congo and Amanda, a white American. If they wanted a murderer at any cost, which of the two was the easiest target?

The FOA don’t see it this way. Their spokeperson Anne Bremner, a sort of super-blond and sharpened Crudelia Demon that was a prosecutor and TV commentator, cites Martin Luther King: “An injustice in any place is a threat to justice everywhere else”. She claims that with such scarce evidence nobody would have been found guilty anywhere else in the world. She promises that they won’t stop, they will get to the White House.

Meanwhile, they keep recruiting witnesses that describe us [Italians] as the savages of jurisprudence. But have these people who are pointing their sharp little fingers ever heard of the Cermis deaths [details here], and of the US marine Lozano who killed Nicola Calipari [details here] just to name a couple of cases of “lack of judiciary collaboration between Washington and Rome”?

If there is something besides our national health service about which we do not feel inferiority complexes towards the USA it is our justice, slow, at times fallible, but at least without the death penalty. Amanda knows it and in fact she writes to her friend Madison that in the worst case she will be out by the time she is 40. Her lawyers know it too, and so do the spin doctors who hope to shake the fragile probatory evidence on appeal. For her the outcome is still to be determined.

The one for whom is definitely closed is Meredith Kercher, in this grim drama the least quoted protagonist by the Seattle guarantists.

Posted by Nicki on 03/02/10 at 06:39 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in The wider contexts, Seattle context, Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, More hoaxers • Comments here (8)

Knox PR Campaign: Have The Dishonest Talking Points Now Become A Trap?

Posted by The Machine

[David Marriott of a Seattle public relations firms]

Marriott’s dishonest campaign

David Marriott apparently manages (see sample press release) the message and media relations for the campaign to enhance Amanda Knox.

The main thrust of the PR campaign seems to be that there’s no evidence against Knox, or the evidence is tainted, they are holding the wrong person (or already have the right person), and there’s no need to have a trial… but those rascally Italians just won’t let her go.

Marriott’s nasty campaign already seems to have most of Italy backed off (the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito legal teams both included), and to have lost most of its traction in the UK and New York.

Many good PR gurus think it is very sleazy. Even in Seattle, there are now those who speak out against it.

Not exactly what we’d call a big win.

True, people accused of a cruel and depraved murder do not normally have a PR campaign making their case. Normally they have a lawyer out front - preferably a very good lawyer, who can contend with evidence as it comes out, and appear on the talk-shows and news to explain what really happened.

And true, the PR campaign was launched almost instantly after Knox had already come out with suggestive actions and statements which seem to implicate her in the crime which do not want to go away.

So the campaign was maybe handicapped right from the start.

But still, public relations guys we know are scratching their heads over this one.

Ten obvious public relations lies

Why run a campaign which, time and time again, has taken loud positions not 5 degrees away from probable truth - but a full 180 degrees away? And therefore very hard to quietly back away from?

Each of these ten false claims and mantras below - still not put to rest, although last week was not a good week for them - have been incessantly propagated, some for nearly one year.

Each of them now seems to be an albatross around the necks of the Seattle defendant and her team. The danger now is that, as the media find ONE false claim fake, they will start to question all of them, and feel that they have been lied to.

Again, not exactly what we’d call a winning stance.

False claim 1: Amanda was beaten or “smacked around” by the police during her questioning

Amanda herself may have started this false claim when explaining to family why she incriminated herself. Although Mr Knox wasn’t present when Amanda was questioned by the police, he has frequently repeated this claim when interviewed by the media.

Reality

Amanda gave two very different accounts of where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing on the night of the murder. She also accused an innocent man of Meredith’s murder.

This is highly incriminating and poses a real problem for Amanda’s defense and family and supporters.

However Amanda’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, confirmed that Amanda had not actually been beaten or “smacked around” at Rudy Guede’s fast-track trial last October: “There were pressures from the police but we never said she was hit.”

Mr Knox has not acknowledged the admission of his daughter’s counsel or apologised for accusing the Italian police of brutality. The false claim continue to mislead people, with posters on Internet website still maintaining that Amanda’s confession was beaten out of her.

False claim 2: Amanda was interrogated for 9 hours/14 hours/all night

Jon Follain in The Times quoted the parents in an interview proclaiming: “On November 6, five days after Meredith’s murder, Knox was interrogated by police for nine hours until she signed a statement at 5.45am.”

Juju Chang claimed it was “an all night interrogation” on ABC News. Jan Goodwin stated in her article in Marie Claire magazine that:“After her arrest, Amanda was detained by the police and interrogated for 14 hours.”

Mr Knox repeated the claim that Amanda’s interrogation last all night, and that it lasted 14 hours, on a recent Seattle TV station King5 interview.

