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Aug. 30, 2024 - Where There's Woke - Thomas Smith
46:17
WTW58: Just Hand Over the Cell Line
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Time Text
What's so scary about the woke mob?
How often you just don't see them coming.
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 58, somehow part three on episode two of John Ronson's Singular Episode.
But I'm telling you, that's the beauty of the gish gallop.
That's the beauty of putting out bullshit is it takes exponentially longer to unravel it.
It just does.
But that's been like what our show is.
It's like, no, no, we got time.
Our show should be called like, no, no, we'll wait.
We'll go through it rather than just be like, oh, it's so bullshit.
I can't even keep up.
It's like, no, no, we're going to go through it all.
Anyway, I'm Thomas.
That's Lydia.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I have nowhere to be, so I'm ready.
Biggest lie you've ever told.
We have like a hundred places to be right now.
I know, I know.
But I want to be here.
I want to be here because I want to listen to the craziness that's about to happen.
Because not only do our shows take exponentially longer than the source material, when you're dealing with someone like Judy, it's even worse.
It's even worse!
I can't believe it.
It's crazy.
I can't wait to get more into it.
So as we last left off, it was like, well, yeah, it's maybe it's not fraud, but like it at the very least, Ronson shouldn't have just put in that guy saying, well, it's definitely not fraud.
Okay.
Not fraud.
Um, at the very least, but as we'll learn that I think the case is even stronger than that for it being maybe fraud.
So let's hop on over with Janessa, uh, after this break, which you can avoid of course, by going to patreon.com slash where there's woke.
Do it.
So that article by Cohen and Ensrink where they say, yeah, there's this partial retraction without casting blame, blah, blah, blah.
The exact same day it comes out, September 23rd of 2011, Judy is at a conference presenting on her findings because Judy is not going to let it go.
This is a conference where she ends up claiming in front of everyone like XMRV autism, XMRV dementia, Alzheimer's, like she's just going off.
And also says, hey, so in some patients, you can find XMRV just immediately.
And then in other people, it's not immediately clear.
It's not until I unscrew this little vial and drip a few things on it that you find it.
Oh, God, you don't know how right you are.
You have to treat them with 5-AZA and then you find it.
So the thing about that is, this is a chemo treatment drug that is known to reactivate endogenous retroviruses and cause them to be expressed where they were otherwise not detectable or active.
And people are like, well, yeah, yeah, Judy.
Why'd you do that?
If you drop quote virus making juice on the thing, yes, you get more viruses.
Yeah, pretty much.
So she puts a photo up of a gel going like, look, look at the banding on this.
And it turns out some scrutinizing viewers who are getting increasingly annoyed with Judy beating this drum, take a quick look and go, hey, that's the exact same gel from the 2009 paper.
Wow.
But this time it's not been cropped.
And if I zoom in, I can see handwritten 5-AZA, meaning at the time someone took this photo, that drug was being used on the sample.
Wow.
Oh my god.
So in the 2009 paper, here's how that gel was labeled.
Remember we talked about the wells on top, like there's these little lanes that the genes are gonna go down through and make their little vertical bands.
Right.
So in Well 1, we have N for normal.
Well 2, N for normal.
Well 3, 1, 2, 3, 5, indicating a number.
You always assign your patients like a random number so that they're, you know, confidential.
So that's meant to be CFS patient 1, 2, 3, 5, and we see XMRV.
Oh my god.
And then well 4 and for normal.
Well 5 and for normal.
Well 6.
1, 2, 3, 6.
A CFS patient.
XMRV.
Oh my god.
Well 7 and for normal.
And then well 8 is a standard that has like pieces of DNA of known sizes that you can compare against.
Here's what we know for sure to be the same gel.
You can tell.
There's even a spot where somebody stabbed it on accident with a pipette and you can see where the stain hit.
It's for sure the same gel.
Here's the labels when Judy presents it a second time.
Well 1, N for normal.
Well 2, 2095.
Well 3, 2095 plus 5AZA.
Well 4, and for normal.
Well, four, N for normal.
Well 5, 1674.
Well, five, 1674. Well, six, 1674 plus 5AZA.
Well, seven, N normal.
Well, eight, standard.
Which means now it's not wells one and two were normal, and well three was a chronic fatigue patient.
Well one is normal, well two is a chronic fatigue patient, and well three is that same chronic fatigue patient treated with 5-AZA.
Now I see it.
