Continuation Part Six: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Grinder]

Scenario A is that the knife had startch on it as it was used to cut bread.

What is your evidence for Scenario B - how did it become contaminated with startch?

Remember - "from gloves" doesn't cut it - you have to show the exact route of contamination, under your own rules and the SCC rules.

Simple. They killed Meredith with it. They cleaned it. They then used it to cut bread or pasta.

For me the oddest thing is that Raf's DNA isn't on it.

 

[Grinder]

Not frame but investigating with tunnel vision.

The "tunnel vision" would include Patrick committing the murder and most likely with his own knife or one from the cottage.

So you're saying that they never thought Patrick had anything to do with the murder and that they didn't think the "I'll see you very soon" meant anything but it would be good to arrest him?

Mach can you explain why they didn't test other knives or did they?

 

[LondonJohn]

I found some interesting information about the animation company, Nventa, and it appears they may be involved in the hallway wiretap business.

Here is an English translation of a 2011 talian newspaper report about a dispute involving Nventa and the Prosecutor of Perugia's office. Nventa protested the unfairness of a bidding competition run the the Prosecutor of Perugia office for the installaton of "hallway wiretaps".

You may see the English translation of the Italian newspaper article at the following link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.giornaledellumbria.it/article/intercettazioni-bocciate-gara-illecita&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522nventa%2522%2Bgps%2Bitaly%26start%3D30%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_enUS378US379%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D667

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well............

It turns out that the company in question, nventa id, is primarily in the business of monitoring/surveillance of telephone lines and internet activities. Its website, http://nventaid.it/, states explicitly that the company's core activity is wiretapping and other types of remote electronic surveillance, and that it works closely and extensively with Italian police forces and judiciary departments in this respect.

Its "3D crime video reconstruction" service is only listed secondarily - it's beyond doubt that the core competency of this company is wiretapping.

So I'm going to postulate a number of things:

1) It's.....shall we say..... far from unlikely that both Comodi and Mignini had an extensive pre-existing relationship with nventa id, owing to contracting them to undertake phone/internet tapping work in the past.

2) It's not implausible to suggest that Comodi (and/or Mignini) were made aware of the option of the production of this animation video by nventa id personnel, e.g: "Hey Manuela, maybe an animated video would be helpful for you to used in court - we can do that for you, you know!".

3) The strong possibility (in my opinion) of an extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and nventa id makes the possibility of malpractice in regard to the video animation significantly higher than it would have been if Comodi/Mignini had had little or no prior contact with the company.

4) It also perhaps helps explain (together with point 2 above) why the video animation work never went out to tender.


As I said in a previous post, the apparent quality (i.e. risibly basic quality) and duration (i.e. under a minute) of the animation that nventa id delivered leaves me in virtually no doubt that the work was massively price-inflated. And if that's the case, the obvious consequent question is this: who stood to gain from such a huge overpricing? Just nventa id and its employees/officers? Or anyone on the "client side" as well........?

 

[Strozzi]

For me the oddest thing is that Raf's DNA isn't on it.

Grinder. There is a simple explanation why Raffaele's DNA is not on the starch-contaminated knife. He probably doesn't eat bread. He must be on a gluten-free diet.

 

[LondonJohn]

Simple. They killed Meredith with it. They cleaned it. They then used it to cut bread or pasta.

For me the oddest thing is that Raf's DNA isn't on it.

D'oh! It's because Luciferina Knox not only held and used the knife during the murder, but it was she alone who undertook the duty of scrubbing it with bleach (somehow leaving some DNA intact bang in the middle of the blade....) then introducing some random starch grains to the cleaned knife, then putting it back into Sollecito's drawer. I expect that Sollecito himself was probably busy at the time burning their murder clothes and destroying CCTV cameras around Perugia......

 

[Strozzi]

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well............

It turns out that the company in question, nventa id, is primarily in the business of monitoring/surveillance of telephone lines and internet activities. Its website, http://nventaid.it/, states explicitly that the company's core activity is wiretapping and other types of remote electronic surveillance, and that it works closely and extensively with Italian police forces and judiciary departments in this respect.

Its "3D crime video reconstruction" service is only listed secondarily - it's beyond doubt that the core competency of this company is wiretapping.

So I'm going to postulate a number of things:

1) It's.....shall we say..... far from unlikely that both Comodi and Mignini had an extensive pre-existing relationship with nventa id, owing to contracting them to undertake phone/internet tapping work in the past.

