bookmark_borderMore Proof of my Railroading

I guess I can understand why some might be skeptical despite the evidence thus provided on this site. Behold the Void Ab Initio warrant that started my railroading. As you can see the warrant’s first page, it is void (invalid) on its face (legalize for obviously) because it says it’s for “Nebraska and elsewhere” and it’s signed by a Magistrate Judge named Gosset who didn’t have any authority to issue a warrant for “elsewhere” or anywhere outside of the district of Nebraska. (See US v Horton for the particulars). In sum, the NIT Warrant was challenged on this ground (being void ab initio) in a subsequent case (Operation Pacifier 2015) and all the circuits gave the FBI the “good faith” exception without acknowledging that this was their second (Operation Torpedo 2012 was first) infraction. Therefore had any of the Operation Torpedo defense lawyers been competent, Operation Pacifier wouldn’t have happened…

On the second page you can see that the “NIT” was deployed at 7pm on November 18, 2012. If you view the graphic on my about page you’ll see that my IP is accused of loading two html files from TB2 @ 7:12 & 7:15pm CST. That means the only time my IP visited TB2 was 12 and 15 minutes after the NIT was deployed on TB2 and my IP never visited the site again during the two week sting operation. Which, or course, is suspicious…

On the third page, you can see that the NIT will deploy to any IP address that loads any page on TB2, regardless of what caused the request. For example, a redirect or an iframe call will all be considered “accessing”, this – of course – is nonsense.

On the Final page you can see that the FBI lied about what they were searching for because, as the new expert report, indicated: “A unique session identifier sent by Hidden Service B” doesn’t exist because Tinyboard doesn’t issue session ids to visitors.

voidadinitio

bookmark_borderFreedom Of Information Act (FOIA)

So, back in March I sent the FBI a FOIA request and was assigned the request no. 1526159 and didn’t hear anything from then since. So in August I sent the DOJ’s “Office of Information Policy” (this is the place you appeal to if your request is denied) a “WTF?” letter. I got their response Friday, it said:

DOJ regulations provide for an administrative appeal to the Office of Information Policy only after there has been an adverse determination… As no adverse determination has yet been made… there is no action for this Office to consider… However, I can assure you that this Office has contacted the FBI and has been advised that your request is currently being processed. If you are dissatisfied with the FBI’s response, you may appeal again to this Office.

The letter was illegibly signed by someone from the Office of Information Policy.

bookmark_borderSo Corrupt Pt.2

I’m at a loss for words. I’m trying to get someone to explain the Eighth Circuit’s decision in my case.

I foolishly thought that the Eighth Circuit would understand that the new report proved – beyond a reasonable doubt – that the government had fabricated and falsified the computer logs that were the sole basis for their case against me and grant the petition.

I, of course, think they’re just biased and believed the AUSA’s nonsense over my arguments but perhaps I’m missing something… The only thing that I think could have made the petition undeniable would be admissions from the shills, so I documented their refusal to answer any questions about their involvement in the conspiracy in Appendix E of the petition. (In my opinion, their documented refusal provides strong circumstantial evidence of their involvement in the conspiracy) Anyway, here’s the report for your review against the government’s evidence.

Expert-Report

bookmark_borderSo Corrupt

I cannot say that I have faith in the Justice System. They, judges, seem to just rubber stamp whatever the authorities say without skepticism. And the lawyers that are supposed to be on your side, just “go through the motions” of “protecting” your constitutional rights, without looking at the case with any skepticism either.

As I’ve documented on this site, I’ve proven that I was railroaded and that the evidence against me was both fraudulent and inadequate. Gotta keep on, keeping on I guess. I’m now fighting in 4 court systems, 8th Circuit (Habeas Case No. 22-2050), 2cd Circuit (appeal), Western District NY Federal Court (motion) & NY State Court (SOR).

The latter is the most frustrating as their whole case was based on the absolute perjury that was contained in my “Pre-Sentencing Report” – even though the federal courts (all of them) disregarded it. This is literally insane!