Lexie Krell wrote in The UW Daily on 16 January 2009 that: “The Italian Supreme Court has already thrown out Knox’s original statement on the basis that she was denied a lawyer during her initial 14-hour interrogation.”

Reality

We know that Amanda was on the phone with one of her Italian flatmates at around 10.40pm, asking if the living arrangement could continue in spite of Meredith’s death. The police questioning had not begun then.

And according to the Italian Supreme Court, Amanda’s questioning was stopped at 1.45am when she became a suspect. So Amanda was questioned for only approximately 3 hours and then she was held as a suspect.

There never was an all-night interrogation, and it certainly was nowhere remotely near 14 hours in length.

It seems there may be a simple and straightforward explanation why Amanda suddenly admitted that she was the cottage when Meredith was murdered and implicated Lumumba:

She was informed that Raffaele Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi that she was with him all the night of the murder.

False claim 3: Knox’s confession to being at the murder scene was thrown out.

This was the spoken confession at the end of the claimed 14 hours which Knox claimed she finally came out with only because she was knocked about.

Reality

True in the narrow sense. But one of Amanda’s statements in which she admits to being at the cottage on the night of the murder was not “tossed” out by the Italian Supreme Court.

Her letter to the police is almost identical in content to the statements that were not admitted as evidence. This incriminating letter was admitted as evidence last Friday.

False claim 4: Meredith wasn’t sexually assaulted.

Jan Goodwin claimed in Marie Claire: “There is also no indication that Meredith was subjected to sexual violence”¦”

In his unprecedented letter to Italy’s justice minister, Judge Michael Heavey stated that it was not true that: “Sexual violence was perpetrated against the victim”

Jonathan Martin claimed in The Seattle Times. “An autopsy found no evidence Kercher had been raped or had sexual contact with anyone except Guede.”

Reality

Rudy Guede was found guilty of sexually assaulting Meredith on 30 October 2008. Sexually assaulting. And Judge Micheli in commiting Knox and Sollecito to trial graphically describes how the physical evidence points to a kind of gang rape.

The claim that Meredith wasn’t sexually assaulted is not only untrue, it’s deeply offensive to Meredith and her poor family. By claiming that there was no sexual assault, the likes of Judge Heavey and Jan Goodwin are insinuating that Meredith consented to sexual activity with Rudy Guede.

False claim 5: The double DNA knife has been essentially ruled out.

The DNA on the blade could belong to half of the population of Italy or there is only a 1% per cent chance that the DNA on the blade belongs to Meredith.

Reality

Forensic expert Patrizia Stefanoni has consistently maintained that Meredith’s DNA IS on the blade and Amanda’s DNA is on the handle of the knife found at Raffaele Sollecito’s apartment.

This result was confirmed as accurate and reliable by Dr Renato Biondo, who is head of the DNA Unit at Polizia Scientifica, Rome.

Patrizia Stefanoni and Dr Renato Biondo are highly respected, independent forensic experts with impeccable credentials.

False claim 6: The crime scene was totally compromised by the police or analysts

Many of Amanda Knox’s supporters who seem to have no relevant qualifications or expertise in forensic science have claimed that the crime scene was compromised or violated. One vocal supporter analysed a police break-in downstairs on TV and offered it as proof that the crime scene upstairs had been compromised.

Reality

This claim has been vigorously refuted by the forensic police. They claim that they have followed international protocols throughout. They recorded the investigation as it happened, changed tweezers when they needed to, and duly informed the defence of every finding.

Independent forensic expert Renato Biondo stated: “We are confirming the reliability of the information collected from the scene of the crime and at the same time, the professionalism and excellence of our work.”

False claim 7: The European press gave Amanda Knox the nickname Foxy Knoxy.

This is a part of the larger “UK and Italian tabloids have crucified her” meme for which actual evidence online is very hard to find..

Reality

European newspapers, including the quality newspapers, have occasionally called Amanda by the nickname she herself called herself by on her MySpace page.

False claim 8: Amanda has never ever before been in trouble

Paul Ciolino has stated: “I was stunned that this was why he suspected Amanda and her boyfriend were involved in the crime,” he says. “These two kids, never in trouble, classic middle-class college students “” it’s ludicrous that they were implicated.”

Reality

Amanda Knox was charged for hosting a party that got seriously out of hand, with students high on drink and drugs, and throwing rocks into the road forcing cars to swerve.

The students then threw rocks at the windows of neighbours who had called the police.

The situation was so bad that police reinforcements had to be called. Amanda was fined $269 (£135) at the Municipal Court after the incident - Crime No: 071830624.

Incidentally, anyone who has recently tried to gain access to the police report has been denied access. It seems strange that a police report into a “routine” incident has seemingly now been hidden from the public.

