Did The FBI Plant Evidence To Convict NXIVM Leader Keith Raniere? | Joseph Tully
Defense attorney Joseph Tully is a legal author and expert for national media outlets, and assembled an aggressive team of investigators, lawyers, and paralegals. They work together as a super team that delivers high-quality representation with a great record of positive outcomes. Call Tully & Weiss and their experienced team of felony criminal lawyers if you are charged with a crime in the Bay Area, Northern California, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange County, or anywhere in California. Our complete focus will be on keeping you out of jail and minimizing the effect of criminal charges on your career, family, and future. The sooner you call, the quicker our team can get ahead of the case and fight for your rights.
You may know Joseph Tully from the news for his landmark Stand Your Ground self-defense win, his dozens of recent newsworthy criminal defense trial victories, or perhaps you have read about his new book California: State of Collusion. The best-selling book exposes and spotlights outrageous law enforcement misconduct prevalent throughout the California criminal justice system.
The hard pill is you look at your decision, and if you truly honestly see that any part of your decision is being made with fear, you shouldn't make a decision ideally based on a fear.
I, you know, one of the exercises we have in one of the modules is get the decision and look at the thing and say, is use your name to yourself.
Is Megan the type of woman that would do this?
It'll be very clear.
It'll either be good or bad, pretty much.
Sometimes there's in the middle, but most of the time.
And then do what do make it proud, so to speak.
You know?
Then a self-improvement guru convicted of turning followers into sex slaves has been sentenced.
CBS2's Lisa Rosner live at Brooklyn Federal Court with the breaking news.
Lisa Well, Maurice and Christine Rainier will serve life in prison.
He's been convicted of multiple crimes, including sex trafficking and racketeering.
Those convictions made last year, and today a judge sentenced him to 120 years.
But it does appear based on there's a motion for new trial that's been filed, supported by uh a longtime law enforcement federal official and multiple other experts that have looked at it that appears the core allegations against Rainier that he was framed by the FBI.
I'll say it in English, but it's not gonna make sense.
You can feel as much joy as you want at any time.
Then the next recognition is why not.
It's one American Podcast Live with Joseph Tully.
It's an honor and a pleasure to have you with us today.
How are you, sir?
I'm very well.
Thank you very much for having me.
Absolutely.
So um uh it's no uh uh surprise to my audience that I've been um uh friendly to uh Tord Nexium and Keith Rainery and uh uh Nikki Klein throughout this entire process.
And she really sold me when she came on my podcast about a year ago, almost right after I started uh on this whole issue.
And so it's exciting to uh talk to you and learn what's going on and what the status of this case is, um, how you got involved and what the what what you know the the the most optimistic outcome could be because it seems like regardless of um whether or not one approves of Mr. Rainier,
uh it seems like there was certainly some wrongdoing on this uh uh by the state in order to uh convict him of these crimes and ultimately uh ruin the rest of his life and um uh harm the lives of those who care most about him.
So how did you get involved with Keith?
Well, um I I'm a defense attorney.
I've been in uh in my own practice since 2001.
I have a good reputation because I work hard and I've dedicated, you know, uh my life, the the last 21 years to um, you know, elevating my practice to the best I could possibly uh become.
I've had, you know, I've taken on a lot of really high profile cases and I've I've got really great results in them.
Um particularly when the when the deck is stacked against, you know, my client, well uh I've excelled in a lot of uh political like persecutions rather than prosecutions.
Um and I think uh I in 2018 I released a book, uh c sort of a tell-all, uh, you know, uh throwing the the court's dirty laundry out to the world uh called California State of Collusion.
And I just like I said, it's a tell-all book.
I I didn't pull any punches, I didn't exaggerate, but um I I certainly didn't hold back.
And I wanted the the average person to know that if they think that the court system today is about truth, justice in the American way, um uh sadly um our our court system would fall fall fall short of those uh expectations.
And um, you know, I I think just one referral led to another, and and I was hired for the case.
Well what case was your first big break in terms of you know, a big deal case that you and and you won and you were like, holy shit, you know, now this is it.
Um I think um I had a a uh homicide case that was an impossible case.
It was back then I was doing court appointed work, and I would conference this case.
