Wikileaks posted a link yesterday to an article about Kurt Eichenwald a senior writer for Newsweek and former reporter for the New York Times:
"reporter" @KurtEichenwald was an administrator of a child porn site; claims he was only "posing as online predator" https://t.co/xQT5K6jRzJ
— WikiLeaks Task Force (@WLTaskForce) July 24, 2017
The report confirms that Kurt was an administrator of a child porn website, something he claims was part of his investigation. When I saw this I decided to check out his twitter account to see if there was any reaction and indeed he had posted many tweets protesting not only his innocence, but claiming his efforts had helped free victims from the horrors of human trafficking. Here are a few tweets he posted:
Once again, trolls spreading "he's in child porn" lie. I saved dozens of kids, got pedos locked up. Read testimony. https://t.co/WG17ruvIed
— Kurt Eichenwald () July 24, 2017
I love the "rules" of the internet. "We attack u with lies. Wait, you say we're lying and show why? How STUPID! Confess!" #TorquemadaTrolls
— Kurt Eichenwald (
Sometimes I wonder: Was my exposing child porn networks worth it, given yrs of vicious pedo attacks I got? Then I see faces of kids it saved
— Kurt Eichenwald (
There are about 50 tweets yesterday in which he goes from claiming he is innocent and indeed saved kids to attacking Assange and alleging Russian involvement.
More on @JulianAssange's best buddies, Russian propagandists Sputnik and RT, who work w/ him to attack democracy. https://t.co/NeGMHVlOSG
— Kurt Eichenwald (
Certainly sounds like an asshole, but he kept going on about these court documents, pleading with people to read them. Even assholes deserve to have their case heard and if indeed he was being wrongly identified as a pedophile that would be a great injustice, especially if it was true that his work had saved underage prostitutes. So I read through his part and I'll admit it is some convincing stuff.
A while into it I was beginning to question if it was possible that Wikileaks got it wrong. In the testimony he speaks vehemently against these practices and the importance of reform when it comes to tackling the issue of child pornography. You are told a story of a young man, Justin Berry, lured into making explicit videos at the age of 13 which then evolved into him being molested, prostituting and eventually running a gay child porn website at the age of 19. His story is a sad, uncomfortable read which identifies Kurt Eichenwald as the hero, the man who set him free:
(https://www.scribd.com/document/335423638/Congress-Child-Abuse-Hearings)
"That same month, I met Kurt Eichenwald, a
New York Times
reporter who was working on a story about webcam pornography. He urged me to quit drugs and get out of the business, and I did. He asked for my help in exposing this world, and I agreed. And when I told him of other children who were being exploited and molested by adult men, he convinced me it was important to tell law enforcement what I knew. I agreed, even
though I feared this meant I could be sent to prison. I believed that the government would protect the children being abused. I believed they would act quickly. I was wrong."
"Had I not met Kurt Eichenwald, I would never have had this chance at a new life. I will never be able to repay what he has done for me. In a profession which is taught to “get the story,” he did that, but he treated me with the compassion of the Good Samaritan. I have my life back."
They both criticize the authorities for the lack of willingness to act on some of the information they had provided against people engaged in this criminal activity.
Justin continues:
"I have never been asked by law enforcement about any of the 1,500 names I provided them. Some of those who molested me, like Mr. Gourlay, and who made all of this possible, are continuing to live their lives, unaware or uncaring about any government inquiry. People like Mr. Brown, who operate the credit card infrastructure of webcam child pornography, have been permitted to continue their work, seemingly undisturbed by any law enforcement effort."
