Newsweek Reports On Damage From Knox/Marriott Campaign To Knox Interests & US Image
Click above for Barbie Nadeau’s new report.
Only Newsweek, the ABC News website, the Daily Beast, and Seattle PI among the American media have reporters in Italy telling us how it really is.
A pity. Perhaps the five main American TV networks and the press services and main newspapers like the New York Times should charter an aircraft, and go check out the major distaste that is now being expressed across all the Italian media, and among the Italian public generally to the nasty misinformed Knox campaign.
This campaign is now being waged by EIGHT conspiracy-theory websites and in a gullible mainstream media by sock-puppets like the increasingly hapless Steve Moore and Michael Scadron, whose Facebook friends seem to be all Knox family and other sock-puppets (he forgets to mention that).
We have already reported one reaction to the ill-informed claims of Steve Moore, and our own posters and other contacts in Italy and our own daily reading of the Italian media suggest that Newsweek here is if anything downplaying the distaste being evoked.
Amanda Knox must surely cringe every time she hears that another vocal supporter in the United States has taken up her cause.
Knox does not ask for this kind of attention. Instead, prison guards and inmates say she bides her time behind bars studying and reading, careful not to say anything that would be held against her during her appeal, scheduled to begin later this fall. It will be heard by a new judge and jury who have not been protected from the firestorm around her case, so anything she says publicly could be construed as criticism against the system she is hoping will free her.
She has a job in the prison commissary, taking orders and delivering goods to prisoners in her wing. She is a “model prisoner,” according to Bernardina di Mario, director of Capanne. “She does nothing to stir things up. She just keeps to herself.”
The same can not be said for her supporters. Even the most banal headlines in the United States claiming miscarriages of justice and maltreatment of Knox are inevitably translated, along with snide comments defending the Italian system that impute to the American press a sense of American supremacy.
Since her arrest in November 2007 and conviction in December 2009, Knox supporters have repeatedly condemned everyone involved in the case who does not believe in wholeheartedly in her innocence. Knox’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, ridiculed the ruling judge’s conviction reasoning as a “fictional novel” and a support group called Friends of Amanda regularly called the chief prosecutor “mentally unstable” throughout the trial.
In the wake of the verdict last December, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington (Knox’s home state) promised to get Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to extradite the young American home from Italy (Clinton has said she will not intervene), and Donald Trump has even boycotted Italy and its products.
“Amanda has become an affair of the state,” wrote La Repubblica months before the verdict. “Italy blames the American conspiracy.”
Newsweek tried checking out what investigations if any were done by Steve Moore (who, as the post below shows, still seems blissfully unaware of the minefield that is the Massei Report) and they came up with this.
And most recently, retired FBI agent Steve Moore accused the Italians of “manipulating evidence to make Knox look guilty” based on an “independent investigation” he conducted using what he calls “raw materials.” When asked by NEWSWEEK, neither the Italian state forensic department, the coroner who conducted the autopsies on Kercher, nor the homicide squad in Perugia had been contacted by Moore for original reports and documents, calling into question just where Moore’s “raw materials” came from.
And Amanda Knox herself and her lawyers repeatedly undercut, contradict and distance themselves from the campaign.
Various times throughout her yearlong trial in 2009, the prosecutor and members of the jury told NEWSWEEK they were “offended” by American criticism of the case. At the time of her verdict last December, when many Americans were shouting about what they saw as an unfair conviction, Knox herself felt compelled to tell a member of Italian Parliament that she was actually treated fairly, in part to appease the Italians and, according to her lawyers who defended her comments, to protect herself. “I still have faith in the Italian justice system,” she told Walter Verini, a member of Italy’s center-left government. “My rights were respected.”
Despite the heavy criticism from abroad, Knox’s own Italian lawyers have never been part of the frenzy and have repeatedly had to distance themselves from most of the most vocal voices. “There has been a lot of criticism of this case in America, but it is important to remember that no one speaks for Amanda except her lawyers here in Italy,” says her Perugian lawyer, Luciano Ghirga. “The Americans do not represent her here in Perugia, nor does the constant criticism represent her own views.”
