As I wrote, a few months ago, I used this security flaw to determine an IP address frequently used by Gary Weiss, who, prior to being repeatedly outted by yours truly, was among the most active, anonymous spreaders of such disinformation on stock  message boards, blogs, and Wikipedia. With this information, I was able to prove that Weiss was again engaging in pro-naked short selling sockpuppetry, this time on political blog DailyKos.com (a claim DailyKos.com later verified).

Cade Metz, a reporter for the prominent British tech publication The Register, took note of the above-referenced security flaw, and wrote a very in-depth piece on it and the part it’s played in Weiss’s latest trip-up, in addition to examining the way this fight has so starkly turned in our favor as of late.

Take a look at Cade’s piece and, if you like it, be sure to Digg it here.

First, I highly recommend making a habit of listening to NPR’s Planet Money podcast. I’ve been listening for nearly a year (the entire length of its existence) and find the benefits innumerable. If you’re not familiar with podcasting, it’s basically an easy way to have audio content automatically downloaded to your computer or mp3 player as it’s released. That means you don’t need to go looking for it. It’s just there, waiting for you to consume at your convenience.

Planet Money publishes a new episode every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening. The typical 20 minute edition focuses on some aspect of economics, more often than not related to the present financial crisis, and usually incorporating an interview with somebody fascinating.

Which brings me to thing #2…

The most recent episode of Planet Money includes an interview with Sam Antar, a convicted stock manipulator and known associate of now-defunct short selling hedge fund Copper River Partners (née Rocker Partners) and Gradient Analytics (née Camelback Research). In total fairness, Sam’s interview, which focuses on the crime he enabled as CFO of Crazy Eddie) is very interesting, although I’d say that’s more a reflection on the skill of the interviewers than on Sam himself.

At the conclusion of the interview, hosts Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum wonder aloud whether Sam Antar is to be trusted.

In response, I added a comment to the segment’s accompanying blog portion, pointing out that in my opinion, Sam Antar remains in the stock manipulation business as evidenced by his involvement in — and financing of — smear attacks on public companies (which go beyond claims of accounting fraud to include accusations of anti-Semitism, marital infidelity, substance abuse, and worse) led by short sellers hoping to profit from an expected drop in the target companies’ share price. In support of my claim, I included this link, which offers a clear example of just such an attack against a company called USANA: http://antisocialmedia.net/when-youre-right-youre-right/

Well, typical of how Sam and his buddy Gary Weiss operate, they reported my comment as “inappropriate” and managed to get it removed (twice).

If you agree that the world could benefit from additional context when deciding whether to trust Sam Antar, you might consider making that clear by adding your own comment here.

Gary Weiss wonders how he managed to get caught sockpuppeting...again.

On the other hand, if you – like me – do enjoy seeing Weiss ensnared in the traps he’s haphazardly laid for others, you’ll appreciate what follows.

Earlier, I wrote about how I successfully confirmed my suspicion that Gary Weiss had spawned a new pro-illegal naked short selling sockpuppet in the form of Daily Kos blogger “Tom Sykes”.

As expected, both Weiss and “Sykes” responded on their respective blogs with furious and indignant denials and repeated insistence that I was lying.

As it turns out, DeepCapture.com reader Andrew Perez also has a blog on Daily Kos (in addition to his contributions to The New Argument), and he took justifiable offense at the con Weiss was attempting to pull on Daily Kos readers, penning a particularly well-written overview of the situation. In that post’s comment section, “Sykes” went on the offensive, but soon began to bob and weave as Perez worked to pin him down.

The key moment in their exchange is summarized below (you can read it in full here):

Perez: Correct me if I’m wrong: you are Gary Weiss. If you take offense with me addressing you as Gary, will you please confirm or deny that you are Gary Weiss? I asked you to do so already and you ignored my request.

Sykes: No I’m not and I’m not going to engage with you anymore. I just read the comments that you made on Deep Capture before you marched over here like a good Soldier of Byrne to write your little smear piece. You are much more of a shill for that creep than I thought you were. You use his tactics, you have his values. You belong there, not here.

Perez and I separately contacted Daily Kos administrators with evidence proving they were being scammed by Gary Weiss. I didn’t hear back, but Perez did. Via email, a Daily Kos administrator told him: “Sykes has been banned based on my evaluation of the material you and others provided.”

We can officially and unambiguously add Tom Sykes to the long list of abusive sockpuppet identities Gary Weiss has unsuccessfully created to trick people into believing illegal naked short selling is somehow a good thing.

Apparently aware of the ruin that is his own reputation, Gary Weiss has taken to battling in favor of illegal stock market manipulation on political blog aggregator DailyKos.com, under the pseudonym “Tom Sykes”.

Weiss has a rich history of abusive sockpuppeting, mostly for the purpose of attacking those who advocate ending  illegal naked short selling. At one time, Weiss did this on behalf of the DTCC. Now, exactly who’s paying him is unknown, though it must be someone because the fellow has otherwise been unemployed since 2004 (apart from his less-than-lethargic book sales, the pittance in ad revenue generated by his all-but-mothballed blog, and his tiny handful of ostensibly paid pieces for Portfolio Magazine – a publication whose final coffin nail Weiss personally helped to drive).

And the trend continues up to this very day, with Weiss as Tom Sykes.

To anybody who has followed Weiss for any period of time and come to recognize his overly-ripe writing style, that he and Tom Sykes are one in the same is beyond obvious.

But the Deep Capture team adheres to a higher standard when making such claims with certainty, and so I shall now explain how I can do so now.

Among the many flaws on the Yahoo message boards is one which makes it possible, under specific circumstances, to embed any html code, up to and including javascript, on the site. This, in turn, makes it possible not only to capture the IP address from which a user is accessing the site, but also their Yahoo username.

In other words, one can tie a Yahoo username to a specific IP address, sans ambiguity.

Gary Weiss lives in Greenwich Village, NY, but in August of 2008 he bought a second home upstate (tellingly financed by the property owner, not a bank) in the tiny Sullivan County hamlet of Callicoon Center.

A few months ago, using the above-referenced method, I was able to determine that the Yahoo account belonging to user garyrweiss@verizon.net was accessing the web via IP address 74.64.81.92, which maps to within a few miles of Callicoon Center. Given the tininess of Callicoon Center, this is what one would expect of an instance of Weiss being online at his second home.

(Hint: remember that IP address, for we shall return to it shortly.)

We know that garyrweiss@verizon.net belongs to our Gary Weiss thanks to emails we’ve acquired between Weiss and kindred stock manipulator Floyd Schneider.

With the 15-part series on Dendreon recently completed, and our self-imposed hiatus from posting anything else ended, I decided it was time to prove once and for all that Gary Weiss and Tom Sykes are the same person.

It took a few short hours to hit paydirt.

In short, email sent to tomsykes.kos@gmail.com (the address Tom Sykes lists as his own on dailykos.com) induced the recipient to visit the Yahoo message boards in such a way as to reveal his IP address to me.

The result: 74.64.81.92.

This IP address has been conclusively linked to garyrweiss@verizon.net, which in turn has been conclusively linked to Gary R. Weiss, the bumbling sockpuppeteer and defender of illegal naked short selling.

But wait, there’s more.

Among Weiss’s most notable accomplishments has been epic sockpuppeting on Wikipedia in order to cover-up evidence of the damaging impact of illegal naked short selling. Once this finally came to light, Weiss and his home IP address range, which is well known, were unambiguously banned from editing Wikipedia.

But what about Weiss’s new IP address, tied to his new, second home?

Well, as we’d expect, realizing that it was unknown by Wikipedia administrators, Weiss used it, on two occasions, to remove references to Mark Mitchell’s Dendreon-related reporting on deepcapture.com, which had been previously added to the Wikipedia article on Michael Milken.  To see these edits for yourself, follow this link, which will show you the only two contributions made by IP address 74.64.81.92. To see the substance of the edits, click on the links that say “diff”. What you’ll then see is a before and after comparison, with the text in yellow being what 74.64.81.92 (Weiss) removed.

What could possibly be motivating Weiss to carry on in this manner?

I see one of two possibilities: either he’s like the 80-year-old Japanese soldier living in the jungles of Guam who refuses to accept that his “side” lost the war, or – as I suspect – he remains in active contact with his “side,” which remains mobilized and intent on subverting all that we’ve accomplished.

So what next?

Well, obviously, the editorial staff at dailykos.com will want to know that they’ve given forum to a deeply conflicted contributor who – beyond simply using a pseudonym – is actively pretending not to be Gary Weiss by referring to Weiss in the third person and linking to his own blog as though it were actually really relevant. You can let them know what we’ve discovered about Mr. Sykes by going here.

In addition, any active Wikipedians among you will probably want to make it known there that 74.64.81.92 is in fact the dread sockpuppet Mantanmoreland/Gary Weiss.

Finally, I’d simply suggest the Deep Capture community understand that there are many who are actively working – usually anonymously – to discredit the market reform movement. I encourage you to seek out and bring instances of such to our attention, so that we can investigate further when warranted, in order to better understand their real motives.

