How crazy can it get? (Claims of witness tampering)

Pretty crazy, apparently.

Today, Rossi filed a Motion for Sanctions, claiming witness tampering.

(For the complete list of Motion documents, see Rossi v. Darden docket and case files entries for 3/9/2017)

Defendants, through their agents, are tampering with witnesses and/or otherwise harassing individuals in abuse of the judicial process. Plaintiff, Dr. Andrea Rossi, may currently be under consideration by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for a Nobel Prize related to his E-Cat technology – the same technology that is the subject matter of the present lawsuit. Defendants in this case have known this fact for some time, even sharing this information with their investors/potential investors (See Ex. 1).

Exhibit 1 is an email from Darden to a Tom Sloan covering the Lugano test considerations. It’s frank, and very consistent with my understanding of how Darden was thinking about Rossi. Many details are given. This, however, would not establish that IH would have any present understanding of Rossi being considered for the Nobel Prize. Darden anticipates a possible problem with the Lugano test, the IR camera calibration.

During times relevant to the matters in this action, several professors from accredited universities throughout Europe, including Dr. Giuseppe Levi and Dr. Bo Hoistad, had previously tested Dr. Rossi’s technology, and co-authored a report validating its efficacy (See Ex. 2, the “Lugano Report”). Defendants not only dispute the efficacy of the technology, but also, by extension, the Lugano Report – and this is a pivotal issue for Defendants’ case

The Lugano report was already in evidence as IH Exhibit 14. While the “efficacy of the technology” is an issue in the case, it is not pivotal.

Defendants and/or their agents, including but not limited to Dewey Weaver and Uzi Sha (and upon information and belief, their purported attorney, Zalli Jaffe), have harassed, threatened and attempted to bribe these professors into withdrawing their support of the Lugano Report – all in an attempt to damage the reputation of Dr. Rossi, make less likely his ability to receive the prestigious Nobel Prize, and materially impact the evidence introduced in the present case. Such harassment and threats are abusive, made in bad faith, and are quite possibly criminal in nature.

So, what is shown as “harassment and threats”? What evidence is to be introduced that would be compromised? Evidence that a reactor worked at Lugano, if it existed — the Lugano report has been seriously discredited, independently of anything IH has done — would not bear on whether or not the Rossi reactors passed an alleged Guaranteed Performance Test in Doral in 2015-2016.

Plaintiffs request that this Motion be filed under seal pursuant to Local Rule 5.4, as further publicity regarding this matter may further harm Dr. Rossi’s chances of receiving the Nobel Prize.

This was denied.

On April 5, 2016, Plaintiffs filed their Complaint in the above-styled action. The Complaint pertained, generally, to Andrea Rossi’s invention of the low energy nuclear reactor popularly known as the “Energy Catalyzer” or “E-Cat”, and the Defendants’ failure to pay Plaintiffs Eighty Nine Million Dollars ($89,000,000.00) for the successful testing of the same pursuant to a License Agreement. Defendants’ defenses and counterclaims are premised on their claim that the E-Cat technology does not work, and that Plaintiffs have provided no proof that it does. The Lugano Report is indisputably just the sort of proof Defendants disclaim.

This is not an accurate statement of what the Defendants claim. The technology could “work” — under some conditions — and it would have no effect on the IH defenses and counterclaims. Rossi does not point to a specific claim.

The Lugano Report, and its distinguished group of Professors/signatories, provides tremendous evidence directly in opposition to Defendants’ defenses and counterclaims.

How this would be so is not shown. The primary issue in Rossi v. Darden is whether or not the Doral operation was a “Guaranteed Performance Test” and, if it was, whether or not the “reactors” performed as required in that to trigger the $89 million payment. IH has given, as one of several possibilities, that the technology does not work. That is the foundation of neither their defense nor of their counterclaims.

Defendants, knowing full well the problems that the Lugano Report and its Professors pose to their case, have engaged in efforts to discredit it and them. On October 14, 2016, the Defendants propounded their Second Request for Production to Plaintiffs wherein Defendants requested “[a]ll Communications between [Plaintiffs] and “Giuseppe Levi, Evelyn Foschi, Torbjorn Hartman, Bo Hoistad, Roland Pettersson, Lars Tegner and/or Hanno Essen.” Plaintiffs objected to the request, in part, on the grounds that

Defendants would reasonably suspect undue influence by Rossi on the scientists, and, as a holder of a License to the technology, were and remain critically interested in the scientific facts of the Lugano test. As well, they are engaged in supporting low-energy nuclear reaction research and the Rossi claims have had an impact on the field; if those claims are fraudulent and the Lugano test was in error, as it very much appears to have been, these are important to address for reasons that have little to do with the lawsuit, and everything to do with Industrial Heat’s routine business.

Rossi shows an excerpt from a discovery hearing that is irrelevant, in fact, to the claims he is making. IH was not prohibited from communicating with the scientists.

Plaintiffs have only recently learned that, throughout this pending litigation, the Defendants and/or their agents have repeatedly harassed the Professors in an effort to (1) jeopardize Dr. Rossi’s Nobel Prize nomination; (2) to materially impact the merits of this action; and to (3) coerce the Professors to withdraw their conclusions formalized in the Lugano Report.

What is shown?

I. Coercion of Dr. Giuseppe Levi

During the course of the last year, Dr. Giuseppe Levi has received numerous communications from known representatives of Defendants. These representatives, offered to bribe Dr. Levi to withdraw his support of the Lugano Report. Additional details and additional instances of such harassment of Dr. Levi are provided in the Declaration of Dr. Giuseppe Levi (Ex. 4). 

 Levi’s conclusion:

On four (4) occasions, certain individuals from Israel have contacted me directly or indirectly to speak to me about the Lugano Report. It is my conclusion that their intention was to offer me money if I would agree to recant my support therefor.

Levi’s account of the meeting is heavy with suspicion and innuendo. He met with Uzi Sha. There are apparently photographs of Uzi Sha, demonstrating that he’s Jewish.

Rossi connects Uzi Sha with IH through an email sent by Darden to Zalli and Uzi Sha, February 23. 2016.

Darden had provided Uzi Sha personal contact information for individuals associated with this litigation on at least one occasion. (See Ex. 5.) On information and belief, Defendant Darden and/or the other Defendants similarly provided Uzi Sha with Dr. Levi’s name and/or personal information, and Uzi Sha’s harassment of Dr. Levi has been undertaken on behalf, and under the direction, of the Defendants. Relatedly, in the same e-mail in which Darden communicates with Uzi Sha, he also communicates with an individual named Zalli Jaffe. Defendants claim that communications with Zalli Jaffe fall under the attorney-client privilege, as they claim that Zalli Jaffe is an attorney in Israel who provided legal services to Defendants. Israel is not a territory covered by the License Agreement between the parties.