From Kurt's testimony:
"
80
On December 19, the New York Times published a front page article that was the culmination of my 6 month investigation into the world of webcam child pornography. This was an extraordinary project not only for me, not only for the Times, or for journalism in general. This was an instance in which the very reporting could by its very nature result in a crime committed by the reporter. There was a great deal of consultation with the lawyers, a great deal of consultation with the FBI to ensure that at no point did I violate a law. Through that care, we were able to lay bare a nightmarish Internet world that grew without attracting significant attention from law enforcement or child advocates. As a citizen, I was dumbfounded by what I found. As a father, I was terrified"
"In addition to the unsuspecting companies, there are businesses that know exactly what they are doing. In my reporting, I discovered credit card processors who provided support for webcam child pornography. I found web hosting companies that offered servers for the illegal businesses. I even found a company that provided streaming video to sites operated by minors on condition that the company president be allowed to watch the pornographic performances for free."
"You have heard that the predators often laugh at Federal law enforcement. They believe arrest is rare and prosecution followed by jail time even rarer. I was dumbfounded by the willingness of online pedophiles to identify themselves, to publicly discuss their crimes in non-protected publicly accessible sites and chat rooms. What became obvious as I disclosed in my article, is that our Federal law enforcement effort to combat this threat appears to be hobbled by fractured responsibilities, bureaucratic mindsets, and a simple inability to respond."
This is all seems fairly legit. I'm even thinking at this point if this could be some weird 4D chess move where they want to highlight this case for some other reason and do it in this fashion. Then I remember this is Wikileaks we're talking about and they have such a good track record when it comes to this and they would never point their finger at an innocent person, even if there was some alterior motive behind it. I also remember that as of now I have only been looking at his side of the story. I hadn't even read the original article, posted by wikileaks!
This is where his defense begins to fall apart. He neglects to mention some details, which can be summarized in these 5 questions:
"After the documents were unsealed this reporter contacted the New York Times asking whether they were previously aware of Eichenwald’s actions as now revealed in the court documents in Nashville. The Times was asked specifically about five points:
Eichenwald used the $1,184 PayPal payments he paid Justin Berry to buy photos from Justin. Was Eichenwald’s editor or anyone else at the Times aware that Eichenwald was engaged in business transactions with Justin in 2005 around the time of the buying of photos?
Eichenwald told Berry during this time that he could help him with ideas to make more money. Is this something the Times was aware of?
Hours after Eichenwald paid Justin Berry $2,000 on June 8, 2005, Berry produced a video of a 14-year-old boy masturbating. Was the Times aware of this?
Images of the 14-year old masturbating were uploaded a few days later to a heretofore dormant gay porn website run by Berry. During this period, Eichenwald became a member of the same website. Was the Times aware he was a member?
Eichenwald was not merely a member of the illegal site mentioned above. He also had administrative privileges to enter it, involving a special password available only to those managing the site. He used the password more than 20 times in late June, 2005 to sign onto the site. Was the Times aware of this?
The Times responded that it is “in the process of independently reviewing” the documents unsealed in Nashville."
It is also interesting to note how Justin Berry got immunity for crimes he committed for his testimony and that the prepared statement he read conveniently absolves Kurt of guilt and instead portrays him as a hero.
(http://www.freecasey.com/about/transcripts/DE251.pdf)
"
As the trial proof clearly demonstrated, Justin Berry was an adult at the time that he recruited
a minor (Taylor) to star in a mutual masturbation video with him. The video was filmed by Berry
at Greg Mitchel’s home in Roanoke, Virginia using a webcam operated by Berry. Justin Berry was
the perpetrator of that particular crime.2
It is clear from the plain language of the Third Superseding
Indictment (Docket Entry 157), as illuminated by the government’s trial theory, that Justin Berry was
a conspirator in the crimes relating to the JustinsFriends website. Because the JustinsFriends website
was the government’s entire case until the final 30 days prior to trial, until that time, the defense
intensely focused on investigating Justin Berry and preparing for his cross-examination as the
government’s anticipated star witness.
