Continuation Part 15: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

There's ROLLING STONE for a start. written exclusively from Amanda's PR company's POV.

Tell me, why did Amanda hire a PR company?

I asked for proof of your claim it was deliberately censored.

 

[Kauffer]

Janovic (_?) was not Polish, she was Serbian or Croatian.

The time she arrived at Raf's can only be an estimate, because who looks at their watch for the exact time and remembers it, especially a couple of days later?

? Let me put it another way in order to remove the possibility of further diversions and obfuscations:

Please cite, specifically the evidence, from its source, that Amanda was seen leaving Raffaele's flat at 8:40, which is the substantive claim you make, so we may consider it.

 

[Vixen]

There are no facts supporting Amanda being at the cottage between 8:45 and 8:50 or at any other time that evening. You've been citing non existent evidence in previous posts to arrive at an erroneous conclusion. You have Amanda sprinting to the cottage immediately after meeting Popovich! It's a fantasy.

A young woman running through the busy streets of Perugia on the night of the murder is something there would have been multiple witnesses for, it seems to me.

Here's research from TJMK. IIRC Raf's abode is no more than ten minutes walk, so going back and forth wouldn't be arduous.

--------||

20:18:12: Amanda receives the SMS sent to her by Patrick Lumumba, which let her off from having to go to work at the ‚Le Chic‛ pub on the evening of 1 November. At the time of reception the phone connected to the cell on Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3, whose signal does not reach Raffaele Sollecito’s house. The young woman was therefore far [i.e. absent] from Corso Garibaldi 30 when the SMS reached her, as she was walking in an area which was shown to be served by the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 cell. This point of her route could correspond to Via U. Rocchi, to Piazza Cavallotti, to Piazza IV Novembre, bearing in mind that Lumumba’s pub is located in Via Alessi, and that Amanda Knox would have had to travel along the above-mentioned roads and the piazza in order to reach the pub

AKP− 20.35.48 Amanda sent an SMS in reply to Patrick, at No. 338-7195723; the message was sent when the young woman’s mobile phone was in Corso Garibaldi 30 or in the immediate neighbourhood. The cell used, in fact, was that of Via Berardi sector 7 − no other [use] was shown for the

day of 1.11.07, noting that Amanda declared during hearings that she had switched her mobile phone off once she had returned 323 to Raffaele’s house, since she was more than happy she did not have to go to work and could spend the evening with her boyfriend.]

----------

 

[Numbers]

.....

Claiming Dr Stefanoni is corrupt and set out to criminally, as a cop, to fake DNA evidence is scurrilous, yet posters here, whom I assume are intelligent and enquiring swallow this character assassination of the Italian police without question.

....

Regarding the efforts of Patrizia Stefanoni (not the recipient of a doctoral degree, but a graduate of the equivalent of a four-year college education), there is the following list of her "accomplishments" in this case:

The Seventeen-Plus Forensic Science Sins of Patrizia Stefanoni

There was a pattern of misconduct and malpractice by Patrizia Stefanoni and the Italian Scientific Police in their forensic investigation of the murder and rape of Meredith Kercher, and the trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, who were charged with those crimes.

The pattern of misconduct and malpractice included investigations in Patrizia Stefanoni's laboratory, the treatment of evidence, and her court testimony. She ignored and violated numerous essential technical standards for forensic science investigation, violated fundamental standards of ethical behavior, and produced invalid conclusions that contradicted logic and well-known scientific principles.

Stefanoni's misconduct and malpractice resulted in violations of the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 6, right to a fair trial, by Italy, including but not necessarily limited to, the failure to provide adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense (Art. 6.3b) and the failure to provide equality of arms to the defense (Art. 6.1).

Here is a summary.