2) It's not implausible to suggest that Comodi (and/or Mignini) were made aware of the option of the production of this animation video by nventa id personnel, e.g: "Hey Manuela, maybe an animated video would be helpful for you to used in court - we can do that for you, you know!".

3) The strong possibility (in my opinion) of an extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and nventa id makes the possibility of malpractice in regard to the video animation significantly higher than it would have been if Comodi/Mignini had had little or no prior contact with the company.

4) It also perhaps helps explain (together with point 2 above) why the video animation work never went out to tender.


As I said in a previous post, the apparent quality (i.e. risibly basic quality) and duration (i.e. under a minute) of the animation that nventa id delivered leaves me in virtually no doubt that the work was massively price-inflated. And if that's the case, the obvious consequent question is this: who stood to gain from such a huge overpricing? Just nventa id and its employees/officers? Or anyone on the "client side" as well........?

I am not so conspiratorial minded as to believe that paying EUR for an animated film is an indication of "revenue sharing" (bribe).

I think Nventa may be involved in assisting the Perugia police or prosecutor's office in monitoring phone conversations, internet usage, et al, and that the payment of EUR 182,000 for a 1-minute film and later some database help is a way to disguise paying Nventa for a larger scope of work that the parties involved do not want to properly itemize and allow the public to see. It could be for helping monitor the phone calls and internet usage of the defendants, their families, and defence attorneys. Maybe also a few Perugia senior police officers who might be skeptical of, and are thus seen seen as a potential threat to, the "blue wall of silence" that must be maintained to protect the story line.

I wonder if Judge Hellman and pathologist Lalli might be targets of phone monitoring or internet tracking?

If you recorded 39,000 Sollecito phone calls, wouldn't you need someone to create or manage a database to store and process that? Would you have a police officer do that or would you turn it over to a contractor who specializes in that and has staff to do that?

 

[Strozzi]

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well............

It turns out that the company in question, nventa id, is primarily in the business of monitoring/surveillance of telephone lines and internet activities. Its website, http://nventaid.it/, states explicitly that the company's core activity is wiretapping and other types of remote electronic surveillance, and that it works closely and extensively with Italian police forces and judiciary departments in this respect.

Its "3D crime video reconstruction" service is only listed secondarily - it's beyond doubt that the core competency of this company is wiretapping.

So I'm going to postulate a number of things:

1) It's.....shall we say..... far from unlikely that both Comodi and Mignini had an extensive pre-existing relationship with nventa id, owing to contracting them to undertake phone/internet tapping work in the past.

2) It's not implausible to suggest that Comodi (and/or Mignini) were made aware of the option of the production of this animation video by nventa id personnel, e.g: "Hey Manuela, maybe an animated video would be helpful for you to used in court - we can do that for you, you know!".

3) The strong possibility (in my opinion) of an extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and nventa id makes the possibility of malpractice in regard to the video animation significantly higher than it would have been if Comodi/Mignini had had little or no prior contact with the company.

4) It also perhaps helps explain (together with point 2 above) why the video animation work never went out to tender.


As I said in a previous post, the apparent quality (i.e. risibly basic quality) and duration (i.e. under a minute) of the animation that nventa id delivered leaves me in virtually no doubt that the work was massively price-inflated. And if that's the case, the obvious consequent question is this: who stood to gain from such a huge overpricing? Just nventa id and its employees/officers? Or anyone on the "client side" as well........?

I am not so conspiratorial-minded as to believe that paying EUR 182,000 for an animated film is an indication of "revenue sharing" (bribery).

I think Nventa may be involved in assisting the Perugia police or prosecutor's office in monitoring phone conversations, internet usage, et al, and that the payment of EUR 182,000 for a 1-minute film and, later, some database help is a way to disguise paying Nventa for a larger scope of work that the parties involved do not want to properly itemize and allow the public to see. The large payment could really be for help monitoring phone calls and emails of the defendants, their families, and defence attorneys.

Mignini has a history of illegally monitoring the phone calls of senior police officials in the Monster of Florence case. Maybe he or Napoleoni didn't trust all the Perugia police who were involved in the case to keep their mouths shut and go along with the story line. Maybe they feared the "blue wall of silence" might crack.

I wonder if Judge Hellman and pathologist Lalli might be targets of phone monitoring or internet tracking?