To that end, in the paper discovery, the government produced a June 8, 2005 Bank of
America Cashier’s Check payable to Justin Berry in the amount of $2,000.00 with the name of the
purchaser redacted.3
Noting the curious timing of the check transactions (June 8 and 9, 2005) given
the fact that the Taylor video was filmed by Berry in the early morning hours of June 9, 2005, the
defense was compelled to investigate the source of the funds - suspecting that the $2,000.00 payment
may have represented an unidentified predator’s commissioning of the child pornographic video’s
production. Contemplating whether this information could form part of a defense to the
JustinsFriends counts (then, the entire Second Superseding Indictment) or, at a minimum, could yield
other investigatory leads for the defense in preparing for trial, the defense issued a trial subpoena to
Bank of America for the purpose of gathering full information about the $2,000 Cashier’s Check.
On October 9, 2005, Bank of America responded to the subpoena, indicating that the Cashier’s
Check was purchased by Mr. Eichenwald at the Dallas, Texas branch in Preston Hills on June 8,
2005 and was deposited in part and cashed in part by Justin Berry in Roanoke, Virginia on June 9,
2005."
Justin Berry's mother testified, contradicting her son's story at he had been lured into child pornography cause he was lonely and wanted to meet girls.
"First of all, he was no loner. On the witness stand at Gourlay’s trial in Mich-igan, Justin’s mother, Karen Page, testi-
fied that her son had “tons of friends”
as a teen and was popular enough to be elected president of his high-school
freshman class in Bakerseld, Califor
-nia. Throughout high school, recalls a friend from childhood, Rob Vella, Justin “liked to surround himself with people
and be the center of attention”. He had
several girlfriends, adds Vella. And he
was a regular at Bakers held LAN (local
area network) parties. )"
Footage of him reading his story:
The article above alleges that there was an agenda behind this it that was meant to enact draconian/orwellian measures under the guise of preventing child abuse. Doesn't sound too far fetched, although I find a few arguments in it questionable.
Here is where Kurt's story gets finished. The following are messages he sent to Justin:
“i found a pretty good one...but the lighting sucks. washed
out. still...worth 100.”
• “100. . .we gotta talk about what the really good ones are.”
• “so far...there are just 20 in the file, and most of them are
nothing (shots of beds and driveways, or you rolling a joint.)
that’s okay. i found 3 so far that i either didn’t already have
and were good. the way i am judging them is this: if i save
them, i pay for them. if i don’t - it means i didn’t even bother
to finish looking at them, so i didn’t want to buy.”
• “a problem... i might have hit my withdrawl limit for today.
this is funded by a debit card, and i withdrew a ton of cash
this morning. it is not letting me send 25. i still owe you at
least 65, which i will pay by morning. i will keep trying to do
this.”
• “now paid 110...or 310 so far. and have only downloaded -or
kept - two. so...im being nice.”
• “the ftp site is still not working...Paid a dollar to let you
know. Now it doesn’t seem to work at all. Once it’s up and
running, I’ll be back to downloading...and paying you. I’ll be
online today. Find me and lemme know what to do. And I
have other proposals for you that would get you even more
money.”10
• “the problem with the ftp site is...when i try to go in it says
‘the folder ‘ftp.66.27.236.12/weee/’ is read only because the
proxy server is not set up to allow full access. to move, paste,
rename or delete files, you must use a different proxy, contact
your system administrator.’ then, i click okay - and all it
shows me is test_buddy.txt. no other files are there. any
thoughts?”
• “email me when you can...or tellme when u will be on aim.
i haven’t had access to the ftp site since we last spoke. and
i’d like to start payin ya again. email me at
skywrite55@aol.com, or tell me when u will be on aim.”
(http://www.freecasey.com/about/transcripts/DE251.pdf)
Right. So. How exactly was this necessary?
Here is his attempt to explain:
The paper has much to
answer for. So does the reporter.