So. Over to you, Ted Simon and David Marriott, to try to apply the brakes on this runaway train.
And please insist that EVERYONE including Steve Moore (if we are to actually hear from him again) knows the Massei Report back-to-front before attempting any new spin.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/16/10 at 01:42 PM in
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By Storm Roberts (Innai)
Luckily for Amanda Knox the Italian Judicial system is a very fair and balanced system and although the judges and lay-judges will probably have seen some of this “reporting” I have confidence that they will try her on the facts and the facts alone.
I do feel for her legal team - they have a job to do and they do not need to have to field this kind of nonsense as well. Mr. Ghirga and Mr. dalla Vedova are an excellent legal team and will ensure that Knox has a proper defence.
Amanda Knox does not need ill-informed “reporting”, it does her no good this much is crystal clear - why it continues is anybody’s guess.
Posted by Nolongeramember on 09/16/10 at 04:52 PM | #
I agree Innai, so why have the parents of Amanda Knox given this man (and every other talking head for that matter) their blessing?
Have they ignored all legal counsel right from the beginning of this case?
Posted by Black Dog on 09/16/10 at 05:43 PM | #
I think the Knox family PR campaign has snowballed and become such an important part of their lives they can’t put it down. Now it’s an obsession.
They got on TV, were minor celebs and felt special. Now it’s over but they want that feeling again and again.
Let Knox do her time. (Anyone else feel it’s probably doing her good to be away from the influence of her parents?)
Posted by lilly on 09/16/10 at 06:41 PM | #
You are so right, Lilly! I feel the same, she is in a place where she can find who SHE is, what she did and how to put her life together and face the truth, something her parents were never capable of.
Edda the drama queen, Curt who tries to forget he wasn’t there are fare enough for her to decide who she wants to be. I hope, at least!
Posted by Patou on 09/16/10 at 06:52 PM | #
It’s interesting as you say Peter with regards to Facebook.
I just looked at Edda Mellas’s friends and Steve Moore is listed.
It gives the lie that he’s come into this as a neutral interested in what he perceives as justice.
Posted by Black Dog on 09/16/10 at 09:14 PM | #
Anyone seen this article?
One of her former cellmates has written an e-book about her. Everyone seems to be joining the circus these days!
Posted by Mo-in-Mass.,USA on 09/17/10 at 02:08 AM | #
I have the feeling that the PR campaign is now more about the parents then it is about setting the public image of Amanda Knox “straight”. We cannot be sure if Amanda Knox is still hoping her parents will get her out of prison with these tactics and hollow promises or not. Her information about what is going on outside the prison walls is probably somewhat limited. Nonetheless I believe that Edda Mellas and Curt Knox are not only trying to line their pockets by giving one interview after the other, they are also trying to sell the image of the happy functional family that the whole world by now doubt they ever were. That seems to be their biggest concern, their very own public image. It is not so much about Amanda anymore, it is about the family suffering and their story. Amanda Knox and her conviction have become peripheral. This is the main reason in my opinion why they haven’t listened to Amanda’s lawyers (what kind of parents would ignore their daughter’s lawyers advice anyway?), it is not about Amanda anymore (if it ever was).
I also agree with Lilly and Patou that they love the spotlight and their little celebrity status too much to let go.
I would like to know what happened to Curt Knox? Did he find a new job or does he manages to live from the donations? This alone I find scandalous as it seems obvious they are getting paid for interviews and tv appearances. What about the donations? Don’t they have to disclose how much they have received in donations and for what exactly they are using the money? I found that always suspicious that no information was released.
Regarding Amanda Knox herself and her behaviour in prison, I must admit, I am unimpressed. She is not the first murderer who turns out to be a “model prisoner”. It doesn’t say anything about her remorse or her ability for rehabilitation. That she works in prison is not a surprise either, once in prison you’d probably do everything to escape boredom. I remember having read that Jeffrey Dahmer was a “model prisoner” as well, so was Susan Atkins.