It was like, you know, one of my most serious cases, and I would try to conference it with other older experienced attorneys and we would go through the facts and um it would always end with them kind of laughing, going, ha ha, well, you know, kid, you know, a lot of times you just get a loser case and there's nothing you could do.
And I just would heard that over and over and over, and I kept working the case and kept working the case and kept working the case.
And again, if you were to look at it, it would look like a textbook open and shut case for the prosecution.
But I I got a not guilty verdict on that case.
I think it was about a 20-minute verdict after, you know, it was it was a long trial.
So that was one of my first big moments.
And then when the medical uh cannabis law was still uh allowed in California, um I was getting hired on those cases.
And I did 10 of those cases in a row, all high profile, um, all very politicized, where you know, law enforcement, judges, you know, prosecutors, and a lot of members of the community wanted my clients to get convicted, and I was able to um to win all of those cases.
So I think medical uh winning the medical cannabis cases raised my profile as well.
But I think I beat the last six or seven murder um charges that that I've had that I've been retained on.
So you know, it's just it's like I said, I work very, very hard and I dedicated my life to to be the best that I could be in my in my profession.
When you're not paying when you're not playing the telecaster in the background.
Exactly.
Yeah, I have an SG back there too, a 79 SG.
So beautiful.
That's beautiful.
I studied audio engineering, so I have an appreciation for fine instruments.
So when you were can you tell me a little bit about what you were thinking when you were first approached about the Rainier case um I was thinking that, you know, while my you know, I it wouldn't have surprised me if, you know, a lot of big cases that that I see on the news in California, I'll get a call, you know, that day, the next day, a week later.
I'll a lot of times of the big cases I'll get a call, but not so much on the East Coast.
Um so when I got the call to to kind of come in on the case, I just was surprised and I was thinking, you know, I I don't want easy cases.
Um I want to stand up for the underdog.
I want to be able to be here when um, you know, in the in the hard cases.
And like I said, that's that's really um why I do what I do.
You know, I'm not here to win a popularity contest.
And I'm not even here to, I I've had good success in trial, but I'm just as proud of taking my clients to trial um on cases where they they were impossible and doing the absolute best that I could and making sure that my clients got a fair day in court um when that's what they wanted.
So um that's just uh I I was yeah, I was just kind of honored uh to be considered um for this high profile of a case and then to hear of the odds uh stacked against you know, truth in this case.
So how had you uh previously watched The VOW or seduced or been familiar at all with um uh with the accusations against Mr. Rainier uh before before you were approached to take take the case?
I had just seen headlines here and there um on some, you know, maybe social media or some news sites.
Um so when I was saying that I I've dedicated my life toward toward my practice and just being the best that that I could be at what I do, um, I really mean it.
So I I don't follow the news.
I don't really do anything other than work on my cases that that I'm retained on.
So the cases that I'm retained on, I know you know everything about them, or by the time trial comes, I do.
Um so I really hadn't heard the the ins and outs of this.
I had just seen the like the salacious headlines.
So what was what what is your approach when you uh first take on a case?
What were the first things that you looked at when you decided, okay, I'm gonna work this.
Okay, so um I came in on the case after Mr. Rainier was um had been convicted and received 120-year sentence.
And so there's a whole file on this, uh a huge file, you know, lots of transcripts, lots of prior motions, uh, not just Mr. Raineri, but all of his co-defendants as well.
Um, and then what specifically what I was uh sort of pointed to is to evaluate in terms of the next approach was this whole tampering issue, you know, that the FBI was tampering with evidence.
And I, you know, obviously that's that's a very explosive charge.
And it's um something I didn't I didn't just believe it right away.
I wanted to sort through it.
I wanted to get uh verification, you know, trust but verify.
And that is extremely technical.
So it's all all of the tampering evidence is is very, very technical.
And so that took me a long time to pour through.
But basically the approach for this case or any case is um four words what does the evidence show?
That's it.
You don't think is my client a good person?
Is my client a bad person?
Is a prosecutor a mean person or are they you know Mr. Rogers?
Is a judge you know looking for re-election or they you know uh nice person, mean person, Republican, Democrat, Crip, blood, it doesn't matter.
What does the evidence show and you follow the evidence and that's what I did here.
Wow.
So it must have um there must have been quite a learning curve right given that the uh the nature of the evidence is highly technical.