False claim 9: Amanda hasn’t lied or if she has, she has only lied once

Amanda’s mother claimed in a recent interview with Linda Byron on Seatlle TV’s King5 (6 January) that Amanda has maintained she told the same story for over a year when she was asked whether Amanda had lied. She had previously stated that Amanda had only lied once.

Reality

Amanda has given multiple alibis and told different stories repeatedly. Amanda herself apologised to Judge Paolo Micheli for lying about Diya Lumumba’s role in the murder. Amanda’s conflicting statements to the police seem to indicate that she lied to them several times.

False claim 10: The prosecutors have been widely leaking information to the media

Amanda’s family and supporters have frequently made this claim. The biological parents claimed in their interview with Linda Byron on King5 that the international media frenzy had been fed by leaks by the prosecutors.

Deanna Knox claimed on the Today Show that Amanda is the victim of an anti-American bias: “It’s because she’s an American,” she told Matt Lauer. “They don’t really like her there because she’s a pretty girl and they see her as some target that they can get to, because she’s from a different country.”

Reality

In Italy Prosecutor Mignini is widely known for not leaking. Many of the so-called leaks were information put out in the course of the many hearings. The evidence in this case has in fact long been like an iceberg - all but a tiny fraction of it has remained out of sight, as the startling revelations last Friday and Saturday went to show.

Media sources have mentioned that many of the leaks have in fact come from defence sources. Fellow TJMK poster Skeptical Bystander was offered access to Amanda’s diary, not by the prosecutors, the police or prison guards, but by somebody close to Amanda herself.

Posted by The Machine on 02/11/09 at 07:09 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Evidence & Witnesses, Questionings, Real crimescene, The two knives, Hoaxes against Italy, 4 No firm DNA hoax, 8 No motive hoax, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, 11 No court bent hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 16 Interrogation hoax, 17 Fake memory hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Heavey, Bremner, More hoaxers, Hoaxers: media groups, ABC Network • Comments here (11)

Amanda Knox Defence Team Strongly Objects To Seattle Sliming Strategy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above: Luciano Ghirga (left) and Carlo Della Vedova.

Click for a larger image. They are apparently thoroughly ticked off. Here’s our previous post on exactly what made them so ticked.

Once again, the demand from the Amanda Knox legal team goes out: Pipe down, Seattle. And give Amanda Knox a break.

Translation below by poster Kermit is of the story in today’s La Nazione

“Those American personalities are not helping Amanda”

Lawyer Ghirga: “I have spoken with Prosecutor Mignini”

by Enzo Beretta - Perugia

“There are people around the figure of Amanda who have no formal role in the student’s defence team, which is formed by myself together with my colleague Carlo Dalla Vedova.

These people are not only not helping our client in the difficult judicial process in the Corte d’Assise in which we have to defend her, but on the contrary, they are harming her judicial position.”

Luciano Ghirga, lawyer for the American accused by the prosecutor of sexually assaulting and killing Meredith Kercher with her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Hermann Guede, once again distances himself from the Stars-and-Stripes “know-it-alls” who repeatedly have tried to throw mud on the work of investigators and have even personally attacked Giuliano Mignini, head of the murder investigation.

There is strong evidence which supports the prosecution, unlike the “macaroni” pleading endlessly and one after the other on American television broadcasts, who pay lawyers, show-men and private investigators not much inclined to read the documentation.

That documentation was studied a lot by the Review and Court of Appeal judges, who confirmed preventive prison for the suspects, and the GUP Paolo Micheli, who has sentenced Rudy to thirty years in prison (with the abbreviated trial) and sent the ex-boyfriend and girlfriend to trial. This is a validation of the good work done by the investigators.

Lawyer Ghirga has not acted on a video in which the correctness of the findings of the forensic investigators is called into question, thereby attacking the protagonists of the case. But he will play his cards at the appropriate time in the trial, which resumes Friday.

“On a personal level I expressed my impressions to Dr. Mignini,” Ghirga said.

The lobbying work by Amanda’s side fits into a framework of traditional adversity by Americans when their fellow citizens are left in the hands of another country’s justice.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/03/09 at 01:23 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Various hypotheses, Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, The prosecutors, The defenses, The wider contexts, Seattle context, Hoaxes Knox & team, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, More hoaxers • Comments here (1)

Knox “Friends” Paul Ciolino & Co Smear Prosecutor Mignini As “An Out Of Control Maniac”

Posted by Peter Quennell

At the Salty’s hatefest in West Seattle, Paul Ciolino whipped up the crowd with a rant about Dr Mignini being “an out-of-control maniac”.

We see no proof. We check this whole point of view almost daily but we never, ever, ever get independent confirmation. The BBC also checked it out and found zero proof of ANY of Ciolino’s wild-eyed claims.

We are repeatedly told that Mr Mignini is tough, fair, and effective, in an Italian system of justice where things are not particularly loaded on the side of the prosecution.