It may be a while, if ever, before he
does. Since the $2,000 payment sur
-faced, Eichenwald has denied engaging in checkbook journalism. He says he ran across a photo of Justin online – with no last name – while researching a story idea about Internet fraud. The image appeared to him to be of someone about 14 years old, and it was on a porn site. Eichenwald says he was very worried that Justin was a child victim of sexual exploitation, and he and his wife vowed
to nd the boy and rescue him if neces
-sary. Eichenwald now insists he was acting not as a journalist but as a Good
Samaritan. He sent the $2,000 check, he
has said, because he feared Justin was about to be auctioned off for a night as a child prostitute. He thought mailing money would cancel the auction and be a chance to get Justin’s name and address "
He said he simply forgot to mention that he had sent him money and that he was acting as a private citizen when he did so. He says he was so concerned that he was about to sell himself that he needed to send him money out of the kindness of his heart. Why was he an administrator of his website? How does that fit with the narrative that he had sought out to help him? Because he was posing as a predator? It all gets very confusing...
Of course it's not. And it's pretty obvious that his story doesn't add up.
In his piece about it he recounts:
(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/us/reporters-essay-making-a-connection-with-justin.html)
"The only way to know if Justin was real, I decided, was to meet him in person. And to do that, I had to win the confidence of whoever was answering to his screen name. At The Times, it is standard practice for a reporter to identify himself at the outset, but doing that too soon would mean I might never know the truth. I decided to try to engage this person in conversation and persuade him to meet with me. At that time, I would disclose my identity and only then would I begin the real reporting that could be used in an article.
I contacted Justin again; this time, I mimicked the tone of the members of the Yahoo site, simply identifying myself as a fan. From there began an off-and-on, online conversation that went on for weeks, mostly about the music that I write as a hobby; Justin assumed that that was my career, and I did not try hard to dissuade him.
Soon thereafter, I proposed meeting in Los Angeles, and Justin agreed. My wife, Theresa, whom I had kept abreast of what was happening, worried that this could be a setup, and made me promise to take precautions. I did, but when I saw Justin at the airport, I was reassured. Although he was 18, he looked much younger and did not seem physically capable of harming me.
I immediately identified myself as a Times reporter, and Justin, though taken aback, continued to speak to me; for more than an hour, we discussed my background, until he was willing to proceed. Over the next two days, I interviewed the person I now knew was Justin Berry"
The editors note however says:
Editor's Note: December 18, 2005
"An article by Kurt Eichenwald on Dec. 19, 2005, reported on a teenage boy's sexual exploitation on the Internet, and an accompanying Reporter's Essay by Mr. Eichenwald published on nytimes.com explained the details of his initial contact with the subject.
The essay was intended to describe how Mr. Eichenwald persuaded Justin Berry, then 18, to talk about his situation. But Mr. Eichenwald did not disclose to his editors or readers that he had sent Mr. Berry a $2,000 check. Mr. Eichenwald said he was trying to maintain contact out of concern for a young man in danger, and did not consider himself to be acting as a journalist when he sent the check.
Mr. Eichenwald explained in his essay that, at the outset, he did not identify himself to Mr. Berry as a reporter. After they met in person, but before he decided that he wanted to write an article, Mr. Eichenwald said he told the youth that the money would have to be returned. Times policy forbids paying the subjects of articles for information or interviews. A member of Mr. Berry's family helped repay the $2,000.
The check emerged as part of a criminal proceeding involving Mr. Berry in which a Michigan man is charged with criminal sexual conduct, enticing a minor to commit immoral acts and distributing child pornography. The trial began yesterday.
The check should have been disclosed to editors and readers, like the other actions on the youth's behalf that Mr. Eichenwald, who left The Times last fall, described in his article and essay."
This article from 2007 argues in favour of Eichenweld, which gives us more insight into his alleged version of events:
(http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39957/)
"His career is in tatters. For this, he blames a campaign by the convicts he’s exposed, other child molesters he doesn’t even know, random anonymous bloggers, and journalists, specifically the advocacy journalist Debbie Nathan, who has written several long pieces questioning his reporting methods and whom he calls “the high priestess of pedophilia.” He believes they are acting in concert to destroy him, professionally and emotionally.