No-one (judges & government authorities) seems to understand that I was convicted and sentenced for viewing contraband on November 18, 2012 for about 10 minutes (Nebraska Count 2). The government has never proffered what evidence actually supports the WDNY Count 1 conviction with any specificity. Notably, NE court sentenced me on the WDNY count identically (and concurrently) with NE Count 2 without any explanation…

bookmark_borderRailRoaded Part 2

First, To really understand my railroading you must read the 8th Circuit appeal decision regarding US vs. Defoggi (Case No. 15-1209).

The 8th Circuit – without comment – documents the lengths to which the government went to uncover, arrest and then convict a very bad man named Timothy DeFoggi and it reads like a spy novel.

In sum, Tim had several aliases he used to communicate with various individuals about legal and illegal topics. Tim had many legal contacts because he was the “acting” director of cyber security for the US Department of Health and Human Services. Tim also had many illegal contacts regarding his sexual interest in young boys. According to court documents in the Aaron McGrath case – On November 15, 2012 the FBI seized 3 servers (owned by McGrath) that they mysteriously found after allegedly getting a tip from a foreign government. These 3 servers hosted 3 illegal websites named PedoBook, PedoBoard & TB2 in Nebraska.

After seizing his servers the FBI ran them for about 3 weeks to try to determine their users. To this end, the FBI used a “Network Investigation Technique” (NIT) and obtained an invalid warrant in “good faith” to deploy it. (See playpen litigation if interested in the illegality of the NIT Warrant. This topic is more complicated than the playpen litigation because the DeFoggi operation was the NIT’s first use; BUT, none of the attorneys involved asked the question: “Can a Magistrate in Nebraska issue a warrant for NE and elsewhere?” In 2012 that answer was “NO.”, so none of the attorneys asking this question suggests conspiracy.)

Anyway, according to the 8th Circuit, Tim registered on McGrath’s Pedobook on March 2, 2012 with the username “fuckchrist” and the display name “ptasseater”. (Note those two highly identifiable names as you read on.) And this is where things get interesting. First, according to the 8th Circuit’s account, the dates don’t match up. They say he created his Pedobook account on March 2, 2012 but they recite that the FBI’s warrant affidavit states he created the account on or about April 18, 2012. They then say the FBI used Pedobook’s logs to document all the illegal activity conducted by “fuckchrist” on Pedobook. Next, they recite how the FBI connected Timothy to that username and it is, IMO, not technically credible.

Again, in sum, the NIT – allegedly installed on Pedobook – did not work against Tim. So there was no “direct” link from Tim to that site. The court accepted the dubious contention that the FBI connected Tim to these aliases without skepticism. I’m skeptical because the FBI’s claims are technically incredible. They claim that another person under investigation had provided them with information about a person who went by the name of “Jeff” on a site called boylover.net AND that this “Jeff” person used a variety of e-mail addresses including “ptasseater@hotmail.com”. The FBI then used the IP address associated with that hotmail account to get a wiretap on it. The court then recites that the FBI’s informant also provided them with a cell phone number for “Jeff” and told them he had personally met him. The informant then went “undercover” for the FBI and met with Jeff in person. During that meeting – under FBI surveillance – Jeff admitted that his real name was Tim, and that he worked in DC, and that he had a security clearance, and had a boyfriend. The FBI claims to have also had an undercover employee working on Pedobook who was talking with “fuckchrist” and he told him the times he’d be “online” and that his tor-mail account was fuckchrist@tormail.org.

So let’s break this down. According to court documents, on October 26, 2012 the FBI obtains a warrant to deploy malware against Aaron McGrath after a foreign country locates the actual IPs of the three TOR servers in Nebraska and tells the FBI. Again, according to court documents, this malware was serendipitously installed by undisclosed means. As a result of this operation, Aaron McGrath’s servers were seized on November, 15, 2012. The FBI then obtained “void ab intio” warrants in “good faith” to install malware on his three servers to identify their users. This operation was called “Operation Torpedo” and netted the government 15 suspects. However, as mentioned above, their malware – called the NIT – didn’t work against Defoggi’s computer, yet somehow he was arrested on April 9, 2013 with all the other suspects.

I described how my arrest went down in a previous post. Defoggi’s was quite different. According to the 8th Circuit, Tim’s arrest went down like this: they used a wiretap and waited for his IP to be on TOR (that’s all the wiretap could provide because of TOR’s encryption) at the time that “Jeff” told the FBI informant that he’d be online. They then burst into his house and forcibly pulled his laptop from his hands. Upon examination, it contained evidence linking him to those unfortunate aliases and other incriminating evidence.