And as a postscript, I wish to thank Gary Weiss for being so very predictable. His consistently reptilian-brain-based responses to my occasional prodding has made this aspect of my job not only productive, but very enjoyable, as well.

UPDATE: Both Tom Sykes and Gary Weiss are “separately” expressing outrage at this situation tonight. I encourage each of you to make use of “their” blogs’ comment functions to let “them” know what you think about how “they” have been lying to you.

Akahele, if you’re curious, is a Hawaiian word meaning “slow” or “deliberate”, in contrast with wiki, the Hawaiian word for “fast” (and the origin of the “wiki” in Wikipedia).

The following is my most recent contribution to Akahele, and is an examination of the Wikipedia/Gary Weiss saga, with a new twist.

My direct involvement notwithstanding, I feel it’s both fair and accurate to say that the events surrounding the Gary Weiss/Mantanmoreland affair were among the strangest and most polarizing in Wikipedia’s history.

For those lucky enough to have no idea what I’m referring to, here’s the highest of high-level summations (much more in-depth explanations can be found here and here):

Gary Weiss

Former business journalist Gary Weiss used multiple sockpuppet accounts to ingratiate himself with Wikipedia’s inner circle and – thanks primarily to the relationships he established there – gain control of, most notably, the article describing an illegal form of stock market manipulation known as naked short selling.

Weiss then proceeded to dramatically alter the content of this and related articles in order to minimize the perceived negative impact of naked short selling while marginalizing critics of the practice, myself included.

There’s strong evidence suggesting Weiss was paid to do this by the very organization many fault as the primary enabler, not to mention a financial beneficiary of, illegal naked short selling.

I suspect most would agree with my assessment that among the darkest moments in the more than two-year drama between Weiss’s arrival and eventual forced departure were those in which Wikipedia co-founder Jimbo Wales injected himself into the controversy – always seemingly uninvited – and always with the effect of derailing whatever progress might have been made toward bringing about Weiss’s removal.

Among these, the most incomprehensible episode occurred at the crescendo of what is widely regarded the largest and most thorough sockpuppeting investigation in the history of Wikipedia, in which dozens of volunteers dedicated hundreds of hours amassing a body of evidence overwhelmingly implicating Weiss in a deeply disturbing deception.

It was at that time that Wales posted an unprovoked indictment of the process under the heading ‘I have personally seen no persuasive evidence’, resulting in Weiss getting another pass. This, despite Wales having told others, privately, that he knew Weiss was guilty; and many more, publicly, that I was a liar for making the same claim.

What follows is my best explanation for Jimbo’s odd behavior.

But first, I need to explain a little more about the nature of short selling, both legal and illegal.

Legal short selling involves selling borrowed shares with the expectation of buying them back and returning them to their owner at a later date and a lower price, allowing the short seller to pocket the difference.

Naked short sellers, on the other hand, sell shares short without borrowing them first, thereby creating the equivalent of counterfeit shares. This has the effect of artificially swelling the supply of stock, which has a markedly depressive influence on price, making the naked short seller rich, while inflicting immense harm upon legitimate shareholders and the companies in which they’ve invested.

There have been, in theory, rules intended to prevent naked short sales from occurring, or at least, from enduring longer than 13 trading days. Unfortunately, the people behind the practice are quite smart, and the monetary incentive to violate the law quite large.

In other words, they’ve found a path around the rules.

And that path runs right through the heart of Chicago’s financial district.

As it turns out, there is a law, known as the “options market maker exemption”, which permits certain brokerages, specifically those registered as ‘options market makers’, to engage in a highly-controlled form of naked short selling in the course of bona fide options market making – comparable to the permission police officers have to exceed the speed limit under certain extreme circumstances when it’s in everybody’s best interest that they do so.

Naked short sellers have discovered that they can essentially “rent” the options market maker exemption from certain corrupt options market makers, producing massive amounts of counterfeit shares in the process.

It’s as though a corrupt cop rented his police cruiser to a random citizen so he or she could drive it around at 120 mph for a day, without being held responsible for any of the damage they might cause.

Of course, it’s silly to think that either the citizen or the cop could get away this, but in the financial world, such overt violations of the law regularly take place on a grand scale. And though the reason is not immediately clear, research proves that this abuse of the options market maker exemption nearly always takes place on the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Why Chicago?

My guess is that it’s a cultural thing: the same way you’d never even think of bribing a cop who pulled you over in San Diego, while doing the same just 30 miles south in Tijuana is not a big deal.

What does this have to do with Jimbo Wales?

Well it turns out that both he and former Wikimedia Foundation trustee Michael Davis used to work at Chicago Options Associates, where Wales was a research director and Davis was CEO.

To be clear, while it existed, Chicago Options Associates traded options and futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and was not an options market maker. But because I suspect the Chicago phenomenon is a cultural one, and given the near certainty that Wales counts many equities options market making traders as his friends, I’m not sure it really matters: his professional background is deeply rooted in the same dark corner of the financial world that facilitates the same form of stock fraud Gary Weiss worked so hard to defend on Wikipedia.

Which I suspect explains why Jimbo Wales worked so hard to defend Gary Weiss.

Is Jimbo Wales above influencing Wikipedia content based on his personal relationships?

Rachel Marsden would probably say that no, he is not.

I recently asked Jimbo whether anybody with ties to options market making on the Chicago Stock Exchange sought to influence his decisions in this respect, and was not entirely surprised when Jimbo insisted that they did not.

However I was surprised when Jimbo followed with “it is still to this day completely unproven that the claims you’ve made about Mantanmoreland being Gary Weiss are true.”

Once I’d picked myself up off the floor, I decided to take Jimbo up on his invitation to finally show him the first bit of proof linking Gary Weiss to Mantanmoreland, despite the fact that doing so felt like proving to a skeptic that the moon is not composed of dairy products.

What I ultimately sent Wales were:

Click to enlarge.

1. A scatter graph (seen at right) showing Mantanmoreland’s Wikipedia editing pattern over several months, including a 12 hour time shift limited to the period in which Gary Weiss was known to be visiting India.
2. Email from Gary Weiss (if you want to know how I came to possess Weiss’s private email, read this) in which he told a friend that he intended to edit a specific Wikipedia article to include a reference to a book he wrote.
3. A link showing that Mantanmoreland did in fact edit that very article to include a reference to that very book.

I also made it clear that should these bits of evidence fail to convince him, I’m ready to send much, much more.

Maybe Jimbo was convinced and he decided there was no reason to respond further.

Maybe the evidence simply left him speechless.

Or maybe owning up to his reckless actions in this case would prove unpopular with his friends back in Chicago.

All I know is that once the evidence was sent as requested, the conversation went cold.

Whatever the case, the legacy of Gary Weiss’s campaign of misinformation endures on Wikipedia to this day, due in large part to the apartheid-like probationary status imposed upon the naked short selling article after Wales condemned the inquest into Weiss’s activities as having produced no persuasive evidence.

All the while, Wikipedia remains the first option offered those searching the web for information about naked shorting, and its role in the current financial crisis.

Weiss may have created this problem, but Jimbo Wales — whatever his motivation — has allowed it to persist. The time has come for Wales himself to step in, help find a real solution, and acknowledge the damage this dark episode has caused real people in the process.

In the case of Fairfax, when the work of corrupt Morgan Keegan stock analyst John Gwynn and thestreet.com columnist Peter Eavis failed to get the job done, a “real” expert was called in; namely: Spyro Contogouris of MI4 Reconnaissance.

Contogouris and MI4 employee Max Bernstein were hired by Exis Capital Management, among the smaller of the half-dozen hedge funds comprising the “Enterprise” targeting Fairfax, in early 2005. Their primary mission was to gain access to material non-public information from sources in and around Fairfax. Their secondary mission seems to have been harassment of Fairfax executives, both public and private.

This effort got off to an impressive start, in the form of a 30-page document anonymously sent by Bernstein to Rev. Barry Parker, head of the Toronto church attended by Fairfax CEO Prem Watsa. The gist of Bernstein’s package was as follows: Prem Watsa bears a striking resemblance to a convicted swindler named Marty Frankel, and even if Watsa is not Frankel, Rev. Parker should beware and call Watsa to repentance for Fairfax Financial’s accounting.

In December of 2005, Contogouris and Bernstein created premwatsa.com, an attack site. In one exchange of instant messages, the two discuss how to use posts planted on stock message boards to build traffic to the site, and blithely speculate as to how Watsa and other Fairfax officers will react upon discovering it.

Meanwhile, Contogouris created a document, since discredited, dubbed “Fairfax Fraud Facts”, which he circulated broadly among journalists and analysts. This document sparked substantial negative coverage of Fairfax.

It was possibly in this context that, in an undated instant messenger exchange, Andrew Heller, manager of Exis Capital, told Bernstein: “tell spyro, bloomberg was taken care of, and he will receive payment.”

I contacted Heller, seeking context to clarify this potentially significant tidbit, but he refused to comment, citing the ongoing nature of the Fairfax lawsuit. The only thing of any substance Heller would say was that his hedge fund remains “up net 15% on the year.”

