Mega-hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb recently disclosed a double-whammy to his investors: substantial losses early in the third quarter of 2008, and the initiation of a formal SEC investigation into the operation of Loeb’s fund, Third Point Partners.

Loeb blamed part of his firm’s losses on the unfortunate fact of being short financial stocks just when the SEC decided to temporarily enforce existing laws prohibiting illegal naked short selling of a handful of such firms.

Loeb blamed the SEC investigation on a perception that his communications with other hedge funds violate securities laws.

While nobody outside the SEC can know with certainty just what it is about Loeb’s communications with other hedge funds that might be problematic, based on my observations of Loeb’s stock message board postings, I do have a theory.

In this installment, we’ll examine apparent coordination between Daniel Loeb and David Einhorn, manager of mega-hedge fund Greenlight Capital.

According to his book, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, Einhorn established his much-storied short position in Allied Capital (NYSE:ALD) in early May of 2002. Einhorn first publicly outlined his short thesis on the late afternoon of May 15, 2002. The next morning, Allied held a conference call to address Einhorn’s claims. Interestingly, Einhorn himself did not participate in that call, however the first several questions - which achieved a much greater level of specificity and detail than Einhorn offered the night before - were asked by Daniel Loeb.

Either Loeb is an unusually quick study, or he and Einhorn had communicated substantially on the subject of shorting Allied Capital in advance.

Interestingly, on Allied’s Yahoo Finance message board, one of the biggest proponents of the Einhorn thesis also turns out to be Daniel Loeb.

In this message, for example, Loeb’s alter-ego, senor_pinche_wey (as proven here), confronts a poster who questions the veracity of Einhorn’s claims regarding Allied.

A few weeks later, Loeb’s alter-alter ego, mr_pink_esq (also proven here), says of Einhorn’s analysis:

“Looks like Einhorn has this one nailed. Einhorn has one of the best reputations in the business. He would hate to be on the wrong side of this trade.”

And lest you think Loeb was just offering his buddy Einhorn moral support, consider this post, in which Loeb wonders aloud (in the third person) how he might spend the “millions He will make on his ALD short. He was considering purchasing Himself a new car. However He is torn between the Aston Martin DB9, the Bentley GT and the Ferrari 360 Spyder…Maybe if this thing goes bust He can buy Himself a Mercedes Maybach.”

In all, Loeb, with the direct support of known paid message board basher Yolanda Holtzee (using such account names as ms_mint_green_esq and regulators_have_been_notified) personally posted scores of such messages over three years.

This appears to be an example of Loeb and Einhorn coordinating their efforts on the short side.

Coming soon: a clear-cut example of Loeb coordinating efforts with another hedge fund manager in his role as a so-called “activist investor” (and in so doing, skirting key securities laws while holding a metaphorical gun to a target company’s head).

I. Daniel Loeb, manager of hedge fund Third Point Partners

The Silicon Investor stock message boards have Mr. Pink.

The Yahoo Finance stock message boards have Mr_Pink_esq.

In this legal filing, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb admits that he is the Mr. Pink of Silicon Investor.

According to this Wall Street Journal story, Loeb insists that he is not Mr_Pink_esq of Yahoo Finance.

Loeb, as it turns out, is not telling the truth, and here’s how I know it:

On Yahoo Finance, Mr_Pink_esq manually signs all his posts, as either “Mr. P$nk” or “MP”.

Mr_Pink_esq is the only message board poster who signs his posts as Mr. P$nk…with two important exceptions: ricardo_ferberger and senor_pinche_wey.

ricardo_ferberger

On the fourth post of his short career, ricardo_ferberger signed this post to Yahoo’s MEDC stock message board “Mr. P$nk”.

Interestingly, the post expressed a point of view that ran 100% counter to the strawman arguments typical of each of ricardo_ferberger’s previous three contributions, but was entirely consistent with Mr_Pink_esq’s well-established hostility toward MEDC.