The persons whose contact information was provided were Fabiani, Rossi, Penon, and Colette Sauer, legal assistant to Johnson.

However, Industrial Heat is heavily involved in world-wide research into low-energy nuclear reactions. If Uzi Sha is as he described himself to Levi, it would not be in the least surprising or sinister if there were some contact between them, or even more, cooperation. Rossi characterizes the contact as an attempt to bribe Levi, however, that contact began in May, 2016. That someone interested in LENR would contact Levi is simply unsurprising. Levi reports that he thought Uzi Sha was trying to bribe him, but Sha had only asked if he would write a report,. and apparently offered to pay him for that.

It would not have been necessary for IH to provide Levi’s phone number, as he actually points out, it is easy to find it. Levi claims in his declaration that none of the questions asked about the Lugano report “had any scientific basis or varied from the unscientific attacks made in the blog posts.”

Now we know that Levi is bonkers himself. There are real questions about the Lugano report. While there are occasional “unscientific attacks” from pseudoskeptics, there are many questions raised — in blogs! — about problems with the Lugano report, and Levi has essentially stonewalled them. That failure to respond very much takes the Lugano report out of the realm of science.

Threats to Dr. Bo Hoistad

On February 15, 2017, Defendants’ agent, Dewey Weaver, sent Dr. Bo Hoistad a threatening e-mail, which, in essence, attempts to blackmail and/or otherwise coerce all the Professors into changing their opinions and conclusions (See Ex. 6).

Exhibit 6 is a set of mails quoting other mails. The original mail is from Dewey Weaver to Bo Hoistad, February 15, 2017. It is not threatening. It discloses some recently uncovered facts or claims.

Bo forwarded the mail to Levi. He doesn’t seem to be upset or to complain about being threatened. Levi then forwarded the mail to Rossi, calling it “disgusting.” However, the mail simply raised a possible fact that could explain why the calibration at Lugano was so far off. There is a real scientific issue.

Rossi then pulls in some transcription from the Dewey Weaver deposition about this. It’s ripped out of context. There is no smoking gun. To convert this to a threat, Rossi claims:

The implication, of course, is that these new findings will damage the reputations of not only the Professors themselves, but also, significantly, the Universities at which they work.

Actually, having issued a scientific report, insisting it is correct while stonewalling scientific critique, could indeed damage their reputations. However, this is all irrelevant to the lawsuit. These were not likely to be called at all as witnesses. None of Rossi’s claims depend on the Lugano report being valid, and no IH claims depend on it being invalid. The report is mentioned, that’s about it.

Finally, Weaver testified that he had e-mail communications with Professor Hanno Essen, another of the Lugano Professors. As of the date of this filing, these e-mails have not been produced to Plaintiffs, despite requests for such. Plaintiffs suspect that Weaver has made similar threats to Professor Essen

Complaints about discovery process don’t belong in motions like this.

Basically, IH is involved with LENR and is going to be in communication with scientists investigating LENR. Rossi is attempting with this motion to stop IH from talking with any of these people. Essen and Hoistad are not complaining, and have not filed any “declarations,” this is all Levi, who has long been very, very involved with Rossi.

This is an appalling motion, based on evidence that is little more than a chain of suspicions.

I am not certain that every aspect of this will be rejected, but the pleadings of IH are not going to be struck; cases cited appear to relate to fabricated evidence, not to vague insinuations as seen in the exhibits. What is possible is some additional discovery as requested, but with disclosure in camera to verify privilege — or to deny it.

There is no evidence presented that Uzi Sha is an agent for IH, nor is any actual improper behavior by Sha shown, beyond possibly some cluelessness. Dewey Weaver is, of course, working for IH, but the allegations against Dewey Weaver were thin and, to me, did not appear to be improper in any way. I’d like to have the same conversation with Hoistad and Essen (especially the latter).

In my view, there was nothing wrong with Hoistad forwarding the mail to Levi, to ask about it. Levi’s comments, though, were … the word he used: disgusting. This is a scientist?

I start to wonder: did Levi know that the material analyzed was not from the main reactor body? Someone insisted on the defective procedures they used, was that Levi? There are some more details about how the Lugano test was run in the Darden email.

I expect this Motion for Sanctions will be denied; it is possible, though, that there could be a hearing.

Meanwhile, the publication of all this may bring the matter of the “Swedish professors” to a head.


Update on case activity, 3/17/2017

As of yesterday, there has been no response from Judge Altonaga on the Motion for Sanctions described above. What we have are these documents:

03/13/2017 0168.0_IH_Hearing_Notice 3/14 adding JMP bank record issue
03/14/2017 0169.0 (no document) PAPERLESS Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan: Discovery Hearing held on 3/14/2017. Total time in court: 1 hour(s). Attorney Appearance(s): Christopher Rebel Jude Pace, Christopher Martin Lomax, John William Annesser, II and Robert Bernstein. (Digital 15:01:04) (cg1)
03/14/2017 0170.0_Discovery_Order
03/15/2017 0171.0 Hearing transcript (doc not available yet)
TRANSCRIPT of Discovery Hearing Proceedings held on 3/9/17 before Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan, 1-48 pages, Court Reporter: Bonnie J. Lewis, 305-523-5635. Transcript may be viewed at the court public terminal or purchased by contacting the Court Reporter/Transcriber before the deadline for Release of Transcript Restriction. After that date it may be obtained through PACER. Redaction Request due 4/4/2017. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 4/14/2017. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 6/12/2017. (Attachments: # 1 Designation Access Form)(hh)
03/15/2017 0172.0_IH_notice per Magistrate request in hearing 3/14.
== 0172.1_Proposed_order (covers more issues than DE 170)
03/16/2017 0173.0_Discovery_Order as proposed DE 172.1.
03/16/2017 0174.0_Rossi_Motion_to_seal
== 0174.1_Proposed order re Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanctions against Defendants, Cherokee Investment Partners and IPH International, B.V. for Failure to Comply with Rule 30(b)(6).
03/16/2017 0175.0 (Presumed, no document) Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanctions against Defendants, Cherokee Investment Partners and IPH International, B.V. for Failure to Comply with Rule 30(b)(6)
03/16/2017 0176.0 Order (no document) 10:17 PM ORDER denying 174 Motion to Seal. Signed by Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga (CMA)

There was the usual knee-jerk Planet Rossi misreading of documents on LENR Forum, corrected by others. The main one was reading 167.1, the Rossi proposed order implementing severe sanctions, as if the Judge had issued the order. It’s clear that this wasn’t understood, because if that Order had been issued as writ, the case would have been over, everything Rossi had asked for in his complaint, still standing after the original Motion to Dismiss whacked half of it, would have been granted through a motion for default judgment for failure to respond. “Mere monetary damages” would not have been enough, the very foundations of the American republic would have been at stake, etc? Because of what amounts to an informative email to Bo Hoistad, personal contact with Levi from a possibly independent agent, and a pile of suspicions? Really? In places, Planet Rossi is crazier than Rossi himself.