1. Stefanoni failed - indeed, refused repeated requests - to turn over a copy of the best evidence of the DNA profiling investigation, the raw data, called electronic data files (EDFs), to the defense;

2. She suppressed numerous results, including potential exculpatory findings; these include blood stains from the downstairs flat, the full results of the rape kit, and results of tests on the putative semen stain on the pillow;

3. She destroyed evidence, in particular the bra clasp, preventing any DNA profile retest;

4. She entered false reports of data into her reports (RTIGF #1 & #2);

5. She committed perjury, for example, regarding the amount of DNA in the knife blade sample and that RT-PCR was used to quantify that DNA;

6. She delayed providing the minimal DNA data that was given to the defense until late in the trial;

7. She did not reveal in a timely manner to the defense and the court that TMB tests were done and precluded the presence of blood in the luminol foot print hits attributed to Amanda Knox;

8. She and her forensic police team mishandled specimen collection, in particular by swabbing large areas, failing to change gloves, failing to used DNA-free forceps for holding specimens, and by handling DNA specimens with dirty gloves;

9. She and her forensic police team mishandled chain-of-custody, specifically by repackaging the knife from Sollecito's kitchen in a police station without proper control against contamination;

10. She repeated tests that were conducted in secret (as deduced from irregularities in test sample numbering), to obtain false inculpatory results, for the kitchen knife and bra clasp;

11. She apparently manipulated positive control samples in the RT-PCR quantification to obtain high intercept levels probably in order to make unknown DNA samples appear more highly concentrated than they truly were;

12. She used the Qubit fluorometer to quantify DNA concentration in samples without having validated the equipment and procedure;

13. She arbitrarily used certain specimens registering "too low" for DNA concentration on the Qubit fluorometer for DNA profiling, and apparently not others, in a suspect-centered manner, violating good forensic practice. A reading of "too low" with the Qubit may mean there is actually no DNA present;

14. She attempted to conduct LCN DNA profiling in a method she had "invented" without validating the method;

15. She attempted to conduct LCN DNA profiling in a lab not adequately set up to prevent contamination, and thus inherently unsuited for LCN DNA profiling, which is highly sensitive to low concentrations of DNA;

16. She stated in court testimony that she had never been told of a contamination incident in her lab, however, the data she gave to the defense shows several incidents of contamination;

17. She did not supply records of methodology and quality control (such as rate of contamination and corrective measures) nor provide profiles of blank and positive control specimens to the defense, such records and control profiles are ordinarily and necessarily part of a report from a forensic DNA profiling lab;

18. She did not call out all the DNA alleles and profiles detectable on the bra clasp, instead only identifying the victim and one of the suspects (Sollecito), while DNA from several other males was detectable (indicating that the bra clasp had been contaminated).

19. Presented conclusions from the DNA data contrary to reasonable forensic science practice because of the absence of replication and the presence of contamination.

 

[anglolawyer]

'Research from TJMK' is an oxymoron and I'm not sure about the 'oxy' part.

 

[Grinder]

Grinder,

I have no reason to doubt that Dr. Potenza was present when he said he was. However, your question is unanswerable, for the reasons that Numbers gave.

Numbers comment has nothing to do with what I'm asking. As I responding to N I'm well aware of the records/files needed but my sole question was about the attendance of the defense at the test of the knife in Nov. of 2007.

I'm not doubting Potenza but the report of his does not say anything about witnessing the test.

As the quote from the trial report of Barbie indicates the defense wasn't at the test which is exactly what I remember.

What is the point of having an expert at the test? One would think that had he witnessed the way Stef did it he would have made that a very specific part of his report and that the PR Supertanker would have immediately gone ballistic and peppered the media with this outrageous testing.

It isn't a big deal and I was reminded of it by the comments about the defense never protesting that she found Mez's DNA. I don't believe the "too low" came out for years after the test. Also the dates of testing should have been known to the defense if they were there.

 

[Grinder]

From http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/raffaeles-kitchen-knife/:

Massei Trial

In what would be a Brady violation in the US, Stefanoni testified before the defense had discovery of her testing procedures and lab data. On May 23, 2009 Stefanoni now said couldn’t remember how much DNA was on the knife (see testimony below). On July 18, 2009 Judge Massei ordered the prosecution to turn over all of the lab work documentation with the prosecution objecting. On July 30, 2009 the prosecution produced the Stato Avanzamento Lavori (SAL) and Quantification Report giving the defense 7 weeks to prepare a response before the trial resumed.

