Ceglia v. Zuckerberg et al

Filing 416

DECLARATION signed by Larry Stewart re 348 Order on Motion to Stay, Scheduling Conference, Oral Argument,,,,,,,,,,,, 414 Declaration filed by Paul D. Ceglia Expert Report. (Attachments: # 1 Supplement 46-55, # 2 Supplement 56-66, # 3 Supplement 67-90, # 4 Exhibit p. 1-82, # 5 Exhibit p. 83-167, # 6 Exhibit p. 168-229, # 7 Exhibit p. 230-290)(Boland, Dean)

they were.
232.

If Laporte had inquired as to the storage conditions of the

Facebook Contract, he would have found that the document was reported to
have been stored in a back room, within a hope chest in a home in the state
of New York.
233.

The house itself was reported to be not heated and one, which

required the water pipes to be drained each Fall to prevent them from
breaking due to icing and freezing conditions.
234.

Cold conditions have been widely reported as a condition that

slows down the aging process of ink. (See Weyermann, et al., “A GC/MS
Study of the Drying of Ballpoint Pen Ink on Paper, Forensic Science
International, 168 (2007)) (See Exhibit 11)
235.

Without a full understanding of the storage conditions of the

Facebook Contract as well as a determination as to the cause of his purported
unusually high levels of PE in the damaged document, there can be no
weight given to his finding.
236.

There are two forensic standards in the area of ink analysis, both

published by the American Society for Testing and Materials International.
Neither standard deals with ink “age” determination or the Laporte
methodology using GC-MS.
237.

There is no published standard for ink age determination,

specifically the Laporte method. (See Exhibit 12)
238.

Defendants’ Two Printer Theory is Wrong:

239.

In Defendants’ expert Frank Romano’s report (Document 327,

page 9 of 41, para 3-5), he states that the two pages of the Facebook Contract
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were printed on two different laser printers.
240.

Romano bases the opinion on his conclusion that page 1 was

printed on a laser printer that used “scaling and resolution enhancement
technologies,” while page 2 was not.
241.

Romano further states that the lines that make up the typed

characters on page 2 are “relatively jagged,” different than page 1.
242.

Romano’s final conclusion is that the Facebook Contract is an

“amateurish forgery” (Document 327, page 3 of 41, para 5).
243.

Making that determination from the evidence in this case is

improper and is not generally accepted in the field of document examination.
The reasoning follows:
244.

What Romano failed to report is that scaling and resolution

enhancement technologies have been available in both printers and software
packages for many years (See Exhibit 13).
245.

Furthermore, Romano failed to mention that if page 2 was

scanned in from a different document or file and then connected to page 1
once page 1 was created, then it is quite possible that the two pages could
bear different qualities under microscopic examination, as well as different
fonts, spacings, margins, etc. It does not in any way allow for a conclusion
of “forgery.”
246.

To evaluate the “jagged” edges mentioned by Romano, it is

necessary to examine his scanned images, photographs, notes and any
metadata information connected to his electronic files. To date, we have not
been provided that information.
247.

Romano is not a forensic document examiner, nor has he
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47

indicated any training in the field. (See ASTM Standard Guide for Minimum
Training Requirements for Forensic Document Examiners E2388-05) (See
Exhibit 7)
248.

To reach any conclusion regarding “forgery” is both reckless and

unsupported by Romano’s background and training.
249.

Why is a person with no forensic document examination training

opining about the authenticity of a document? Tytell is more qualified to
offer such an opinion as he has examined printing processes for many years
as a forensic document examiner.
250.

Furthermore, Laporte defines himself as a “national expert” in the

forensic examination of documents produced using printers and copiers
(Document 326, page 2 of 67, para 2). (Note: the designation “national
expert” is an in-house designation anointed to specialists within the Secret
Service and some other federal agencies. There is no standard defining a
person as a local, regional or national expert on printers or copiers.)
251.

Why then, would the Defendants’ use an expert that has no

forensic training in the field, when they have others that do, to opine
regarding the printing?
252.

To resolve this question, it would be important to review the, yet

not provided case notes, and files of the Defendants’ experts.
253.

Defendants’ Page 1 Substitution Argument is Wrong:

254.

Defendants’ expert Gus Lesnevich, purports to have “proven” that

there had been a substitution of page 1 of the Facebook Contract sometime
prior to July 2011 (Document 329, pg 4 of 46, para 2).
255.

As his “proof” Lesnevich produced numerous images along with
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arrows of the scanned page 1. These scanned images were obtained at
various stages of the examinations previously conducted on page 1.
256.

Note: It is extremely important for both Plaintiff’s and

Defendants’ experts to be examining the same evidence. It is clear that
Lesnevich either
1) was given less than the best images that were available or
2) Lesnevich himself printed out images and then conducted tests on
those poorly resolved printed images.
257.

One example of his mistake by not using the best available images

is in the document Lesnevich used and called “Q-1.”
258.