Now Rossi has a new Motion for Sanctions, and also filed a motion to seal, based at least in part on material being exhibited from IH-affiliated depositions marked Confidential. The Motion itself is hidden and may have been deleted. Altonaga, personally, after 10 PM, entered a denial of the Motion to Seal, but no Order document was published, so, unlike before, we don’t know if she denied confidentiality, as she had before. So we do not know if we will see this Rossi Motion, or if we do, it may be redacted. From the proposed Order, the motion is titled:

Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanctions against Defendants, Cherokee Investment Partners and IPH International, B.V. for Failure to Comply with Rule 30(b)(6)

Rule 30. Depositions by Oral Examination

… (b) Notice of the Deposition; Other Formal Requirements.
… (6) Notice or Subpoena Directed to an Organization. In its notice or subpoena, a party may name as the deponent a public or private corporation, a partnership, an association, a governmental agency, or other entity and must describe with reasonable particularity the matters for examination. The named organization must then designate one or more officers, directors, or managing agents, or designate other persons who consent to testify on its behalf; and it may set out the matters on which each person designated will testify. A subpoena must advise a nonparty organization of its duty to make this designation. The persons designated must testify about information known or reasonably available to the organization. This paragraph (6) does not preclude a deposition by any other procedure allowed by these rules.

I find it very difficult to imagine that these depositions were both actually made and violated this rule. There is extensive discussion of this rule on-line. The main issue that seems to create possible controversy is an attempt to correct testimony in the deposition. However, such an attempt is not necessarily a violation of the rule, and the possible “penalty” is simply that a Court may choose to ignore the correction (i.e., it may note it, but ordinarily the original testimony will not be removed and may be used for impeachment of testimony or other measures.)

With DE 173, the Magistrate ordered as proposed by IH, where IH was requested, in a hearing, to prepare an order. As has previously happened, the Magistrate signing this was ordering compliance by a date that was before the signature, but compliance had actually been ordered in the hearing, this is only a formalization for the record. Again, Planet Rossi flies off the handle, one of the speculations has been that the Magistrate and Pace are in cahoots. This is all normal process. When a new Order comes out of a hearing, a judge may request that the order be prepared by the attorney requesting it. In this case, the order was “mixed,” i.e., it did address some requests by Rossi, not denying them, necessarily, but formalizing an agreement with IH to provide certain specific documents. However, other Rossi requests or objections were denied. My sense is that the judge will request this “service” of the attorney most favored by the results. It would be galling to be asked to draft an unfavorable order! If an attorney took advantage of this to state the Order improperly, I’d expect a reprimand would be in order, and the Judge would not sign it without correcting it. This order is remarkable in that it has a footnote written by Pace, a “clarification” that may have created more confusion than it resolved. It is basically dicta, of no specific consequence, unless Rossi did not or has not provided his personal tax returns, in which case the matter will be taken back to the Magistrate.


Second Update on case activity, 3/17/2017

Rossi filed the Motion for Sanctions.

Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanction against Defendants, Cherokee Investment Partners and IPH International, B.V. for Failure to Comply with Rule 30(b)(6)

Plaintiffs request Defendants be prohibited from offering testimony and evidence on the issues for which they failed to properly prepare their corporate representatives pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6).

When I saw from the proposed Order that this was for noncompliance with Rule 30(b)(6) I googled the rule. I put a copy of the rule above. However I also saw legal advice on this.

From the February 2014 edition of Barnes & Thornburg LLP’s Commercial Litigation Update e-newsletter.

When your company gets sued, the “discovery” process of exchanging evidence begins. One discovery method full of peril is the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. Unlike a deposition of an individual, a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition is noticed to the company itself, and designates specific topics on which the company must be prepared to answer questions. Because the company must prepare a witness (or witnesses) to testify on these topics that may encompass broad timeframes, complicated processes, and the knowledge of many current and former employees, the potential pitfalls in preparing witnesses to testify are many.

Among the most important decisions the company and its counsel must make is who to produce to testify on a designated topic. The choices are many–almost limitless under the rule–and usually, the company selects an employee who is most knowledgeable about the case and the topic on which testimony is sought.

You may want to rethink that choice.

Presumably, the party noticing a 30(b)(6) deposition has designated specific topics they want to explore, and feel that a prepared company representative is the fastest and/or least expensive way to obtain the information. This is a good bet when the company is large and written interrogatory answers don’t provide enough information about who knows what. But since the company is legally bound by the 30(b)(6) deponent’s testimony, it may be a good idea to select someone whose knowledge of case-relevant information is limited to his preparation for the 30(b)(6) topics on which he will testify.

Why does it matter? After all, the noticing party can only inquire about the topics designated in their 30(b)(6) notice, right? Unfortunately, this is most likely not true. […]

In summary, producing a witness with the minimum level of knowledge may be the best way to ensure that the company meets its obligation under the rules while minimizing the risk of inadvertent disclosure of confidential, irrelevant or sensitive information. Someone with limited or no knowledge apart from the noticed topics is less likely to testify to anything that could later haunt you. Your attorney should work through the strategy and options when helping your company select the right deponent under the circumstances presented by your case.

This document, Practice Tips and Developments in
Handling 30(B)(6) Depositions, addresses the other side of the issue, strenuously. There are possible procedural pitfalls.

So what actually happened? It is not clear to me why it was necessary to depose the corporations. Darden and Vaughn, the officers who would have direct knowledge, were deposed individually. The rule was designed for large corporations, apparently, having a corporation designate a representative, or series of representatives, who would then be briefed on the issues designated in the documents establishing the deposition. As far as I can tell, the corporate representative’s knowledge would be redundant to that provided by Darden and Vaughn. IPH is essentially a shell, apparently, used to hold intellectual property.

