research, research, research
Goldenmane - Thanks for the props. To be honest, part of my motivation for running the article was in hopes that this would inspire an investigation like this. Like I said before, I'm pretty skeptical myself. Sometimes as a publisher, we put stuff out in order to stimulate inquiry - I wouldn't go so far to say this is scholarly, but I'm all about serious investigation. Unfortunately, our resources are somewhat limited (but our forum is unlimited - thanks to the web)
Samuel Browning - Are you in dialog with Mr. Putnam? He's usually pretty good about email, or at least he has been with me.
Stacey - I was in the next sleeping bag :p
Mr. Putman dodges the issue.
Mr. Putman has asserted that he did not reply to my letter because I did not provide professional credentials. This is simply a red herring since his letter states "As a matter of policy I do not discuss confidential material without first entering into a consultation agreement" Since I am not being paid for looking into this matter, my interest was not professional. I wrote him because he invited the curious from this boad to do so, and therefore I did not send him an email with my credentials which are as follows.
My Connecticut Law License is Juris number, #417779 and my status as an attorney can be checked my calling the Statewide Grievance Committee in Hartford Connecticut (Area code 860) which keeps records of all attorneys licensed to practice law in the state of Connecticut. It will be listed under Samuel Pearce Browning. My professional mailing address is 671 Scotland Rd, Norwich Ct, 06360.
If you wish to be adventurous please call the University of Connecticut School of Law in Hartford Connecticut and ask the alumni office if I indeed did graduate from there with a J.D. in 1998.
For my Masters Degree in Forensic Science/Advanced Investigation, please call the University of New Haven in West Haven, Connecticut, my graduation date from this instiitution was January, 2004.
Now lets move on to the issue of claiming that you did not want to answer my questions because they would in essence expose confidential sources. My questions did not require this because it was Mr. Bannon who insisted on identifying that he was involved in a perfectly legal "Wonderland club" police raid in Florida on August 30, 1998 that you said resulted the death of four criminals who were involved in the sexual assault on a little girl.
A quick forensic comment, when someone dies in a police raid in Florida they fall under the jurisdiction of the district medical examiner and will receive an official death certificate memorializing their cause of death and a free autopsy. You tell me the town, and I'll pull their paperwork, If you can't do that, then the credibility of your account circles the drain. And you don't have to give up a single secret source, what could be better then that?
Similarly I asked for the place of death of Jacques Defferre so I could also confirm the manner of his death. Both you and Bannon use his name throughout your public works and have not previously indicated that it is a pseudonym. You even feature a picture of him in your article, if you were attempting to protect his identity you had a strange way of doing so. I even asked you for the names of the Federal appallate cases Bannon has been acting as a witness, since such cases have files accessible to the public. But you don't seem to be able to help your case even here.
"Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that a number of the names and places identified in the book are pseudonyms, which pseudonymous identifiers I respectfully retained in my article after verification. No respectable journalist would divulge such verification to any but his publisher"
If Thomas Parker was a pseudonym for a New Orleans Police Officer this should have been indicated in the article or through the footnote you gave his account. (number 26) Since there were no "Wonderland Club" raids in New Orleans we are left with the presumption that 1) No New Orleans Police Officer or person of this name observed the raid you credit to him. I understand the use of a clearly marked pseudonym, but an uncredited fake name and fake discriptive information? What sort of writer are you Mr. Putnam? BTW I got my information on the lack of a Mr. Parker by calling the personel division of "his" department. Can you provide me with his badge number to prove his existance?
Finally you write:
"As a feature story for a popular magazine, the article was designed to inform, not to convince. The material was not presented as a research paper"
This is why you provided 42 footnotes to this article, some quite lengthy to convince the reader of its reliability yet you can't provide or support basic, important, facts in Bannon's story.
I hope you can offer better proof of you're and Mr. Bannon's claims. Whether you wish to acknowledge this or not, by endorsing his story you have tied your credibility to his, and his claims will be vigorously investigated over the next several months.
Samuel Pearce Browning Esq