Almost immediately, another poster asked ricardo_ferberger why he had used Mr_Pink_esq’s signature. Ricardo_ferberger responded by claiming that he had copied and pasted the entire text of this post by Mr. Pink on Silicon Investor – signature included.

Unfortunately for ricardo_ferberger, the post he claimed to have copied from Silicon Investor was actually time-stamped 14 minutes later than the Yahoo post that supposedly drew from it.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this episode:

1. Ricardo_ferberger and Mr_Pink_esq are two aliases belonging to the same person.
2. That person is also Mr. Pink on Silicon investor.

Because we know Mr. Pink on Silicon Investor is hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, it stands to reason that Loeb lied when he told the Wall Street Journal that he was not Mr_Pink_esq.

Senor_pinche_wey

Though it went entirely ignored at the time, on one occasion, Yahoo Finance poster senor_pinche_wey also signed a post as “Mr. P$nk”.

Senor_pinche_wey@yahoo.com is the email address used by a former participant of several message boards dedicated to Ashtanga yoga – the style Loeb is known to practice.

Shockingly, even  enlightened Ashtanga yoga practitioners have their limits, and – like so many on Yahoo Finance – many lost patience with Senor Pinche Wey. So much so, that one brilliant poster took steps to capture Senor Pinche Wey’s IP address, only to discover that it traced back to Third Point Management.

Indeed, senor_pinche_wey is Daniel Loeb.

This is significant because, as explained in an earlier item, senor_pinche_wey is the (previously) anonymous Yahoo message board poster whose defamatory writings led to a lawsuit and, ultimately, unfortunate legal precedents affirming the rights of childish and abusive stock message board trolls.

Now, for a little running up of the score.

As proof that old habits die hard, in this post to the India Divine Ashtanga Yoga message board, we see Senor Pinche Wey engage in an impressive act of logical contortionism as he tries to explain why he occasionally signs his posts there as “MP” (which is, as mentioned above, how Mr_Pink_esq occasionally signed his posts on Yahoo Finance).

II.Robert Chapman, manager of Chapman Capital

In the same Wall Street Journal story mentioned earlier, it’s revealed that Robert Chapman, manager of hedge fund Chapman Capital, posts on Yahoo message boards as bobbingbargain.

Based on evidence referenced in the same story, it’s apparent that Chapman also posts on Yahoo Finance message boards as kidstockjoec and LaseriumQueen.

A lexical analysis and the dissembler sorting algorithm reveal that the person behind kidstockjoec is also behind disgustedinvestor, tautologicaltrader, notably_absent, herniatedgorilla, and ghaulty_lodgick.

How did Gary Weiss come to know the substance, sentiment and timing of one of New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera’s most vicious attacks against opponents of illegal naked short selling, long before it was published?

We asked Joe.

Joe doesn’t know.

It all started on January 10, 2006, when Business Week writer Tim Mullaney clumsily fell into the very trap he had set for Overstock.com CEO (and Deep Capture reporter) Patrick Byrne. You can read all the gruesome details here and then here.

One week later, Gary Weiss launched his blog. We know from emails between Weiss and Floyd Schneider (read this to learn how I came to posses them) that at about that same time, Weiss began trying to convince journalists and editorial columnists to pen attacks on opponents of illegal naked short selling, particularly Patrick Byrne and Bob O’Brien (whom Weiss calls “Bob O’Baloney”), the pseudonymous author of the highly influential Sanity Check blog.

Weiss did this with little success, until February 22 of 2006, according to the following two emails Weiss sent to Floyd Schneider:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net

To: Floyd3491@aol.com

Subject: Re: (no subject)

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:34:19 -0500

Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.60.180 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Feb 2006 23:34:15 -0000

—–

Incidentally, don’t tell nobody! — but was preoccupied today. Interview with Joe Nocera of the Times for his Saturday column. Seems he is focussing on the naked-Mullaney situation. Mullaney tells me Nocera is sympathetic. We shall see……

Mullaney obviously is extremely nervous but me, I am fairly pleased I must say. I was… oh… shall we say unfavorable toward our Mr. O’Baloney.