So, procedure. First:

0179.1_Exhibit_1 Rossi Notice of Taking Videotaped Depositions
0179.2_Exhibit_2 Cherokee Objections to Plaintiff’s notice, agrees to respond to certain questions.
0179.3_Exhibit_3 Amended notice of taking videotaped depositions, adds new issues
0179.4_Exhibit_4 Industrial Heat Objections to Notice
0179.5_Exhibit_5 IPH Objections to Notice
0179.6_Exhibit_6 Deposition of Vaughn
0179.7_Exhibit_7 Deposition of Fogelman for IPH

From the Motion:

The three corporate defendants in this case – Cherokee, IPH and IH – all are owned and controlled by Defendant Thomas Darden (“Darden”). Darden has first-hand knowledge of virtually all of the areas of inquiry identified in Plaintiffs’ 30(b)(6) Notices. Instead of appearing as the corporate representative for Cherokee and IPH, Darden instead chose Slocum Fogelman to do so. The reason for doing so is obvious: Darden did not want to subject himself to multiple seven-hour depositions,

Actually, that’s an obvious reason but not the only one.

… and intended to deprive Plaintiffs of the ability to obtain additional information about the Defendants’ claims and defenses at issue.

Information that would be best known to Darden, who was deposed just previously. Any information possessed by Fogelman would have come from Darden or Vaughn, and IH was the actual operating entity.

Furthermore, Darden made no attempt to instruct or otherwise inform Fogelman as to the facts and circumstances related to the areas of inquiry, leaving Fogelman with no ability to provide substantive responses to Plaintiffs’ questions.

Apparently cherry-picked excerpts have been taken from the depositions, but what is shown does not clearly support this claim. Fogelman was badgered by Chaiken and Annesser, who repeatedly asked questions. The Cherokee claim is that IH was not an investment of theirs, and so a Cherokee representative would not necessarily have knowledge of details about what Chaiken and Annesser asked.

IH, IPH, and Cherokee had objected to the overbroad nature of the questions or issues. It appears that instead of resolving disagreements over what was proper, by taking the disagreement to the Magistrate, Rossi argued to the contrary and then went ahead with the depositions.

It is common, apparently, for corporate representatives to be ones without much general knowledge of the matters. They are briefed by the corporation on the issues that have been set for deposition, and the corporation is responsible for their testimony. Chaiken and Annesser asked questions on small details that would be known neither to Cherokee, qua Cherokee, not to IPH, qua IPH.

Because a single list of questions or issues was provided for all deponents, my sense is that it is adequate if one of the deponents is informed and responds.

So what were the questions?

From Exhibit 1

AREAS OF INQUIRY FOR THE CORPORATE REPRESENTATIVES OF CHEROKEE,
INUDSTRIAL [sic] HEAT, LLC AND IPH, INTERNATIONAL, B.V.
1. All contract negotiations between the parties to this lawsuit, including but not limited to the License Agreement and amendments thereto, the Term Sheet, and any other agreements.
2. All sources of funds to be used to pay the full amounts contemplated by the License Agreement.
3. All communications between the parties pertaining to the Guaranteed Performance Test.
4 All communications between the parties pertaining to the ERV for the Guaranteed Performance Test.
5. All communications between the parties pertaining to the protocols for the Guaranteed Performance Test.
6. All communications between the parties pertaining to problems or issues with the Guaranteed Performance Test.
7. All internal communications (including those with employees or independent contractors retained by you) pertaining to the Guaranteed Performance Test, including but not limited to those pertaining to:
   a. the ERV for the Guaranteed Performance Test,
   b. the protocols for the Guaranteed Performance Test, and
   c. problems or issues with the Guaranteed Performance Test.
8. All communications with investors pertaining to: Rossi, Leonardo, E-Cat and E-CAT technology, and/or the Guaranteed Performance Test.
9. All internal communications pertaining to investor communications regarding Rossi, Leonardo, E-Cat and E-CAT technology, and/or the Guaranteed Performance Test.
10. All communications with Brillouin Energy pertaining to: Rossi, Leonardo, E-Cat and ECAT technology, and/or the Guaranteed Performance Test.
11. All communications with Fred Zeopfl pertaining to: Rossi, Leonardo, E-Cat and E-CAT technology, the Guaranteed Performance Test, and/or the facility in Doral being used for testing the E-CAT technology.
12. All communications with any employee of the State of Florida pertaining to: Rossi, Leonardo, E-Cat and E-CAT technology, the Guaranteed Performance Test, and/or the facility in Doral being used for testing the E-CAT technology.
13. All attempts to replicate any of Plaintiffs’ claimed E-Cat testing results.
14. All patent applications filed that incorporate, expand upon or otherwise relate to Plaintiffs’ E-Cat technology, including but not limited to WIPO Patent Application number WO 2015/127263 A2 filed on August 27, 2015.
15. Your claims that Plaintiffs disclosed the E-Cat IP without prior consent, including to (a) the scientists who prepared the Lugano Report and (b) Norman Cook.
16. All communications with Henry Johnson and J.M. Products, Inc.
17. All due diligence performed by you pertaining to:
   a. Andrea Rossi
   b. E-Cat technology
   c. Fabio Penon
   d. United States Quantum Leap, LLC
   e. Fulvio Fabiani
   f. Henry Johnson
   g. J.M. Products, Inc.
   18. Your claims that Plaintiffs have breached the License Agreement.
   19. Your claims that Plaintiffs have fraudulently induced you to enter into the Term Sheet.
   20. Your claims that Plaintiffs have violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade
Practices Act.
21. Your affirmative defenses filed in this case.
22. Any and all evidence which forms the basis for your good faith belief that Plaintiffs have not paid their taxes as you have alleged.

Most of these questions would not pertain to the business of IPH, nor of Cherokee. Essentially, these corporations would have nothing to say that was independent of IH. IPH is wholly-owned by IH; Cherokee is an independent corporation not engaged in LENR research.

I also notice how the Questions incorporate Rossi assumptions, his leading language, that treats as fact what he has claimed but not proven. That may  be normal, though.

Cherokee’s objection agreed to prepare a witness to testify about
topics 1-14, 16, and 17. My comment: the preparation, for questions that don’t pertain to Cherokee, might consist of pointing out that Cherokee has no information on these topics. Some of these issues are very broad, and redundant.

Then there were more issues added in the amendment, Exhibit 3.

SUPPLEMENTAL AREAS OF INQUIRY
23. The source of all IH and IPH operating funds to pay or fund employees, contractors, consultants, or other individuals performing work for or on behalf of IH and IPH.
24. All services provided for or on behalf of IH and IPH.
25. Your knowledge of the facts used to support the affirmative defenses in this case.
26. Your knowledge of test protocol proposed or utilized by IH for operation, test, and or replication attempt, including but not limited to, test protocols performed in Ferraro, Italy; Lugano, Switzerland; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Doral, Florida.
27. Any alterations or proposed alterations to any test protocol, proposed test protocol, or procedure for the testing of the E-Cat or related E-Cat IP.