Wait, and is the idea that that was like the actual labeling back when she first did it?
Yes, yes, because that is handwritten, or a part of that is handwritten on the image.
Oh my god.
So if it's handwritten there, that has to be what was there when you took the picture.
Wow.
Wow.
This is what causes the full retraction against the author's wishes.
Wow!
Wait, against her wishes?
Oh, yes.
For a rare, rare instance, the journal says, it is clear the authors are not going to come to an agreement on a statement about this retraction, and we're just going to do it ourselves.
Wow.
It's retracted.
You're welcome, everybody.
And that's when Silverman goes public going, hi, I've been requesting this for months, just so everyone knows.
Like, he is trying to clear his name at this point.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Poor guy.
The best, best, most kind interpretation is a level of incompetence.
Nah.
No.
I mean, no, right?
That's not possible.
There's no way.
That's intentional.
There's no way.
Yeah, you will find multiple, multiple sources call this clear fraud.
Okay.
Like period.
Well, that sounds like clear fraud to me.
Yeah.
Debunked.
Yeah.
Like to me, I am personally pretty convinced at this point that she may well have spiked those samples.
Yeah.
And then it also looks pretty clear that Whether or not that happened, she super definitely mislabeled this figure in the 2009 paper and concealed that she was actually using a drug that magnifies the virus.
And sure enough, this is how the studies that were showing it's not replicable, one of the things they did to be like, can we put this thing to bed?
They sent around to like nine different labs.
Okay, here's... we're not... it's all blind.
We're not going to tell you which is which.
There are positive controls that definitely have XMRV in this vial.
There are negative controls that definitely don't.
And then there are CFS patients and there are healthy controls and we're going to send it out to you.
And other labs are reliably detecting it in the positive, like the known tester.
They are not detecting it anywhere else.
And so that's showing the test is sensitive enough to pick up XMRV in the known positive, but not too sensitive that it would pick it up in a negative control.
Except Judy's lab and Resetti's lab seem to just pick it up sometimes, but they pick it up in a negative control sometimes too, and they can't reliably detect the virus when you blind them to it, but they'll find it in a negative control sometimes.
Wait, at what point was that?
This is before this figure is revealed, but during this whole fiasco.
It is pretty clear that Judy's lab and Resetti's lab were doing something the other labs weren't doing that was leading them to find it in negative controls and not find it in the positive controls sometimes.
And other labs were able to be much more reliable.
So, to just say, this just looks like a genuine mistake, yeah, and leave it at that.
Boy, sure doesn't to me.
Sure doesn't.
And I cannot emphasize enough how much this is on her Wikipedia page.
This level of detail I just gave you, no.
But allegations of fraud, it's on her Wikipedia.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's our methodology.
You can start with Wikipedia as a research tool.
It helps point you to the right places.
It tells you a lot of stuff.
And the source!
You click the source on Wikipedia and it takes you to the details I am giving you.
Yeah.
I am not doing in-depth- You could have called anyone up who is a part of those sources that you're talking about, maybe, if you're a journalist, right?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So this is where it gets even- Oh, God.
Even more.
Okay, so this is what's even—you could look at that and just think, so Ronson said, is this a genuine mistake?
And Enstrink said, like, I don't think it was foul play.
And maybe Enstrink is just like a journalist who wrote his biggest piece the day Judy was presenting that bullshit figure.
And who knows?
So you're saying he wrote his piece and it came out before that massive piece of evidence?
It came out that day!
Yeah, but it's not that hard to... We're not in the 1800s, like you can easily, hey, update on this webpage that has this piece.
You're gonna die.
This was in the actual paper publication.
Okay, hey, next paper publication.
Got a correction to issue.
Yeah, that's not hard.
Okay, now this is the part where I'm gonna get mad.
Science the Journal, the people who published this clearly bullshit paper that they had to retract against the author's will.
Non-consensual retraction.
They have put a bunch of Enshrink and Coens reporting about this behind a paywall.
Are you kidding me?
The reporting on your fuck-up is behind a paywall?
How dare you?
I was so mad.
I was livid.
You are the ones who caused this, and you're putting the for-the-average-reader explanation of what went wrong here behind a paywall.
So I went and got the important parts.
I checked the big pieces, but in terms of how many pieces by Ensorinc I would have had to dig through to double-check, did Ensorinc ever later come out and say?
And then eventually it was like, you know what?