And that he has the reputation of being very, very caring of the victims and their families. The Kerchers have expressed their full confidence in him.

Also that Mr Mignini’s stepping-aside would probably make just about zero difference to the momentum of the case at this point.

There seems to be just too much suggestive evidence waiting to be explained, and a dozen careful judges have endorsed it as suggestive, and the strongly dominant mood in Italy seems to be one of: let us proceed.

Amanda Knox is of course very well represented by counsel. They have already shown irritation over attacks on the prosecutor.

Calling the prosecutor a maniac sure won’t be music to their ears. Is this whole PR campaign quite loopy, or what?!

Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/25/09 at 02:44 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Various hypotheses, The officially involved, The prosecutors, The wider contexts, N America context, Hoaxes against Italy, 9 Mignini v Knox hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 20 No-PR hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Heavey, Bremner, Paul Ciolino, More hoaxers, Hoaxers from 2009, Steve Moore • Comments here (17)

Category: Hoaxes Knox & team

Demonizations By Knox: Trashing Of Many Fine Italians - But Only In English

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. Why Italians Dont Know The Real Barbaric Knox

2. Knox’s Massive Demonization Rampage

3. How Knox Falsely Accuses Italian Officials Of Crimes

4. Examples Of The UK And US Media Facilitating Knox

5. A Couple Of The Too-Few Objections From Italy

Note for Modena readers: more to come

Illustrating How Batshit Crazy The Curt Knox/David Marriott Public Relations Is Now

Posted by Chimera

I’m Marriott’s Parrot, For Now In Charge

Talking points #31779

1. This should have been an open and shut case

2. “Spider-Man” burglar Guede chose his latest target well.

3. “Spider-Man” Guede knew of marijuana growing downstairs.

4. Serial “Spider-Man” burglar Guede really is Spider-Man.

5. Rudy Guede got a break by testifying against Knox and RS

6. Guede fiendishly took a separate trial under Judge Micheli

Legal Problem For Knox: How Tough American Laws Could Wind Back Blood-Money Profits & Spendings

Posted by Our Main Posters

The 40-Plus State Son-of-Sam Laws

Son-of-Sam Laws In The News

How Son-of-Sam Laws Work

Ten Grave Weaknesses In Knox’s Position

Early Death To Any Political Support

Trashing Of Italian Justice To Bend Trial Outcomes And How The Republic Pushes Back

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. Those Who See To Trash Italian Justice

2. Trashing Of Justice In Perugia Case

3. Pushback In Meredith’s Case:

4. Pushback In Monster of Florence Case

5. Pushback In Related Cases

Contrary To Reported Claim By Amanda Knox There Is Zero “Wave Of Defamation Suits”

Posted by Peter Quennell

Alarm Bells Ignored: Overconfident PR And Lawyers May Have Led To That Shock At Cassation Outcome

Posted by Our Main Posters

In An ABC Report Did Curt Knox & Edda Mellas Just Smear The Prosecution Appeal As “Harassment”?

Posted by Peter Quennell

False Allegations Against Italian Officialdom Sparking Increasingly Tough Legal Reaction

Posted by Our Main Posters

Why The Media Are Wrong To Rely On Amanda Knox’s Family For Impartial and Accurate Information

Posted by The Machine

1 False claim-making endemic in support of Knox

2. Numerous False Knox-Family Claims

Edda Mellas on CNN’s Larry King Live

Edda Mellas On ABC TV

3. And Some Conclusions

How The Strongarm Public Relations Resulted in Most Of The Media Getting It Wrong

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. Underperforming Media

2. Knox PR Chief Corrupter

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports From Seattle On Knoxes & Marriott PR #2

Posted by The 411

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports From Seattle On Knoxes & Marriott PR #1

Posted by Nicki

Knox PR Campaign: Have The Dishonest Talking Points Now Become A Trap?

Posted by The Machine

Marriott’s dishonest campaign

Ten obvious public relations lies

False claim 1: Amanda was beaten or “smacked around” by the police during her questioning

False claim 2: Amanda was interrogated for 9 hours/14 hours/all night

False claim 3: Knox’s confession to being at the murder scene was thrown out.

False claim 4: Meredith wasn’t sexually assaulted.

False claim 5: The double DNA knife has been essentially ruled out.

False claim 6: The crime scene was totally compromised by the police or analysts

False claim 7: The European press gave Amanda Knox the nickname Foxy Knoxy.

False claim 8: Amanda has never ever before been in trouble

False claim 9: Amanda hasn’t lied or if she has, she has only lied once

False claim 10: The prosecutors have been widely leaking information to the media

Amanda Knox Defence Team Strongly Objects To Seattle Sliming Strategy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Knox “Friends” Paul Ciolino & Co Smear Prosecutor Mignini As “An Out Of Control Maniac”

Posted by Peter Quennell

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