So you must have had to sit with the experts to sort of explain to you as a lawyer the ins and outs of how evidence in file structure works and how this could possibly be tampered with right.
Correct yes I mean that this is a process that that played out over months and you know learning learning the technical aspects of the tampering was you know let's say it was equally as important as learning the the legal aspects of the file you know learning what happened.
The testimony in this case particularly of of some of the FBI uh witnesses or FBI uh agents um is relevant to the tampering so it's it's it's an all in one you kind of have to learn both simultaneously even though each individually could take you know a normal person a year to to understand um individually.
One of my favorite movies is Shawshank Redemption, right?
And there's this inside joke among the prisoners in that movie where they're all innocent, right?
And their lawyers just screwed them.
That's the only reason that they got locked up.
And so based on the nature of your business as a criminal defense attorney and perhaps working with clients who have already been convicted, there's probably an awful lot of skepticism about who's telling the truth or who's lying to you in order to try to coerce you to defend themselves.
them, right?
Because they're looking for the best shot out.
And maybe, maybe oftentimes, it may be the case that these prospects for you are indeed guilty of the crime in which they have been convicted.
And so how, what was it like to sort of realize, oh, my God, this tampering is, seems to be real?
Well, I, you know, I can tell you that I didn't just take anybody's word for it.
And I did work very closely with the experts.
And as sort of part of an in, in person, in house sort of trial balloon to kind of test this out.
We had, you know, you've heard of a mock jury, right?
Sure.
Okay.
Well, what we did is sort of a mock grand jury, where, you know, in order, most federal cases come from indictments, where a federal prosecutor presents facts to a grand jury, and at the end, the grand jury votes to indict or not indict.
And I wanted to really test out this theory.
You know, is it, is it just these experts?
You know, they, they were hired, maybe they're just trying to find something.
Is it me?
Are we just in our own little bubble?
And we took our case to a mock grand jury.
And out of the 19 people there, and we followed all of the sort of the process in terms of how, how the government would compose a grand jury, we did the exact same thing.
So it was as close as we could get to an actual grand jury following that exact process.
We had 19 people and a of the 19 people there 16 you know would voted to indict the FBI for for tampering with evidence and so um that it at that moment that was my aha moment like that this this is real.
You know, not only is it the experts, you know, three uh top level computer uh forensic experts, you know, me, and I'm I'm you know very knowledgeable in criminal law and and have seen many cases, um, and now we have this grand jury all kind of supporting the same um summary, the same decision that no, that this is real, this is legit.
The FBI, um the evidence shows that the FBI tampered um with a hard drive and with a computer computer card in this case.
So Raineary was convicted of sort of a litany of charges.
Why is it that you think the FBI would feel compelled to tamper with this evidence if they had such a strong case against against him uh on other fronts?
You know, I I can't always uh explain government conduct.
Um, but I could give you an example that I think illustrates it.
So in Orange County, there is a ongoing uh controversy with the sheriff's office uh using jailhouse snitches.
And there was uh it's still to this day the worst mass shooting in Orange County history where the gunman was caught red-handed at the scene of the crime and confessed to police.
Um that wasn't good enough.
The the sheriffs, and this is absolutely unconstitutional, um, absolutely crooked, knowing that um that that individual, the the the accused in that case, um had an attorney, still put in uh a snitch as is their agent into his jail cell to get an additional confession.
And because they did that, it um it invalidated the the guilty verdict in that case.
So it had to be um, you know, the the case had to be, you know, kind of vacated and and it went through it put the victim's family through a lot of hell.
And there's no reason for them to do it.
They just did it.
So I can't really always um tell you, you know, put put a motivation to why the government does the things it does, but it, you know, it's similar to how a psychopath thinks, you know.
Yeah.
So in the event that um uh uh this evidence was in fact tampered with, which we both agree uh is the case, uh what does that mean for uh your client, Keith Reneri, um uh regarding all the other charges, right?
So is the whole thing gonna be thrown out in the event that this is proven uh to be the case, or is he still going to be um uh uh culpable or held to account for the other things that he was convicted of?
So I I think that question will be needed to be litigated.
Um, you know, I think the evidence is overwhelming that the tampering happened, but the government may fall back on the issue of well, um this only affects you know the uh child possession of child pornography charges as well as the exploitation of of a child charge, which is you know, for the same conduct, taking these photos, which um the the photos aren't uh child porn per se.