I have a job and Whether or not Ensring ever changed his mind about this or kept reporting on her, Ensring is not the topic of this documentary I'm moving on.
And he had the opportunity to address that more firmly when Ronson was interviewing him.
But he decided to take the wishy-washy space.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, or we're somewhat misled on what he was saying.
We don't know for sure.
Yeah, yeah.
So I don't know the extent to which N. Serink knows about every single one of these pieces or what he would say if we did like an uncut interview of just like, do you know about this?
What is your personal opinion on it?
And I also don't know that I care what N. Serink's personal opinion is on it.
He's a random journalist at Science.
He's not a researcher on the paper.
Well, I would still want their journalists to do a good job.
Yeah, fair.
Fair point.
Fair.
I also think they were probably working for the journal that published the paper.
Like, who knows what... Once you've issued a full retraction, I don't really see what is in it for you.
Like, you'd almost want to blame it.
You'd want the person to be more, like, devious because that gets you off the hook more.
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me, honestly.
Yeah, I don't know.
Like you say, that part doesn't matter so much.
What really matters for our purposes today is this was all easily available to at least include in your reporting and have it inform your podcast, even if you don't want to out and out make the claim that she's full of shit.
You can at least Maybe not make the claim the other way so strongly.
Yeah, yeah.
Without referencing any of this or making the listener aware of any of it.
Yeah, exactly.
Like it's so easy to add a little epilogue sort of thing and like any documentary you watch.
You don't need an epilogue.
It's a podcast.
No, no, but like any documentary watch, you know, like you get the storytelling narrative of it.
And then there will be those sort of things at the end where it's like, well, they assert this, you know, when reached for comment, they asserted this, et cetera, et cetera.
And they're able to kind of like provide those additional nuggets of information to the viewer.
And I think podcasts have the same responsibility that if they are reporting on a story that unless it's going to be labeled as fiction Or like, you very clearly say, this is from the point of view of this particular person, and I'm not going to fact check anything.
We're just going to listen to them share their life story, then fine.
But that's not what I think Ronson is trying to do with this project.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I think if this was, hey, here's how Judy, known liar, tells her own story, I'd be like, you know what?
Out of fascination and knowing my money is not going to her, because I'm not going to go watch Plandemic and let her get my money.
I have a fascination with these people.
I want to know the nonsense coming out of her mouth.
If I can hear it and just hear it and go, well, this is probably all bullshit, but here we go.
I love a good ghost story.
Tell me all about it.
That would be fine, but I think you're totally right.
When I listen to this, I hear, this is what happened, and not, this is how Judy portrayed it.
It's very decisive.
Yeah, it's a narrator voice, which is like the, from a structure standpoint of the media, I'm to believe like, well, that voice is telling me what happened, you know?
Like, that's telling me the truth.
Yes, exactly, exactly.
So, okay, that's the little piece we get in the podcast is just the interaction with end strength, like, no, you think this is a genuine mistake?
Oh, yeah, I don't think it was foul play.
And then we move on.
The thing that got me into this was the interview on Knowledge Fight.
He will triple down on this.
Really?
Oh, my God, it's bad.
So there's like a pretty I don't know how long this section is, actually, because I listened to it on half speed while I transcribed it.
What you're going to hear here is Jordan is one of the hosts of Knowledge by The Other Host Isn't Around.
He's interviewing Ronson about what happened in this episode, and I think you're going to hear Jordan make some very astute observations about what's not lining up in this story, basically.
I think he really He asked the questions I was asking and that's what sent me down this path was hearing this interaction.
What Bella Part looks at is whether or not she was doing this to get revenge on a medical community that wounded her.
Was that at the roots, you know, that personality type?
You know, I will say this in looking this up.
So, I don't know if you saw this, weirdly enough, but there was an episode of Nevada Newsmakers in 2007.
I'm a huge Nevada Newsmakers fan.
I got all the...
But here's something so fascinating about that, all right?
So, Dr. Judy and the Whittemores were being interviewed.
Were on it.
Yeah, they were on it.
There's actually a clip from that in the show.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Go on, sorry.
No, and the thing that I find so interesting about it is at one point she says, they were telling me about stuff.
And I said, I knew it was a virus.
And then I went to Nevada.
Right.
And I find that fascinating.
Because that suggests to me that I don't think she even did the study at all.
Right.
Like, not even the fake one.
I think that's the real reason she's giving the samples, is there's not even a fake virus in there.