I see no reason why the IPH/Cherokee representative should be briefed on most questions. It’s all redundant to Vaughn and Darden, both of which were deposed individually, and Vaughn as the corporate representative of IH.

Reading the Fogelman deposition for Cherokee, Rossi was fishing. And when Fogelman doesn’t toss him a fish, Rossi files a Motion for Sanctions. The questions were asking things that the corporation he represented would not know, as a matter of corporate business. He does answer questions that were in the list.

This Motion for Sanctions is appalling. If there is still necessary disclosure, that would be a matter to take to the Magistrate, as the disagreements should probably have been taken. However, my sense is that there is a desire here to harass Darden and Vaughn. The corporate depositions, each would have taken a full day, with counsel at hour rate, probably. They would be redundant, simply another shot at asking the same questions, and clearly Rossi disliked that Darden and Vaughn named a different person, Fogelman, who appears to be involved with Cherokee. Rossi was asking many questions that nobody at Cherokee would know about, other than Darden and Vaughn.

“Demonstrating that he’s Jewish”

On LENR Forum, Mary Yugo wrote:

I find Abd’s writings impenetrable because of length and the way he makes everything so involute. But I did browse the story about Israel and Levi which makes absolutely no sense in any context I can remotely imagine. And then there was this very bizarre example of Abd’s amazing weirdness:

Thanks. I work hard to create amazing weirdness. I’m glad I succeeded. Most of us need more amazement in our lives, and less contemptuous dismissal of what we don’t understand and don’t care to take the time to understand. This one is truly lovely:

Quote

Levi’s account of the meeting is heavy with suspicion and innuendo. He met with Uzi Sha. There are apparently photographs of Uzi Sha, demonstrating that he’s Jewish.

How does one “demonstrate that he’s Jewish” in a photo, if anyone knows? http://coldfusioncommunity.net/how-crazy-can-it-get/

Does anyone know? This is Mary Yugo: reject what is not understood. How about looking at the photo? What does it show? Perhaps Uzi Sha has a big nose or other supposed Jewish characteristic? “Jewish” is not biological, it is cultural and in this case religious. What defines “Jewish”?

From the Levi Declaration, D.E. 167.5, pdf pages 13-16 show Uzi Sha with two other people. One appears to be a rabbi (not a certain identification, but very likely from what he’s doing and the way he looks, based on meeting many, many rabbis. It’s a common appearance, but that man could simply be an observant Jew, like Sha appears to be. Or is pretending to be.

Technically, Sha does not exactly “look Jewish,” but looks like he is showing Jewishness. We know he’s Israeli, so “Jewish” might be a lucky guess, eh? However, in the photos he is wearing teffilin, and in the first photos, the possible rabbi is helping him put them on.

He is also wearing a kippah, another subtle clue. However, if I were present in a synagogue, and not wearing a kufi, (cognate word, I suspect), I would certainly put on a kippah if offered. Kufis are generally larger, but some kippot are large. The small kippot are characteristically Jewish. (But, again, I’d wear one in a Jewish worship context).

Why did Levi include these photos? Levi was paranoid, believing that Sha’s mission was sinister, and what I notice is a possibility that Sha was not familiar with the ritual. In the photo on page 16. Someone is showing Sha what to read, it seems, he has a paper in his hand.

An equivalent for me might be a photo of me leading the Muslim congregational prayer, but then the photo shows me reading it from some paper in my hand. A new Muslim or someone visiting and deciding to join in the prayer (non-Muslims may do this, and often do) would not be leading. Even a very new Muslim would be reciting the basic prayer from memory.

(Reading some text in Jewish prayer is not the issue, that is done. See the image in the Wikipedia article of tefillin in prayer: the appearance in the photos is that this was a minimal “blessing” that would be on a small card for those learning the ritual. I am by no means expert in Jewish practice — and there are apparently variations.)

However, the point: the photo clearly shows Sha as Jewish — or someone pretending to be Jewish. I have spent a lot of time with observant Jews. A non-observant Jew might be invited to do this. Almost certainly not someone who does not identify as Jewish.

We have Sha’s affidavit.

He calls himself a “citizen of Israel.” That doesn’t necessarily mean “Jewish,” but all the evidence here makes it likely. He contacted Levi through Levi’s rabbi, they met in a synagogue. The other man involved, according to Levi’s unsworn declaration, was Mordechai Tzivin. From the name and context — also an “Israeli” –, Jewish, ya think?

This is a fantastic example of how Mary Yugo thinks. Actually looking at the document I had cited would have answered the question.

Author: Abd ulRahman Lomax

See http://coldfusioncommunity.net/biography-abd-ul-rahman-lomax/

24 thoughts on “How crazy can it get? (Claims of witness tampering)”

  1. From the questions asked in the depositions of Vaughn and Fogelman, it seems they were fishing for any hint that anyone had used the terms “GPT” and “Doral” in the same sentence and thus giving credence to the idea that the Doral shenanigans were regarded by Tom Darden (or indeed anyone involved with IH) as a valid test. Fogelman was basically saying mostly “IH already told you the answer and I don’t know any different” and everyone must have been pretty tired after all that waste of time.

    In the Motion for Sanction, it is stated that the questions asked for each person were intended not to be the same (bottom of page 2), whereas the questions/subjects initially supplied were the same for each person. It thus would seem reasonable that Fogelman would have expected to be asked the same questions (page 8, exhibit 3) that had already been answered and would not have seen the need to have learned any new answers. Darden would have already have answered them. IPH was simply a shell to hold the IP and didn’t actually do anything or get involved.

    Having failed to make anyone slip up and admit to regarding the Doral test as the GPT and Penon as the designated ERV, Annesser is shouting “unfair!”. I don’t however understand the legal niceties in all of this and whether he’ll get any traction. It does however seem to be about the only available course of attack, since they can’t prove that the Doral test actually worked and thus can only try to show that IH regarded this as the GPT even though there was no signed agreement that it was.

    Although Rossi made it publicly known that this was the GPT, as far as I can tell no-one within IH regarded it as such and did not sign for that either. If it had obviously worked, though, I expect they would have used it as such rather than spend another year losing money. Since they used that year trying to get their own copies of it to work, and failed (apart from one experiment with around 1.3 times heat out than energy in, which was not confirmed or repeated) then any success during that year would have been the start-gun for some major investments, I think. Then again, $11.5M to Rossi and their own work on top was not a minor investment, either.