The above is confidential!

Followed shortly by…

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net

To: Floyd3491@aol.com

Subject: Re: (no subject)

Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:56:25 -0500

Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.60.180 with login) by smtp102.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Feb 2006 23:56:21 -0000

—–

Yeah, well I want to shift on to be a little quiet and modest between now and Friday. Yes, O’Baloney seems to have run up the white flag it would seem, at least for the time being. I think the SABEW blog seems to have brought him to reality. That is what was picked up by Nocera, by the way. This is totally my doing! Yuk yuk yuk.

The Mullaney thing really touches a raw nerve, you know.

Based on the above, we can conclude that at least three days ahead its publication date, Gary Weiss knew all about Nocera’s February 25, 2006 column Overstock’s Campaign of Menace.

Note, in the first of the two emails, Weiss insisted that “The above is confidential!”

This is with good reason, as it’s considered a serious breach of ethics for a business writer to reveal the nature of his or her coverage of public companies to outsiders ahead of time, lest the information be used to the advantage of an unscrupulous investor (ie, “trading ahead” of the story).

And yet, Weiss knew. And boasted about knowing.

Recently, Patrick Byrne asked Joe Nocera to comment on this apparent ethical misstep.

Here is Nocera’s response:

From: Joe Nocera

To: Patrick Byrne

Subject: Re: that gary weiss email

Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 11:31 AM

—–

I have no idea why Mr. Weiss would make those claims, nor has he ever had any “inside information” about any of my columns. I don’t give out such information. all best, Joe Nocera

I welcome Joe to explain how reality, and his apparent interpretation of it, can possibly co-exist.

In an earlier item, I noted that perhaps one of the strangest things I’ve experienced as a reporter is having Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) spokesman Stuart Z. Goldstein ignore my request for comment for several days, only to receive an answer not from Goldstein, but from then-New York Post business writer Roddy Boyd.

Like any responsible journalist, it’s my policy to allow the subjects of my reporting an opportunity to respond when they are cast in a critical light. However, when approached for comment on something I wrote about him one year ago, Boyd made it quite clear that he would rather I not contact him for any reason, ever again.

Based on that exchange, I did not ask Roddy for comment when I recently wrote about what I perceive is his role in DTCC’s January 2006 PR campaign aimed at deflecting criticism of the organization’s role in enabling illegal naked short selling.

Recently, Roddy contacted me to take issue with four points I made in that piece:

1. While I reported that Boyd appeared to be running interference for DTCC’s Goldstein when answering – on Goldstein’s behalf – my long-ignored request for comment on Gary Weiss’s apparent use of a DTCC computer, Boyd insists he was merely doing us both a favor by personally conveying to me Goldstein’s comments on the issue.
2. While I suspect Gary Weiss has had an extensive relationship with DTCC, Boyd says DTCC’s Goldstein has personally denied as much to him on multiple occasions.

   What remains unclear is why, for 18 months, Goldstein has insisted on answering my questions through Roddy Boyd.

3. While I reported that the publication of Roddy’s review of Gary Weiss’s second book appeared to be timed to support the launch of DTCC’s January, 2006 PR initiative targeting critics of naked short selling, Boyd denies this.

   Indeed, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that instead of Roddy timing the publication of his review of Weiss’s book to coincide with the launch of DTCC’s January 2006 PR initiative, the initiative itself might have instead been timed to coincide with the publication of Roddy’s review. This is a likely explanation, given Weiss’s apparent foreknowledge of the review’s publication date.

4. While I reported that Boyd and Weiss had a relationship that predates Boyd’s review of Weiss’s book, Boyd says he and Weiss didn’t connect until just before January 22, 2006, and that Boyd received the book not from Weiss himself, but from the publisher sometime in early December, 2005.

   I based my original reporting upon an email exchange between Roddy and Floyd Schneider (read this to learn how I came to posses emails between the two) which leaves no doubt that by at least January 15, 2006, Boyd knew enough about Weiss know he and Schneider were friends, and that Boyd could confidently ask Schneider to dig up negative information about public companies featured in stories Boyd was working on at the time. Boyd insists that knowledge came not from his relationship with Weiss, but from reading Weiss’s book, which does prominently mention Schneider.