There's not even anything.
The whole thing is a lie.
The thing is, it wasn't just Judy Mikovits on that XMRV paper that got published in Science.
There were people from the Cleveland Clinic, there were people from the National Cancer Institute, So there were definitely legitimate scientists involved in that study.
Right, but that's the next part of this.
If those people were involved, why is it that she's the only one who has a sample?
Interesting question.
I don't know how they wrote their paper.
I don't know the answer to that.
I don't know whether or not all of the testing was done within the Whittemore Peterson Institute and then the paper version of it was then sent out to the Cleveland Clinic.
I mean, maybe or maybe not.
I honestly don't know.
Where I keep coming back to, why was she in jail for five days?
This is stuff that it's like, there are these little assumptions that I feel like are being made that are like lies that are covered up by the surface lies, if that makes sense, you know?
So much so that you don't even ask the question.
Like there's no way, there's no way that she would just make up the whole thing, right?
Oh, no.
And nobody's accusing her, or even, you know, Martin Ensring, who's the guy at Science who was, you know, heavily involved in debunking her studies.
He doesn't think she made it up.
He thinks it was a genuine mistake.
I disagree.
I am the one person that is telling you, I believe wholeheartedly, she made it up from the jump.
I think she was scamming these people from the jump.
That's my theory on this.
I don't know.
Yeah, go.
I just, I'm not sure that I agree with you there.
Oh no, please don't.
It's a huge leap.
It's a huge leap.
I didn't see any evidence to support that theory.
Basically, the conclusion I came to was the XMRV, this mouse virus, ended up contaminating the materials that she was using in her experiments and that's why she mistakenly thought that the XMRV was in the blood samples.
Right, that makes sense.
That sounds like a reasonable series of events that would take place that would happen to a reasonable person that leads to stuff happening, right?
That's, to me, that sounds crazy.
You're telling me that the person who is in Plandemic, who's lied about her biography over and over and over again, who's lied over and over and over and over and over again, is somehow telling the truth about one thing?
I mean, I also don't know what her life was like when she worked at the National Cancer Institute in Virginia.
Like, I don't know.
She could have been unimpeachable there.
Totally!
Well, and I looked into it and it says she has this thing in her biography where she thinks she's fought against bovine growth hormone stuff, you know?
Yes, there was something about her kind of overselling, you know, the AIDS research.
I mean, obviously now she says all of this stuff about Anthony Fauci that's all, you know.
I just want to confirm though, and this could just be on the side, that Ronson is saying that it was the mouse cell line, even though publicly we know that that's not the case.
That's what I'm hearing.
Yeah, he says, he says it's the XMRV.
It ended up in her sample from the mouse cell line is what he's saying.
Yeah.
And that's not true.
No.
Wow.
We're not going to be able to talk about her until somebody deals with what happened in the 80s, you know?
You mean what happened in the 2000s?
Well, yeah.
It started before we met her, if that makes sense.
Yeah, undoubtedly.
Yes.
I mean, the fact is, the way she describes that conflict that she has when she's refusing to hand over the cell line, Like, you know, when I listen to her tell that I'm on the Whittemore side, like, hand over the sound line!
Like, just hand over the fucking sound line!
So, so yeah, so she was clearly, you know, she was clearly difficult.
So, so, but, I mean, that's such, that's such a big question.
Why?
If everybody's worked on this paper, are you saying that nobody else has a copy of this cell line?
And if nobody else has a copy of this cell line, that says some scary things to me.
That is a really interesting point you raised there, Jordan.
Like, there were 15 authors to this study and, as I say, I don't know how, you know, I don't know how that study came to be written.
Like, I don't know who was involved in the experiments, who just checked the paperwork.
I think you make a very good point.
So, where are we bringing this all together is, basically, you're hearing Jordan question exactly what I was questioning.
It's like, How can it be when you're listening to the podcast you're hearing, well and then people are demanding she turn over this cell line for testing?
How can it be that she is the only person with the cell line?
That doesn't make any sense, and there's just these long pauses, and then there's, well, I don't really know how the paper was written, and I'm like, call them!
Call anyone!
Call and do your job!
Call the other authors!
In fairness, in this moment, anyway, it sounds like John had not considered that point.
I think you're right.
He genuinely sounds stumped.
Except for, you know, there's the parts where he's saying, like, Jordan says she can't have just made the whole thing up.
Well, what was interesting is, let me ask you on that part.