    Darden et al don’t have a major problem with their story. They just need to tell the truth. I expect though that somewhere among all the words we’ll find a changed story from Rossi, if we keep looking.

  2. Q. Is it your understanding that the IP that is
    11 the subject of the license agreement has some value?
    12 MR. LOMAX: Objection to the form of the
    13 question.
    14 THE WITNESS: Based on the results of the
    15 efforts to replicate the IP, we haven’t been able to
    16 determine an answer to that question. I think that
    17 is the issue.
    18 BY MR. CHAIKEN:
    19 Q. So, sitting here today, IPH doesn’t know
    20 whether it has any value, if any. Would you agree with
    21 that?
    22 A. So far we have not been able to prove that
    23 there is any value in the intellectual property in the
    24 license agreement.

    This statement, p65 Fogleman deposition, taken on oath, knocks on the head the Planet Rossi meme that IH has discovered value in the Rossi IP…

    Otherwise these depositions are a phenomenal waste of time, especially the IPH one.

  3. Instead of AR being in fantasy land with his Nobel aspirations, I think it is equally valid to consider this as a delay tactic, manipulation, and smoke-and-mirrors. Darden notes AR wasting time focusing on the whole Nobel thing. It tends to evoke in peoples’ minds the thought, “Surely, he must have something if he thinks he will get a Nobel Prize.” There is little that I have seen so far that AR does that does not have a purpose (or at least there is an identifiable purpose in the maintenance of a scam).

    1. There are multiple possible explanations, and it may even be that more than one explanation has some reality. I notice that “having something” does not translate to “Nobel Prize.” Yes, a delaying tactic is plausible. Rossi advocated for his attention to the Lugano test based on the Nobel Prize idea (which had little foundation). At this point, time was running out for him to support IH in replication for independent testing. So it is plausible, given the way that Rossi has long operated, for him to create a reason to do something else. An excuse, if you will. It is not clear to me that even a total success with his “1 MW Plant” would merit a Nobel Prize, but if so, the fast track, if his claims were rooted in reality, would be commercial success, and if IH had been able to confirm independently, with devices they made, it would have been all over, the “reality” issue would have died, swiftly, with the appearance of commercial products. And then, fresh from Lugano, his “masterpiece.” Doral.

      This completely missed the real opportunity. If IH had been able to succeed in private replication and testing, they would almost certainly have paid off Rossi and would have raised much more money to fund commercial development. A test like Doral, with Rossi in charge, would have been far less convincing. The steam pipe going through a wall, what is on the other side can’t be seen? One would have to be crazy to think this convincing.

      The most convincing argument I see from Planet Rossi is that, if he was a fraud, he would have been crazy to sue IH. It fails, because it is based on an assumption that a fraud cannot be crazy. Within the relative sanity of a criminal, perhaps Rossi believed, based on previous behavior, that IH would quickly settle.

  4. This cracked me up;-

    “Plaintiff, Dr. Andrea Rossi, may currently be under consideration by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for a Nobel Prize related to his E-Cat technology –”

    “May currently be under consideration” ? Really?
    Is anyone seriously still holding on to that forlorn hope?

    I well remember back in early 2011 when there was still some hope that Rossi had something real, that view was being spread around on some of the blogs, but I haven’t heard anything like that for a few years now. Not even in the self-authored posts on Andrea’s JONP blog.
    I took this absence to mean that not even Andrea was entertaining that idea anymore.

    It’s waaaay to late to re-introduce that idea into this comedy plot in order to boost the ratings in the next audience survey. That bird has well and truly flown.
    A Nobel Prize,.. mmfff chuckle chuckle,. snort,… yeah,.. right!

    1. Rossi has made the claim before. See his response to a request for production. The Nobel Prize is only given in certain categories. Invention isn’t one of them. From the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize, “Awards for physics, chemistry, and medicine are typically awarded once the achievement has been widely accepted.” It is completely obvious that this, then, is way premature at best, and if the Rossi Effect is accepted, the contacts with the Swedish professors will be irrelevant, a footnote in history. Rossi has been right in one thing: the market is the judge. He has it completely backwards with these Nobel dreams. His claim with Darden was that if he gets the prize, that would help with acceptance. Quite simply, the Nobel Prize is not going to be awarded for something that is still in scientific controversy.

    1. Thanks. The contact was not years before. It was in (approx) June 2016, after Rossi v. Darden had been filed. However, Levi had not been called as a witness. The Lugano report had been mentioned, and IH had asked for communications between Rossi and the “professors.” There is no sign that the Uzi Sha contact had anything to do with that. Uzi would easily and simply have wanted to talk with Levi, because he was looking at maybe licensing Rossi technology for Israel. That would be why IH referred him to Rossi et al. He would want to know if the Lugano results were reliable! And appears to have been willing to pay for a report on that.

    2. By the way, thanks for the link on http://ocasapiens-dweb.blogautore.repubblica.it/2017/03/12/son-dolori-2/ Is this Silvie Coyaud? In any case, welcome to the LENR community. There is a shortage of journalists willing to take the time to actually study issues and report from that, instead of only from quick reactions and opinions, which, in LENR, can be quite warped, for well-known historical reasons. The lawsuit, Rossi v. Darden, is revealing much that was hidden, and some of the materials shown in this insane motion tell us far more about what was happening in 2014, than we knew before, and then about the scientific politics.

  5. Hi Abd
    I know Professor Facardi said
    in an interview that he thought they should receive
    the Nobel Peace prize so
    maybe that’s where A.R. got
    the idea.
    I thought then as I do now they where getting a bit ahead
    of themselves.
    Also Barty said this on Lenr
    forum today.
    “As Darden describes this, it looks like these experiments were totally independent of Rossi, just following his “step-by-step” IP-guide.

    Also interesting is how he describes IH’s very careful relations to Rossi. They knew about how strange this guy is, all the time, and didn’t believe anything what “Rossi-says”.
    This is good to know. At the beginning of the lawsuite I feared they blindly trusted Rossi, because they allowed to do such unconventional “independent third-party” tests without moaning.
    monty, we_cat_global, can and one other like this.

    That part where T.D says he
    didn’t believe anything what
    “Rossi says” is unbelievable
    from a business partner.
    And I bet Rossi felt the same
    way about T.D.
    No wonder they are in the mess they are in.

    Crazy like you say.

