DTCC caught covering-up
There has been much speculation as to the root of Gary Weiss’s abiding interest in the personalities voicing their objections to the practice of illegal naked short securities trading.
In February of this year, some felt that question was answered in the form of a minor yet tremendously significant incident from which it could be fairly deduced that Weiss was, on the morning of January 19, 2007, using a computer on the network of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC).
The basis of that deduction is explained in detail here.
Given the enormous value of the financial assets over which the DTCC is steward, and the high level of security that must necessarily mediate access to the organization’s premises, much less data networks, one can immediately rule out any scenario in which Weiss might have been using that computer in anything other than a sanctioned capacity.
Over four days, DTCC Spokesman Stuart Goldstein ignored two emailed requests for comment on this situation. When he finally did respond to a third request received by a staffer over the phone, it was in the form of a blank email. A quick request to re-send the missing content was denied, and five repeat requests over the space of one week were ignored.
Then, in one of the strangest turns of events observed in this saga to date, on February 9, 2007, Goldstein’s reply was delivered, unprompted, by New York Post reporter Roddy Boyd.
From: Boyd, Roddy
Date: Feb 09 2007 - 1:03pm
Subject:judd,
I spoke to corp comm at DTCC and they told me, on the record, that weiss is not, nor has he ever, been employed or used by DTCC in any capacity, formally or informally. They categorically reject it and tell me that none of them have any recollection of ever talking to him, meeting with him or having any dealings with him.
categorically rejects it.
thats a big hump for a real reporter to get over.let me put this politely:
As an investigative reporter, laughably per PB, you really, really are a much better PR person.
Lest its meaning be lost on anybody, please carefully re-read and reflect on the sweeping significance of Mr. Boyd’s second sentence:
They categorically reject it and tell me that none of them have any recollection of ever talking to [Gary Weiss], meeting with him or having any dealings with him.
Now, please carefully read and consider the meaning of the following:
In recent weeks, a confidential source has delivered to AntiSocialMedia.net multiple emails, all pre-dating Mr. Boyd’s DTCC proxy denials, in which Gary Weiss refers to active consultations between himself and unnamed DTCC officials on a specific media-related matter.
These emails make no reference to the basis (whether paid or otherwise) of the relationship, but given the extreme lengths to which DTCC leadership has gone to deny so much as a conversation with Weiss, this development is suggestive of what can only be interpreted as unmitigated deception at the highest levels within that organization.
In February, Weiss called claims of a relationship between himself and the DTCC "absolute crap."
Wishing to rule out the possibility that Roddy Boyd delivered anything but an accurate reflection of the DTCC’s position, earlier this week Stuart Goldstein was asked to affirm the accuracy of Boyd's statement, as well as to comment on the existence of unspecified evidence that Gary R. Weiss has or has had a professional relationship with the DTCC.
Goldstein's pithy reply consisted of three words:
From: Stuart Goldstein
date: May 23, 2007 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: Request for commentSend your evidence.
Because the nature of the evidence does nothing to change the facts at hand, and in order to honor commitments of confidentiality made to sources, Goldstein’s request was not honored.
An additional request for comment has been ignored by Goldstein.
Given the length to which Goldstein has gone to obscure the truth in this matter, and the length to which Weiss regularly goes to specifically malign critics of the DTCC’s defense of illegal and abusive stock trade settlement failures, a disturbing picture of that organization’s policy of defamatory, surrogate-driven, scorched-earth public relations is beginning to emerge.
Update: 5/31/2007
An alert reader brings to our attention an earlier incident appearing to confirm Goldstein's lax regard for truth when confronted with questions relating to the DTCC's role in empowering illegal market manipulation by crooked stock lenders.
The following originally appeared here on May 11, 2004.
FinancialWire received a confidential email between a reporter and Stuart Z. Goldstein, Managing Director of Corporate Communications for the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. in which Goldstein was represented as denying that a lawsuit filed by Nanopierce Technologies exists.
The chief spokesperson for the DTCC, whose board of directors represent a who's who of financial entities, including Lehman Brothers, Citigroup / Solomon Smith Barney's Corporate Investment Bank, and Morgan Stanley, was quoted as stating that the "lawsuit" did not exist and was simply "charges being leveled by internet crackpots."