I initially took that as, I actually think Jordan was being sarcastic, and then Ronson took it literally and was like, yeah, no, it's not made up.
Jordan was like, except it could be, you know, like, was that what happened?
Or did I read that wrong?
Well, so here's how I wrote it was so Jordan says, like, there's no way she would just make up the whole thing, right?
Yeah.
And so sorry, I remember.
I think he was saying, Similar to this has happened in my life a little bit where people are like, well, they have this assumption.
No one could be that dishonest.
So therefore, you know, I'm going to color it a certain way.
Whereas I think John interpreted that that is him just saying, well, she couldn't have made this up, which is not the same thing.
Like an earnest comment, yeah.
Yeah, Jordan is clearly saying, I think she made this up.
I think this is BS.
And Ronson replies to that, oh no, and nobody's accusing her.
Yeah, so that's him taking it genuinely when really Jordan was not.
Yeah, to make sure it's clear, people are accusing her.
Yeah, good point.
People are definitely accusing her, and he says, and nobody's accusing her, and even Martin Enstrink, who's the guy at science, is like, okay, so you're relying on a journalist who has second, third-hand knowledge, and therefore you have fourth-hand knowledge, and it's like, there are people accusing her, and that's in for Wikipedia.
Very weird.
This is how this all jumped off for me, is I heard that interaction, and I went, This can't be how it works.
This can't be true.
There are 13 authors, and I thought, well, what I'm going to look up is, there's this thing where, people don't always realize this, some papers, not all papers, you can find this author just wrote the manuscript.
This author You know, this author collected the data and that's it.
Are you telling me I could get on some major scientific papers just by like getting some people coffee or something?
Could I be one of the, one of the listed, this scientist in quotes?
Made sure the AC was working good, not a good temperature.
Yeah.
You know, supported back rubs, a couple back rubs were pretty critical in this research.
There's, you know, the generous interpretation of a lot of this is like people need publications and people did contribute something intellectual.
Here you go.
And that's how you end up with a paper with 24 authors.
Okay, I'll give him a quote that's misattributed to Einstein and say, hey, this is your inspiration.
And then I've contributed something intellectual.
Perfect.
Sorry.
No, don't distract.
So you're saying that sometimes you're able to actually see who did what?
Yes, exactly.
So I thought, ah, yes, what is clearly going on here is Ronson, who is not a scientist, doesn't realize that you can sometimes find this and not every paper has it.
And sometimes it's not on the PDF of the paper.
Sometimes it's on the website where the paper is posted.
And I'm like, I'm going to be sneaky and find it.
And I'm going to find maybe what it is, is only Judy collected the data and everybody else involved, like, analyzed the data.
Or, like, she collected it and gave them a digital file, but she didn't give them a physical cell.
Or it's like, hey, Judy handled all the fraud and we did everything else.
Yeah, possibly.
So I was like, maybe that's the answer to this question.
I'm a little frustrated that this person doesn't have it, but maybe it's because my experience as a scientist, I'll find this, that your average journalist wouldn't.
And it turns out, it was just on the announcement about the retraction, it says, Silverman Hmm.
They wanted to get it straight.
While we're retracting this, let's get something absolutely clear here.
Yes, Silverman did the analysis and confirmed contamination.
Like, this is not an unknown of like, well, why didn't she turn over the cell lines?
Is it an accident?
Was there, there definitely was contamination.
It wasn't, she needs to turn over the cells.
Other people had the cells.
This is known.
Wait.
Oh, oh, that's not what I was expecting.
So I thought, so we were trying to answer the question of why would she be the only one who has the thing?
I was thinking you were going to say, yeah, she was the only one who did the thing.
You're saying, no, she wasn't the only one who had the thing.
Correct.
What?
So how do you even?
So, but nobody, like nobody.
Oh.
Or is it just a result of her insisting that?
No.
What happened here?
This is what transitions us into the part about the arrest.
So what is really going on here is on the one, we've got two issues being conflated.
On the one side, the part about confirming contamination of these samples for the paper in 2009 that will get retracted in 2011.
Judy doesn't need to turn over those cells because Silverman has that data and Silverman does confirm contamination and you can find that anywhere and everywhere because Silverman wanted everyone to know that he confirmed the contamination and wanted his name off of that.
And disavowed.
So the question Jordan is asking, why can't other people turn over the cells?
The answer is other people could turn over the cells and did turn over the cells and did confirm contamination.