Congratulations, Mr. Heller.

MI4’s effort to secure inside information ramped up significantly in May of 2006.

On the 29th of that month, MI4 created the following “Intelligence Profile” on an officer of Fairfax (whose name is redacted):

On May 31st, Contogouris, posing as a reporter, gained access to the back offices of that Advent Group, a Fairfax subsidiary in London, trolling for potential insiders to act as sources.

The next day, Contogouris personally delivered a package to Advent Group CFO Trevor Ambridge, asking that Ambridge provide inside information or risk criminal prosecution.

From his emails, one gets the impression that this is the sort of thing Contogouris quite relishes. However, presently things would take a rough turn for the self-styled corporate spy.

The first blow came six weeks later, when Fairfax named Contogouris in the lawsuit that led to the document production that led to this post.

The second, more severe blow came in November of 2006, when Contogouris was arrested by the FBI, charged (and subsequently indicted) with engaging in an unrelated multi-million-dollar real estate fraud.

While this came as a surprise to many, seasoned observers might have predicted something negative was about to happen to Contogouris when, in late September of 2006, apropos of nothing, Rocker Partners order-taker and former New York Post business writer Roddy Boyd, wrote FBI’S SECRET SOURCE, claiming:

“An FBI spokeswoman confirmed to The Post that Spyro Contogouris, who analyzes companies’ balance sheets, was deputized by the FBI in June to approach Fairfax’s former chief financial officer, Trevor Ambridge, as part of an investigation into the insurance company’s accounting and stock trading.”

It’s worth noting that none of the other writers following up on Boyd’s story — myself included — managed to get FBI confirmation of the supposed “deputy” status bestowed upon Contogouris.

In fact, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee found Boyd’s claim sufficiently strange to specifically ask FBI Director Robert Mueller about it, three weeks after Contogouris was arrested. Mueller’s response (see pages 70 and 71) was simple:

“The FBI does not “deputize” members of the general public.”

So what was motivating Boyd and Contogouris?

For Boyd’s part, that’s simple: as is revealed in documents unsealed in the Fairfax case reveal, (documents which I will be examining here shortly), Roddy writes what certain short-selling hedge funds tell him to write.

As for Contogouris, I suspect that, aware of the trouble looming on the real estate front, he made contact with the FBI as a “confidential informant” (something you or I could do at any time) seeking to ingratiate himself with that agency, possibly earning what he expected would be some form of immunity from other prosecution in the process. Then, fearing that despite these efforts his arrest was imminent, Contogouris used his hedge fund contacts to plant the story with Boyd, hoping the feds would be too embarrassed to nab someone they apparently trusted enough to “deputize”.

Four months after his arrest, the story of Spyro Contogouris and Fairfax was examined at length by another high profile business writer, who practically tied herself in a knot attempting to distance Contogouris from Fairfax’s attackers while simultaneously lending credibility to his work.

The author of that piece was none other than Bethany McLean.

To quote my friend Patrick Byrne: “If only there were a pattern.”

If this article concerns you, and you wish to help, then:

1) email it to a dozen friends;

2) go here for additional suggestions: “So You Say You Want a Revolution?“

Hempton, it appears, conceived of and initially orchestrated the entire Fairfax fiasco. At the time, he was a senior analyst at Australia’s Platinum Asset Management hedge fund. Last year he left Platinum to join Global Value Investors, though on May 15 of this year, Hempton started a blog and began calling himself semi-retired; leading me to presume that some time in early May, Hempton and GIV parted ways.

Though possibly mere coincidence, Herb Greenberg abandoned his MarketWatch gig on May 1, 2008 while Bethany McLean announced her departure from Fortune three days later. Greenberg and McLean, as it turns out, both play notable roles in the apparent Hempton-inspired conspiracy.

A reading of Hempton’s early efforts to win converts to his thesis that Fairfax was a ticking time bomb waiting to implode suggests his conclusions were based on what he viewed as sound principles; he really was convinced, and composed multiple, lengthy missives outlining his reasoning. I suspect Hempton’s mistake was then convincing some of the worst people on Wall Street, whose methods fill the pages of this blog, and whose influence probably turned his project from a speculative to a criminal enterprise, dragging Hempton down with it.

That’s not to say that any of this absolves Hempton of blame.

For one, a 2002 email sent to Rocker Partners employee Monty Montgomery makes it clear that Hempton is prominent stock message board poster Brolgaboy (and brolgaboy1 on Yahoo Finance).

I asked Hempton to comment on or clarify this email, but he refused.

That may be because he knows that, thanks to the Yahoo Dissembler Sorting Algorithm bug, it’s possible to know with certainty that in addition to brolgaboy1, Hempton is also Yahoo posters jamiewoodford1, scudzy_short, zipperdydoodah, and (my favorite) mr_byrnes_sith_lord.

Between them, these accounts have many hundreds of posts on Yahoo Finance, to say nothing of the hundreds more posted to several other boards.

Here’s where I really begin to lose patience with John Hempton.

On August 15, 2005, Hempton created and began posting taunting messages under the name mr_byrnes_sith_lord. This was three days after DeepCapture.com contributor and Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne announced a lawsuit against Gradient Analytics and Rocker Partners hedge fund for conspiring to get rich by destroying his company. At that time, Byrne further announced that he had evidence of a central figure — whom Byrne metaphorically compared to the shadowy “Sith Lord” of the Star Wars series — coordinating these attacks in ways nobody had previously considered possible.

Also on August 15, 2005, Hempton created the Sith Lord blog, which he further used, over the space of two months, to deride Byrne for claiming that short-selling hedge funds might operate in a coordinated way to destroy public companies.

In case you’ve missed it, the extreme irony here is that at least initially, in the case of the attack on Fairfax Financial, Hempton himself filled a version of the very role he attacked Byrne for daring to claim exists.

More than just irony, this, my friends, is a perfect example hubris as defined by the ancient Greeks: an act of extreme pride and arrogance that humiliates the victim, and ultimately the perpetrator as well.

If this article concerns you, and you wish to help, then:

1) email it to a dozen friends;

2) go here for additional suggestions: “So You Say You Want a Revolution?“

Two and a half years ago, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne penned an editorial for The Wall Street Journal, warning that widespread stock manipulation schemes – including abusive naked short selling – were threatening the health of America’s financial markets. But it wasn’t published.

“An editor at The Journal asked me to write it, and I told him he wouldn’t be allowed to publish it,” Byrne says. “He insisted that only he controlled what was printed on the editorial page, so I wrote it. Then, after a few days, he got back to me and said ‘It appears I can’t run this or anything else you write.’”

The Journal never changed its stance. But last week, the editorial finally saw the light of day at Forbes – after Byrne added a few paragraphs explaining that naked shorting had hastened what could turn out to be the biggest financial crisis since The Great Depression. (get the rest here)

The complaint is very enlightening and detailed in its claims, which can be broadly summarized as follows: certain hedge funds, which stood to profit by scuttling Fairfax’s stock price, illegally conspired and acted to do as much.

More specifically, the complaint says:

As a result of [S.A.C. Capital]’s frequent communications with Morgan Keegan and Gwynn, S.A.C. learns when Gwynn intends to issue reports and what they will say and, indeed, frequently directs Gwynn on when to issue reports and what to say. (p.14)

Also like S .A.C., Exis is a significant client of Morgan Keegan and has substantial influence over Gwynn, with whom Exis also collaborates closely. (p.15)

…[convicted hedge fund operative Spyro Contogouris] orchestrat[ed] negative analyst coverage — particularly through Gwynn… (p.18)

Gwynn collaborated with certain hedge funds, including Enterprise member Trinity Capital, in developing extreme criticisms of Fairfax to support both short-term and long-term shorting strategies dubbed “the Fairfax Project.” Gwynn communicated these developed criticisms and his intention to release a highly negative report containing those criticisms in a series of road show presentations to major hedge funds including, among others S.A.C., Lone Pine, Kynikos, Highfields, Greenlight Capital, and Perry Capital . The hedge funds participating in this discussions understood at their conclusion that Gwynn intended to initiate coverage of Fairfax with an extremely critical report, they understood and contributed to the substance of the criticisms to be included in the report, and they understood that the report’s release would be timed to provide them an opportunity to establish their short positions. These critical Morgan Keegan clients also understood that once they had established a short position in Fairfax, Gwynn would continue to support that position with negative reports until they covered. This understanding was critical because the Fairfax Project contemplated short-term and longer term components, the latter of which involved enormous potential exposure to the Enterprise if the stock price increased substantially. (p.20)

The S.A.C. Defendants, Exis Defendants, Lone Pine Defendants, Rocker Defendants, Third Point Defendants and Trinity Defendants…frequently had communications and coordinated with [John Gwynn] and caused [Gwynn] to disseminate [his] reports to numerous clients, investors, journalists, and media outlets… (p.62)

Reading the complaint in full, it’s clear that Gwynn’s actions played a pivotal role in the execution of the defendant hedge funds’ manipulation efforts.