If you recorded 39,000 Sollecito phone calls, wouldn't you need someone to create or manage a database to store and process that? Would you have a police officer do that or would you turn it over to a contractor who specializes in that and has staff to do that?

 

[LondonJohn]

I am not so conspiratorial minded as to believe that paying EUR for an animated film is an indication of "revenue sharing" (bribe).

I think Nventa may be involved in assisting the Perugia police or prosecutor's office in monitoring phone conversations, internet usage, et al, and that the payment of EUR 182,000 for a 1-minute film and later some database help is a way to disguise paying Nventa for a larger scope of work that the parties involved do not want to properly itemize and allow the public to see. It could be for helping monitor the phone calls and internet usage of the defendants, their families, and defence attorneys. Maybe also a few Perugia senior police officers who might be skeptical of, and are thus seen seen as a potential threat to, the "blue wall of silence" that must be maintained to protect the story line.

I wonder if Judge Hellman and pathologist Lalli might be targets of phone monitoring or internet tracking?

If you recorded 39,000 Sollecito phone calls, wouldn't you need someone to create or manage a database to store and process that? Would you have a police officer do that or would you turn it over to a contractor who specializes in that and has staff to do that?

Yes but.....

It appears that this incredible level of wire monitoring/surveillance goes on all the time, all over the country. There must therefore be plenty of precedent for paying third-party operators - heck, nventa id openly boasts about this on its website.

To my mind, therefore, I can see no reason why, if Comodi and/or Mignini were also using nventa id to conduct phone/internet surveillance in this case, they wouldn't/couldn't have contracted/invoiced/paid for that work separately and explicitly under that category. Why wouldn't they have separately contracted nventa to undertake unspecified wiretap work (neither the procurement order nor the invoice would have needed to itemise exactly WHOSE communications were being bugged)?

And if - as you suggest - Comodi/Mignini/nventa were trying to hide the cost (and presence) of certain wiretapping activity by bundling it into the animation/database contract, then this in itself would raise a question of propriety. In some jurisdictions this is called false accounting and is a criminal offence. Either Comodi (and Mignini) had the authority to pay third parties for wiretapping related to the Kercher case or they didn't. If they did, then why didn't they procure this work separately from the animation? If they didn't, then it's even worse that they might have been trying to bury it within another contract for a totally separate piece of work.

Further, your suggestion that perhaps Comodi/Mignini might have wanted to obscure their wiretapping activities because they were tapping people they shouldn't have been tapping (or were forbidden from tapping) is of course suggestive of another criminal act in itself.

Any way you look at it, therefore, it doesn't look good at all for Comodi in particular.

All that having been said, I return to my original suggestion as the most likely. In other words, I believe that this contract and invoice did only concern the animation and database work (who knows: there may even be another contract/invoice between the PMs' office and nventa id for wiretapping services related to this case, and that we just haven't seen that information yet).

And if that's the case, then yes, it could simply be a case of nventa id pulling the wool over the PMs' eyes by overcharging for this work, in the expectation (seemingly confirmed by the payment of the invoice) that Comodi wouldn't bother to check whether the state was actually getting value for money. But it could also easily be the case (and believe me, it's far from uncommon in the UK, so in Italy.......) that a cosy arrangement was worked out between the client and the contractor (with whom it's eminently possible that the client had a strong pre-existing relationship), whereby some of the overcharged amount found its way back in the other direction.

 

[JREF2010]

I found some interesting information about the animation company, Nventa, and it appears they may be involved in the business of installing or maintaining technical systems to secretly record conversations in police station hallways.

Here is an English translation of a 2011 Italian newspaper report about a dispute involving Nventa and the Prosecutor of Perugia's office. Nventa protested the unfairness of a bidding competition run the the Prosecutor of Perugia office for the installaton of "hallway wiretaps".

You may see the English translation of the Italian newspaper article at the following link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.giornaledellumbria.it/article/intercettazioni-bocciate-gara-illecita&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522nventa%2522%2Bgps%2Bitaly%26start%3D30%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_enUS378US379%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D667

Maybe due to the budget cuts Mignini spoke of on tv, that made it impossible to record the interrogation hours only....they outsourced the recording help spending 275 thousand euros for the cartoon goofball video.