Okay.
So this whole... What is this other part where he says he was on the side of the Whitmores or whatever?
Yeah, this thing about turnover the cells, what is happening?
Well, what you're probably doing is getting stream of consciousness from Judy.
The reason Judy got fired is because after this was going on, the paper has not yet been retracted, but it's looking bad.
In the meanwhile, basically unrelated, a box shows up at the lab with a different cell line having nothing to do with this.
It's from Japan.
And it's addressed that it's supposed to go to Dr. Lombardi, the first author on the paper.
And she decides that no, it will not be.
God damn it.
It's my research and my cells.
Don't give it to him.
I'm in charge.
He shouldn't be doing this.
And that's how she gets fired.
That's unrelated.
But it's also just an unrelated experiment?
Like it has nothing to do with... Yeah, it's like the next thing they're gonna do.
And so she just decided to take somebody's mail.
Kinda, basically.
Wow.
This is what transitions us into how she's going to get fired and arrested.
Oh, God.
All right.
Unrelated.
Let's find out why this definitely above board person was arrested and all that.
She's so messy.
What the hell?
Okay, this is crazy.
Yeah, where we're at at this point, everything's kind of popping off in terms of people don't believe this study, people are getting very suspicious, but nobody's really accused anybody of anything except we find out Silverman behind the scenes is going, I'm very concerned.
Are we backtracking a little?
No.
Oh, okay.
Well, has he issued his full retraction-y stuff?
No, the full retraction has not happened yet.
Okay, so we're backtracking a little bit in our timeline.
A little bit to get to what is this whole thing about the turning over of the cell lines?
What is this whole thing about, like, because eventually we know, we've heard in the story, Judy gets arrested and it's like... For no reason!
Why would someone be in jail for five days for taking their own personal notebooks?
Yeah, because even if it's a civil thing, like, I'm not the lawyer, but how would you be in jail for five days?
I mean... It doesn't really sound like it adds up, does it?
No, it doesn't.
No.
Would you like to hear what happened from the affidavit of a Mr. Max Faust, her research assistant and alleged accomplice in this?
Oh, accomplice.
Okay.
Well, so is this, uh, is this a reliable narrator or?
Well, I'm going to just read it and you're going to tell me.
It's a sworn affidavit.
It is a sworn.
I do hereby swear under penalty of perjury that the following assertions are true.
I have personal knowledge of the matters herein, blah, blah, blah.
I've seen some real bullshit affidavits in my recent life though, so just letting you know.
True.
So a lot of this is where it's going to get us is we're really going to get to probable cause for arrest is where this affidavit is supposed to get you and you can judge for yourself.
You know, this does not have to necessarily get us to a criminal conviction.
This is what we're going to use for the arrest warrant.
Okay.
So, I worked for Judy Mikewicz.
She was my boss at WPI.
On or about September 27, 2011, there was a package delivered to the laboratory at WPI from Japan.
The package was addressed to Dr. Vince Lombardi.
I opened the package and discovered that it contained cell lines that he was not allowed to have, according to Mikewicz.
I called Judy Michovitz and informed her about the cell lines from Japan addressed to Dr. Lombardi.
Michovitz informed me that she, quote, would take care of it.
I've since been told by Annette Whittemore, the founder, president, and CEO, that Dr. Lombardi was indeed allowed to use the lines from Japan.
On or about September 29, 2011, I went to the dentist from approximately 8.30am to noon.
Then I returned to WPI.
At approximately 12.30, I asked Maikiewicz if I could go home because my teeth hurt.
Approximately a week before this, I previously agreed to assist Maikiewicz in moving her personal items from her then residence at the Palladio at 3.30 p.m.
that day.
Mikevitz agreed to let me leave work at approximately 1 p.m., but she reminded me I was to meet her at the Palladio to help her move, and then drive her to the airport to rent a car, as we had previously agreed.
At approximately 2.30 p.m., I received a text message from Dr. Lombardi that asked me where I was.
I informed him that I was in the Howard Building on the University of Reno, Nevada campus.
Even though I was at home.
Oh, okay.
I'm just picturing this kid in the police station being like, I told him I was at the lab, but I was home!
And they're like, get to the part where you stole shit.
Like, we don't care.
I'm gonna fail his class!
My teeth hurt!
Who cares?
Dr. Lombardi asked me to meet him at the WPI laboratory about a package.