    Regards
    Sam

    1. The Darden email: http://coldfusioncommunity.net/darden-to-sloan-372014/
      This was a confidential diclosure to his attorney, and then to another investor. Darden needed to play a double game:
      (1) not spook Rossi, who was known to walk at any hint of questioning his masterwork, unless under his control.
      (2) show possible investors that he was not naive and was going to “crush the tests.”

      All of this was designed to create certainty. In order to raise the $89 million, IH needed independent test evidence. Even if the GPT had been legitimately set up, and properly met the conditions of the test, if it had been combined with an IH inability to make devices that worked, IH would have defaulted — unless Rossi relented.

      This email was March 2014. Rossi was to provide full support for at least a year after the Validation Test, but I would interpret this as starting with the transfer of IP for $10 million, about May 2, 2013, so this period had not expired, but we can see that Rossi according to Darden, was, instead, focusing on Nobel Dreams instead of completing his education of IH, if there was any more to be done in that way. Darden does not say what you claimed about not believing anything that Rossi says. Instead he says what any sober investor, given what was well-known about Rossi, would have said, confidentially, to his attorney at Schell-Bray, and then shared with a possible major investor. That kind of communication was essential, and could not be the cause of conflict. This is what he wrote:

      Also, Rossi tends to be secretive and not open about these topics, and he often announces conclusions that do not make sense to us or that we disagree with. So, we are not comfortable with his responses to questions about the testing process. We think the professors are more knowledgeable and precise–their last report was so. If they do what they did last time, we believe their conclusions should be accurate. But all this bears watching, and in any event, we need not to rely on the results of any single test. I realize I might sound overly cautious or skeptical in reporting on results, but this is a function of the extreme difficulty of communicating with Rossi about measurement methods and processes.

      It is very clear that Darden was hoping for positive results, while also needing definitive, independent confirmation. He expected the Lugano report, the experiment had just begun, would be independent, though he noted possible problems with it (and he was more or less prescient about that).

      This is an email that casts Darden in a very, very positive light. It was included as an exhibit only to show that Darden was aware of the Nobel Dreams. Rossi presented it to attempt to prove that Darden knew about actual Nobel consideration. The email does not show that.

      Rossi’s usage of this email shows that he is out of touch with reality, and is interpreting his fantasies as real, and then reading evidence as proving this, when it simply doesn’t. The same is true with the rest of the evidence shown.

      The Levi declaration makes no actual connection with IH, only showing some communication, not surprising at all if Uzi Sha was what he claimed to be. It showed no actual bribe attempt, only that Levi was suspicious and claims to be frightened.

      The Darden email including Uzi in cc does not establish anything other than a probably response to the Israeli attorney and Uzi Sha to allow them to investigate what had just happened in Doral, this was 2/23/2016. This does not connect with Levi at all, beyond interest in LENR and then what anyone interested in LENR might do — talk with Levi!

      Then the other piece of evidence, the Weaver email, showed no threat. Discussing the Rossi situation is not a threat, and the most obvious “negative interpretation” of the Weaver email would be as a warning. The difference between a threat and a warning is that the former depends on some punitive or intended action to harm, whereas the latter may simply be describing natural consequences.
      I imagine a friend sitting on a tree branch sawing it off on the side toward the tree trunk. I say to him, “Stop! You will get hurt!” — and he says, “I do not respond to threats!”

      These mails, seen with the other evidence in the case, nail down and solidify the “IH story” as developed by Dewey Weaver and inferred by myself and others. The Motion for Sanctions demonstrates paranoia, not ordinary caution, and what is remarkable is how bad it makes Levi look. Hoistad only looks somewhat naive. He did not complain about the contact, wrote nothing negative about it, but simply asked who Dewey Weaver was. Only Levi complained, and then Rossi. If Levi didn’t want to get involved, as Rossi claimed, this was a very strange way to avoid involvement. He might now be subpoenaed, the possibility of that just increased drastically.

    1. They can have a supply of Red Pills on hand. Or would it be Blue Pills? Damn! Decisions, decisions. Actually, Sam, the case is pretty simple, it is only complicated if you start out with a belief that Rossi is worthy of a Nobel Prize. The Motion for Sanctions mishegas will not be seen by the jury. In fact, it is not clear if there will be any jury trial. At this point, I suspect it is unlikely that Rossi will be able to avoid summary judgment on his claims, once discovery is complete. In the other direction, once he primary suit is dismissed, settlement might become more likely. Rossi might get to keep the shirt on his back and his tennis racket, not the other racket. Johnson, I would expect to settle. The others are smaller fish.

    1. Aw, that is so irritating. That post used your email address, which anyone can do, but was from IP 198.50.170.3. Impersonators forfeit all privacy rights. Someone with administrative access to another blog could very possibly identify this person from the IP address and posts there. Or not. But this is what I can do. As to the correction from Dewey, it came from Dewey’s routine IP address. What I actually did was unapprove the comment, then Trashed it, but it will still be available for a while, so it could be recovered.

      I was impersonated on Ego Out and it took Gluck quite a while to deal with it, I don’t think he understands how the systems work. The impersonation was relatively subtle, designed to fire up Peter just so….

  6. Another probable nail in the Lugano coffin?

    From the Darden letter:
    “Also participating in this test will be Hanno Essen, Lars Tegner and Torbjorn Hartman, who participated in the last test. They have reached agreement with Rossi that they will visit unannounced at various times in the next 30 days, and Pettersson and Hoistad plan to return also. Rossi and Fulvio Fabiani, his primary assistant, plan to stay throughout the next month and maybe for as long as 90 days. At the end of 30-90 days, assuming the machine is still operating, the mass vs. energy output analysis will be very clear-subject as always to one’s confidence in the IR settings. The data are being logged on drives throughout the test, and we will have access to the data.”

    Contrary to what I understood of Rossi only being present at the Lugano test at the beginning and end, it appears that he and Fabianni were there the entire time and the various Professors were not there, that they only had an agreement to “drop in unannounced”. Sounds kind of similar to the Doral test!

    I think that the “unexplained reactor explosion” is getting a little too much credence as well. While it is certainly interesting, Darden’s description was :

    “But I mentioned in my last update that we saw a reactor explode from the inside, relatively dramatically, as others had exploded in Italy. These explosions are not very violent, just a pressure release and a burst of energy blowing out the side for a couple of feet and a few seconds.”

    While this is interesting, I believe it is not outside the consideration of normal chemical reactions. It would be great if it were LENR and I hope that it is, but some are touting it as perhaps more than it is. Anyway, like many supporters, they cling to whatever tidbit they can.
    I do not dismiss it, just caution, as Darden seems to, that it is at this point only interesting.