“I am emotionally damaged—significantly damaged,” he tells me in one of dozens of interviews over the past three months, many marked by tears and screams of rage. “The Justin thing was two years ago, and it won’t stop! What can I do to make it stop? It will never stop, you just don’t understand.”
...
"Eichenwald first managed to contact Berry through an IM address he found in the MexicoFriends site archive. Berry was staying with Mitchel at his home in Virginia at the time. Eichenwald posed as an obsessed admirer, IM-ing and calling repeatedly. After initially gaining their trust, Eichenwald says he worried that Berry and Mitchel were going cold on him. That’s when the Eichenwalds, according to Theresa, decided to make several payments via PayPal. “A lure,” she called the cash, gaining his trust and keeping his attention until they could intervene. “I thought, Could we be throwing money away? And then, once again, What if it were our child? It’s a small price to pay.” That spring, Justin and Mitchel were considering refurbishing JustinsFriends, as a “twink” (young male) porn business, once again starring Justin, a prospect Eichenwald has testified he found alarming.
These aren’t the usual tactics of a reporter, but Eichenwald insisted to me that he was working on a rescue, not a newspaper story—he decided to write about it all only later."
Later he says... Hmm... Maybe when he realized he needed a cover story for why we was an administrator of a child porn site, sending money to an underaged male prostitute?
"By late June 2005, Eichenwald’s rapport with Berry was strong enough that he began angling for a meeting, but Berry was reluctant—he still thought his Internet benefactor was a gay Gary Glitter. Eichenwald pressed him repeatedly. He reminded Berry of his generosity, and talked about the promise of a movie. Eichenwald says he grew more desperate when he learned that Berry might be considering two marketing stunts in conjunction with his return: an Internet “auction,” where he would prostitute himself out to the highest bidder, and a whistle-stop tour in an RV—Eichenwald calls it “a molest-a-thon,” even though Berry was over 18—in which fans could have a private show. Desperate to stave off both events, the Eichenwalds sent along a much larger sum of money than before, this time $2,000. “You have to come meet me,” he would cajole the teenager. “I’m the $2,000 guy!”
Right... Ok. So. This is perfectly normal right. Sending 2000 dollars to an underage drug addicted prostitute with whom you have no relation except coming across his website online, prompting you to get so worried about him you decided to start sending him money in the faint hope that he might meet you and be swayed by your pleas for him to sober up. Because "it could be your son". And you only decided you would write about it after he met with you. Ok then...
"Finally, on June 30, Berry flew to LAX and met his benefactor. Eichenwald, who had flown in from Dallas, he demanded to see Berry’s license, which proved he was weeks away from his 19th birthday, and handed over a copy of his newest book, proof he was a reporter, not a fan at all.
But these revelations didn’t stop the rescue mission. Eichenwald explains that Berry was high on drugs when he arrived, sick to his stomach, and desperately thin—109 pounds, though he was six-foot-one. That afternoon, and the next morning, Eichenwald talked to Berry about self-respect and the fragility of the soul. He extracted a promise to go cold turkey. This was an interesting moment in their developing connection to one another, both Eichenwald and Berry explain to me. Berry, in a telephone interview monitored by his attorney, said he looked at Eichenwald and thought, You know what? Enough’s enough, and agreed to quit on the spot.
Emboldened, Eichenwald told Berry to break off all connections with his fans, and implored him to find a way to make money “that wasn’t based in self-denigration.” He says he also demanded Berry return the $2,000. “We paid that money to save your soul,” he remembers saying. “That money was good money and you took it for all of the worst reasons possible. You took it and debased yourself by accepting that money. You have to give it back.”
Berry agreed to it all; he was that ready for a change. “I was a mess. I was horrible. I was speaking to thousands of pedophiles on a daily basis,” he says. “Luckily enough, Kurt, with that talk we had in L.A., knocked enough sense into me.”