Um they're they they're illegal based upon whether or not um the what date they were taken.
If they were taken when she was 18 or over, then um then they would be legal.
If they were taken under 18, then they would be illegal, they would be contraband.
So um that that would be the government's position.
I think there's an absolutely strong argument, um, and and it's the better argument, the one that should prevail in court, that all of the charges should be vacated.
Um, because these were absolutely the worst most heinous charges that anyone could be charged with.
And so because these were falsely presented to a jury, clearly these would have tainted every other uh charge in the case, as well as the fact that all of the co-defendants were standing united prior to trial.
And um, had they been able to successfully present uh evidence that their intent while in Nexium was to do good, um, was to make the world a better place, then they would have beaten basically they would have beaten all the racketeering charges.
So all of the main substantive uh charges they had defenses to, if they all kind of stood together and kind of held their ground.
Once these uh accusations came out, one by one, all of the codependents uh accepted pleas and and agreed to cooperate with the government after that.
So I think that it not only affects all of his charges, but all of the charges for the codependents as well.
And just for the sake of the audience and for myself for that matter, to make sure that we're on the same page, uh my understanding is that there were a handful of images that were um presented by the state as being child pornography, and that is to say they were presented uh to the by the state as being um inappropriate photographs of an underaged person.
And that um upon further investigation by uh outside forensics experts, it appears that the data or metadata or the nature of these files had been altered in order to make them look as if these images were taking taken at an earlier date than they were actually taken.
And so my understanding is that this was actually an adult woman that was photographed, but the state manipulated the evidence in order to make it look like it was a child or a minor.
Correct.
And let me just buttress that statement by saying that um all of the evidence that the experts have found of tampering, they all support the government's narrative of um this individual being underage at the time.
So if the photos were actually taken when she was a minor, there would be no need to tamper with the evidence at that point, right?
Right.
They would just, they could just rely on the state of the evidence.
Look, here's the charge.
But um all of the um all of the all the evidence of tampering supports the government's narrative of this, basically this 2005 date.
If it wasn't a 2005 date, um then it it could have been proven that it was an adult woman.
Now, I don't understand the law around um dealing with this this type of material.
And so pardon my ignorance, but as Keith's defense attorney, were you able to look at these images?
So um I I would be able to look at them.
You have to go through a special process and it the evidence remains in the possession of the government, and you make an appointment and go look at them.
I um I don't need to actually view the images themselves.
I need to have experts look at the computer data, the metadata um related to these images.
I need my experts to look at the technical aspects, not really, you know, what the photos show, who they show isn't really germane to um whether or not tampering occurred.
So I, you know, I I typically don't do uh child pornography cases.
My law firm does them, but I I personally do not do that.
Um in this case, I agreed to represent Mr. Reneri on them because it it's a different issue.
You know, number one, the evidence shows that he's innocent and that the government, you know, tampered to uh create this evidence.
Um but number two is you know, the actual photos um, you know, what background is a sky blue, is it, you know, uh how many clouds are in the sky, is it the you know, sun setting or rising?
It's not germane to to the task that I have at hand, which is to look at the evidence and say what does the evidence show.
Will there be or has there been any testimony or statement from the uh subject of the photograph, the woman in the photographs?
So uh she did not testify at trial.
Uh my understanding is that she gave a statement at a restitution hearing.
And that's the extent of um her testimony uh as pertaining to this case.
And the restitution hearing, I should clarify, happens after trial.
So if somebody's convicted, then um a restitution hearing occurs after that to decide the amount of damages that that the uh that the convicted owes to uh victims.
I see.
And so uh one of the things that was particularly alarming to me and I know you mentioned that you don't typically work with CP cases, but one of the things that was particularly alarming to me about um uh uh Keith's case was uh my understanding of uh a lot of pedophilia cases is that oftentimes if not virtually every time when someone is found to have child pornography they tend to have thousands upon thousands of images or hours upon hours of video content and there's almost like a psychological uh need to collect and
organize and categorize this content.
And so when they bust these people in the event that they're actually harboring this content and viewing this content, it's often a treasure trove, for lack of a better term, of material that is found.
And in Keith's case, it was really just sort of a handful of images associated with one alleged victim, right?