So clear, in fact, it may have contributed to Gwynn’s decision, six months later, to terminate coverage of Fairfax Financial (a fact bemoaned by Herb Greenberg, not surprisingly one of Gwynn’s biggest fans).

As expected, the suit’s many named defendants responded to the complaint with indignant denials and, in the case of John Gwynn, a countersuit filed in November of 2007, accusing Fairfax of making him “a scapegoat” for the company’s “financial, legal and accounting problems.”

Today, ten months after Gwynn’s countersuit was filed, a spokesman for Morgan Keegan told Bloomberg that Gwynn has been fired “for violation of a firm policy relating to his apparent advance disclosure of his pending research coverage of Fairfax Financial Holdings.”

In other words, Fairfax was correct about what Gwynn was doing.

Given that fact, what are the chances Fairfax was not also correct about who benefited from Gwynn’s corruption: mega hedge funds such as S.A.C. Capital, Third Point Partners, Greenlight Capital, Rocker Partners, et al?

And, supposing that aspect is true, there would appear to be quite a bit of coordination between short-selling hedge funds and shady stock research outfits.

And that sounds suspiciously like the claim Deep Capture reporter Patrick Byrne has been making, ad nauseum, for over three years.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

(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.

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.

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
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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
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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.

Almost immediately after publishing the first such post, I began to receive email from readers who were confident that any scam involving Gary Weiss was all but certain to involve a fellow named Floyd Schneider, as well.

Curious, I googled “Floyd Schneider”, and quickly found the 2002 BusinessWeek story entitled “Revenge of the Investor”, in which Floyd is painted as a crusading folk hero fighting against corporate fraudsters.

With that, I concluded that Floyd Schneider could not possibly be an associate of Gary Weiss.

Time passed, and I began to gain a better understanding of how Gary Weiss was not only a corrupt blogger, but how he had also been a corrupt reporter, often using his by-line at BusinessWeek to further the interests of his short selling patrons by casting black as white, and white as black.

Indeed, as anybody who’s followed his career knows, the First Law of Gary Weiss is: If Gary says something is bad, it’s probably good; and vice versa.

I’m ashamed to admit that the obvious “A-ha!” moment finally came in December of 2006. That’s when it occurred to me – rather randomly – that I ought to take another look at the 2002 piece on Floyd Schneider…particularly the story’s by-line (which BusinessWeek.com tends to print at the end of stories).

Looking back, what I found probably should have come as no surprise…

…the author of the story lionizing Floyd Schneider was Gary Weiss himself. Indeed, Floyd is also lovingly featured in Weiss’s second book.

Those facts, when viewed in the context of the First Law of Gary Weiss, were all I needed to know that the individuals who suggested Floyd Schneider was involved in the coordinated public attacks I had observed against Patrick Byrne and other opponents of illegal naked short selling, were correct.

At that point, I sought to determine which message board aliases Schneider was using at the time. The answer was to be found in this legal opinion filed in one of the (multiple) lawsuits brought against Schneider by companies defamed and libeled by his message board posting.

It reads:

…“Floydtheoneandonly,” “charlesp0nzi,” “thetruthseekercom,” are [stock message board] pseudonyms used by Floyd Schneider…

From there, the Dissembler Sorting Algorithm revealed that on Yahoo Finance alone, additional Schneider aliases included strethoechasity, returnofstockdung, baloneymarch, wackypat, zorro20934 and china39846.

As an aside, the alias zorro20934 was used by Schneider to post attacks (since deleted) against Matrixx Initiatives, in direct violation of an agreement Schneider signed stipulating that he would not do so.

Over time the vast majority of Schneider’s message board contributions have been deleted for their abusive nature. Possibly the best and most recent example of this appeared briefly on Yahoo’s INVESTools board, in a series of posts in which Schneider attempted to blame INVESTools management for former employee David Ragsdale’s tragic decision to murder his wife earlier this year.

Analysis of the thousands of posts made by Schneider revealed that they attacked – almost without exception, companies appearing on the Reg SHO Threshold Securities list – which is comprised of firms targeted by hedge funds engaged in manipulative naked short selling.

In addition, Floyd’s posting patterns tended to be very abnormal; meaning, he would focus intensely on one or two companies for a time, then abruptly shift focus to attacking another and never return to the prior. This, I reasoned, was what one would expect of someone being directed in their efforts, as opposed to someone whose attention naturally evolved over time.

The next breakthrough came when I discovered this message board post made to SiliconInvestor.com by former Schneider business partner and convicted stock manipulator Anthony Elgindy, reading:

From: Anthony@Pacific
4/21/2001 8:28:44 PM

Notice of termination of all association with The truthseeker.

As of Yesterday.

I wish him luck in his current business venture as a paid researcher/basher..

I dont pay for any posts..period and I’m not gonna start ever doing that.
Please dont ask me to elaborate , just know that he is being paid now by outside parties.
He has done some good work and we have had some good times , but all good things must come to an end..someday.

I first wrote about what I had discovered, vis-à-vis Floyd Schneider, in December 2006.

In early April 2007, a mysterious comment was added to the Schneider post, claiming to have been made by Floyd’s long-deceased father. It read…

The Truthseeker is incapable of ever telling the truth!

How do I know? That’s easy I was his father. Currently my wife and other 4 sons have completely disowned him and will have nothing to do with him anymore.

I passed away on 2/7/1996, let me tell you some of my own experiences with my 3rd son, Floyd D. Schneider.

TIMELINE:

1976-1979 while attending the University of Miami he has gambled with bookies losing thousands of dollars I had to bail him out of, and committed credit card fraud stealing credit card numbers.

1982 stock broker for Moore Schlay, embezzled monies from family and friends brokerage accounts and lost it all buying options, He was fired and I had to bail him out again.

1983 stockbroker for Shearson American express, again he did the same thing and he was fired, I had to mortgage my house this time to bail him out.

1983- 1988 in between this time there were a few more bets with bookies and in 1988 he married a con artist and became her 6th husband. They both ran an Insurance agency in Bradley Beach, NJ “The F. D. Schneider Insurance Agency” This was a total disaster, they both were issuing insurance cards to people and had them make out their premium checks directly to them and cashing the checks for money for themselves, never putting the policies through and having these people driving with no car insurance without them knowing.

Yup again this cost me money in 1991, my whole half years retirement package in fact to bail him out of this mess.

Floyd came home to live again and in 1992 became a Mortgage broker for Weichert Realtors. He got in more trouble in those years by having people sign lock-in agreements and not locking the interest rate in, hoping rates would go down and lock it in then making loads more money for himself. Problem was more often the interest rates went up and he had to arrange to pay large lump sums of money to the borrowers to keep them from getting him fired.

Thank goodness he was a “so called” top producer, giving him them means pay his way out of a mess for himself for once. Floyd is a compulsive liar and you never can get the Truth from him, always nothing but another lie after another. Guess that’s why now he feels a need to seek truth from others, lord knows he could never seek it from himself.

He has a very convoluted way of justifying things. I remember back in 1983 when he was with Shearson in that mess, he forged a signature from his Godfather’s account, when I sat down with him to explain he did something very wrong all he told me was:  “dad I never forged anything, I just signed the check Floyd Schneider, it’s my fault Shearson didn’t check to see if it was the right Floyd Schneider or not, so really it’s their fault not mine!” You see Floyd was named after his uncle and Godfather “Floyd Schneider” of Carpenter and Smith Oil in Monroe, NY.

I never could convince him he did anything wrong either, he really believes he has never done a wrong thing in his life. I died 6 months after Floyd was married to his second wife. His father-in-law has no idea of what his daughter married! I am starting to feel I am the lucky one now six feet under, but finally in peace!!!

Not feeling comfortable with a comment from a dead person appearing on my blog – particularly one leveling such extreme accusations – I removed it and contacted its author: not to ask for proof of the claims, but to discern with reasonable certainty that he or she was actually in a position to know whether or not they were true.

What resulted was a long and fruitful conversation with Roger Schneider, Floyd’s brother and – until days before – Floyd’s boss at the Ramsey, NJ branch of mortgage brokerage Nationwide Equity.

The circumstances behind Floyd’s dismissal from Nationwide provide what might be the most interesting and valuable bit of insight yet gained in my effort to prove that contrary to their repeated claims, some individuals are indeed paid to “bash” public companies on stock message boards on behalf of short selling hedge funds seeking to profit from a drop in the target company’s share value.

Here’s how Roger Schneider himself describes the situation:

“Floyd was writing up invoices on Nationwide Equity’s letterhead to Magic consulting instructing Magic to pay Nationwide for some phony service he made up, and too have Magic consulting make out the checks payable directly to Floyd D. Schneider. He did this many times before it was discovered and he was fired.”

(More on Michelle McDonough and Magic Consulting in a moment)

As Roger described the above scene to me, when Floyd was presented with the evidence of his history of illegally disguising payments from Magic Consulting as mortgage brokerage commissions, Floyd’s only defense was to point out that in this most recent case (the one for which he was caught), Magic owner Michelle McDonough had instead opted to pay him directly as a contract “stock researcher.”