What a hero. Who does that? I mean seriously. That is some extreme kindness right there. Going that far out of your way to help a person in that horrible situation. He should start a charity, "CPF" The Child Prostitute Foundation where undercover agents send thousands of dollars to victims of human trafficking in the hope that the agent can guilt trip the child prostitutes into meeting them thinking it is meant to be a client but instead being convinced to go cold turkey and give their money back to the foundation! Great plan. Or was he doing this to write a story? I'm not sure I follow. Maybe the rest of the article can explain:
....
"Berry also generated money in other illegal ways, including using his subscribers’ credit cards to buy unauthorized things for himself, plotting insurance scams, and even smuggling aliens over the border."
....
So Justin Berry was involved in smuggling aliens over the border. Another thing from which his testimony gave him immunity from.
....
Eichenwald says Berry showed him the preview video for his Website. It featured him and a kid named “Taylor,” side by side on a bed masturbating. Taylor, Berry said, was just 14 years old.
The idea that another youngster was now sinking into a similar fate occupied Eichenwald’s mind. He worried he was legally culpable to do something but felt his options were few. He could go to the authorities himself, but journalists are loath to be seen as tools of prosecutors. At that very moment, his colleague Judith Miller sat in a federal prison for refusing to reveal a source to a special prosecutor. Eichenwald had a better idea, he says, and convinced Larry Ingrassia, the top editor of the Times business section. They would encourage Berry to go to the authorities, then chronicle the investigation from start to finish.
But they had a problem. Berry could possibly be brought up on charges himself for recruiting, filming, and distributing the Taylor video, a serious federal crime. Going to the authorities was especially troubling to Father Huddleston, who was now praying regularly with Berry. “The problem was that Justin’s age put him in a place where he was too old to be considered a victim, and the adult programs would treat him like he was the perpetrator,” Father Huddleston says.
Eichenwald called Steve Ryan, a former federal prosecutor who had been a source of his over the years, and Ryan agreed to help negotiate immunity for Berry in exchange for telling what he knew about the industry that Eichenwald was uncovering. He arranged for Berry to be interviewed by the FBI in Washington, D.C., on July 25 and 26, 2005. Eichenwald accompanied his source to D.C. (He says he was passing through on a family vacation, but Ryan says Eichenwald was on hand to greet Berry during breaks in his testimony and even offered information himself.)
But the FBI took some 50 days to confer immunity. One day in July, Eichenwald learned that Taylor was planning to travel to Boston with Greg Mitchel. Berry convinced him that Mitchel intended to molest the minor on the trip (Taylor later told the FBI he was never touched by Mitchel, whom he said he loved “like a father”). In a panic, Eichenwald called Ingrassia again, this time proposing an even more unorthodox intervention, to which he says the editor—and company lawyers—finally agreed. Eichenwald initiated an IM conversation with Taylor, impersonating Berry, the youngster’s mentor. He told Taylor to stay clear of Mitchel and to end his porn career, and Taylor apparently agreed.
“In part, I was Justin,” Eichenwald tells me, “because Justin was speaking in part through me.”
......
The fuck am I reading? I must continue...
........
"When I press Eichenwald on how, as a journalist, he could justify this charade, he explodes in angry self-defense: “Do you think I wanted to be the first journalist to go to jail for allowing a child to continue being raped because I didn’t want to violate some Star Trek–ian nonintervention rule that isn’t written down anywhere?” Eichenwald says he made additional contacts with over a dozen other minors who he believed were producing sexualized images of themselves and persuaded them to stop as well. “It’s the most noble thing I’ve ever done,” he says."
.......
Starting to sound more and more like a delusional psychopath. He continues to revel in his heroic antics:
Right or wrong, these actions give an indication of the terrible weight Eichenwald felt was on his shoulders. The world that came into focus for him was a dire one and drove him to peculiar extremes, he admits. “Somebody told me yesterday, ‘You wanted to be the Catcher in the Rye.’ And I realized that’s absolutely true. I wanted—I wanted to save them.”