And so that was bizarre to me because one would think that if Keith actually did have that hankering or that
that sexual persuasion rather um that he would that that there would have been just tons and tons of material that was found and that that wasn't really the case in the first place was it correct and and your uh understanding is actually what was testified to um by one of uh my experts who was an FBI agent for uh uh 20 years and he said that yeah they are hyper vigilant about categorizing um their CP and that was not present in this case which which he said was very unusual.
So what um just just for the sake of the audience and myself as well what what is what what are the legal avenues then that can be taken from this point.
So you've got the situation where you have this man who's been convicted and sentenced to 120 years in prison under a litany of charges and now you know for a fact that one of the main charges of the case was based off of evidence that had been tampered with what is the legal recourse for Keith in this situation.
Okay, so this is a bit complicated where we are right now in the case.
It's called procedural posture by courts, attorneys, but it basically means where we're at in the case.
So before I came in on the case, an appeal had been filed by a previous attorney in the case, Jennifer Bongine, who's an excellent attorney who had previously done the appeal for Bill Cosby and was successful in her endeavor with the case.
with that case um however I I came in on the case after that had been filed and then I did a supplemental case so let's say that the trial is right here and the appellate court case is up here.
So two things had been filed in the appellate court, the appeal and the supplement.
And then I filed a on the same day as the appeal was to be heard, then I filed a motion for a new trial in the district court.
So the district court is where the jury trial happened.
So we filed these these motions up here with the appellate court saying, hey, appellate court, look at what the district court did during jury trial.
You have to, you know, give us a new trial or throw out the case or throw out these convictions for this for these reasons.
But down here in the district court, we filed the motion for a new trial based upon the evidence tampering or the evidence of tampering that we found with regard to the digital evidence in the case presented at jury trial.
So we're asking for a new trial with it's called a rule 33 motion.
We're asking for a new trial with that with that motion.
Now, if I'm able to get a hearing and prove that the that the evidence tampering happened, which the experts all agree that in some instances, the tampering is to a scientific certainty.
So it's not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
It's even better than that, that the that this tampering occurred.
So so so once I'm able to do that, I it just really opens a can of worms.
We would be allowed if they if they choose to prosecute him, we would be allowed to confront, you know, our accusers.
And I'd be allowed to call them as witnesses and have them testify as to this tampering.
And based on the strength of the evidence in this case, my.
My.
My reasoned opinion is that many FBI employees, as well as.
I think people who who I could prove collaborated with them, would not be able to testify.
They would have to take the Fifth Amendment, or else they would be, you know, admitting to evidence tampering or saying testifying in ways that would be damaging for them in terms of tampering with evidence.
So, you know, and if I'm not able to cross-examine these these individuals, then it it puts, you know, the the viability of a retrial in doubt.
But you know, it everything is up in the air at this point.
I I'm giving you maybe a best case, a middle of the road best case scenario.
Um, worst case scenario, a judge just denies everything and they try to never um have this this evidence see the light of day in court where I can cross-examine witnesses, where I can present the experts, put them under oath and have them testify under oath as to each and every aspect of the tampering that that was proven.
So just based on your experience, and I know that this is an unfair question, uh, so it's just humor me for a second, but based on your experience, what does your gut tell you is going to be the outcome of this normally speaking?
Um I would say that when you are facing charges, anything that the government or a judge can do to screw you over, that's what happens.
So the reason why they don't have betting on criminal law cases is because you know, if you bet on the government, you would want to be a billionaire because you know that they always win.
Um judges are very, very compliant uh with the government.
Um it's like they want to be seen as is as buddies or I mean there are good judges out there, but I would say the vast majority of judges out there today, and sort of the overwhelming kind of feeling, the sentiment when you're in court, is that the judge uh aligns themselves with the government, and that's in state court and federal court.
Um we don't have these sort of angelic neutral arbiters that that you know the constitution tells us that we should have.
I think they're again we're we're getting a glimpse of that where judges are sort of breaking that that allegiance to the government slowly.
Um I'm just seeing inklings of that.
And again, there are very good judges out there, um, and there are very good prosecutors out there.