Though Roddy and I may not completely agree on our respective interpretations of the facts surrounding this episode, I appreciate his willingness to address them with me on the record.

Finally, I would suggest that anyone entertained by DTCC’s bizarre approach to public relations read this exchange between Stuart Goldstein and Fox Business News host Alexis Glick, to see that I’m far from the only person receiving inadequate responses to reasonable requests for comment made of Stu Goldstein.

Since this conversation is being carried out in the open now, I thought I’d add the note I sent Jeff Mitchel last night upon receiving his request to participate in a conference on the topic of naked short selling. Like Patrick, I have my doubts about Jeff’s proposed event, though mine are of a different nature, and I’d like to get the Deep Capture Community’s impressions.

Jeff,

This is a very interesting idea. I knew from email Gary Weiss sent Floyd Schneider in early 2006 that this was something you’d previously looked at organizing, and I’ve wondered if you would be considering again in the future. I agree that there could not be a more relevant time than now to re-examine the possibility.

That said, let me offer what I see as a potential barrier.

As we’ve seen this issue clumsily addressed by business media over the past week, something that particularly stands out is the question of whether “naked short selling” is illegal. In one of Chairman Cox’s earliest interviews, he said that no, naked short selling is not illegal, unless it is done illegally (which he went on to explain means unless it is abused as a tool of stock manipulation).

Patrick has a great analogy: it’s perfectly legal to discharge firearms up in the mountains, though it’s clearly illegal to discharge a firearm into someone’s head…even if you’re up in the mountains (and regardless of whether the local sheriff feels inclined to actually enforce the prohibition on homicide).

Continuing with the firearms analogy…

While a conference dedicated to examining the issues surrounding firearms might be well-attended, you can bet that you won’t see a panel featuring proponents of using firearms in violent crimes (which would not be for a lack of people with that attitude…it’s just that they typically want to keep it to themselves).

What we have issues with is illegal naked short selling, meaning, illegal stock market manipulation.

If your proposed conference will be examining the legal version of naked short selling, then I don’t think we’d have much to say about it.

If, on the other hand, the topic will be the illegal — though selectively enforced — version of naked short selling, you can be certain that we’d have plenty to say on the topic, but you won’t likely find anybody (other than Gary Weiss) to publicly offer much in its defense. Indeed, if his blog is any indication, Weiss will say that illegal naked short selling does not exist.

Furthermore, I am certain that the likelihood of Gary Weiss consenting a debate-like forum, where his well-documented positions might be subjected to public scrutiny, is exactly zero. Ditto the DTCC.

As for regulators, SIFMA recently held a conference which included a panel examining the crisis of illegal activity in stock lending (ie: disregarding the locate requirement being sort-of enforced over the next 29 days), and I’d be happy to get you the names of those who participated, but note that none of the panelists spoke in favor of breaking that law.

What I’m trying to say is this: if you’re looking for lively debate on the topic, I don’t believe you’ll find anybody willing to publicly take the side opposite ours, because they would either be espousing the now-antiquated position that illegal naked short selling does not exist, or they would essentially be admitting to supporting criminal behavior.

I do think there is room for an examination of the proposed repeal of the options market maker exemption, which is an area where good people can disagree with neither side admitting to criminal behavior, and where we would also have plenty to add.

All this is a long way of saying that, speaking for myself (Patrick can opine separately if he wishes), I would be very interested in continuing a dialog with you on this topic, but I suspect that a conference on the form of illegal market manipulation that we regard as our issue would be fairly one-sided.

And for the record, Jeff, while I’ve some questions as to your motivation, I don’t think you’re nuts. Just misinformed.

Judd Bagley

Possibly the biggest single “a-ha!” moment I’ve had while writing this blog came in late January of 2007, when I discovered that one week earlier, Gary Weiss had edited Wikipedia while logged in to a computer on the network of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC).