Now, with all that background, we can discuss how this relates to my railroading. It is my position that the FBI breaks the law to enforce the law, which should be illegal but thanks to various SCOTUS decisions, is mostly legal. (See “pretextual” traffic stops) And when you break the law to enforce the law, – aka the end justifies the means law enforcement – you lose all credibility and morality. (For the most glaring example of this, see the Baltimore Police Department) And that’s how people get railroaded. Many people believe that our government is corrupt, but somehow those same people think that the DOJ is somehow exempt from that corruption, obviously they’re wrong.

The first sign of government corruption, is the refusal to answer questions. This has happened in my case numerous times. Several times in 2014 & 2015, I asked my attorneys “Can a Magistrate in Nebraska issue a warrant to search a computer in NY?” They all ignored the question. When I asked them after the 2016 Playpen rulings – that decided that the answer to my question was NO! – none of them replied. I asked my 3 shill experts [these] 6 questions and they all refused to answer; one said it wasn’t her fault, another said “don’t contact me again” and the other ignored me. I asked one lawyer, Mr. Howard, why he didn’t fire the shills and hire Dr. Mercuri – no reply. I asked another why he challenged the NIT – in a case he handled after mine – on the Magistrate issue and he said he wouldn’t answer my questions unless/until a court ordered him to do so.

The second sign of corruption is lying to avoid defeat. As explained in previous posts, my case was over in November of 2014 when I challenged the NIT based on two anomalies I found in the NIT report used to indict me. On page 2 of the report it shows two session ids that are different when they should be the same. It also shows that the referring page is the same as the current page. Both anomalies indicated fraud. Mr. Becker should have dropped all charges against me at this point, but because he’s corrupt he chose to lie when attempting to explain these two anomalies. When called on his lies, he doubled down instead of folding.

This kind of corruption is the most heinous in my opinion, not just because of what it’s done to me, but because it’s a flagrant abuse of power. If respected government agents lie to a court during a Criminal proceeding, it’s Kafkaesque. How do you fight government lies? Especially when the experts supposed to be on your side are lying in concert with the government. I understand that the technology at the center of this case is complex to “lay people” BUT it’s NOT complex for computer experts as skilled or higher skilled than I. And the things that both parties lied about in my case are so obviously lies, I cannot fathom how my case is still valid. (Something the 8th Circuit should rectify soon). The lies are so obvious to tech people that I can only explain them by conspiracy.

The first lie is absurd on its face – well technically absurd -; they claimed that “the NIT was a flash application”. Simple logic proves this incorrect, as at a minimum, three parts would be required for the NIT to identify the actual IP address of a TOR user. This lie was needed to further the government’s false narrative and hide the fact that, in the case of TB2, the government lied to the grand jury about the admissibility and veracity of the NIT evidence. In other words, the NIT, in the case of TB2 didn’t provide any evidence of a crime and any testimony claiming that it did was perjury.

The next lie was more subtile. The government claimed that TB2 issued session ids to clients & tracked visitor activity in logs. Both claims were blatant lies BUT they were supported by my experts. Because of their misconduct I now refer to them as government shills (“shills”). As the “new” expert report now before the 8th Circuit proves; TB2’s software (Tinyboard) doesn’t issue session ids to clients or track their activity in any way.

The third lie was their most credible upon first glance but falls apart upon close inspection. They claimed to have found “suspected” images on two devices out of the seventeen they stole from me on April 9, 2013. First problem with this claim is that both devices are the operating system drives for the computers in question. The next problem is that MOST of the SUSPECTED images are in locations inaccessible to humans without special software. In other words, you cannot see them without forensic software AND the ability to carve them out of unallocated space. The remaining images were discussed in a previous post, i.e. planted by the FBI forensic tech while at my house on April 9, 2013. (Note these additional “images” are ALL thumbnails in a hidden directory created by the linux operating system in Adama’s somehow unencrypted home directory. According to the FBI ALL the thumbnails have meta data that indicate the images they represent were are on a truecrypt volume that the FBI did not find.) Therefore the suspected images are not credible, considering the FBI didn’t describe a single image. The only government agent to describe an image regarded my stolen PS3, which had a picture of Yoona on it. They described her as an asian female of 16 or 17 years old. That, of course was perjury. Yoona in the picture in question was 23 years old. That claim alone proves they have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to the actual ages of women in images.