FinancialWire sent Goldstein a scanned copy of the actual court filing, which occurred April 29 at 12:15 p.m., and asked Goldstein if he or the DTCC still denied its existence or had any comments. No response was received.
It would be strange, but not unreasonable, had Goldstein himself not yet heard of the lawsuit when asked. But if that were the case, the proper response would be to explain as much. Instead, Goldstein was dismissive and insulting: the general embodiment of his employer.
But beyond Goldstein's obviously striking social shortcomings, these are the mannerisms of an organization with something dark to hide, but utterly lacking in accountability.
What is that dark thing?
We know that it includes records of billions upon billions of dollars of failed stock trades (the one thing the DTCC is tasked with completing successfully). Some allege that beyond the records, there is also proof that elements within the DTCC are profiting wildly from this fraud.
Given what I've seen, I'm inclined to believe it's true.
Paid bashers: cracking the code.
Third Point, LLC is a hedge fund run by Daniel Loeb, also known on stock message boards as “Mr. Pink.”
Michelle McDonough (formerly Michelle Sarian), is a convicted felon who has spent one year in prison for securities fraud. Today, as before going to prison, McDonough has a company called Magic Consulting.
Floyd Schneider is a prolific message board poster, whose many pseudonyms can typically be found repeating the same drumbeat of fraud and executive incompetence. Schneider’s posts frequently encourage shareholders to file SEC complaints and/or join shareholder lawsuits.
Yolanda Holtzee is also a prolific message board poster, most notably as Ms. Mint Green, who holds herself out at a close associate of Daniel Loeb/Mr. Pink. Holtzee is also frequently found to be encouraging shareholders to complain to the SEC and participate in shareholder lawsuits.
Roddy Boyd is a reporter for the New York Post and frequent online supporter and offline apologist of Floyd Schneider and Yolanda Holtzee.
AntiSocialMedia.net has learned that Third Point has, on multiple occasions, engaged Michelle McDonough to generate support for SEC investigations and/or class action lawsuits brought by shareholders against companies in which Third Point has substantial short interests. (Daniel Loeb refused to comment on the nature of his relationship with Michelle McDonough.)
McDonough, in turn, frequently engages Floyd Schneider and Yolanda Holtzee (among others) to foment and feign support for such shareholder actions on stock message boards. (McDonough refused to comment on the nature of her relationship with Schneider and Holtzee.)
Roddy Boyd has been asked on two occasions to comment on his relationship with McDonough. The resulting exchanges, via email with Judd Bagley, proceeded as follows:
Judd Bagley: “…What do you know about a woman named Michelle McDonough?”
Roddy Boyd: “re Michelle M: nothing. Should I? google has about 1mm entries for that name.”
Judd Bagley: “She used to go by the name Michelle Sarian. Today she runs “Magic Consulting.” I think she did a year in prison back in 2001.”
Roddy Boyd: “re sarian or mcdonough...youre concern, not mine.”
The second, more recent, exchange proceeded as follows:
Judd Bagley: “While I've got you…you recently denied knowing Michelle McDonough (formerly Sarian). Is that still your position?”
Roddy Boyd: “sorry judd, im not talking to you about anything else, period. if youre not comfortable with me asking the questions-fine. but im not anwering yours.”
That’s right…Roddy Boyd, a reporter, essentially twice gave me a reply of “no comment” when asked about any relationship he may have with Michelle McDonough.
This is a vastly complicated topic, which ASM, with the help of many, will spend the foreseeable future unraveling.
Loeb, McDonough, Holtzee, Schneider, and Boyd are again encouraged to contact me with any relevant comments they may have on this topic as we continue to explore it.
How not to respond to a subpoena by the SEC
Take a trip with me, back to early 2006.
On January 7, Jordan Goldstein, general counsel of TheStreet.com, pronounced that company co-founder Jim Cramer had never sold a single share of TSCM stock.
Exactly one month later, Jim Cramer announces, via the adoption of a rule 10b5-1 plan, his intention to exercise 150,000 stock options over the course of one year.