    1. We do not know that Rossi was there all the time. Darden may have misunderstood something or the plan might have changed. However, what is news is how little the Lugano professors were there, especially the Swedes. As well, from the Dewey email, if he wasn’t straight-out lying to Bo Hoistad about what Bo would recognize as a lie immediately, Bo had already told him that Levi dominated the emissivity decision that made that test spectacularly fail. Bo forwarded this mail to Levi, which strikes me as terminally naive. I don’t think Bo has figured out what a mess he has become involved in. Levi makes out the craziest here, after Rossi.

      Darden shows in his email more scientific sophistication than I’d thought he might have. He immediately nailed, when the test was only running a little while, the major problem, lack of calibration at full temperature, or at least at the same input power. There was a punk justification for that in the Lugano report. Where did that come from? Two choices: Rossi and/or Levi. The plot thickens.

      All kinds of crazy stuff can happen with hot NiH devices. An anomaly makes something that suggests further research, not necessarily OMG! LENR! If we look around at the world of NiH “Rossi replications,” we see many “interesting results” that could be artifact. One of the frustrating things about, say, Parkhomov, was that, instead of nailing his original experiment, he kept “improving” it. So that results from one experiment could not be compared with others. His original design was, however, flawed, in that it would have heat flow that varied with the placement of loose, uncontrolled insulation, inside the box that held the reactor. Very much not the way to do it. Parkhomov, I think, wasn’t particularly expecting to find anything at first. He was naive, common with scientists who decide to do some sort of LENR experiment. They don’t bother to become familiar with all the mistakes others have made! So they may repeat some, and may, as well, create their own. This is a difficult field. I love it that people actually look at what happens, but strongly caution against jumping to conclusions. Parkhomov’s cell did not behave like known examples of XP, it was very different, specifically the temperature vs input power and XP relationship was totally wonky — it was basically impossible, but Parkhomov did not look at this, he only looked at one pretty-sloppy measure, how many cups of water he poured into his boiler, manually, very loose, and the boiler might as well have been designed to burp water. And, of course, his reactors broke and the thermocouples failed, etc.

  7. As far as I can see, the Lugano test is totally irrelevant in this case. There is a point that can be made about it, though, in that if it had indeed worked then IH would have known that there was at least some technology that was real and that they might have thus treated Rossi a bit differently. The contract appears to have been for Rossi’s various ECat technologies and how to make them work, and if he withheld some vital information then they’d have a just cause to get it from Rossi. As I understand it, IH made copies of the Lugano device and got null results from it (within experimental error, heat out was equal to heat in). It failed to work, so either Rossi didn’t tell them the secret sauce or the secret sauce didn’t function.

    It’s a tangled web, but I think Rossi (and Levi) are stuffed either way. So are the Swedish professors if they keep insisting that their measurements were valid after the problems were pointed out. The Exhibit 6 mentioned is http://coldfusioncommunity.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/0167.7_Exhibit_6.pdf and Dewey there simply states the information he has gathered. It can only be regarded as threatening in that it exposes the errors in the Lugano report that should have been noticed by Levi at the time. The correct response to this is a retraction and thanking the person who finds the error. Honest mistakes can be forgiven.

    I can speculate that Levi was told exactly what to measure by Rossi so that the kit gave the right answer, but of course that’s not provable. It’s also speculation if I suspect that Levi knew what he was doing and was an active conspirator rather than being fooled by Rossi. The Swedish guys may have been out of their depth and not aware of correct procedures, and too used to people telling the truth to think they were being lied to. I might however have expected them to do some reading-up on the technology they were using to measure things – they had enough time.

    Yep, seems pretty crazy. Dewey’s deposition (0167.8_Exhibit_7.pdf) has some bits edited out as being too sensitive for publication, but what’s there is straightforward in that he found errors and told the people who were involved.

    Tom Darden’s letter (0167.2_Exhibit_1.pdf) has a report of a reactor explosion that does imply that there’s _something_ possibly there. In some ways this might be equivalent to the Thermacore melt-down, and again there’s been no repeat of the explosion though there’s reference to previous ones. This is possibly a confirmation of my hunch that Rossi might have seen some real results at times, but hasn’t managed to either repeat them or get to anything that reliably works or at least works sometimes. Again, this may be a reason for Rossi’s delaying tactics, in order to give himself time to solve the problem whilst telling people he’s already solved it. That’s the Wabbit he’s hoping to produce. What are the chances?

      1. There is no deliberate fraud in the “professors.” I will now except Levi, though I still consider deliberate fraud unlikely for him. The easier explanation is loyalty to the memory of Focardi, and the strange kind of delusion that seems to be fostered in the presence of Rossi. Kullander and Essen, for example. They made mistakes in their first examination that were mind-boggling, in hindsight, but they were outside their field, outside their experience, and, given Focardi’s participation, perhaps, not at all suspicious of or expecting fraud. Scientists are not trained to deal with fraud, within science, a claim of fraud or data falsification is deeply insulting. Scientists who falsify data, if it is found, have lost their career. That’s different from making mistakes. Entrepreneurs who create fake demonstrations, as long as they don’t take money under false pretenses, can make money, even. It is not a career-killer, necessarily. And if there is plausible deniability for error instead of deliberate fraud, they can even walk with a lot of money! Rossi, I noticed, attempted to create plausible deniability. It wasn’t his measurement of power, it was the ERV!!! Or the “professors.” Etc.

    1. A common “reason” for fraud with inventors is to buy time to pull the Wabbit out of the hat. It appears that at this point, IH is not pursuing NiH. Some are speculating that this is simply a reaction to the lawsuit. Maybe. Or maybe they have concluded that NiH is the weaker part of the field at this point, and they are pursuing what is of higher scientific interest. They are in the field for the long-term, and appear to be willing to invest in pure science at this point. Where they will profit, and they know that this is risky, is in being thoroughly aware of the status of the field and therefore ready to move with major investment if a confirmed path opens up. They will continue probing and testing, looking for such a path. The idea that they are trying to “kill NiH” is nuts. However, there was a vampire, and to protect the field, it may have been necessary to drive a stake through its heart. The belief in “LENR+” without genuine and clear scientific confirmation. This was sending many researchers on wild-goose chases. Brian Ahern, I think, damaged his health working with nickel nanopowder, pursuing the Rossi trail that may have led exactly nowwhere. NiH research will continue, it is an obvious possibility, just not yet found to be reliable — and the ash is not known, all that Rossi data being unreliable, for obvious reasons. What an incredible waste!

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