This is a vital detail, because it confirms Anthony Elgindy’s claim that Floyd had engaged in a “business venture as a paid researcher/basher.”

It was while cleaning out Floyd’s desk a few days later that Roger discovered a print version of the same legal filing I had found online months before, and the partial listing of Floyd’s confirmed message board aliases. Then, while seeking additional information on what he’d found, Roger happened upon AntiSocialMedia.net and my post about his brother.

As it turns out, Floyd left behind many compelling insights into his relationship with Michelle McDonough’s Magic Consulting.

It seems that when hedge fund Third Point Capital needed some dirt spread about specific companies, they would enlist the help of McDonough, who would in turn enlist the help of individuals such as Floyd Schneider. McDonough would provide Floyd with a list of “talking points” and, moments later, these were the things Floyd would begin posting on stock message boards across the web, including Yahoo Finance, Raging Bull, and Silicon Investor.

Very soon, these were also the things business reporter Roddy Boyd (currently of Fortune, previously of the New York Post) was writing damning stories about.

Very frequently, Boyd would contact Floyd, asking for help digging up negative information on officers of specific companies. In every case, these companies were known to be under active and vicious attack by short selling hedge funds.

On one occasion, Roddy Boyd refers directly to Michelle McDonough as an acquaintance of his and Floyd’s…which is what makes the following email exchanges between Boyd and myself so strange:

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 [sic] concern, not mine.”

And later…

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 [sic] not talking to you about anything else, period. if youre [sic] not comfortable with me asking the questions-fine. but im [sic] not anwering [sic] yours.”

We’ve since learned yet more about Michelle McDonough and Magic Consulting.

Most notable is the fact that McDonough apparently offers her services to multiple hedge funds, not just Third Point Capital, as originally suspected.

It’s also emerged that, prior to leaving for prison, McDonough (then known as Michelle Sarian) was a very active message board poster, herself. Sources suggest that in those days, she primarily attacked the companies targeted by Evan Sturza, a former hedge fund manager who went on to publish Sturza’s Medical Investment Letter.

Based on evidence he saw, Roger Schneider estimates McDonough paid Floyd at least $14,000 in 2006 alone. A few years before that, Roger observed Floyd receive at least one payment of $10,000 from Paul C. Harary, who – it should come as no surprise – was recently imprisoned for securities manipulation.

Paul C. Harary.

Michelle McDonough.

Anthony Elgindy.

Sam E. Antar.

All convicted securities manipulators.

All past and present associates of paid stock message board basher Floyd Schneider.

After I published the audio of the interview, somebody posted a link to it on the Yahoo Finance message board dedicated to Overstock.com.

Seeking the origin of the resulting surge in downloads led to my first stock message board visit.

It was really strange.

What first struck me was the flurry of responses to the original posts in which users with foul mouths and bad attitudes warned that the linked mp3s contained computer viruses.

Of course, no mp3 has ever carried a virus, as I’m fairly certain the posters knew.

These were followed up by all manner of lies meant to discourage others from listening to any of the three Byrne interviews I would eventually publish.

Worse, they posted all manner of lies about Patrick Byrne personally – something I was in a unique position to recognize having just interviewed him at length.

Intrigued, I started examining the posting histories of the most prolific sources of this disinformation, trying to identify patterns that might in turn reveal their underlying motives and, often enough, their real identities.

Well over two years later, I remain engaged in the same pursuit. And, to be frank, I suspect that by now, I understand it better than anybody else, largely because of a few methods I’ve developed and the great amounts of information I’ve received from others.

What follows is a little bit about what I’ve learned.

First: just as there are dishonest people paid to post lies on stock message boards for the purpose of artificially boosting share prices, there are also bad people paid to post lies on stock message boards for the purpose of artificially lowering prices.

In the case of the latter, they are either paid outright as contract “stock researchers”, or paid in put options (which increase in value as a company’s stock drops in value).

Second: make no mistake, it’s short-biased hedge funds who are paying these stock “bashers” (as they’re often called).

Third: in some cases, it’s actually the managers of these short-biased hedge funds doing the bashing.

Consider the following notable example.

I’ve previously written about evidence received demonstrating that hedge fund Third Point, LLC contracted with convicted stock fraudster Michelle McDonough, whose duties included coordinating the efforts of message board bashers and inducing certain captured journalists to report negatively on targeted companies.

I’ve also written about Third Point founder Daniel Loeb’s well-known history of posting on the Yahoo and Silicon Investor stock message boards under the alias Mr. Pink.

Before getting to the rest of the story, here’s some background.

About the same time I first visited Yahoo Finance, a company called SFBC International (now PharmaNet Development Group) came under a blistering attack by Daniel Loeb, who very publicly announced Third Point’s sizeable short interest in the company.

SFBC got hit from all sides, and its share price withered.

In particular, there was a deluge of libelous (though tame compared to others I’ve seen) posts to Yahoo’s SBFC message board. Most notable were the attacks leveled against then-SFBC Chairwoman and President Lisa Krinsky.

Krinsky responded by filing a lawsuit against ten anonymous posters: Does 1 through 10.

In order to discover the identities of the ten Does, Yahoo was served with a subpoena.

In accordance with policy, Yahoo alerted the posters, giving them two weeks in which to contest the subpoena – an expensive proposition few bashers have the financial ability to pursue.

And indeed, none of the ten Does opted to put up a fight.

With one exception: Doe number 6, known on Yahoo Finance as Senor_Pinche_Wey (which is a slang Spanish term that is as obscene as you can imagine).

A typical post by Senor_Pinche_Wey reads:

“…I will reciprocate [fellatio] with Lisa [Krinsky] even though she has fat thighs, a fake medical degree, “queefs” and has poor feminine hygiene…”

Doe-6 fought the subpoena, was rejected, and appealed to California’s Sixth Appellate court.

Clearly, Doe-6 had some resources backing him up…to say nothing of a deep motivation not to be exposed.

And, fortunately for Doe-6, his appeal was successful and the subpoena was quashed.

This decision – handed down in February of this year – essentially affirms the First Amendment rights of message board bashers to say whatever they want about the officers of public companies. (An excellent analysis of the decision can be viewed here.)

In their decision, the Court noted:

We likewise conclude that the language of Doe 6’s posts, together with the surrounding circumstances — including the recent public attention to SFBC’s practices and the entire “SFCC” message-board discussion over a two-month period — compels the conclusion that the statements of which plaintiff complains are not actionable. Rather, they fall into the category of crude, satirical hyperbole which, while reflecting the immaturity of the speaker, constitute protected opinion under the First Amendment.

Interesting.

Ready for the other shoe to drop?

I’ve learned, through multiple sources, that the immature speaker in this case, Doe-6 (aka Senor_Pinche_Wey) was none other than Daniel Loeb himself.

As a matter of fact, Senor_Pinche_Wey is one of many abusive message board identities used by Loeb to harass officers of companies Third Point was shorting, often illegally.

On August 12, 2005, Patrick Byrne first publicly accused several hedge funds of working in coordination to illegally manipulate the share price of Overstock.com and many other small, public companies. Within 48 hours, armies of bashers arrived for the first time on the Overstock.com stock message boards across the web, all working off of a the same obvious set of talking points. Among the points these bashers took the greatest care to make, time and again: that Byrne was crazy for thinking that any two hedge funds would ever work together when shorting.

In case there are any doubts left regarding Byrne’s claims, I invite you to look at this message board exchange, between Senor_Pinche_Wey, LaseriumQueen, bobbingbargains, disgustedinvestor, kidstockjoec, jidoo, and Polytechnic_Trader.

What makes it so interesting is that at least 72% of the participants are hedge fund managers shorting the company they’re smearing.

Specifically, Senor_Pinche_Wey belongs to Daniel Loeb, while LaseriumQueen, bobbingbargains, disgustedinvestor, and kidstockjoec all belong to Robert Chapman, founder of hedge fund Chapman Capital.

Polytechnic_Trader and jidoo may or may not belong to Loeb or Chapman…I don’t know either way.

I do know that Chapman also posts under the aliases tautologicaltrader, ghaulty_lodgick, notably_absent, and herniatedgorilla – all of which can be seen, time after time, posting things I’m quite certain Chapman would not dare say in person.

Do hedge funds coordinate their attacks?

Yes.

And as you’ll read in a soon-to-be-published-post, message board bashing is only the beginning.

That’s because AntiSocialMedia.net deals in facts. Period.

Often, having made my case, I’ll take the additional step of drawing conclusions based on the facts. It’s never easy leaving the comfort of what I know to be true for what I suspect is true — particularly when reputations are involved. Yet, with a single (quickly rectified) exception, every conclusion extrapolated here has proven accurate.

And, in at least one case, my conclusions have proven much more accurate than even I could have anticipated.
To learn more about that case, let us return to June of 2007.

At that time, I concluded that convicted stock manipulator Sam Antar and securities class action litigator Howard Sirota were working in concert with convicted stock manipulator Barry Minkow’s Fraud Discovery Institute (FDI) to manipulate the share price of USANA, a public company.