On September 14, the lawyers and Sollecito defense consultant, Professor Tagliabracci, showed the Polizia Scientifica RTIGF Report was either falsified and/or marked incorrectly and large amounts of data was still missing including lab work relating to Rudy Guede. The documents were 300 pages of not numbered photocopies and revealed Sample B was approximately 5 picograms and it failed to register for quantification in the Qubit Fluorometer (‘too low’). [6] [7] On October 9, the defense filed a request for independent experts under the provisions of Article 507 of the Criminal Procedure Code which the court denied. [8] The trial concluded with a guilty verdict without Stefanoni having to answer a single question about what her lab work really showed.

The American Bar Association Standards on DNA Evidence: “the prosecutor must disclose evidence or information that would prove the innocence of the defendant or would enable the defense to more effectively impeach the credibility of government witnesses”.

ETA: The ECHR would consider the denial of this information to the defense a violation of Convention Article 6b as a denial of "adequate...facilities required for the preparation of ... [the] defense".

ETA2: ECHR in its case-law has used language very similar to that of the ABA. The denial of facilities by the court or prosecution to the defense, which impedes the ability of the defense to prove the defendant innocent, or to impeach prosecution witnesses, including experts, or call into question any prosecution evidence or theory, renders a trial unfair under Convention Article 6.

Volumes but not an answer to my question. So from your complete post it is clear they garnered next to nothing if they were in fact in attendance.

 

[Kauffer]

Being found Guilty in a court of law, whether rightly or wrongly, is NOT the definition an "unfair trial". The trial was very public, with hundreds of journalists.

I haven't seen a single report of an unfair trial, apart from by the defense, who are paid to say whatever it takes.

It really is a shame that in the USA, only carefully censored reports have been published.

I am afraid you do not understand the issues pertaining to the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR. They are not what you think they are:

Firstly, fair trial rights extend before trial to procedural matters. Thus, failure to provide a lawyer, an independent interpreter, respect the right to silence of a suspect and not to have statements made in lawyerless interrogations used against you, are examples of violations of that right.

Additionally, a lack of discovery of evidence from prosecutor to defence is also an example of a violation of the right to a fair trial feeding in, under the same article, to the principle of "equality of arms" in the adversarial environment of the court room. Another potentially relevant factor in this case would be the excessive length of proceedings.

You can read more about this here:

http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Guide_Art_6_ENG.pdf

Merely because a trial was "very public, with hundreds of journalists" does not make it fair.

Clearer?

Your last sentence is utterly, jaw droppingly silly. Who on earth are you accusing of censoring media reports? Did they censor the Internet? My observations are that the American posters on this forum have been able to access exactly the same information as Brits like me and Italians. What evidence do you have that this is not the case? Please point to examples of censored material.

 

[carbonjam72]

Janovic (_?) was not Polish, she was Serbian or Croatian.

The time she arrived at Raf's can only be an estimate, because who looks at their watch for the exact time and remembers it, especially a couple of days later?

Curatolo? Quintavale?

 

[Grinder]

Janovic (_?) was not Polish, she was Serbian or Croatian.

The time she arrived at Raf's can only be an estimate, because who looks at their watch for the exact time and remembers it, especially a couple of days later?

Popovic - Serbian - went over after her class ended at 8:20.

 

[Numbers]

Volumes but not an answer to my question. So from your complete post it is clear they garnered next to nothing if they were in fact in attendance.

I am unsure if Stefanoni allowed them to see exactly how she had performed certain operations, such as the DNA quantification using the Qubit fluorometer. I suspect she would not show this, since she had perjured herself in court by stating that the knife blade samples were quantified by Real Time q-PCR when they were actually done by Qubit.

For defense experts attending Stefanoni's lab, or even an honest lab, understanding everything happening may be like a physicist trying to understand a magician's trick by watching a performance from the audience. You need to look very closely at each step - including where you "shouldn't be" and under the table and in the coat pockets, etc. This is best done for lab work with all the data and procedures given in writing.

