Re: More hilarity from the court transcripts
Here we learn that if a final draft differs more than slightly from a rough draft it must be a forgery.
From January 29:
Landish has Smith, the forensic document examiner on the stand, trying to make as much hay as possible from the fact that exhibit 3B does not match exhibit 3A, and therefore something fishy is going on. In reality, the first document (3-B) is a draft of the second (3-A), sent to Andy Mann a month before, and contains handwritten corrections to the text as the two negotiated the terms of the note. The type font and size are different, and the positioning of signatures is different. Amazon's only hope here is to try to somehow make this seem like an evil conspiracy.
Mr. Smith, discussing the general concept of faxes, indicates that there is no way to tell how many times a document has been faxed, i.e. what generation it is. This is, incidentally, not always true. Faxes and copiers generally create output in a size reduced by about 3%. If document B is about 91% of A, it is reasonable to speculate that it is a third generation reproduction. None of this came out in court; in fact, Smith says "The only thing it's going to do as you fax it more is it's going to deteriorate in the way it looks." He also indicates that he can always tell if a document is a fax. Also not always possible, IMO. Many devices use the same scan and reproduction mechanism as faxes, and it's quite easy to set up a document to appear to be a fax. In many cases the original resides only in the computer, like e-mail, and even "originals" may print differently on different printers (i.e. laser and inkjet printers have different size printable areas, may use different variations of the same font, etc.) Regardless, the whole point of this was to manufacture something evil in possessing draft versions of documents. In Smith's immortal words: "A fax machine is a machine-generated forgery."
Mr. Judd on cross.
Q: There's no suggestion that Exhibit 3-B was ever supposed to be passed off as Exhibit 3-A, was there?
A: I have -- I have no knowledge of that. I was just simply asked to look at the two documents and determine the differences, if there were differences between them, and what they were.
Q: Well, one of the differences is Exhibit 3-A has a date of April 14th.
A: Correct.
Q: Exhibit 3-B has a date of March 14th?
A: Correct.
Q: They aren't supposed to be the same document, are they?
A: I have no idea.
Q: You were just asked to say 3-A was a fax?
A: I was just asked to see if 3-B was ever a copy of this page. And my opinion is if it was, the bottom portion has been changed along with -- you can see the seal's even moved, not in the same place. So basically what I'm telling you is this document never was this document.
The Court: This document being what?
A: I'm sorry. Exhibit 3-B was never 3-A.
The Court: At least it wasn't an exact copy.
A: Correct.
Q: There isn't anything that's the same with 3-B as 3-A, is there?
A: It appears the wording to be the same in the body of the promissory note.
Q: Well, for example, 3-A in the first paragraph has the word "ten" stricken, and the word "six" inserted, is that correct?
A: Um-h'm. Correct.
Q: In Exhibit 3-B, there is a blank of typed word at that position and a handwritten word "six", correct?
A: Correct.
Q: (loudly) There's no way in the world that these two were the same documents, is there?
A: I do not know. I do not know. I mean, I -- from my examination, I'm saying that this -- this document never was this document in original form.
The Court: And I think he's agreeing with you, Mr. Judd.
Q: All right. The same thing is true with Exhibits 3-C and 3-D, isn't it?
A: Correct.
Q: The same things happen, including the change in the body.
A: Correct.
Q: There is no record at all to suggest that 3-D is 3-C.
A: I can't -- I can't testify as to intent. All I can do is testify to what I see. So I was asked to look at the two documents to see if that document had been altered from its original state.
==== some discussion of differences in the fax headers (dates, page counts) of the documents, then ====
Q: So what you're able to say is that these four promissory notes, which don't have the same dates, they don't have the same signatures in the same places, and they don't have the same inner lineations on the documents aren't the same documents.
A: Correct.
Mr. Judd: I don't have anything further.
--- But Mr. Cooper has some questions...
Q: With respect to Exhibit 3-A, and comparing it to 3-B, you cannot say with certainty, can you, Mr. Smith, which of these documents was prepared first?
A: No.
...
Q: All you can testify to is that you were told by somebody that Exhibit 3-A was a copy of the original, correct?
A: Correct.
Q: Who told you that?
A: Michael Sylver.
Q: Okay. Did Michael Sylver show you the original?
A: These were the only documents that I saw.
=== back to Judd ===
Q: You were told that 3-A was a copy of an original?
A: Correct. I believe the story I was told as that 3-A was an original document that was faxed to Shoreline Securities, signed by Shoreline Securities, and then sent back to Amazon National (sic) Treasures, and that was the original they had.
=== back to Cooper ===
Q: Mr. Smith, it's entirely possible, is it not, that these four documents, Exhibits 3-A, 3-B, 3-C, and 3-D, could very well have been signed at different times and have been at one point original documents, correct?
A: Yes. I have no way to determine that looking at -- at photocopies or faxes.
- Jeff
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