That Q-1 image, according to Lesnevich, is of the “Work for Hire

document in TIF file format sent by Paul Ceglia to his attorney Paul
Argentieri on June 27, 2010” (Document 329, page 3 of 46, Section III).
259.

Upon close scrutiny of the Lesnovich Q-1 image it is obvious that

Lesnevich’s claim here is false. His document Q-1 is clearly not the same as
the file Ceglia sent to Argentieri on June 27, 2010.
260.

There are very small yellow dots visible in Lesnevich’s image.

These are clear signs to an expert that the file Lesnevich is using and calling
“Q-1,” was printed on a color printer or copier.
261.

Those yellow dots are not found on the file Ceglia sent to

Argentieri on June 27, 2010.
262.

Basic, modern, color printers and copiers use yellow, cyan,

magenta and sometimes black toners in order to produce images.
263.

Printing a document on a color printer or copier would typically
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cause a detrimental effect on the resolution of the printed characters. This
effect is especially visibly noticeable when a document printed this way is
enlarged.
264.

Below is a cropping from Lesnevich’s Exhibit Q-1 as shown in his

Figure 10 (Document 329) clearly showing the yellow dots resulting from
the file being printed on a color printer or copier:

Note: Yellow Dots

265.

Comparing Lesnevich’s image to the best generation of the
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original obtained directly from Argentieri (Lesnevich “Q-1”), it is clear the
yellow dots are not present.
266.

Below is the same area of the Lesnevich “Q-1” image obtained

directly from Argentieri. This represents the best version (closest available
to the original) of the Q-1 document:

Note: Missing Yellow Dots

267.

Most importantly for the Court, Lesnevich attempts to draw

conclusions from comparison of the images when at least one of his images
has been manipulated.

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268.

Following is a side-by-side comparison of the two images clearly

indicating that Lesnevich used a different copied or printed image; an action
that clearly affected the resolution and his conclusions. (See Exhibit 14):

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269.

Lesnevich concluded,

“Ceglia produced at least two different

physical documents purporting to be the same document.” (Document 329,
page 4 of 46, para 3)
270.

If Lesnevich was correct in that there had been some substitution

of page 1 of the Facebook Contract then it would necessarily imply that
some change had occurred between the pages that were substituted,
otherwise, why substitute?
271.

Electrostatic

Detection

Apparatus

(ESDA)

images

show

indentations of the interlineation found on page 1 of the Facebook Contract
on page 2. That then would necessitate the handwritten interlineation found
on page 1 was written while that page was physically on top of page 2.
272.

Lesnevich took four non-original (reproduction) images of the

interlineation found on page 1 of the Facebook Contract and reached a
conclusion that the images prove a page 1 substitution (Document 329, page
4 of 46, para 3). I disagree with his finding.
273.

He reached his conclusion by determining that the four images

were from two separate groupings, thus allowing him to reach a conclusion
of two separate versions of page 1 (Note: the wording found in the
interlineations present on all four of Lesnevich’s images is the same (See
para 270 above)).
274.

It is my opinion that Lesnevich misinterpreted his images. My

reasoning follows:
275.

If we examine the best image from Lesnevich’s two groups, i.e.

the page 1 before and after the supposed substitution of a different page 1,
the interlineation handwritten entry is in alignment with the printed
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characters in the same positions between the 2 groups.
276.

From a handwriting examination point of view, this mere

observation alone demonstrates that the pages were not substituted.
277.

I conducted an experiment to best show this observation.

I

utilized the clearest image from each of Lesnevich’s two groupings.
Following depicts the experiment and observation (See Exhibit 15):

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278.

What Lesnevich is observing and calling evidence of “forgery”

are, instead, completely natural nuances that develop from multigenerational
copies, and/or different scanning, printing, and software formatting methods.
279.

Experts in the field recognize the capacity of these types of

changes when documents are processed in a fashion such as the images used
by Lesnevich have been.
280.

In his image, Lesnevich shows handwritten letter formations that

are in some cases connected and in others they are not, thus according to him
they are different documents (Lesnevich Figure 10).
281.

Lesnevich failed to consider the effect of multigenerational

copying, scanning and/or printing. Furthermore, Lesnevich misinterpreted
differences caused by resolution, printer operations and reproduction
methods.
282.

Lesnevich is wrong for reaching his conclusion of a page 1

substitution in the Facebook Contract.
283.

I base this on the easy test of recreating similarities to Lesnevich’s

observations by simply scanning an image of the same document two
different ways and then observing their images once enlarged.
284.

I conducted an experiment by taking a high-resolution scanned

image of page 1 of the Facebook Contract. I used an image taken after the
document was already held in secure storage so there could be no argument
regarding page substitution. Next, I compared that highly resolved image
against one from the scanned image of the document Ceglia emailed to
Argentieri at the beginning of this case on 6/27/10.
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