There are very good uh members of law enforcement out there, but unfortunately, right now they're they are in the minority, and sort of the vocal majority are people who believe in in an us and them kind of mentality where they wear the white hats, they're the good guys, and even if they break the rules or break the law, um because they're doing so for the greater good, it's justified.
And my understanding is that you've made a push for the uh judge to recuse uh themselves from this case.
Why is that well, in in going through the jury trial, I saw uh substantial um evidence that the judge was biased in this case.
And our Sixth Amendment gives us the right to a fair trial, uh, which includes a fair and impartial judge.
And I think it's clear reading through the record that the judge um was favoring the prosecution, and I I believe that it's a reasonable uh way to characterize the judge's rulings and his behavior.
Um I think an average person would say that the judge had it out for Mr. Reneri.
So given that, um the law allows you to uh ask the judge to recuse themselves in a case where there's uh evidence of uh partiality where they're not being fair.
And and that's what I did.
I didn't um I didn't exaggerate anything, I didn't lessen anything, I didn't pull my punches.
I I told the truth.
I pointed to the record, instances in the record, and I interpreted it, and I said, you know, uh a reasonable person looking at the the facts as presented in this motion, which are instances from uh the jury trial and a restitution hearing um and and sentencing, an average reasonable person would view the judge as being possibly biased.
So what does the timeline look for the different avenues in which this could play out?
So I heard from the district court today, and again, that's the level where the jury trial happened.
And the district judge acknowledged receiving the motion for the new trial based on the tampering, as well as the recusal.
And the district judge said, look, there's a pending appeal right here.
We are going to wait to hear from the appellate court as to what to do with these filings down here.
So in a sense that it was good because the district judge didn't just ignore it or throw it out or, you know, basically toss it out on a technicality.
Everybody, you know, who watches TV or movies thinks that, you know, the bad guy, you know, our courts every day, the bad guy is getting away based on a technicality.
When really, again, everything, I mean, overwhelmingly the law, the rules, how a judge behaves, how the government behaves is overwhelmingly stacked against somebody facing charges.
And really, I've seen a lot more, rulings go in favor of the government based on a technicality than it ever, you know, helps somebody who's accused.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And so how is Keith doing?
I know that he's in a fairly maximum security facility.
Is he being treated fairly like prisoners should be in the United States?
Or how is his morale?
So I can't get into some of that because right now I have attorney client privilege.
And if I were to start, you know, it wouldn't be fair for me to give that kind of statement.
And then the government wants to verify that.
And then when I say attorney client privilege, then it would waive attorney client privilege um but I can say that that I I zealously seek to make sure that he's being treated fairly while in custody.
Okay I understand um so what's next for you or do you just have to wait for the for the appeal to be ruled on and when is that ruling going to be it's up to the appellate court at this point.
But yes I mean we're we're the because the district judge is waiting for the appeal to be decided on we're then we're all waiting for the appeal to be decided on.
And I mean the the the in my opinion you know the Ban Jean's uh appeal was very very well done.
It's an excellent motion um but I I also think that uh my my supplement had a very good issue um so I mean it might be that we never get to the rule 33 because the appellate court takes the multitude uh of legal issues presented in the appeal and in the supplement and rules in Mr. Renary's favor on that outstanding well I wish you the best of luck uh in this case and uh I'll continue to keep my eye on it closely is there anything that you
like to leave the audience with before we wrap up?
I don't know if you wanted to get into some of the specifics of the tampering that the experts found, but that opens the door to-Yeah, let's do that.
Let's do that.
So tell me a little bit about how that works.
So I know that he was raided and that his hard drives and computers were taken and that my understanding is that allegedly there was a point in time in which the evidence was tampered with after his that his belongings were seized.
can you just tell me what what happened?
Sure.
We'll go through kind of chronologically.
So during the search, the FBI went into his home and there was a downstairs, they went through all the rooms downstairs, they went upstairs, passed up a few different rooms and went straight to this study area.
And the very first item that they got was a camera with its little camera card.
Yeah, the SD card.
Yeah.
Yes.
And then then um which we call the a CF card for a compact flashcard with within our motions because my my expert called it that the second item seized on their list of evidence um was this hard drive um which was found on top of a dresser within that room.
And then they proceeded to go through you know different rooms.
And I think they came back and got something next to the camera and the camera card.