So he just said I'm at the lab and he's at home and he's like, cool, meet me at the lab.
And he's like, damn it.
So I contacted Judy Mikevitz by her cell phone and informed her that Dr. Lombardi was looking for the cells.
Dr. Mikevitz said she would, quote, handle it.
I texted Dr. Lombardi and instructed him to contact Mikevitz.
I forwarded the text to Mikevitz and said, see you at 3.30.
A short time later, when I was still at my home, a residence owned by the Mikevitz, I guess he rents from her.
Judy called and said she had been fired for insubordination and insolence.
She was very angry.
She stated she'd had enough of WPI.
She stated that Dr. Lombardi has no right to do research work.
He should only be doing clinical work.
What?
I know.
Why does she get to decide that?
Yeah, what is that even about?
Like, I don't even... I mean, maybe we don't need to get into it, but... Who knows what's going through this woman's head?
I mean, yeah, she just is clearly... Something's wrong with her, and she has some bad... Is this a totally unrelated conflict, her and Lombardi?
Well, okay, so I know of a lawsuit she will go on to file that will try to connect these that ends in 2020.
I don't know if at the time she thought these were all connected.
She has a very conspiratorial belief later on.
Right, yeah, okay.
She stated that WPI would go down and that I should get out too.
Cool.
I drove Majkovic to the airport to rent a car, but she forgot her driver's license.
I drove her back to the Palladio, where she retrieved her license, and we again returned to the airport, where she rented a Jeep Compass.
We again met at the Palladio, where we packed many things into the car.
I met Judy at the Sierra Tap House at 6 p.m.
Mikevitz stated she planned to move the grants from WPI.
She stated she was going to try to move the R01 grant, that's like a fancy science grant, and the Department of Defense grants, and stop the Lipkin study.
Now, the Lipkin study is one that is in the process of debunking her.
Oh, it is?
Yeah.
For debunking what?
The whole XMRV thing.
Oh, okay.
So wait, her own lab is in the process of debunking her?
No, the Lipkin study is out of a different lab in the NIH, I want to say, or the CDC.
Okay, I thought she was saying she's trying to take the grants with her.
Yeah, she's trying to take grants with her from WPI to somewhere else and also stop the Lipkin study.
I'm assuming unrelated.
Oh, I linked them.
Okay, sorry.
No, of course you reasonably did because she's raving about a bunch of different things at once and they don't have anything to do with each other.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
So, I expressed some skepticism to Mikevitz about whether she could take the research and samples, and stated that Dr. Lombardi would take over the projects and continue on behalf of WPI.
He is correctly understanding how grants work.
Grants are attached to the institution.
Mikevitz stated that she was in charge of the research at WPI, so technically it was her research and she could move it somewhere else at any time.
I don't think that's how that works.
No, no, no, no.
Before I left the Sierra Tap House, Mikevitz gave me the keys to her desk and the keys to her office in order that I could gain access and take the WPI materials for Mikevitz.
Mikevitz then directed me to remove samples from the lab at WPI and all the notebooks from WPI containing irreplaceable research and data and provide them to her at a later date.
She kept her laptop computer with the information from WPI with her.
I left her at approximately 7.30 p.m.
7:30 p.m. on November 29th, 2011, and did not see her again until October 16th, 2011.
Between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m.
on September 30, 2011, I went to WPI to attempt to obtain samples and notebooks for Mikevitz.
I was unable to gain access, so I left and returned at approximately 8 a.m.
and parked near the loading entrance.
I attempt to gain access to the lab to obtain the samples.
However, it was on lockdown and I could not obtain access.
I don't know why he says this.
I had the door key in my left hand and the desk key in my right hand, and I went to Mikevitz's office and retrieved the materials in less than a minute.
I took between 12 and 20 notebooks for Mikevitz.
I put half the notebooks in a backpack and carried the remaining out.
I locked the desk drawer and the office door and took the keys.
I took the notebooks to my car and concealed the notebooks.
And then went through the front entrance at WPI and asked the employee at the desk what was going on.
So, I don't know, Oceans 1 is returning to the scene of the crime five minutes later.
I was informed the lab was locked and we were all to go on vacation, so I left at 9am.
They clearly, they just fired Judy and they're like, everybody get the fuck out of here.
I drove the notebooks to my mother's home where I stored them in her garage.
Wow.
Wait, sorry.
Was this a grad student?
Who's this again?
This is us.