In the announcement, the plan's purpose is expressed as being:
"...designed to avoid any real or perceived conflict of interest in connection with the trading of company securities. The program is established at a time when the executive does not have material inside information.
"...It is Mr. Cramer's intention to provide an orderly liquidation of these options through this plan, which provides for the sale of approximately 12,500 shares on a monthly basis."
Such an orderly liquidation, as outlined in the plan, would have looked like the chart to the right (click to enlarge).
In reality, the record reflects a very different selling pattern by Mr. Cramer; one which looks like the chart to the left (click to enlarge).
You'll note that 112,500 (exactly 75%) of the options expected to be exercised in an orderly manner over the course of 12 months were actually exercised within two weeks.
What could account for such a deviation from Cramer's 10b5-1 plan?
A little historical context might add some clarity.
What was not mentioned in the 10b5-1 plan was the fact that just days beforehand, Jim Cramer had received a subpoena by the SEC...something that might be considered by some to be material inside information.
That subpoena would not be disclosed by Cramer until February 27, by which time 100,000 options had already been exercised. Adding this information to Cramer's TSCM selling chart would tend to raise serious questions relating to insider trading on Cramer's part, and the low regard Cramer would appear to have for his company's investors.
NOTE: Thanks to Evren Karpak and another un-named supporter of market reform for their time in handling key portions of the research on this topic.
Wall Street versus America versus my better judgement
A friend who's been following this blog for the past few months paid me a striking compliment recently. She said I am "the anti-Gary Weiss."
As she explained, that's not to say I'm necessarily anti-Gary Weiss, but that where Gary is in all things the Yang, I am the Yin, thus maintaining balance in the universe.
When I asked her for an example, she pointed to our respective approaches to Amazon book reviews.
Where Gary has dedicated an enormous amount of energy toward inventing dozens of over-the-top raving reviews of his own books, I only review media I've legitimately purchased and consumed, and on the one occasion I've had to light-heartedly comment on something I had in fact written, I clearly disclosed that I was the author.
I suspect that is what left me so bothered by the accusation leveled by Gary's minion-for-hire ScipioAfricanus that I had panned Gary's book when, as he wrote, "the evidence seems to indicate that he has never even read the book."
Evidence? What evidence might that be?
To put a fork in that entire line of (il)logic, I offered this visual restatement of my initial Amazon review (click to enlarge).
Upon further reflection, I remembered that if I've learned anything about Gary Weiss over the past year, it's that his sketchy relationship with Truth always provides solid content for this blog. And so with that in mind, I decided to not just re-read, but to study Gary's book and report to you, my loyal readers, anything exceptional I might find therein.
Consider this exception #1.
On page 33 (of the hardcover version), Weiss holds up the trading history of Genesis Intermedia (GENI) as indicative of the excesses of a stock promoter known as The Waaco Kid.
Unfortunately, a brief consultation with the truth reveals that the company in question was actually Genesis International Financial Services (GIFS).
Much like network hardware maker Cisco and foodservice product distributor Sysco.
.
After all, both try to make things get from one place to another. Cisco moves bits of data, while Sysco moves cases of Vegeline non-stick cooking spray. They are identical, for all practical purposes.
Oh man. Is it obvious I'm lingering here to avoid getting back to the book?
Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors: Part One
Before reading what follows, it’s important to know that Yahoo! message board aliases ymh_ymh_ymh, ursa_of_245_park_avenue, ursa_383_madison_avenue, and ursa_minor_245 all belong to Yolanda Holtzee. You can read more on these relationships here.
According to a Wall Street Journal story dated April 18, 2006 (reprinted here, one week later):
In 1998, hoping to make more cash, [Holtzee] began managing money, she says, for a handful of wealthy individuals. She says she stopped taking in new investors in 2000 and won't disclose her firm's assets under management or its performance.
Ms. Holtzee refers to her company, Alcap LLC, as an "investment club" and says she employs two traders in Connecticut and a compliance officer.
Holtzee’s first apparent mention of the fund appears to come in January of 2002.