You can review my reasoning (which, I urge you to keep in mind, Sam Antar characterized as being “filled with deception, innuendo, deflection, insensitivity, and arrogance”) here.

Many things have happened since the post was published, most notably the deposition of Minkow, whom USANA is suing for reasons that I expect will soon appear obvious. You may access the deposition transcript, in two parts, here and here.

In his deposition, Minkow confirms that to say he and Sam Antar were “doing business together” was the understatement of the fiscal year.

Minkow states, under oath, the following:
At some point in the past two or three years, Sam Antar came to be a “spiritual advisor” to Minkow. But unlike a traditional spiritual advisor, Antar didn’t ask for money…he was handing it out.

According to Minkow, in mid-2006, Antar sent him, unsolicited and with no strings attached: $100,000. This was Antar’s way of saying: “Thank you…you’ve been an example for me that you can come back from failure.”

Shortly thereafter, and by pure coincidence, Minkow decided to use Antar’s money to finance FDI’s attack on USANA, which was published and delivered to the SEC on February 20, 2007 (precisely the same day as Minkow’s second book was published), but not before Minkow established a short position in USANA stock, as well as investing in put options (both of which gain value as a stock loses value).

Minkow says that in total, Antar’s support for FDI has exceeded $250,000.

Additionally, Minkow disclosed two payments totaling $40,000 by hedge fund manager (and frequent Herb Greenberg advisor) Whitney Tilson, and $10,000 by Anthony Bruan, owner of Cactus Capital.

Remember Howard Sirota? Bruan is a long-time Sirota law client, dating back to some high-profile scrapes with the securities laws in 2001.

Sam Antar is also a long-time client of Howard Sirota’s law practice.

For those of you keeping score at home, that means at least $260,000 – nearly 90% – of the disclosed $300,000 used to finance FDI’s attack on USANA, came from associates of Howard Sirota, who makes a living leading shareholder lawsuits against public companies, à la Milberg Weiss.

Here’s where things get strange…
Consulting public records, I discovered that on February 27, 2007 (seven days after FDI’s USANA report was released), the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issued a warrant for unpaid taxes against Sam E. Antar, in the amount of $473.15.

A bankruptcy attorney I consulted with on this issue cautioned that from time to time these warrants are filed erroneously. Hoping to rule out that possibility, I conducted a deeper search and discovered that unpaid taxes are nothing new to Sam Antar. Indeed, between 1987 and 2007, Antar amassed over $333,000 in tax liens, warrants and judgments on the city, state and federal levels, in addition to just under $60,000 in judgments and liens by private creditors in 1992 and 1993.

None of these debts was discharged by Antar’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing in 1998.

My point being, Sam’s history suggests this most recent – and nearly one year later, unsatisfied – tax warrant was not the result of an error.

And yet, from Minkow’s deposition, we’re supposed to believe that someone who can’t pay a $500 tax bill is in a position to give Minkow gifts totaling at least $250,000 – motivated by nothing more than the spirit of fraud fighting?

As noted in my earlier post on this topic, Howard Sirota was caught bashing (though in an unusually civil manner, to his credit) USANA stock on Yahoo Finance under the screen name StanleySargoy. In his first such post, dated April 14, 2007, Sirota declares (and Minkow’s deposition later confirms) that Sirota was shorting USANA stock, in addition to being long USANA put options.

Interestingly, five trading days later, USANA appeared on the Reg SHO Threshold Securities list for the first time.

Whether or not Sirota’s short position was a legitimate one, this post to Yahoo Finance by StanleySargoy in 2003 shows Sirota’s clear understanding of the relationship between public perception of a company and its share price, and of the value of using the media and other venues to spread negative information specifically for the purpose of lowering share price.

Based on these facts, I am led to conclude:

1. Sam Antar’s $250,000 “gift” wasn’t a gift, but the cost of a commissioned, negative report on USANA, intended to adversely impact USANA’s share price.
2. The money Antar gave Minkow wasn’t Antar’s at all. I suspect it belonged to someone else using Antar as an intermediary.
3. In addition to shorting USANA, Sirota likely intended to lead one of the (several) class action suits brought against the company in the months following release of Minkow’s report. That he did not do so just might be a consequence of his having been identified as StanleySargoy in this blog.
4. Finally, but likely most importantly, is my belief that this is a clear case of illegal stock manipulation.

If this sounds implausible, please remember that it is precisely the sort of activity Sirota’s counterparts at the law firm of Milberg Weiss are accused of engaging in. To learn more, you may either read this 105 page indictment of Milberg Weiss, or (as I would recommend) invest a few minutes watching an excellent presentation explaining how this sort of thing is happening on a broader scale than you could possibly imagine.

By all accounts, the resulting mass of evidence vastly exceeded any previous effort and produced a “case” supporting the claim that Gary Weiss has, in extreme violation of Wikipedia policy, deceitfully operated multiple accounts in an effort to skew the articles relating to naked short selling, Overstock.com, Patrick Byrne, and Gary Weiss himself.

Those unfamiliar with Wikipedia policy might not appreciate just how big a deal this really is.

It’s very satisfying to see so much support for the claim that has, over the past year, created so much misery for the few who have believed it.

That misery was occasioned, in large part, by the inexplicable obstructionism of Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, who intervened on multiple occasions to halt efforts threatening to tie Weiss to his many wiki sockpuppet identities.

Initially, it seemed reasonable to assume that Wales’s unreasonable behavior was based on bad information, and that he was otherwise acting in good faith.

That changed, however, when several of Wales’s contributions to a very small and private email list were recently leaked to me.

Of these, the most interesting, dated September 15, 2007, reads as follows:

From: jwales@wikia.com (Jimbo Wales)
I just want to go on record as saying that I believe the reason for this is that Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss.

Before lauding Wales’s apparent enlightenment on this topic, note the comment he made one month later, in reference to his support of an effort to block model Wikipedia editor Cla68 from making the most reasonable changes to the Gary Weiss article autobiography:

“Cla68, I fear that you have been manipulated by lying stalkers and trolls…”

In case it’s not clear, this is one of Wales’s many references to me as “lying stalker” and “troll.”

Kindly re-read the previous few paragraphs in case the following point is not made crystal clear to you: in private, Wales admitted knowing that I was correct about Gary Weiss, and yet in public, continued protecting Weiss, defaming me and castigating those who recognized and acted upon the truth as reported here.

What could possibly motivate someone to be not only deceitful, but deeply, irresponsibly and libelously deceitful?

Before you answer, consider the insights we can glean from the examples of Rachel Marsden and Jeff Merkey.

Rachel Marsden
Marsden is a controversial Canadian media personality and political consultant whose Wikipedia article has consistently tended toward the disproportionately negative.

While the full extent of their relationship is unknown, the emergence of a series of IM chat transcripts between Marsden and Wales makes it clear that in early February of this year, the relationship was…shall we say…a physical one.

Confronted with an overwhelming body of evidence, Wales conceded to a single “meeting” with Marsden, which took place on February 9, 2008.

While other evidence would suggest Wales isn’t telling the truth here, let us none-the-less focus on the circumstances surrounding that meeting.

In the following excerpted IM chat exchange between Wales and Marsden leading up to the February 9 meeting (originally published in Valleywag.com), the two discuss a specific point of inaccuracy in her article.

Wales: I wrote an email to the internal editors list about your entry recommending some changes, etc. I said that I would run it by you for clarification/comment and email again if there were any updates I think we have two major problems right now first, the timeline is wrong about the recent cop case… that is the worst error and easy to fix

Wales: right so the way it is told now, hang on a second let’s actually do this right now because the last thing I want to do is take a break from f**king your brains out all night to work on your wikipedia entry

“In September 2007, on her blog Marsden wrote about and posted a picture of a counterterrorism officer for the Ontario Provincial Police with whom she had an affair. She claimed that he had leaked secret anti-terrorism documents to her, then posted email messages from him as evidence that he had been pursuing her, and sent to the National Post these along with sexually explicit pictures of him that she had received. She was investigated for criminal harassment for this behaviour, but was not charged. The OPP’s criminal investigations branch cleared the officer of any wrongdoing.”

so our timeline is wrong we say
(1) wrote about him on your blog
(2) posted email messages from him
(3) as a result he files harassment charges

Marsden: exactly. it was a retaliatory complaint on his part that was launched 2 months after they initiated their investigation into his stuff.

Wales: but the correct timeline is
(1) wrote about him on the blog
(2) he files harassment charges
(3) you post email messages to show how his harassment charges are bullshit

Marsden: you’re a sh*tdisturber. right I only posted the emails after he went public trying to create trouble. NOT before that.

Wales: so we can get that sorted and then this makes the story clearer

Marsden: that’s good of you to do. really.

Comparing the substance of this chat session with the edit history of the Rachel Marsden article in the days leading up to February 9, 2008, we see something rather striking: On February 7, wikipedian Guy Chapman (aka “JzG”) commits two changes (1)(2) which have the net effect of making precisely the content alterations Marsden requested.

Jeff Merkey
Merkey is a computer scientist and entrepreneur whose Wikipedia article came under attack by several editors critical of his professional associations.