The basis for that conclusion is explained here.

This may not seem like a big deal to most, but it turned out to be a huge deal to those of us who had spent a full year enduring Weiss’s attacks without any clear understanding of his motivation.

We knew his aim was to discredit and marginalize high profile opponents of illegal naked short selling. Yet his book, which seemed to be the launch pad of Weiss’s campaign, was quite critical of both hedge fund and prime broker culture: the two obvious sides of the naked shorting equation.

So who was paying Weiss to spend all day, most every day, publishing his attacks via his blog, message boards, and Wikipedia?

Nobody had ever considered the DTCC.

But once we knew Weiss had used a DTCC computer – given the uniquely Fort Knox-like nature of the institution, and the fact that it could not have happened unless Weiss had official access – everything fell into place.

Suddenly, we noticed a very striking set of coincidences, commencing January 22, 2006.

On that date:

1. Roddy Boyd, then business writer at the New York Post, published his review of Weiss’s book Wall Street Versus America (an unheard-of six weeks before the book would be available in print). In his review, Boyd writes:

“The most provocative argument in Weiss’ book is that naked shorting — or short-selling a company’s stock without being able to borrow it first, per long standing rules — is not only a good idea, but a necessary one…This is guaranteed to send Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and the other disciples of his "stop naked short-selling crusade" — Weiss dismisses the lot of them as the "Baloney Brigade" — into further spasms.”

2. Weiss published the first naked short selling-related post on his week-old blog.
3. Weiss Yahoo! Finance message board IDs lamborghini751, cupandsaucerwithsugar, and baloneysmasher were created and immediately put to use attacking opponents of illegal naked short selling.
4. One day later, DTCC issued the first of what would be eight naked short selling-related media releases over the next seven months. By way of comparison, during the seven months prior to January 23, 2006, DTCC issued zero releases on the topic.

Further examination made it clear that Weiss had an unusual relationship with those DTCC media releases, in that Weiss would promote them via his blog, stock message boards and Wikipedia articles in a rather systematic way, often long before anybody else was even aware of them.

Here’s an example:

• 1/27/2006 at 17:08 DTCC issued a media release
• 1/27/2006 at 23:55 Weiss published a blog item about the DTCC release
• 1/28/2006 at 09:22 Weiss adds DTCC release to Wikipedia article on naked short selling
• 1/28/2006 at 09:49 Weiss promotes DTCC release on Yahoo message board

Taking all these factors together, I’ve concluded that January 22, 2006 represents the beginning of an aggressive public relations campaign by DTCC, aimed at countering a growing perception that the organization is a key enabler of illegal naked short selling. I further conclude that a that time, Gary Weiss was operating in support of that effort and likely remains so today.

I requested a comment of DTCC spokesman Stuart Z. Goldstein – the likely architect of the above-mentioned PR campaign – but received only two strange responses, neither of which addressed my question.

When I persisted in asking Goldstein for comment, his came – and I cannot overstate how shocked I remain by this even today – from reporter Roddy Boyd, then of the New York Post.

It read:

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

In case you’ve forgotten, it was Roddy Boyd’s six week premature review of Weiss’s book, published January 22, 2006, that seems to have been the launching point of the DTCC’s PR campaign, described above.

For his part, Weiss called my conclusions of a relationship between him and DTCC a “malicious lie” and “absolute crap.”

At that point, I had a ton of circumstantial evidence pointing to DTCC as Weiss’s patron, and direct proof that Weiss had used a computer on DTCC’s network.

I also had the strangest denial, on the part Stuart Goldstein at DTCC, that I’ve ever seen.

But most importantly, I had the benefit of an extremely low-set hurdle to cross in order to prove that Weiss, Boyd and Goldstein were all engaged in a ridiculous lie.

After all, as Goldstein said through Boyd, nobody at DTCC has “any recollection of ever talking to [Gary Weiss], meeting with [Gary Weiss] or having any dealings with [Gary Weiss].”