 

[Grinder]

Curatolo? Quintavale?

Yeah but they didn't remember a couple of days later. It took them months

 

[Kauffer]

Here's research from TJMK. IIRC Raf's abode is no more than ten minutes walk, so going back and forth wouldn't be arduous.

--------||

20:18:12: Amanda receives the SMS sent to her by Patrick Lumumba, which let her off from having to go to work at the ‚Le Chic‛ pub on the evening of 1 November. At the time of reception the phone connected to the cell on Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3, whose signal does not reach Raffaele Sollecito’s house. The young woman was therefore far [i.e. absent] from Corso Garibaldi 30 when the SMS reached her, as she was walking in an area which was shown to be served by the Via dell’Aquila 5-Torre dell’Acquedotto sector 3 cell. This point of her route could correspond to Via U. Rocchi, to Piazza Cavallotti, to Piazza IV Novembre, bearing in mind that Lumumba’s pub is located in Via Alessi, and that Amanda Knox would have had to travel along the above-mentioned roads and the piazza in order to reach the pub

AKP− 20.35.48 Amanda sent an SMS in reply to Patrick, at No. 338-7195723; the message was sent when the young woman’s mobile phone was in Corso Garibaldi 30 or in the immediate neighbourhood. The cell used, in fact, was that of Via Berardi sector 7 − no other [use] was shown for the

day of 1.11.07, noting that Amanda declared during hearings that she had switched her mobile phone off once she had returned 323 to Raffaele’s house, since she was more than happy she did not have to go to work and could spend the evening with her boyfriend.]

----------

This nonsense doesn't even pretend to address the issue of proof of Amanda being at the cottage at the time you stated.

You have, you said evidence that Amanda was seen leaving Raffaele's flat at 8:40, close to the time she would have met Popovich. So, you will agree with me that this is later in the timeline than the 8:18 and 8:35 entries.

Where is the evidence she was seen leaving Raffaele's flat at 8:40?

 

[Grinder]

I am unsure if Stefanoni allowed them to see exactly how she had performed certain operations, such as the DNA quantification using the Qubit fluorometer. I suspect she would not show this, since she had perjured herself in court by stating that the knife blade samples were quantified by Real Time q-PCR when they were actually done by Qubit.

For defense experts attending Stefanoni's lab, or even an honest lab, understanding everything happening may be like a physicist trying to understand a magician's trick by watching a performance from the audience. You need to look very closely at each step - including where you "shouldn't be" and under the table and in the coat pockets, etc. This is best done for lab work with all the data and procedures given in writing.

No it's like a magician that knows the tricks watching a magician . Once again what is the point of paying an experts big money? Please tell me what they did report from the totally bogus test and finding. Did they know how many pgs?

The reports I've read of the tests that were observed in C&V's work it seems they do explain the steps.

If they didn't notice that the "sample" needed to be amplified too many times and none was left for another test then why be there.

 

[Sonia]

Early police investigations show a belief...

Police beliefs are worthless. What matters is the evidence uncovered by their investigations.

A valuable investigation of a serious crime consists of thorough police work, including scrupulous gathering and analysis of physical evidence, extensive interviews with all possible associates of victims and suspects, conscientious recording of all interrogations, instant acquisition and study of all CCTV footage from the area (public and private), expert preservation and examination of all personal technology and media (laptops, cameras, email, and so on), and all the other procedures police investigators are trained to follow.

One of the most important aspects of a valuable investigation is a willingness to follow the evidence. The investigators can believe whatever they want, but they have to go wherever the evidence leads. They must not stick stubbornly to irrational beliefs unproved by evidence, much less leak a tsunami of unsupported beliefs and falsehoods to muckraking journalists, hoping to poison public opinion with their beliefs.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

the prosecution is playing deuces wild

Numbers comment has nothing to do with what I'm asking. As I responding to N I'm well aware of the records/files needed but my sole question was about the attendance of the defense at the test of the knife in Nov. of 2007.

I'm not doubting Potenza but the report of his does not say anything about witnessing the test.