 

[LondonJohn]

PS: I notice that the word "bribe" was used. I don't think that this word would be strictly applicable in this instance in any case. Bribery implies some form of persuasion to trade: e.g. one contractor bribes the client to choose it instead of a rival bidder in a competitive tender, or a contractor bribes a client to buy more product/services than it actually needs.

Instead, the situation here is (potentially) more akin to simple fraud and false accounting. It's possible that nventa id may have committed either of these offences on its own, by submitting false invoices (for example, they may have dramatically overinflated the number of man-hours spent on the animation). Or it's possible that both nventa id and one or more PMs committed either of these offences jointly - if they both agreed to overinflate the value of the contract and the invoice, and to then share the overpayment balance in some proportion.

In addition, if the first possibility (nventa id acting alone) is correct, then Comodi (and perhaps others) face potential (non-criminal) misconduct action related to misuse of funds and failure to check value-for-money of outsourced contracts.

I would note, once more, that I am categorically not accusing anyone of either criminal acts or misconduct of any sort. I am doing no more than outlining the possible explanations as I see them.

Of course, there IS one further explanation: it's that there really WAS 180,000 Euro of genuine work done by nventa id on the animation and the database. If that really were the case, though, I would be in open-mouthed astonishment at a) the implication that a lot of really expensive, state-of-the-art, specialist animation hardware/software was used to produce such a poor-quality animation, and b) the implied enormous amount of labour time that the work would have had to have taken.

Still - stranger things have happened.........

 

[JREF2010]

Simple. They killed Meredith with it. They cleaned it. They then used it to cut bread or pasta.

For me the oddest thing is that Raf's DNA isn't on it.

Why isnt there any spaghetti sauce on it?
Alfredo? Nothing... actually maybe there was more on it they just didnt spend time studying everything.

By the time C&V were able to test it, I was amazed the Polizia Computer experts hadnt used it to make peanut butter and jam sandwiches with it.

The fact there wasnt any blood on it and there wasnt a cleaning of the crevice is the most powerful evidence it wasnt used in this murder.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why isnt there any spaghetti sauce on it? Alfredo? Nothing... actually maybe there was more on it they just didnt spend time studying everything.

By the time C&V were able to test it, I was amazed the Polizia Computer experts hadnt used it to make peanut butter and jam sandwiches with it.

The fact there wasnt any blood on it and there wasnt a cleaning of the crevice is the most powerful evidence it wasnt used in this murder.

Surely the Luciferina Knox would have been eating puttanesca sauce.......

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well............

It turns out that the company in question, nventa id, is primarily in the business of monitoring/surveillance of telephone lines and internet activities. Its website, http://nventaid.it/, states explicitly that the company's core activity is wiretapping and other types of remote electronic surveillance, and that it works closely and extensively with Italian police forces and judiciary departments in this respect.

Its "3D crime video reconstruction" service is only listed secondarily - it's beyond doubt that the core competency of this company is wiretapping.

So I'm going to postulate a number of things:

1) It's.....shall we say..... far from unlikely that both Comodi and Mignini had an extensive pre-existing relationship with nventa id, owing to contracting them to undertake phone/internet tapping work in the past.

2) It's not implausible to suggest that Comodi (and/or Mignini) were made aware of the option of the production of this animation video by nventa id personnel, e.g: "Hey Manuela, maybe an animated video would be helpful for you to used in court - we can do that for you, you know!".

3) The strong possibility (in my opinion) of an extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and nventa id makes the possibility of malpractice in regard to the video animation significantly higher than it would have been if Comodi/Mignini had had little or no prior contact with the company.

4) It also perhaps helps explain (together with point 2 above) why the video animation work never went out to tender.


As I said in a previous post, the apparent quality (i.e. risibly basic quality) and duration (i.e. under a minute) of the animation that nventa id delivered leaves me in virtually no doubt that the work was massively price-inflated. And if that's the case, the obvious consequent question is this: who stood to gain from such a huge overpricing? Just nventa id and its employees/officers? Or anyone on the "client side" as well........?