So that right there was kind of unusual in that if you look at the list of evidence items, the first two pieces of evidence or the were the only pieces of evidence, pieces of digital evidence used to later prove this cunt these contraband photos that was it supposedly wasn't discovered until a few months, a few weeks before trial.
I think uh like 26 days before trial was supposed to start.
So that was, you know, that by itself is fishy, but it's not dispositive.
Um then on the hard drive, the the backup themselves, um what they did is they they claimed that these uh that the contraband photos were automatically backed up from a computer.
And the computer uh would have been accessed by many people in there.
So they had to, in order to prove their their uh charges here, the the worst charges here, uh possession of child pornography and exploitation of a child, um they had to prove that it came from a camera that was controlled by uh Mr. Reneri.
So the two of the computers that were backed up on this hard drive were backed up, you know, my documents, um, everything that you would normally back up on a computer.
And then there's this third computer where only a few um uh files ended up on there, and I think 22 of the photos were were contraband.
And then if you look within that folder, um like a few hours later, sometime later, 150 music files were were put on there.
So sort of like, well, I can't just have um you know these nude photos and then the contraband photos with them.
I'm gonna add, you know, 150 music files.
So it's as if Keith put child porn and you know 150 of his favorite songs in the same folder, you know, just one.
Well, you know, I gotta so yeah.
Um it's just you two albums.
Yeah.
Then all of the uh the the birth dates of of the backed up files came from a computer that had been backdated to 2003.
So again, the government's narrative is that the these were um you know photos taken in 2005.
So I mean, you know, so but but when you transfer something from from uh a computer to a hard drive, it gets a new birth date basically.
But here the new birth date wouldn't match the uh it didn't match the date that they were supposedly transferred.
It it was from uh 2003.
So that doesn't add up.
Um the the subfolders were made to look like they were auto-generated, auto-generated to the year 2005 and you know, uh certain dates in November.
Now but then upon further analysis, those auto-generated um folder names, you my experts can prove that they were manually entered like that.
So and then there's more metadata and more technical aspects where you could tell that the files files were taken, so where I said there was like contraband photos and other photos, that they were stored in one common area and that they were moved to the two separate subfolders underneath this one uh backup folder um from this computer that you know is mysterious and nobody was able to find uh or identify.
So that's sort of like another puzzling thing.
So the more and more these stack up, the more and more questions we start to have.
Again, these are high, you know, highly suspicious at this point, the fact that it keeps stacking up, but we come to um certain certain key pieces of evidence of tampering that like I said, the experts um say are proven to a scientific certainty.
So um there are I'm going through my list here.
Sure.
Um some of the folders, I said they were from dates in November, and around that time period was when daylight savings time hit.
And the the evidence looks like somebody was trying to be clever and say, okay, well, I need to on the on the camera card, the times would remain as one as a certain time because the camera doesn't have daylight savings.
It can't account for it.
But when it moves to a computer, the computer might shift the time one hour to comport with daylight savings.
But in this case, of all the photos, it was like somebody was going through and doing that, but they got lazy and kind of messed up.
On a lot of the files, they made the one hour adjustment and everything looks fine.
But on some of them, they made a two-hour adjustment.
So and this is on the same day.
So some photos from you know this the daylight savings uh when it kicked over, some are the one hour, some are the uh two-hour adjustment, and then some are no hour adjustment.
So it so if a computer did this, it would have either adjusted all of them or none of them, and it certainly wouldn't have come up with three different results on on the same day.
So that um is is really that that's something that can be proven to a scientific certainty.
Um file, so think of again the government needed to prove they couldn't just prove that these contraband photos on the hard drive um existed, and then therefore this they had to tie it to a camera that was tied to him because too many people had access to to the uh to the hard drive.
So there's the there's a hard drive where the where the contraband photos were found, but then there's the uh CF card from the camera.
And it just it gets crazier and crazier.
They the the FBI ran a report and disclosed um in April um files here, and there was very few files that matched on the camera card to the uh to the hard drive.
And then they ran it again in June for some reason against protocol, and lots more um or 37 new files were found on the hard drive, even though they used the exact same software, the exact same version to re to reanalyze this CF card.
So um of those new files, there was something on the hard drive, which in line with everything else, there was one file that had a um Adobe Elements uh filter that you could tell in the metadata.