What follows is the story of how we’ve sailed over that particular hurdle, thanks to some emails from Gary Weiss to paid stock message board basher Floyd Schneider. (Read this to learn how I came to posses these emails).

********

In addition to being the month in which DTCC launched its PR campaign against opponents of naked short selling, January of 2006 is also a significant time in that Mark Mitchell, then assistant managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, started work on what would go on to become The Story of Deep Capture.

Back then, as now, Gary Weiss seemed to be about the only non-pseudonymous person willing to go on the record in defense of naked short selling, which naturally made him a frequent point of contact for Mitchell.

Mitchell recalls as many as a dozen conversations with Gary Weiss in the first couple of months working on the story. In several of those conversations, Mitchell remembers Weiss awkwardly seeking to gauge Mitchell’s opinion of any recently-published DTCC media releases.

Among the topics Mitchell discussed with Weiss was Dr. Susan Trimbath, a former DTCC employee turned outspoken critic of that organization’s role in enabling illegal naked short selling. Mitchell recalls being surprised by how much the subject of Trimbath seemed to bother Weiss.

Given that bit of background, consider the following email exchange between Gary Weiss and Floyd Schneider.

It starts on March 13 at 9:41 AM, when Floyd emails Weiss a reference to a speech Dr. Trimbath had given a few months earlier.

To this, Weiss replies:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:49:27 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Mar 2006 14:49:22 -0000
—–
Say, what is with this Trimbath? I ask because a particularly dimwitted reporter for Columbia Journalism Review is doing a story on media coverage that is widely expected to lean toward the balonies, and he is relying heavily on her.

Floyd immediately begins to pepper Weiss with every googled reference to Trimbath he can find – all of them quite positive – to which Weiss replies:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:49:12 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp103.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Mar 2006 15:49:08 -0000
—–
Yeah, all pretty innocuous, which is she is a perfect front woman. I presume she expects to cash in as an expert witness or somesuch for the balonies.

The next day, DTCC issued a media release attacking Trimbath’s expert status and minimizing the importance of the position she held there.

The day after that, Weiss places a standing order with Floyd for any negative information on Dr. Trimbath he can find (searching for this sort of information is how Floyd spends an alarming portion of his days, by the way):

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: Aha!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:38:35 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Mar 2006 18:38:29 -0000
—–
Incidentally this Susanne Trimbath is the primary source of info on nekkid shorting for a complete idiot who is wriiting a story for the Col. Journalism Review. If you can think of anything particularly wacky that she has said, let me know.

A few minutes later, Floyd responds with something fairly unremarkable, to which Weiss replies:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: Aha!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:47:54 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp103.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Mar 2006 18:47:49 -0000
—–
You know, the thing that is bad is that this statement below would not be considered extreme by the doofus doing this article for CJR. Several of us are concerned that it is going to be a total baloney-piece. He is a real ham bone.

After Floyd sends still more non-scandalous Trimbath references, Weiss replies:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: Aha!
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:00:54 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp103.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Mar 2006 19:00:49 -0000
—–
It has to be something fairly extreme. This guy really has me (and others of us a lot more than me) worried. I’ve drummed into this nitwit’s head about O’Baloney and it all just bounced off his concrete skull.

About an hour later, Floyd sends the prior day’s DTCC media release to Weiss, prompting this reply:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: the whole article with link
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:09:17 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.90.90 with login) by smtp103.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Mar 2006 20:09:12 -0000
—–
Yes I sent this to the bozo at CJR earlier today. The jerk emailed back indicating that he is chewing away at baloney. Very depressing.

In his emails to Floyd, Weiss makes it clear that he’s involved in active consultations with other individuals, who feel deeply concerned about the prospect of Dr. Trimbath’s influence on Mitchell’s story.

Because Dr. Trimbath addresses illegal naked short selling almost exclusively from the standpoint of the DTCC’s role, it’s very difficult to imagine that, when Weiss refers to “Several of us” and “others of us,” he’s not referencing officials at DTCC.