11-Jan-02
Yolanda, as ursa_of_245_park_avenue, first mentions the fund, which she called ALCAP, LLP. Here she explains what that name means.
26-Jan-02
Two weeks later, ursa_of_245_park_avenue hints as to her fund’s performance
Heebner's returns are not as good as mine by any stretch of the imagination
In a subsequent post, Holtzee continues:
It's not a hedge fund, per se. It's a private investment partnership called ALCAP, LLP aka Casino Ursa.
30-Jan-02
Here Yolanda, as ymh_ymh_ymh, offers insights into the holdings of “Casino Ursa aka ALCAP,” also noting:
Ursa does a great job making Marc and his boys much Richer.
14-May-02
Here ymh_ymh_ymh discloses the cost of a new trading account at Casino Ursa (ALCAP, LLP)...or is she promoting trading accounts at Bear Stearns?
…Who's ready to dump SCH, ET, and AMTD and trade up to my boys and girls at BSC? 500K minimum on a trading account, kids. Casino Ursa ain't cheap but it's worth the price.
24-May-02
Following much confusion by her fellow posters over several seemingly contradictory statements by Holtzee about the nature of ALCAP, ymh_ymh_ymh offers this explanation:
It's a trust fund, LLP type and it is known as the holding company, ALCAP. No listing for it. Small and private.
9-Jun-02
Yet two weeks later, Yolanda, as ursa_383_madison_avenue, goes out of her way to suggest that she actually works for Bear Stearns.
…Yes, my firm, took many dogs public and our clients got those shares at offer price. Our clients sold those dogs in late 1999/2000 for the most part and we shorted the living hell out of them and made some very nice money taking them downhill skiing. Our clients are not naive. Our brokers are the world's best. My firm's trading within 10% of an all time high. My firm is the might Bear Stearns (BSC:NYSE)…Our clients are happy. Our brokers are happy. Our price chart is BEAUTIFUL. We are the mighty Bear Stearns (BSC: NYSE). BSC stands for Breakfast of Super Champions. For more on my firm, please view my YHOO profile.
ursa_383_madison_avenue’s user profile, static since May 15, 2002, lists as her profession “Hedge Fund Manager.”
14-Nov-02
Five months later, ymh_ymh_ymh says she’s back in the hedge fund business.
I co-manage a hedge fund called ALCAP. We're offshore, not registered.
At this point, it’s unclear whether Holtzee’s ALCAP is a hedge fund, a trust fund, or an investment club, and why Bear Stearns continues entering the picture.
But much more interesting is the question of what role billionaire Marc Rich plays in this fund.
Recall the above comment from January 30, 2002, in which Holtzee commented: “Ursa does a great job making Marc and his boys much Richer.”
Now compare that comment with the remnants of a comment made by Yolanda as ursa_minor_245 on a since-deleted thread, dated August 28, 2000, and captured by another poster here a few months later.
by: ursa_minor_245
(F/Zug, Switzerland)
8/28/00 3:16 pm
Msg: 9274 of 11531
…For the record, and the 5th time at least: I don't work for BSC and I have never worked for BSC. I don't want to work for BSC or ANY hype house. They don't pay enough. I serve Marc Rich, the best trader that ever lived, Baar none. You make as much money as you want serving him. No rules...just go for it.
Subsequent comments by Holtzee make it clear that she is in fact referring to fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, who at that point had yet to be pardoned by President Clinton.
If true, this admission of directly engaging in commerce with an expatriate fugitive whose indictment on tax fraud in 1983 was called the “biggest in history” is shocking.
Furthermore, the possibility that the shadowy ALCAP/Casino Ursa/Bear Cub Capital Management, which, depending on when you ask the question, is either a trust or a hedge fund or an investment club organized as an LLC or LLP, that either is or is not affiliated with Bear Stearns, might have served as one of Marc Rich’s notoriously numerous offshore money laundering or campaign finance law-skirting vehicles should be investigated.
The next installment of Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors will examine Holtzee’s more contemporary online stock commenting activities, and the role Marc Rich and others might play in influencing her rather malleable attitude toward certain companies’ share values.
Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors (foreword)
In the search for a pithy introduction, all I've managed to come up with is this: if I hadn't seen it myself, I would not have believed it.
But even that misses the point somewhat, as I feel very much as though the layers surrounding the enigma that is Yolanda Holtzee have barely been peeled back, and that the greatest revelations have yet to come.
If that's possible.
What I am certain of is the fact that if I were to wait until I felt confident that all relevant data had been gathered and considered, this post never would have happened, as each day brings more and the pace of discovery is only accelerating. That's why this topic will be treated over the course of at least three installments (not including this post, which is essentially a preface to what follows).
Given the scope of this project, we're also actively requesting the assistance of additional supporters. Please email me to learn more about how you can help us do this project justice.
Between now and the first full installment of this story (arriving within 48 hours), please review this sidebar, which serves to outline some of the overwhelming numbers of Yolanda's online identities, in addition to providing a brief explanation of how we've come to establish these relationships.
The Antilla method
Preface: A word about the law and the press.
It’s safe to say that, thanks to the protections rightly granted journalists in the Bill of Rights, almost nobody ever successfully sues a reporter. The standard of proof is too high and the weight of case law too overwhelming for even blatantly egregious cases to succeed in the courts. That’s because libel requires that one not merely prove inaccurate reporting and damages as a result, but a reckless disregard for the truth motivated by malice on the part of the writer. It’s that last part – the presence of malice – that presents the highest hurdle to clear, as it requires proving beyond a reasonable doubt, often years after the fact, the state of the defendant’s mind.
Which brings us to Susan Antilla.
In 1994, Antilla was a New York Times business writer. In the fall of that year, she learned of a rumor suggesting Robert Howard, head of Presstek, might actually be Howard Finkelstein, a convicted felon known to use various aliases, including “Robert Howard”. Antilla would not reveal the source of the rumor, other than to acknowledge that it came from short sellers of Presstek stock.
A quick word about good journalism.
There’s an easy way to discern a responsible journalist from an irresponsible one: irresponsible journalists are willing to write about rumors. Responsible journalists may investigate rumors, but insist on reporting facts.
Following interviews with 30 people, including Robert Howard himself and his son, in which Antilla found nothing to support the Howard-as-Finkelstein rumor, she opted to write anyway…about the rumor.
The day the story ran, Howard’s attorneys met with Antilla’s bosses, showing them proof of Howard’s identity. The following day, the Times ran something even Gary Weiss acknowledges is exceedingly rare: a correction.
An article in Business Day yesterday discussed rumors affecting the stock of Presstek, an imaging technology company. The rumors suggested that Presstek's chairman, Robert Howard, might actually be Howard Finkelstein, a convicted felon. Mr. Howard's lawyers presented The Times yesterday with documents and other information regarding his identity. After inspecting them, The Times finds no credible evidence to support the rumor. Details appear today on page D1.
The Times regrets having printed the rumor.
Needless to say, Howard sued Antilla, claiming defamation and false light invasion of privacy, for which a jury ordered Antilla to pay Howard nearly $500,000 in damages.
Antilla appealed and a panel comprised of three appellate court judges overturned the jury decision, based – of course – on the inability to prove Antilla acted maliciously.
And indeed, it’s unlikely Antilla was motivated by malice. I believe that in 1994, Antilla was motivated by something much more base.
Draw your own conclusions by considering this pattern:
- Falsehoods peddled about a CEO of a company by investors shorting that company's stock
- A reporter repeatedly told, by those who would know best, that there is no truth to the claims
- The reporter shoehorning a hatchet job into print anyway
In fairness to Antilla, there was one difference between her tactics then and now: in 2007 she knew enough to insulate herself by calling her work “opinion.”
Coming next: how a shared legacy of libel suits comes to unite Gary Weiss and Susan Antilla.
NOTE (03/14/2007): This post was edited to reflect confirmation of Antilla's divorce, finalized in November of 2006.
The root of the problem, Part Four
Preface and editor’s note: As stated previously, AntiSocialMedia.net has issues with Gary Weiss, not his wife.