According to Merkey, in 2006, Wales told him that in exchange for a substantial donation, Wales could use his influence to make Merkey’s article more agreeable, and to place Merkey himself under Wales’s “special protection” as an editor.

Merkey made a $5,000 donation and hinted at the possibility of something much larger in the future.

Merkey claims, and the record confirms, that following his donation, Wales personally made several edits to the Merkey article, including a complete blanking of the article and destruction of its edit history (extreme steps to take under any circumstances, and doubly so considering it happened without any effort at reaching consensus, which is supposedly the coin of the Wikipedia realm).

When he announced his unilateral “start-over” on the article, Wales offered:

I have deleted the old discussion because of the unpleasantness of it. Please be extra careful here to be courteous and assume good faith. We are nearing a resolution of this longstanding conflict. Play nice, everyone.

A priceless response came 20 minutes later by wikipedian Aim Here, who asked:

“…Have you been making secret dealings behind everyone’s back? So much for Wikipedia’s openness.”

To which Wales nervously responded:

“Secret dealings? What on earth are you talking about?”

To which wikipedian Aim Here replied:

Whether or not the original article was a mess, you did use the phrase ‘nearing a restitution of this longstanding conflict’, which suggests, despite the complete lack of evidence available in public, that there is an actual conflict going on, as opposed to one which had been completely dormant for ages now. After all, suddenly and with no warning, wiping out an article and ordering everyone to start again over some sourcing problems is rather heavy-handed and drastic. The normal WP procedure is to stick some tags on it and telling everyone to change the bad bits. The ’secret deals’ phrase was of course total speculation, and sorry about that, but I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t something happening in private that sparked off this wholesale deletion of yours, either a deal or a threatened lawsuit. After all, pretty much the last thing Merkey said on this whole stupid subject was that he had been trying, in private, to throw $2 million at you and/or Wikipedia and threatening his usual bag of lawsuits. Well, whatever…

If this exchange seems familiar, it may be because it roughly resembles this one, which followed Jimbo Wales’ unilateral blanking of the debate over the proposed deletion of the article autobiography on Gary Weiss:

The page contained wildly inappropriate speculation that a notable author was sockpuppeting. As I am sure you are aware, many authors have had their careers badly damaged by being caught sockpuppeting at Amazon, etc., and it is deeply wrong for people to ask me to restore a page with such speculations in Wikipedia after the claims have already been investigated and dismissed. If there are further problems in the future, there will be no problem restoring the article at that time.

As an aside, based on Wales’s promise that “If there are further problems in the future, there will be no problem restoring the article at that time,” wikipedian Cool Hand Luke asked Jimbo for permission to un-delete the deletion debate in order to reference it during the present ArbCom case relating directly to the matter of Gary Weiss and his conflict of interest on Wikipedia.

Jimbo’s response: “I see no benefit in doing so.”

Conclusion
As the Rachel Marsden example demonstrates, when he’s “getting something” in return, Jimbo Wales is willing to use his position to influence Wikipedia article content.

As the Jeff Merkey example demonstrates, in addition to female companionship, that “something” can also come in the form of donations to the Wikimedia Foundation.

As the Gary Weiss example demonstrates, Jimbo Wales is willing to use Wikipedia as a tool of libel and disinformation when doing so suits him.

Only one question remains: what exactly is Jimbo Wales getting in return for continuing to publicly defame me and shield Gary Weiss from accountability for his two-year campaign of malice and disinformation, in support of illegal stock market manipulation?

A longshot from the beginning, that effort failed despite the principled efforts of Cla68, an exemplary contributor and a truly bright light in what can seem an otherwise dark place.

A couple of interesting things happened through the proposed article for deletion (AfD) process. One is that Gary Weiss himself basically came unglued. The other is the subsequent deletion of record of the AfD debate (and with it record of Weiss’s mental decomposition).

As it turns out, the deletion of that debate will be hard to undo, since it came from the top of the Wikipedia organization: Jimbo Wales himself. Wales claims the debate was filled with “discourteous commentary” and as such meriting elimination from the record.

Last week an anonynmous editor asked Jimbo about his decision. That conversation, at least for now, may be read here. Not surprisingly, that editor was soon banned as a WordBomb sockpuppet.

Thanks to an enterprising administrator with the requisite permissions, the deleted debate has been recovered and is reproduced here for your enlightenment. Please inspect it and then comment on what you see as commentary of so discourteous a nature as to require elimination.

But just as the Yin and the Yang are opposite ends of the same stick, when one acquires a new friend, one often acquires that friend’s enemies, too.

Over the past month, it has become evident that AntiSocialMedia.net, which rarely boasts enough traffic to register on any scale, has acquired the least likely set of enemies: the leadership of Wikipedia (the ninth most popular website on the earth).

I’ll admit, it’s not easy finding the Zen in being on my side of such a grossly unfair fight.

To understand how unfair, I offer some perspective:

• It takes AntiSocialMedia.net about one week to log as many unique visitors as Wikipedia logs in less than one minute.
• Googling “AntiSocialMedia.net” returns 2,327 results.
• Googling “Wikipedia.org” returns 43,100,000 results (7,000,000 more than you get by googling “Google.com”).
• Of the three most frequently-cited sources of Wikipedia criticism (AntiSocialMedia.net, Wikipedia Review and Encyclopedia Dramatica), AntiSocialMedia.net is the smallest, the most obscure, most infrequently updated, most understaffed, and the only one not focused exclusively on “Wikipedia criticism.”

Given these extreme imbalances, how strange that Wikipedia would make AntiSocialMedia.net, the focus of its epic “BADSITES” initiative.

What’s “BADSITES,” you ask?

“BADSITES” apparently beat out “UNGOODSITES” as the shorthand name assigned to the month old (and counting) effort by the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) to officially forbid any reference to AntiSocialMeida.net on Wikipedia, under penalty of immediate banning.

To understand how extreme that move is, keep in mind the fact that Wikipedia currently endorses mentions of, and links to, websites that advocate pedophilia, racism, and related moral deprivation. Yet, the one website soon to be stricken as a matter of official Wikipedia, and which ArbCom member Fred Bauder claims “displays moral depravity,” is the one you’re reading now.

There have literally been scores, and likely more, of instances where the mere questioning of the validity of the claims against AntiSocialMedia.net results in immediate banning and removal of the comment.

If there is Zen to be found in these atrocities, it’s the de facto confirmation of the existence of “thoughtcrime” on Wikipedia.

Here’s a perfect example, engineered by me specifically to demonstrate this point.

For a month, a carefully managed discussion of the issues surrounding BADSITES has been taking place on a half-dozen sufficiently cloistered corners of Wikipedia. This is where naive and well-meaning editors go to die.

One week ago, User:Greenstick Break (previously created by me) jumped into the middle of one of these conversations to ask Fred Bauder what should have been the obvious question.

(Note: this is actually a two-fer, in that Fred’s comment nicely confirms one of the central theses of this site, as well as the searing dishonesty of Gary Weiss/Mantanmoreland.)

Fred Bauder: “…For example, one claim is that Matamoreland (sic) uses sockpuppets. Well, he did, when he first started editing two years ago. And he got caught, was warned, AND QUIT USING SOCKPUPPETS…”

Greenstick Break: “Now help me out here, Fred. You just confirmed that WordBomb was correct when he said Mantanmoreland was using socks. In another venue you confirmed that WordBomb was correct when he said Mantanmoreland had a [conflict of interest] problem. Whether or not you think the User:SlimVirgin/ User:Sweet Blue Water connection + User:jayjg oversight issue is a problem, I think it’s generally understood that WordBomb got those facts right, too.
Yet WordBomb is the one that’s banned and whose site cannot be named???
Will somebody PLEASE show me what WordBomb got so wrong as to justify all this?”

It took less than four minutes from the time that comment was posted until the time ArbCom member Jpgordon had removed it and banned Greenstick Break, claiming (impossibly), that he had managed to squeeze a completed CheckUser search in there, as well.

Greenstick Break mounted a tepid defense, partly for show and partly to force Jpgordon to actually consult CheckUser (as you’ll see, that was a necessary part of this plan).

About 45 minutes later, while Jpgordon remained actively editing, I created User:Fjse44 via precisely the same connection, IP address and browser (with all cookies intact) that I had used when editing as Greenstick Break just moments before.

I wanted it to be very easy for Jpgordon or any other CheckUser to know, if they cared at all, that Greenstick Break and Fjse44 belonged to the same banned user.

The only thing that made Fjse44 different from Greenstick Break was sentiment, as I used the account (for the greater good and while holding my nose) to respond dismissively to a perfectly logical comment by Dan Tobias on the same page as Greenstick Break’s.

*Dan T.*: “One should note that The New York Times linked to ASM when it was relevant to a controversy they were covering. But I guess we’re so much more mature, sophisticated, and tasteful in our editorial judgment than they are.”

Fjse44: “The New York Times gets to set its content policies as we do ours. Apples/oranges.”

Ten days later, the pro-BADSITES comment remains in place, and pro-BADSITES commenter Fjse44 remains a Wikipedian in good standing (though that will likely change soon, now that Fjse44 is tied to WordBomb).