Armed with these emails as confirmation that Goldstein was not being honest, when he stated, through Roddy Boyd, that he “categorically rejects” the idea that anybody at DTCC has so much as spoken with Gary Weiss, I again asked Goldstein for a comment.

Goldstein refused to answer the question.

This email from Gary Weiss to Floyd Schneider isn’t significant for what it says, but for what it reveals (which is explained at the end).

Here, Weiss is telling Floyd about his inclusion in Weiss’s forthcoming book.

(Read this to learn how I came to posses email between Gary Weiss and Floyd Schneider).

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 16:18:47 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.42.100 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 Dec 2005 21:18:48 -0000
—–
Well, it so happens sir that you are featured prominently in two chapters, so I don’t think they would be up for the project! I will get you a copy when one is available.

What’s most noteworthy about this email is the IP from which it was sent: 70.23.42.100, which is the same I claimed proved Weiss established his pattern of online deception and sockpuppeting long ago as a poster to several Usenet groups.

It also reinforces my claim that Weiss — contrary to Weiss’s insistence — he writes the anonymous blog Mediacrity.

Gary Weiss said this about Forbes journalist Liz Moyer, whom opponents of illegal naked short selling hold in high regard for her balanced and accurate reporting on the subject.

(Read this to learn how I came to posses email between Gary Weiss and another individual).

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: sia fleesing public according to bob o’brien
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:17:34 -0400
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@151.202.72.132 with login) by smtp102.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Sep 2006 01:17:30 -0000
—————
Off the record, don’t breathe a soul about this, that joker Liz Moyer once tried to get a job at BW years ago and I successfully lobbied against it. She used to be at Insitutional Investor and is a total shill for CEOs.

What brought me into this fight in a public way was the discovery that Gary Weiss was posting to the Yahoo Finance message board as “Lamborghini751″.

I figured this out, initially, by figuring out that Gary was commenting on his own blog as “Lamborghini751″.

In response, Weiss swore that indeed, he had posted Lamborghini751’s comments, but that it had been at Lambo’s request.

Apparently it was easier for Lambo to email the comments to Weiss than to actually post them himself.

(snicker)

At the time, Weiss took the additional step of swearing that he’d never actually posted anything to Yahoo Finance.

Well…let’s see what his email to Floyd Schneider has to say on the matter.

(Read this to learn how I came to posses email between Gary Weiss and Floyd Schneider).

On February 17, 2006, Floyd sent Gary Weiss a link to a story relating to securities fraud. For some reason, this prompted the following reply from Gary:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: Each year, Americans lose an estimated $40 billion to securities fraud
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:16:24 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.27.10 with login) by smtp102.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Feb 2006 16:16:28 -0000
—————
Excellent! Reminds me to transfer my google alerts over to my new Verizon account.
One damn thing about Verizon is that it has prevented my gnomes from posting on the Yahoo boards! The link is sometimes down for hours on end.

Any guesses as to what Weiss means when he refers to his “gnomes”?

As it happens, I know precisely who Weiss’s gnomes were. But the point is, unless Weiss employs faerie-world creatures to do his dirty work for him, he was lying when he claimed that he never posted anything to Yahoo Finance.

One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen is how Gary Weiss deals with getting caught in a lie.

A great example of this is his denial of so much as editing Wikipedia, in the face of evidence that not only has he been a very active Wikipedia editor, but that he’s also engaged in an concerted effort to inject misinformation into the Wikipedia articles on naked short selling, prominent opponent of naked short selling Patrick Byrne, and Overstock.com, which is the company Byrne heads as CEO.

To give a little background, here’s what Weiss originally wrote (and later deleted) in his blog in response to my repeated claims that he was the now-infamous Wikipedia editor “Mantanmoreland”.

Bagley didn’t even pretend to have contacted me, not that it would have prevented him from publishing his smears — just as Wikipedia’s denial, and mine, has never prevented him from repeating, again and again, his malicious lie that I have edited Wikipedia.