As is happens, one of the more startling examples of abuse of social media we’ve discovered anywhere – and the central theme of this, the fourth and final part of this series on the history of Gary Weiss's pathology – cannot be told without making reference to that relationship.
However, because her identity is ultimately not material to this situation, we shall only refer to her as “Mrs. Weiss” (though Weiss is not her real last name), and have set this site’s comment filter to immediately reject any comments that contain either her first or last name.
Also, all references to her are redacted from the document included in this post. The only circumstance under which that will change is if Gary Weiss (or his known surrogates) choose to call into question the document’s validity, or claim the redacted name is that of someone else.
Finally, Gary Weiss was invited to comment on the claims that follow, but ignored multiple requests to do so.
Background
Through parts one, two and three of this series, we established that in April of 2005, Gary Weiss created the Mediacrity blog, which from the beginning dedicated a substantial amount of space to attacking writer and former president of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), Ian Williams.We also established that in March of 2005, Mrs. Weiss, who for three years held UN media accreditation as a correspondent for The Pioneer of India newspaper, suddenly lost her media credentials.
Two months before the launch of Gary Weiss's Mediacrity blog, in February of 2005, a media criticism website ran suspiciously-timed stories attacking both Ian Williams and his wife, a BBC World Service reporter and native of Uzbekistan; the former for accepting media training assignments from UN agencies, and the latter over what were ultimately shown to be unfounded questions relating to her visa status in the US. At the time, Williams’s wife also held a paid position within UNCA, one to which those familiar with the situation confirm Mrs. Weiss aspired.
But as mentioned, not only did Mrs. Weiss not get that job, one month later she was permanently barred from the UN.
One month after that, Gary Weiss created Mediacrity, which, among other things, he used as a platform for casting further aspersions upon Williams’s wife, calling her an “obscure hack” and continuing the fruitless challenges to her immigration status.
When securing her own permanence in this country, Mrs. Weiss, an Indian national, requested then-UNCA President Tony Jenkins write a letter to the State Department verifying her employment as UN correspondent for the Pioneer of India newspaper, which Jenkins did.
Keep that in mind as you read this document (click to enlarge) in which it is revealed that Mrs. Weiss had no connection to the Pioneer of India whatsoever, and that the three years she spent acting like a reporter at the UN were all a sham.
These circumstances invoke myriad questions, but for now we’ll focus on those involving Gary Weiss; specifically, how could Gary justify attacking another on baseless immigration issues when his own wife’s residence had been founded at least in part on a shockingly brazen and possibly illegal misrepresentation?
Also, it’s generally understood by those I spoke with that Mrs. Weiss is not exactly “computer savvy.” If that’s true, what role did Gary Weiss have in the annual creation of forged documents that the Pioneer’s Chandan Mitra termed “computer generated?”
Gary will likely try to divert the issue, claiming this is an attack on his wife. Indeed great lengths have been taken to ensure that such is not the case. Instead, this is the culmination of a four-part series demonstrating the foundations of Gary’s unfortunate pattern of deception and abuse of social media for personal gain, which his come to permeate his professional and personal lives.
-------------------------
postscript:
Expecting that claims of unfair attacks against Mrs. Weiss are inevitable, we wish to pre-emptively add some context to that discussion.
In November of 2005, former soc.culture.jewish Usenet newsgroup regular Ted Dichtler (shown here to be Gary Weiss) escalated his ongoing flame war with a particularly repulsive neo-Nazi by posting the man’s home and business addresses, in addition to his wife's full name.
Weiss then went on to add these personal details to Ted Dichtler's Usenet posting signature, meaning it was reproduced scores of times across the web.
Gary, for future reference, that’s what it means to unfairly attack your target's spouse.
Gary Weiss: The Root of the Problem, Part Three
Preface and editor’s note: AntiSocialMedia.net has issues with Gary Weiss, not his wife.
As is happens, one of the more startling examples of abuse of social media we’ve discovered anywhere – and the central theme of this, the third part of this series on Gary Weiss – cannot be told without making reference to that relationship.
