Richard Rashke - Useful Enemies

Given Robertson’s attack on the conclusions of Bezaleli and Epstein, Shaked had no choice but to crush her at the stand. He systematically went about shredding her credibility and destroying her self-confidence.

“What do they call you,” he began in a condescending tone. “Doctor Robertson or Professor Robertson?”

Sheftel was on his feet in a flash. “I think that the question is insulting,” he said. “It is absolutely clear… that Ms. Robertson is neither a doctor nor a professor. The purpose of the question is to insult her, and I do not think that such questions have a place here. I—”

The interpreter signaled Sheftel that his microphone was not turned on.

“Better there be no microphone,” Judge Levin said. “The comment is not fit for a microphone. Please sit down.”

A few minutes later, Sheftel objected again, this time to a line of cross-examination that he felt was out of place.

“You have apparently come here today in a very aggressive mood,” Judge Levin said, “and it would be worth your while to cool down…. From this point forward, objections, if there are any objections, may be made only by Mr. Gill.”

The grounds for appeal were growing by the day.

Shaked got Robertson to admit that she did not qualify for membership in the prestigious American Society of Document Examiners, and that forensic document examiners did not respect her organization, WADE. In fact, U.S. courts disallowed WADE members from testifying as expert witnesses because, among other things, the organization did not require forensic document experience as a condition for membership.

Shaked noted that Robertson’s conclusion that a solvent had caused the large yellow-orange stain on the Trawniki card was based on a purely visual inspection. He asked Robertson: “You did not conduct any further tests or examination—chemical analysis or whatever—in order to make sure that it was in fact a solvent?”

“That is correct,” Robertson said. “I am not a chemist.”

By this time, Shaked had Robertson exactly where he wanted her—on the defensive—and he kept pushing her to the edge of an emotional cliff. He got her to admit that her conclusion about the two inks used in stamping the seal over the Trawniki card photo was based on a visual inspection, and that she had taken neither ink nor paper samples.

“How [could you give] an expert opinion in court about the subject of ink,” Shaked demanded, “when you don’t know anything, and have no idea either about paper or about ink?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know anything about ink. I have a general knowledge,” Robertson said lamely. “I would add that the tests that I have performed on the inks are accepted tests in my profession. ”

Picking up on Robertson’s “I have a general knowledge” statement, Shaked asked: “In chemistry, what does ‘Ca’ stand for?”

“I’m not a chemist.”

Ca , of course, is the chemical symbol for common calcium.

“If you look at a molecular chart, do you know what it is about?”

“No!”

“How do you testify in court about ink, if you don’t know its chemical composition,” Shaked pressed. His voice had a hard edge.

“There is no need to be so abrasive,” Judge Levin scolded.

“Do you know what paper that is,” Shaked asked more gently, referring to the Trawniki card.

“I don’t test paper. I am an observer ,” Robertson said. “I look for differences.”

Next, Shaked baited a trap. Robertson had not taken the time to stop in Germany to view the original proven signatures of Karl Streibel and Ernst Teufel. She based her conclusions about their authenticity on a visual analysis of enlarged photos of the original signatures.

“How, as a self-respecting expert, could you base your opinion on blown-up photographs,” Shaked asked.

“It was a provisional and qualified opinion,” Robertson said in her defense.

“Provisional in what sense?”

“I never, never give an [unqualified] opinion based on copies.”

Having elicited that strong denial, Shaked sprung the trap. He reminded Robertson about another signature comparison case in which she gave an unqualified opinion based on a photograph of a signature.

“I should have been more careful and qualified my statement,” Robertson said, clearly embarrassed.

“You acted against a basic principle of your profession?”

“Yes,” Robertson said, quickly adding, “in this one example.”

Shaked saved the best until last. Robertson testified that she found two different inks in the seal over the Trawniki card photo, which led her to conclude that there were two different seals, suggesting forgery. Her conclusions were based on her analysis of the seal ink on a sophisticated visual spectral comparator (VSC) provided by the Israeli police laboratory. It was the same instrument Bezaleli had used to prove that there was only one ink present in the stamp on the photo.

Under cross-examination, Robertson admitted that she had had problems operating the VSC. She could manipulate a few of the controls but could not manage the scanner’s critical color filter system, which was necessary to accurately measure the luminescence contained in the ink. One kind of luminescence meant one ink. Two kinds meant two inks.

Shaked called for another VSC analysis of the seal, this time in court. Bezaleli operated the scanner, projecting images onto the courtroom screen. With the proper use of the filters, it became clear that there was only one kind of luminescence… one ink.

Visibly shaken and emotionally exhausted, Edna Robertson stepped off the witness stand. The next day, she told the press: “They have humiliated me in front of the whole world. My career has been destroyed. From now on they will laugh at me in every court.”

The second defense witness was William A. Flynn, chief document examiner in the Arizona Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory. Trained both by the Pennsylvania State Police and the FBI, he was a certified forensics document examiner and forgery expert like Gideon Epstein. And although he had only an associate’s degree, he made up for his lack of academic credentials with experience. Over his twenty years as a “questioned document” examiner, he had analyzed more than fifteen thousand alleged forgeries.

Flynn had a bias that he honestly admitted to the court. The discoveries of the Mormon Salamander Letters in the United States and the “Hitler Diaries” in Germany in the early 1980s had turned Flynn into a cautious and conservative document examiner. Initially, both documents were declared authentic by handwriting experts, only to be declared forgeries later by forensic scientists who had analyzed the ink and paper the forger used to create his documents. It was Flynn himself who had proven conclusively that the Mormon letters were forged, based on a sophisticated ink comparison analysis.

Before Salamander and the Hitler Diaries, Flynn had been willing to pronounce a document definitely genuine or definitely not genuine. After Salamander and the Diaries, Flynn added a third category— cannot tell. Flynn’s cautious distinction did not make the defense clap for joy. What it needed at this point were definitive, not tentative, conclusions from Flynn, whose testimony was supposed to be the defense’s answer to Amnon Bezaleli’s and Gideon Epstein’s conclusions about the authenticity of the three Trawniki card signatures.

Flynn cautiously concluded:

• Streibel’s signature fell in the cannot tell category.

• Teufel’s signature was only possibly genuine because his handwriting was “erratic” and, therefore, easy to forge.