bookmark_borderExoneration Frustrations

What’s frustrating is how many lies were told and how hard it is to address them as a convict. When you accuse the government of fabricating, falsifying and planting evidence, in this case planting hidden files in an encrypted directory that is now somehow unencrypted, everyone rolls their eyes… even though it’s the only explanation.

Fraudulent Indictment

On March 20, 2013, the government obtained a John Doe indictment against Kirk Cottom for visiting a site named TB2 on the TOR network. My petition soon to be before the Eighth Circuit, proves – beyond a reasonable doubt – that the indictment was procured with perjury about fabricated and falsified computer logs.

Planting Evidence

On April 9, 2013, when the FBI showed up at my house, they violated the knock and announce rule. That rule states that they must knock on your door and wait for an answer. When the “target” opens the door they must announce why they’re at your house. In this case, the FBI was required to announce they were at my house to execute a search warrant. Instead, in clear violation of this rule, they knocked and talked. This is the constitutional rule that when the FBI doesn’t have a search warrant they can knock on your door and try to talk you into allowing them to search. So I assumed they were on a knock and talk fishing expedition and talked to them; BUT, when they asked for permission to search, I asked them to leave.

That’s when they revealed that they had a search warrant. I told them they were required to tell me that at my door. They shrugged and told me to take it up with the judge. They then searched my linux computer’s 500GB Operating system drive. After about an hour of finding nothing, they opened my Windows Laptop and found my picture associated with an account named Adama on the Lock Screen. I thought “if these clowns come back in a few minutes claiming to have found something in the Adama account on the linux box I’ll know the fix is in…”

Sure enough, a few minutes later they claim to have found images in Adama’s home directory. I exclaim “bullshit!” For two reasons: 1) The Adama account on the linux box was NEVER used. AND 2) The home directories for all three accounts Kirk, Simon and Adama were encrypted, so it would be impossible to find any files in any of the home directories.

About a year later, I get the forensic report from the FBI and it states that Kirk & Simon are encrypted BUT Adama isn’t. The FBI tech notes that the Adama account is locked by the operating system. I tell my lawyer this is because the FBI over-wrote Adama’s encrypted home directory, when the FBI tech booted the image of the tampered with linux system, it noticed the now unencrypted Adama account and locked it. My lawyer ignored me and no-one besides the FBI tech ever examined the drive.

bookmark_borderThat’s Suspicious

So on March 27, 2022 I sent a message to the lead shill in my case, Dr. Podhradsky. I asked her these six questions:

  1. When and how did attorney Joseph Gross Jr. involve you with my case?
  2. Why did you examine the wrong server for your first report in January of 2015?
  3. Why did you parrot the government’s lie that the NIT was just a flash application?
  4. When and how did attorney Joseph Howard involve you with my case?
  5. Why did you lie about Tinyboard software in your June [2015] report?
  6. Did you communicate about this case with Keith A Becker?

Last week I received her reply. It said words to the effect of “It’s not my fault, contact Dr. Miller” and she gave me his possible contact info. I e-mailed the info@company.com address to see if they could put me in contact with Dr. Miller. Much to my surprise, I got a reply that same day from his company e-mail account. I sent him a pdf of the letter I sent Dr. Podhradsky with some elaboration in the e-mail. He responded:

If you have time, you could give me a phone call and maybe I can clear up some of the points in here that may be confusing.

Dr. Matt Miller

I responded that I didn’t think a phone conversation would be productive and would he please answer my 6 questions. (and perhaps two more). He responded:

Dear Kirk Cottom,
Post conviction appellate concerns are typically handled by counsel and I will refer you to counsel who saw you this far in the process. I have included Joe Howard on this email so he is aware of your attempt to contact me, and I appreciate that you will not contact me again, unless through counsel. Any further and continued efforts will be met by legal action. Thank you.

Dr. Matt Miller

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this response suspicious…