Without commenting on opinions, just two points:

1. the video animation produced by Nventa-id on the Kercher case is 23 minutes long.
2. I disagree with LJ's point 3), that an "extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and Nventa-id" would make the possibility of malpractice be likely (I leave aside the concept of "more likely"); but above all I disagree with 4), that it would explain why the video was not outed. I think sounds quite unsensitive to me that people seem to not consider potential emotional impact of an animation of the murder; it's obvious to me why it was never made public, I interpret it as a basic measure of respect for the victim.
3. (may agree with Strozzi) the problem seems to be with an alleged lack of specificity in justifying the payment on the basis of a specific itemizing of services in the payment bill, on the part of Comodi; in other words it seems Comodi should have given reasons assessing the bill about each item, not just on the comprehensive amount and coprehensive services; I note that the kind of malpractice suspected for Comodi is referred to be causing a damage of a purely monetary kind (this case against Comodi, in other words, is the consequence of a case opened before another court, the Umbria court of Budgets, which had calculated out that the overal fee might be too high, Comodi's mistake in calculating being the consequence of poor itemizing of the service prices).

 

[Machiavelli]

Doesn't that seem odd on all accounts? Who puts away a few knives because they weren't being used when there are four roommates that might have different cooking habits?

And the police would not check them because one of the potential "stagers" said they weren't used? Odd. No, very odd.

It's odd but it's in Filomena's testimony.

 

[Machiavelli]

Are you talking about that argument where you don't know the difference between a butter knife, a table knife and a steak knife?

Exactly. That argument was better than Randy's too.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)

The knife that killed Meredith matched that stain. The cooking knife didn't.

I think the kitchen knife does match the stain on the bed sheet.

 

[Bill Williams]

The knife that killed Meredith matched that stain. The cooking knife didn't.

I think the kitchen knife does match the stain on the bed sheet.

You're kidding, right?

For mercy's sake, even the original prosecutors, Comodi and Mignini did not believe that. It's why they had to come up with the ridiculous "two knife" theory.

I can just feel a mountain of dietrology descend with the claim that they did no such thing....

 

[Bill Williams]

Without commenting on opinions, just two points:

1. the video animation produced by Nventa-id on the Kercher case is 23 minutes long.
2. I disagree with LJ's point 3), that an "extensive pre-existing relationship between Comodi/Mignini and Nventa-id" would make the possibility of malpractice be likely (I leave aside the concept of "more likely"); but above all I disagree with 4), that it would explain why the video was not outed. I think sounds quite unsensitive to me that people seem to not consider potential emotional impact of an animation of the murder; it's obvious to me why it was never made public, I interpret it as a basic measure of respect for the victim.3. (may agree with Strozzi) the problem seems to be with an alleged lack of specificity in justifying the payment on the basis of a specific itemizing of services in the payment bill, on the part of Comodi; in other words it seems Comodi should have given reasons assessing the bill about each item, not just on the comprehensive amount and coprehensive services; I note that the kind of malpractice suspected for Comodi is referred to be causing a damage of a purely monetary kind (this case against Comodi, in other words, is the consequence of a case opened before another court, the Umbria court of Budgets, which had calculated out that the overal fee might be too high, Comodi's mistake in calculating being the consequence of poor itemizing of the service prices).

Then you must be mad as hell at Maresca for showing the grisly photos of Meredith in the court....

But man, oh man, now you're criticising Comodi. So far that leaves only two people in this sordid mess you've never criticised.

 

[RWVBWL]

Yes but.....
<snip>
Further, your suggestion that perhaps Comodi/Mignini might have wanted to obscure their wiretapping activities because they were tapping people they shouldn't have been tapping (or were forbidden from tapping) is of course suggestive of another criminal act in itself.

Any way you look at it, therefore, it doesn't look good at all for Comodi in particular.
<snip>

Wasn't Mignini supposedly involved with wiretapping some police officers or dectectives he should not have been recording in The Monster of Florence case?

 

[Grinder]

Grinder:
Doesn't that seem odd on all accounts? Who puts away a few knives because they weren't being used when there are four roommates that might have different cooking habits?

And the police would not check them because one of the potential "stagers" said they weren't used? Odd. No, very odd.

It's odd but it's in Filomena's testimony.

When did she say this? I don't doubt she said it, but that is no reason not to check those knives.

Please explain why in the world after Amanda's statement about Patrick and the arrest of Patrick that the police didn't bring in his knives for testing. He was the killer, not Raf, not Amanda.

You must see that this needs explaining.

You haven't fully addressed the police chief's statements or Curatolo's testimony. From 9:30 until nearly midnight - never saw them missing or leaving - observed them mostly when smoking something nicotine addicts do at regular intervals. He would have had a cigarette about every 20 minutes. They were always there. Not enough time to kill, clean themselves and return to the court.