This hero complex drove him deeper into the rabbit hole. He began to see pedophiles and their victims everywhere—in the shadows at the local water park or massing at a neighborhood hamburger stand. His wife remembers him calling her from the garage in tears, unable to come in from his car. He often woke up screaming in the middle of the night. “He’s a casualty of war,” says Ryan, who now represents Eichenwald as well. “Kurt saw things, or imagined things based on the life that these kids lived—he imagined their lives, through the facts that they gave him. As a human being, he said, ‘What would it be like to be this 13-year-old boy who’s raped?’ ”
.....
Eichenwald has always been extremely difficult to edit, but the weeks before publication were excruciating for everyone involved. Eichenwald says the story was ultimately pushed through 44 drafts by eleven editors. But he hammered back, screaming at his editors about children in danger and writing nuclear memos about his perceived mistreatment. He flew to New York to demand that the piece finally run. He cried often. On the eve of publication, his story was assigned to yet another editor, and he put his foot down one last time. That Friday, he submitted his resignation—not the first time or the last. The piece appeared the following Monday.
In retrospect, Times colleagues say Eichenwald steamrolled the piece through a leery editorial process. “This wasn’t people saying the story is three-quarters right and they don’t give a shit about the rest,” says Alex Berenson, a business reporter. “The difference is Kurt’s record, which gave them the assurance he was telling the truth, and his personality, which made it so difficult to edit him.”
.....
She (Debbie Nathan) thought that Eichenwald, whose stories seemed to imply he’d viewed lots of illegal sites, was given some sort of free pass by the Feds in part because he seemed so personally invested in promoting prosecution. Yet in an e-mail exchange, he denied viewing the sites, except by accident, which he said made it legal under certain circumstances.
Her Salon article was strident and prosecutorial, steeped in incredulity about Eichenwald’s methods. “Really? He didn’t know? Wasn’t hunting? Please!”
Eichenwald and the Times deny that Eichenwald did anything illegal in reporting the story. After the Nathan article, Eichenwald says he feared he might be arrested, or his children removed from his home based on her declaration that he illegally viewed underage porn. He instructed his personal lawyer to sue her for $10 million and publicly declared, “My wife and I have instructed our financial adviser to set aside $100,000 to finance the initial portions of this lawsuit.” So far he hasn’t sued, but in a private, seething e-mail to her, he wrote, “People like you are the maggots of journalism.” He later wrote a rambling, 2,600-word letter to Romenesko, the media blog, putting all other journalists on notice. “If you choose to rely on this conflicted woman for your reports, you do so at your own legal peril.”
.....
"Even more mystifying than the payouts were the allegations by a computer expert hired by the defense, who analyzed hard drives and records and presented evidence that, as Berry was preparing to return to the business, Eichenwald had high-level administrative access to JustinsFriends, which would have allowed him to closely monitor the site’s business. If true, the allegation suggests many things: reportorial zeal, or a kind of journalistic sting, perhaps; not to mention personal motives that would be hard for anyone but Eichenwald to understand.
Eichenwald has yet to address this allegation specifically, but he’s denied doing anything illegal in reporting the story. His legal team moved to seal the records, but they were finally released last month. “All I can say is that there are troubling events and circumstances in advance of the launching of this site,” Strianse tells me, “involving whoever was involved in assisting Justin Berry, and then deciding to get Tim Richards involved for whatever technical support and assistance he can bring.”
Ingrassia is reportedly furious over Eichenwald’s failure to disclose the payments. “We trusted him to disclose all pertinent information,” he says in a statement. “The subsequent disclosures about pseudonyms and payments have been disturbing, and we have said so. Kurt’s behavior, and particularly his failure to be candid with his editors, violated the paper’s standards.”
...