The take home lesson here is that under otherwise identical circumstances, Jpgordon banned one user based entirely on his opinion.

That is thoughtcrime.

Normally, this lack of judgment would land even an ArbCom member in hot water. But by now, any sentient observer of the process has seen enough to know that when it comes to AntiSocialMedia.net, the rules have been officially suspended.

Here’s a beautiful example of Wikipedia’s new thoughtcrime paradigm.

It’s a portion of an exchange between the uncommonly gutsy User:G-Dett (whom I’m reticent to praise for fear of what might befall her) and User:Ryulong, shortly after the latter banned User:Onomato as a WordBomb sockpuppet, based on nothing more than his having made some minor changes to the Wikipedia article on Patrick Byrne.

G-Dett : “Would it be fair to say that Wikipedia’s current working definition of a WordBomb sockpuppet is anyone whose edits focus (either wholly or in part) on naked-short-selling -related articles, and who opposes User:Mantanmoreland and User:Samiharris?”

Ryūlóng: “They would be common traits as far as I know.”

G-Dett : “Of course they’re common traits; my question was whether they’re enough for a positive ID.”

Ryūlóng: “I would say so.”

Thoughtcrime. You may not like it, but at least it’s out in the open now.

Having laid that foundation, allow me to return to my initial point: that there’s an enormous disconnect between what’s been published on AntiSocialMedia.net so far, and the severity of Wikipedia leadership’s response to it.

I believe the reason these efforts are aimed against AntiSocialMedia.net, as opposed to the other, more obvious targets, is that I alone possess the past Wikipedia database dumps which, through analysis of what has since been covertly removed, provide unambiguous roadmaps of disturbing behavior at the highest levels of Wikipedia leadership.

I believe their primary concern – and the motive for such Orwellian behavior – is not for what I have published, but for what they know, based on the data in my possession, I potentially could publish.

Nobody aspires to have “enemies,” particularly when ambushed by a brass knuckle-wielding band of them. But if there is Zen to be found in the experience, it’s realizing that the subjects of my efforts – my self appointed “enemies” – appear to place a higher value upon my work than even I do.

“Bravely spoken, by the coward who hides behind a pseudonym.”

And here we go…
The first thing you need to understand is that in late January of 2006, Gary Weiss’ IP address was 70.23.85.112.

Here’s how we know that.

The website Wikipedia endeavors to be an online encyclopedia that anybody can make changes to. Fortunately for mankind, a record is kept of each of those changes. Here’s just such a record: a summary of edits made by a user at the IP address 70.23.85.112.

Note the date range: January 27-28, 2006, and the article edited: Naked short selling. Such rapid succession of edits, as seen here, is suggestive of what’s called an “edit war.”
Now, let’s look at who else was editing that article during that period, to learn more about this edit war.

Starting at the bottom and working up, we see the editor identified by the IP address 70.23.85.112 editing heavily until 7:19pm when that user’s edits abruptly cease.

79 minutes later, a brand new user calling himself Mantanmoreland arrives, picking up right where 70.23.85.112 left off. A few days later, Tomstoner arrives, forging an unusually strong “tag team” relationship with Mantanmoreland. Together, Mantanmoreland and Tomstoner become the primary antagonists of the novice and disorganized bloc of Wikipedian naked shorting opponents.

On February 20, 2006, as if to put a fork in their soundly defeated opposition, Tomstoner adds a link to Gary Weiss’ blog to the naked short selling article.

Fast forward six weeks.

On April 6, Gary Weiss sees his second book published. Bravo, Gary.
On April 9, Tomstoner adds a reference to the three-day-old book on the article about Gary Weiss’ alma mater, the City College of New York.
On April 13, Mantanmoreland creates the Gary Weiss article on Wikipedia, and goes on to take ownership of it, including going so far as to know when one Weiss quote is more suitable than another.
On April 14, Mantanmoreland adds a link to a nearly decade-old Business Week article originally written by Gary Weiss
On April 15, Mantanmoreland decides the article on Arthur Leavitt would be better with a link to the nine-day-old book by Gary Weiss.
On April 17, Mantanmoreland adds a link to the first book by Gary Weiss
On April 30, Mantanmoreland feels one more article could benefit from a reference to the three-week old book by Gary Weiss.
Make that two more articles
On May 13, Lastexit, one of Mantanmoreland’s admitted “sockpuppet” alter-egos, feels the article about Julian Robertson could benefit from a link to a six-year-old bit of journalism by Gary Weiss.
On May 19, Mantanmoreland decides the article on hedge funds is incomplete without a link to the Weiss Book.
On July 12, Lastexit concludes that a three year old Business Week piece on naked shorting penned by Gary Weiss would perfectly round out the Wikipedia article on the same topic.

Anybody not convinced that 70.23.85.112 = Mantanmoreland = Tomstoner = Lastexit = Gary Weiss raise your hand.

Ok good. So we can all agree that in late January, 2006, 70.23.85.112 = Gary Weiss (remember that…it’s on the final exam!).

Now, let’s go back to January 22, 2006.

On that day, two relevant things happened.

First, the New York Post published an effusive review of the Gary Weiss book, which would not go on to be available for purchase for another 3.5 months.

Second, Yahoo user ID lamborghini751 is created and soon makes his first message board post in the form of a question as to his “wife’s” career options.

Four minutes later, his second post, to Yahoo’s Overstock.com message board, announces to the world that Gary’s book, though a full financial quarter away, had been the subject of a glowing review by the New York Post.

On January 24, 2006, Yahoo user ID cupandsaucerwithsugar is created. As his first act, at 1:29 pm EST, he provides an answer to lamborghini751’s two day old question.

(A quick scan of the subsequent postings of both lamborghini751 and cupandsaucerwithsugar makes it obvious that the same person is behind both. But Yahoo’s delightful dissembler sorting algorithm bug confirms this, as those familiar with the DSA will easily see.)

As his second act, less than 60 seconds after the first, cupandsaucerwithsugar chooses to honor Gary Weiss, as follows:

“yeah and weiss just ripped boobo and co a new one on his blog”

How sweet.For those keeping track at home, that post brings us to 1:30 EST on January 24, 2006.
Interestingly, according to the header info on the sample chapter posted on his website, Weiss’ publisher would complete the book’s soft proof 82 minutes later, at 2:52pm.

So what had the NY Post reviewer been reading?

Hmmmm.

Nevermind such details!

Six hours later, at 8:35pm, Gary Weiss publishes a new blog post, which opens thusly:

“Bob O’Brien,” the bravely anonymous leader of the Baloney Brigade…

Just 25 minutes later, on the above-mentioned Bob O’Brien’s blog, first time commenter cupsandsaucer has this to say to the same Bob O’Brien:

Bravely spoken, by the coward who hides behind a pseudonym.

A quick review of the corresponding server log entry (time zone set to GMT) confirms what we all already suspect, and poetically brings us full circle:

How much more ironic is the accusation,

…coward who hides behind a pseudonym…

when you consider it was posted by cupandsaucer Gary Weiss (aka 70.23.85.112, Mantanmoreland, Lastexit, Tomstoner, Lamborghini715, and cupandsaucerwithsugar), who’s turned pseudonymity into a way of life?

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 comment

Send 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.

Burton (Baltimore, MD)
Dave Watson (Banning, CA)
Luminiere (Miami)
George (Needham, MA)
Marty Ross (Houston, Texas)
Rich Golden (New York, NY USA)
Ted Dichtler (Monroe, NY)

Jim O’Reilly (New York, NY USA), who did not review Weiss’s book, also saw his 16 reviews deleted.

You’ll note that five of the above eight names (in bold) are the same five we concluded were being deceptively used by Gary Weiss to artificially boost his book’s sales while artificially depressing others.

Of course the reviews in situ are gone and the links to them broken, but we will soon post the full text, which we saved pre-delete, here.

We had concluded that the additional three users were also Gary Weiss, but limited our initial report to five, given the need to conserve space and the ease of proving as much.

Our complete list, for those of you playing at home, also includes the following:

Chuck T. (Chicago, IL)
Elliot Baker (Red Bank, NJ)
Johannsen (Atlanta)
Raymond Stella (New York, NY)

At this point, it’s unclear who deleted these reviews, whether it was Amazon administrators or Gary Weiss himself (as users may delete or edit their own reviews) but the following incident suggests it was Gary.

Soon after the reviews were discovered to be missing, a poster on an investorvillage.com message board noted that the user page of Jim O’Reilly, while devoid of reviews, retained a link to Jim O’Reilly’s “Wish List.” Upon clicking the link, he found “Gary Weiss’s Wish List.” A cut and paste version of it can be seen here.

Within minutes of posting this odd Weiss/O’Reilly connection, the wish list was also deleted. We hypothesize that the account was originally called Gary Weiss and the name was changed to Jim O’Reilly at some point, though the name on the wish list was not.

We applaud Gary Weiss for deleting eight of his deceptive reviewer accounts and call on him to now remove the additional four noted above.

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.