Grinder,

I am a little pressed for time, but I would like to make several quick points. One is that we will have to agree to disagree slightly about the quoted passages. I think that they imply his attendance, but I acknowledge some ambiguity. Two without full and complete disclosure, there is no way to know with certainty on which dates certain electropherograms were produced (I believe that this is what Numbers was implying, but I am open to being corrected). As you know, several of us have argued that disclosure has been far from complete. In other words Potenza may well have been present on 12 November, but that is no guarantee. And three, my reservations are even greater with respect to the bra clasp.

 

[Vixen]

Read the housekeepers testimony about when the bleach was purchased and what was left when she took maternity leave. Also watch the video. I have an index of what it shows and transcriptions of the receipts found. But you need to watch the whole video yourself.

Provide the link, and I'll look at it again.

 

[Vixen]

It is not conjecture, it is a police opinion:



As a member of MENSA, do you think media opinion trumps actual trial transcripts?

My view is, court transcripts are limited to what the prosecution and defense choose to submit. After that's been submitted, neither side gives up "the agreed script".

Quality newspaper / documentary reports add flesh to the bone, and we get an overview all the stuff that is left out.

 

[Dougm]

No, you are not talking about a tabloid newspaper here. Sure BBC or the TIMES get it wrong, but not often, as the journos are trained to check their sources thoroughly, and it's run past the lawyers.

Their reporting was repeatedly and provably inaccurate. Not just the tabloids, but the other press as well. If they "check their sources thoroughly", why were so many of the things they wrote later proven inaccurate?

The British press has no particular affiliation to Italy. In fact, Berlusconi was portrayed as a bit of a clown.

They had no motive to write deliberately untrue articles.

I don't think they did it on purpose, they just assumed the info they were being fed was accurate.

In the USA it is a fact articles had to be vetted by Amanda's PR company, Gogerty Marriott, now defunct, before consent to interviews were given.

It is no surprise Americans are "convinced" there is "no evidence", as they have been censored from reading about the solid forensic evidence.

This is a lie. Please provide even one USA journalist that ever said their writing was "vetted" by Gogerty Marriott. Do you even know what PR firms do? Obviously not. No legitimate journalist in any country would allow a PR firm to "vet" what they report.

Claiming Dr Stefanoni is corrupt and set out to criminally, as a cop, to fake DNA evidence is scurrilous, yet posters here, whom I assume are intelligent and enquiring swallow this character assassination of the Italian police without question.

People here follow the facts. Just watch the bra clasp collection video, for example. It is very hard to believe, after watching "not really a doctor" Stefanoni and her crew pick up the clasp, hand it back and forth, put it back on the ground, pick it up again, all while posing for the video cameras, that this was not a staged event, with total disreguard for proper evidence collection procedures. At the very least, they didn't know or didn't care what DNA would end up being found on the clasp. Fair minded people see evidence like this, and it is hard to not come to the conclusion that something very wrong was going on with Stef's process.

Do you find that to be correct evidence collection procedure, that would be followed by a fair minded forensic expert? If you do, you are in the minority.

When confronted with the facts, cognitive dissonance sets in, and we see a whole load of rationalisation going on to justify patently untenable beliefs.

Cut out that last comment and paste it to your mirror.

 

[Grinder]

Grinder,

I am a little pressed for time, but I would like to make several quick points. One is that we will have to agree to disagree slightly about the quoted passages. I think that they imply his attendance, but I acknowledge some ambiguity. Two without full and complete disclosure, there is no way to know with certainty on which dates certain electropherograms were produced (I believe that this is what Numbers was implying, but I am open to being corrected). As you know, several of us have argued that disclosure has been far from complete. In other words Potenza may well have been present on 12 November, but that is no guarantee. And three, my reservations are even greater with respect to the bra clasp.

As I said before this isn't a big deal and clearly getting all the data files etc. is more important. My question goes to questions of if and when the defense knew about her procedures. I still think that had any expert witnessed the process and if it was as bad as we all think, it raises the question why we didn't hear about this immediately.

For this question the files aren't central but the facts of when and at what tests the defense was and wasn't present is