However, because her identity is ultimately not material to this situation, we shall only refer to her as “Mrs. Weiss” (though Weiss is not her real last name) and have set this site’s comment filter to immediately reject any comments that contain either her first or last name. Comments containing any other personally identifying information belonging to Mrs. Weiss will be immediately deleted and the commenter barred from further use of this site.
Background: In parts one and two of this four part series, we established that Gary Weiss is the would-be anonymous writer of the blog dubbed Mediacrity, which considers itself “A media insider's occasional rants on goofs, bias and hypocrisy in the media.”Also, a prior post on this blog demonstrated Gary Weiss’s proclivity for creating fake Amazon.com book reviews for the purpose of boosting of his own books’ ratings while deflating the ratings of those authors with whom Gary has tangled in the past.You’ll need to keep both of those facts in mind as you read the following.
While researching links between Gary Weiss and the targets of his abusive Amazon.com book reviews, we hit a dead end when it came to understanding exactly what Gary had against author Ian Williams, whose two books were trashed by reviewers Ted Dichtler (reviews since deleted) and Raymond Stella in the spring of 2005. What made this instance so curious was the fact that soon after we announced the forthcoming investigation on the topic of Weiss's fabricated Amazon.com reviews, Gary Weiss (as Ted Dichtler) quietly deleted his one-star thrashing of Williams’ book, United Nations for Beginners, replacing it with a tepid review of another author’s book about the UN.
The Williams book review, which we captured prior to Gary’s replacement of it, read as follows:
Trash. A superficial book that offers a la-la land version of the UN, failing to mention entire areas in which the UN has failed miserably.
Also, since it was recently disclosed that Ian Williams has actually worked for the UN as a media trainer and pamphlet writer, it seems to me that the validity of this book is entirely questionable. He boasts about his UN work on his website. That only adds to the tastelessness of this rubbish. (Ted Dichtler)
Most would probably consider those sentiments a little harsh for an illustrated book aimed at school-aged kids.
While we did finally discover the reason for Gary’s acrimony toward Ian Williams, that knowledge arrived too late to be included in the Amazon.com review fabrication story.
Which is why we’re telling you about it now.
Two independent sources confirm that Gary Weiss’s wife was at one time credentialed as a reporter for the Pioneer of India newspaper, covering the United Nations. As a credentialed UN correspondent, Mrs. Weiss was eligible to join the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), which she did. Subsequently she sought a paid position with UNCA, held at the time by Ian Williams's wife. Mrs. Weiss had apparently sought other paid positions within the UN proper as well. Williams, UN correspondent for The Nation, was former UNCA president.
For reasons that don’t matter now (but will explored in part four), in March of 2005, Mrs. Weiss lost her media credentials and was ordered never to set foot on UN property again. Obviously, she was also taken out of consideration for any position within the UN and UNCA that she had sought.
Those familiar with the situation feel Mrs. Weiss blamed Williams for the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate turn of fate.
A few days after this incident, Gary Weiss – through Amazon.com reviewer Ted Dichtler, called Ian Williams’ book “trash.”
Exactly 30 days after that, Weiss launched the Mediacrity blog, and with it, an attempt at a recurring series called, “Hypocrites on Parade,” focusing on Ian Williams.
Weiss's first examination of Williams in Mediacrity reads in part as follows:
…Williams is a fourth-rate hack. But fourth-rate hackdom has not prevented other ethics-deprived journos from being publicly pilloried. What is keeping Williams from the gallows?
... If you go on his website, http://www.ianwilliams.info/, you see what I'm talking about--if you can read it. This guy is such a dummy that he's got black print on a dark blue background.
We feel secure in classifying the above as "mean-spirited."
“Hypocrites on Parade” would go on to be replaced by “Creeps on Parade” and dozens of drive-by attacks on Williams, in which he is named, among other things: “The Payola Pundit,” “Fourth-rate Hack” (later promoted to “Fifth-rate Hack”), and “Bloated UN Minister of Propaganda.”
The final part of this series, coming very soon, examines the strange circumstances surrounding Mrs. Weiss’s gaining and losing her media credentials, the role Gary Weiss played in that process, and a new wrinkle that even we find difficult to believe.