I tried so hard to find more information on this man.
If you Google him, the first hit is this affidavit.
Live your life in such a way, ladies and gentlemen, that the first result for you is not your sworn affidavit, I'm just saying.
Oh my god, he has successfully gone underground.
I can't find... Was he a bachelor's student?
Yeah, it sounds like he's, like, she's... I mean, it sounds like she's abusing her authority to make this poor guy do some stuff he probably shouldn't do, and he's naively doing some...
Spy tricks to try to do all this stuff.
And it sounds like, it seems like, Greg, if I'm wrong, what happened is he's like, "Oh shit, this was wrong?
Hey, let me tell you everything, police." Or something.
Oh God, I'm just picturing him in his pajamas crying in a police station.
I was just a lab worker, I didn't know.
I just, I'll never get over, because my teeth hurt.
Like, no one cares.
Alright, whatever.
On or about October 16, 2011, Maikewicz flew back to Reno for the purpose of retrieving the notebooks and WPI property.
She requested that I set up a new separate email account for our secret communications about WPI, and she would do the same.
Her new email address is jnaprilann18 at gmail.com.
My new email address is mafost at gmail.com.
That is just his name.
That's his secret special email address.
It's just first initial, middle initial, last name at gmail.
Great job, everybody.
Mike Evitz has repeatedly asked me to send items from the lab and to send them to Dr. Frank Rossetti.
Many of the items requested, I know, Many of the items requested are irreplaceable.
I did not send her additional items.
On the 16th, I gave her all of the notebooks I took from WPI on September 30th.
She informed me she would store them in a safe location.
Maikiewicz rented another car and drove the notebooks to the Los Angeles area.
Note that we are in Reno, Nevada.
She's taking them to Los Angeles, California.
Maikiewicz informed me she was hiding out on a boat to avoid being served with papers from WPI.
Oh my gosh.
I don't know what, like, I said this to my partner and he was like, does she think that's international water?
She's not going to get served.
Maritime law, baby.
Old fringe on the flag.
I wouldn't put it past her.
Who knows?
She's just off the coast of California.
Genuinely, I don't know.
I'm also starting a gambling casino in this boat.
This is all like a Coen Brothers movie at this point.
After I provided her with the WPI materials, I turned in her keys and other employee materials to WPI.
I told WPI, Mike Evitz has just mailed me the keys, which was not true.
Last page here, Mikevitz retained a black laptop she used while at WPI that contains information belonging to WPI.
She has purchased a new computer since that time.
She's been in contact with Lipkin through others, including Resetti.
Lipkin's the one who's busy debunking her.
Yep.
She's been in contact with Lipkin through others, including Dr. Rossetti and others, about transferring grants and research projects away from WPI based on the information she has stolen.
That's the end of our affidavit of Max Faust, who you will find.
Good luck.
Find more information about this man.
I want that logic work.
Hey, can we transfer these grants under a finder's keepers rule or possession is nine tenths of the law rule.
What was that last sentence?
Can we transfer them on the basis of I stole it?
So mine, I don't, I, there's no logic in this place.
And once again, we're going to have to cut in to be the killjoys.
We're your chaperoned parents saying, Hey, enough partying.
You got to cut it off for part three of this series, but that's okay.
Cause, uh, there's more partying to come.
We're, we're not all bad because we're like, Hey, come over tomorrow.
Smoke some more pot with us.
It'll be fun.
Party.
Cause next time in part four, which is the final Janessa part.
Well, I should put final in quotes cause you just never know.
It might be that like another month goes by and we're like, wait, we need to say more.
But for now, the final Janessa part of this and the final officially breakdown episode of episode two in part four, the final part, or is it of this one?
Dun, dun, dun!
Because we're going to do a little bonus about it, but it's the final official part.
We're going to talk about Judy being arrested.
We're going to get into how not only unreliable she is in telling that story, but also in Ronson, just not doing a good job with it.
It's not, it's bad.
Not good, not a good job.
Not great skepticism.
So it's really fascinating.
What really happened with this arrest?
And, uh, was it as bad as Judy makes it out to be?
And reminding you that this is like the linchpin in John Ronson's theory that like, but for this arrest, that was this great injustice that happened to her.
She was just living and she's normal.
She's just like going to be a totally normal scientist person making drinks at a yacht club or whatever.
But no, this happened and that turned her evil or whatever.
And, uh, we'll see how well that, that stacks up.
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