Posted by Nell on 09/17/10 at 03:41 AM | #
Our Italian posters don’t entirely agree with all the points in the article. Other than one of distaste by the media and public, they expect no material reaction to the campaign at all. The appeal will get some play in Italy but Knox is clearly considered guilty and mostly the Italian public has moved on to other things.
They can’t see any Italian judges ever being influenced, either previously (as with the denial of house arrest - there were strong psychological and flight-risk grounds for that) or in the future (they have the Massei report and the many thousands of pages and exhibits the report repeatedly refers to, which the Knox campaign have still not awakened to).
We have posted at least twice (here and here) on the fierce independence of the Italian judiciary. In the face of the increasingly muddled and detached-from-reality campaign, that certainly isn’t going to melt any time soon.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/17/10 at 05:54 AM | #
By Storm Roberts (Innai)
Just as Judge Massei had to compile his report of the first trial the appeal Judge will have to produce a report explaining the appeal judgement. The document will set out the facts upon which the court’s conclusions are based. It will be perfectly clear how the court reached it’s decisions - just as it is clear how the judgement in the first trial was reached because of the Massei Report. And any “noise” from America will not have an effect on the fact and evidence based judgement.
Posted by Nolongeramember on 09/17/10 at 01:01 PM | #
I agree with Nell, Lilly and Patou that the spotlight has become addictive to the Knox/Mellas camp, particularly to Edda, the drama queen. It seems that they are trying to prove to the world that they are not the lax parents that we know them to be. Amanda has become their cash cow - - the gift that keeps on giving. Shame on them!
Posted by Mo-in-Mass.,USA on 09/17/10 at 01:38 PM | #
The latest revelations about Bethany Storro have something of a parallel to Knox. Both (clearly) deeply disturbed young women. Storro didn’t physically hurt anyone but herself, but when it was first alleged that Storro inflicted the injuries on herself, her mother protested: “there’s no way she would ever do anything like this”.
Then Storro admitted that she did.
Innai, you raise a good point about Knox’s “model prisoner” status. Charles Manson is apparently a “model prisoner”, too. I think Knox knows she’s where she belongs. It’s true that SOME convicted murderers do kill in prison, but most don’t, and if Knox is behaving herself behind bars, that has no bearing at all on her guilt or innocence.
Posted by Janus on 09/17/10 at 01:52 PM | #
9/17/10
It’s a feint to distract from Massei Report. Moore is too little too late, and everybody the Knox/Mellas clan hired to help has been a disaster. They should have given that $1 million to Seattle Prep or local soup kitchen for better results.
OT
Candace book, p. 92 mentions after Meredith’s murder “Filomena was staying at her boyfriend Marco’s place; Laura, with a friend named Maurizio Pace, just a temporary arrangement.” Maybe that’s where the Marie Pace came from, a place of haven. Amanda always did admire Laura, and left her room intact.
Posted by Hopeful on 09/18/10 at 01:28 AM | #
Scott Peterson, on death row for the murder of his wife and child in San Quentin Prison, California, is also supposed to be a model prisoner:
“Scott’s a model prisoner,” says San Francisco Bay Area criminal defense attorney Paula Canny, who gets updates about him from her clients in San Mateo. “He’s not a discipline problem. He’s actually a favorite of the guards’. They like him…”
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20147202,00.html
Posted by giustizia on 09/19/10 at 02:51 AM | #
Another one gets outed in the wake of the Amanda Knox cavalcade of stars!! If nothing else, we have Amanda to thank (or perhaps her parents) for exposing all the “bugiardi” - - - - Moore, Bremner, Heavey, Dempsey, et al - - - As they say, “And the hits just keep on comin’!!!!!! LOL
Posted by Mo-in-Mass.,USA on 09/20/10 at 01:53 AM | #
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