And you know, it it had a board-on date, it had a modified date, it had everything, last change date, and when you compared it with the with the image on the on the camera card, all the metadata lined up.
In other words, it it looked to a casual uh observer that the file was the same on the camera card as it was on the hard drive, but the camera card would not have had the Adobe element on it.
So if you if you opened up the to in order to get the Adobe element uh filter on this file here, it would have altered the the modified date, but everything lines up.
So then that supports the theory that somebody was modifying the the data on the hard drive and trying to match it up with the with the CF card, even though it had been altered.
So that's something that could be that there's no other explanation for other than tampering.
Um there's also proof positive that at least it at some point um that the camera card was accessed without a write blocker, which is against FBI policy, and um and it was changed um in some way while the uh while the card was in FBI custody, and there's no record of this, no report of this.
So that and that happened on the same day as the FBI was officially uh examining the hard drive.
So there's some kind of you know uh coordination going on there between these two devices, um, which all you know support the government's narrative.
Um let me go through one last thing.
Um and this is this is a lot of it, but this is not all of it.
Um the digital Files uh for images uh 93, 94, 96, and 97 on the CF card had uh supposedly had counterparts on the hard drive.
So that way the government was able to say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, look, um, you know, the same files that were on the camera card match the same files on the hard drive, therefore, and the camera card was linked to Keith, therefore we can trace these these contraband photos to Keith.
But um in analyzing the the sets of the same images on the hard drive as on the CF card.
Um everything lined up, the same file names and date and timestamps as you would expect with the backup.
However, the thumbnail images on the um on the hard drive don't match the thumbnail images on the CF card.
So um on the on let me see one of them, the thumbnail images on the hard drive depict a brunette, and the thumbnail images on the uh on the CF card depict a blonde, two separate people.
So somebody's kind of doctoring uh this evidence to make it look like it lines up, and it doesn't actually line up.
It's actually different data that has been manipulated.
So again, that that's that's sort of a a good portion of the sampling, but that that's not all of it.
I mean, there's uh there's more.
The the 37 new files that were added that didn't show up in in April that showed up in June.
Um all of the files that were that showed up in April um, they were viewable to the experts.
But the files that showed up in June, none of them are viewable.
So they don't have the same sort of technical aspects as the as the previous files.
So and they're the more suspicious ones.
Again, all of the anomalies here line up to support the government's uh narrative.
So my question for you then becomes obviously your objective is to uh vindicate your client, but what about accountability for the FBI?
I mean, can you put your finger on who was responsible for this tampering and can that person be brought to justice?
Or those people rather.
Sure.
Um I I mean you you're right.
That is that is a different part of the of the of the equation.
Um my job is to pursue truth.
And um again, uh I'll just sort of say that a lot of people think that that a defense attorney is out there to get their guilty client off.
Um no, defense attorneys, we have to follow the evidence.
Um you don't have to lie, cheat, or steal in order to defend your client.
Um I think that a defense attorney who gets caught lying um to in the court to to the prosecution, you know, your your credibility is your currency.
Whereas I see prosecutors get away with with being disingenuous, uh, with outright lying, you know, judges sort of uh making the most bending over backwards in order to find against the accused.
But um I I because I see the dynamic for defense attorneys, and and I'm biased, I'm a defense attorney and I take pride in what I do, and I'm not perfect, but I do everything that I do, I want to do in an ethical way.
Again, you do not have to lie, cheat or steal.
If you're pursuing justice, you want to input that into the system as is a person.
So my job is to pursue justice, and in this case, you know, the truth and justice align on the side of Mr. Renary.
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
It was an honor and a pleasure to have you.
And uh, like I mentioned, I will uh continue to follow the case uh closely as uh uh a friend of uh Nexium and uh the members and a supporter of Keith in this instance.
Um and I hope that uh the truth comes out and that the uh judicial system uh um uh does what is right instead of what is easy and admits that there was something some foul play here.
All I need is a is a fair shot in court.
Just get me into court, let me call people under oath, and let me put my experts on, and I can prove um to scientific certainty that evidence tampering happened, that all uh suspiciously favors the the government, and therefore that the evidence that they use against Mr. Reneri in trial um was was incompetent, is it's called legally and um should not have been used against him.
Well, thank you for coming on, and I truly wish you the best of luck in this case.