About that same time, Weiss added this comment to his blog:

I think that it is indicative of Judd’s (and his boss’s) malice — in every sense of the word — that he would publish an outright lie while knowing that it is a lie. Both I and the DTCC have denied the total rubbish that he posted on his website.

Similarly he continues to publish the lie that I am this “Mantanmoreland” long after it was, again, denied by both myself and Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia.

Since ASM is an extension of Overstock.com, operated with the blessing and open and enthusiastic support of its CEO, I think that what you have here goes clearly beyond ethical issues. Of course corporate ethics is clearly never a consideration for Patrick Byrne, in earning the merit badges required to gaint he sought-after title of “America’s worst CEO.”
Gary Weiss | Homepage | 02.09.07 - 11:07 am | #

Before proceeding, let’s make sure everybody agrees that Gary Weiss insists my claim that he has edited Wikipedia is a “malicious lie.”

Everybody clear on that?

Good. Now on to Gary’s email. (Read this to learn how I came to posses email between Gary Weiss and another individual).

On 1/28/2006 at 7:19 PM, Floyd Schneider became aware of the battle that was raging for control of the Wikipedia article on naked short selling, and sent a link to Gary Weiss.

The next morning, Weiss sent the following two replies:

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:13:46 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.85.112 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 Jan 2006 16:13:43 -0000
—————
Note that they’re hijacking that page. However, anyone can unhijack. You just go into edit mode, select all and copy the page when it is in good shape, and save it as a text file. That makes it easier to replace the page when it has been baloneyfied. I may insert a reference to my book at some point…..

From: garyrweiss@verizon.net
To: Floyd3491@aol.com
Subject:
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 11:21:46 -0500
Received: from unknown (HELO maincomputer) (garyrweiss@verizon.net@70.23.85.112 with login) by smtp101.vzn.mail.dcn.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 Jan 2006 16:21:43 -0000
—————
right now, for example, it is in pretty good shape. In fact….. well, here
is what one simply has to plug in… attached.

You can see the document Weiss attached here.

So, those are the emails.

Here’s what they tell us.

First, we now know that as early as 1/28/2006, Gary Weiss clearly had edited Wikipedia, which is not itself a big deal. Yet, Weiss calls the claim a “malicious lie.”

Indeed, it is Weiss who is lying.

Second, we now know (as if there were any doubt) that Weiss was “Mantanmoreland”. Here’s how:
Note Weiss’s IP address on January 28 and 29, 2006 as reflected by these two emails: 70.23.85.112. Now, look at the Wikipedia edit history of IP address 70.23.85.112.

As you can see, someone using the IP address 70.23.85.112 was eagerly editing the Wikipedia article on naked short selling on January 27 and 28, 2006 and then stops abruptly.

The final act of the editor at IP address 70.23.85.112 was to edit the article to appear precisely how it did in the file Weiss sent Schneider.

Wikipedia editor “Mantanmoreland” is created shortly thereafter and his first act is then to restore the naked shorting article to how it appeared where 70.23.85.112 left off (again, precisely mirroring the content of the attachment Weiss had sent to Schneider).

Weiss sent his second reply to Schneider before any edits were made to that version, noting “right now, for example, it is in pretty good shape.”

From this, we know that Gary Weiss = 70.23.85.112 = Mantanmoreland, and that Weiss’s MANY ongoing denials are among the more deeply disturbing lies I’ve witnessed another human concoct.

While hardly germane, given the gravity of the above, I’d like to make out two additional points (a little running up of the score, if you will).

First, the act of recruiting others to mimic one’s position when editing an article on Wikipedia is known as “meatpuppeting”, and is regarded as a serious offense in that silly culture. This is precisely what Weiss has done here, although there is no evidence that Schneider acted upon Weiss’s request.

Second, for all the times he has lied, Weiss certainly told the truth when he said, “I may insert a reference to my book at some point.”

Beginning one week after the publication of his second book on April 6, 2006, Weiss added (and very jealously guarded) dozens of references to his book, many of which persist to this day.