"In preparation for his sentencing hearing, Richards, who maintains a blog partly dedicated to discrediting Eichenwald, was given access to read-only copies of Berry’s and Mitchel’s hard drives and computers used by the credit-card-processing company, whose owner was also arrested. In court papers, he alleges that they found cash transfers, as well as e-mails from “Andrew McDonald,” using an AOL address of Eichenwald’s. On June 6, 2005, “Andrew McDonald” wrote “the lighting sucks, washed out. still … worth 100.” On June 7, he wrote, “I have other proposals for you that would get you even more money.” A day later, Berry received a $2,000 check, drawn off Eichenwald’s Dallas bank."
...
"Though Eichenwald’s lawyer denies he purchased photographs, Eichenwald has admitted to the $2,000 check. While not denying that he made other payments, he says he has “no independent memory” of any of the PayPal expenses. However, Theresa does remember the payments.
Eichenwald says that his epilepsy causes severe short-term-memory disruptions—it seems Michael, his anthropomorphized disease, hadn’t been dispatched after all. He produces a statement his neurologist has issued confirming the condition. Financial transactions are particularly vexing for him, he says. Eichenwald says he has covered for his lapses over the years with memory-enhancing techniques, like reading documents out loud or taking more detailed notes than others in his line of work. But in personal matters—which he insists the Berry rescue had been during the time he was sending money—he is less meticulous and therefore more forgetful. “People think I’m a scatterbrain,” he says.
“The number of coats that he’s lost,” adds his wife, sitting beside him on the family sofa one evening. “Or he comes home with one shoe.”
“One shoe in my suitcase,” he corrects her quickly. “Let’s not create images that aren’t necessary! But the flip side is, look, people in our profession, there are people who are stupid. There are people who are drunks. There are people who are lazy. I learned Enron’s accounting. People think I came into that knowing it. I didn’t know what structured finance was—that’s the basis of the entire Enron case.”
In fact, during our many interviews, he showed an astonishing command of detail (hundreds of dates, names, and events that animate the Berry story fill his head, as do chapter-and-verse citations from many other stories he’s worked on).
......
His final words in the article succinctly sum up his incoherent contradictory defense:
“I didn’t do this for a news story. I didn’t do this to get people arrested. I did this because I thought this person was desperate … And now I sit here, desperate. And I don’t know how to get out of it.”
Not for a news story. Not to catch bad guys. But because he just wanted to help this boy who looked 14 in a picture on a pornographic website he accidentally came across while surfing the internet and just felt so very very sorry for him. And the fact that he sent 2000$ to him the same day he records child pornography and posts it on the website he was an administrator for is totally not suspicious. At all.
Well. As you can tell there is a lot to this. This is only my second post but it represents pretty well what I will be doing here. I don't feel like I need to re-write everything so I use c/p indiscriminately. Put different sources into a context that I feel is worth commenting on. This is a bizarre one for sure.
In this context the preface to his congressional statement starts to make more sense:
[The prepared statement of Kurt Eichenwald follows:]
My name is Kurt Eichenwald and I am a senior writer with the New York Times. My appearance today is somewhat unusual. As a matter of policy, the Times instructs its reporters to decline requests to testify in judicial and legislative settings, because it can serve to undermine our work if we are seen by the public as an extension of the government. In this instance, the Times accepted a subpoena from the committee on my behalf after the committee agreed that I would be asked to provide only published or publicly disclosed information. To the extent that the committee seeks information about reporting processes, I will have to respectfully decline to answer. Nor do I believe it is my place to offer policy suggestions. But, within that framework, I offer the following testimony, which may assist the committee in its exploration of this important issue"
Well. Having heard Kurt's side of the story it's safe to say only headline glancing automodrones would buy it. Any honest assessment of his claims and the arguments against them would conclude this. Luckily we live in a world where everybody carefully researches both sides of all topics before reaching a conclusion. Otherwise this creep might start doing some more unsolicited charity work.