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Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said and Milton Johns Sue Me for $2 Million but at This Stage a Motion to Dismiss Cannot Argue Matters of Fact, Just Legal Reasons

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Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said and Milton Johns Sue Me for $2 Million but at This Stage a Motion to Dismiss Cannot Argue Matters of Fact, Just Legal Reasons Wegman, Said and Johns Sue Me For $2 Million Executive Summary MAS2015i 05/19/15 John R. Mashey1 The suits were badly written in many ways, rife with falsehoods and errors, Ed Wegman, Yasmin Said and Milton Johns Sue Me for $2 Million but at this stage a Motion to Dismiss cannot argue matters of fact, just legal reasons. On 04/17/15 my lawyers filed a strong, detailed Motion to Dismiss Executive Summary with Prejudice, which if accepted at hearing, would mean “don’t try again.” In December 2009, Canadian blogger Deep Climate (DC) started finding plagiarism in the 2006 Wegman Report (WR), which attacked the “hockey On 04/30/15, few days before the hearing, Johns filed voluntary stick” and authors Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcom Hughes. dismissals of their complaints, his last day at his own firm Day Johns, Based on those finds, in March 2010 Bradley lodged complaints against the where he had been since 2008. On 05/01/14 he joined Fluet Huber + Hoag. WR and a related paper with George Mason University (GMU). Later, I and At that stage, voluntary dismissal avoided “with prejudice” ruling and made others found more problems and reported them to GMU and journals. it harder to file a “frivolous lawsuit” claim. In March 2011, DC exposed pervasive plagiarism in a paper in Wiley’s Since court documentation is now public, that leaves on the record many WIREs:Computational Statistics journal. Soon after, similar or worse claims that I think are false, misleading or that fall far outside normal problems were found in a 2nd paper. People normally report such issues to academic or publishing ethics. This report documents in detail my best the Editors. In this case, the Editors were the authors, GMU’s Edward knowledge of the facts.. It contains much material that never would have Wegman and Yasmin Said, already under scrutiny for the WR. been published or even written, but for these lawsuits. In May 2011, they were forced to retract the related paper for plagiarism. The 2013 FOIA Facts blog posts documented many issues, but were derived It can be hard to find major plagiarism but once found, but if well-displayed, from a detailed report with explicit allegations of wrongdoing. it is obvious to anyone, even without subject knowledge. During 2011-2012, It was not published then, but rather sent to GMU’s Aurali Dade in May I and several others lodged well-documented plagiarism allegations with 2013 and to several government agencies. The now-revealed Wiley contract Wiley. After a reasonable start, Steven Quigley stonewalled for months and strengthens the allegations. Wiley finally changed its mind, for reasons then gave Wegman and Said a chance not afforded to regular authors. unknown, as it was certainly stonewalling even after resignations. Rather than retractions, in 2012 they did massive, but quiet rewrites. Further communications were mostly ignored, or stonewalled by a UK However, no one expected the plaintiffs to suddenly quit, so much time was Communications Director Helen Bray, but in June 2012, Wegman and Said spent gathering the history and writing it in preparation for the case. silently dropped off the masthead with no explanation. So, that is documented here, to counter the complaint’s errors. On 03/24/15 I was served with complaints by Wegman and Said via their lawyer Milt Johns, Ken Cuccinelli’s partner 2008-2010. They demanded This case was a farcical waste of time, money and court actions, but other $2M for conspiracies, tortious interference with contracts and punitive than time and hassle, it did not actually cost me money. 2 damages, seeming to think plagiarism complaints illegal. Their complaints The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund offered to pay my legal expenses. focused on the WR, as though Wiley would care more about it than never- Thanks CSLDF! Donations are welcome. Some climate scientists endure mentioned WIREs:CS papers. That made no sense and they knew better. far more hassle than I did, §V, §X, so help CSLDF be ready to assist. And thanks to Cozen O’Connor’s Chad Kurtz, Tom Wilkinson and Peter 1 Dr. Mashey is an easy-to-Google semi-retired Bell Labs (1973-1983) / Silicon Valley Fontaine, good lawyers who also know the climate wars. (1983- ) computer scientist / corporate executive. A member of AAAS, AGU, APS, ACM, IEEE CS, he was profiled in Science for efforts against climate anti-science: 2 www.desmogblog.com/science-article-recognizes-john-mashey climatesciencedefensefund.org www.desmogblog.com/user/john-mashey; email JohnMashey, at domain yahoo DOT com climatesciencedefensefund.org/new-legal-attacks-on-climate-science-community 1 Wegman, Said and Johns Sue Me For $2 Million Executive Summary MAS2015i 05/19/15 Johns improperly subpoenaed Wiley without informing me. The 06/02/14 a As in [MAS2010a, MAS2013a], I continue to allege that: response, §D.4 gave no support to Wegman’s complaint, in fact should have The WR was an elaborate conspiracy to mislead Congress and the public discouraged it. It showed a clear emphasis on plagiarism in SAID2009 and to discredit climate science and scientists, possibly rising to violations of: WEG2011 and not in demands for resignations. Instead of quitting then, 18.U.S.C §1001 (misleading Congress), they escalated with the near-duplicate Said complaint and subpoenaed GMU. §371 (conspiracy), which may be “unfulfilled” given §V and §X, noting that the various legal maneuvers against climate scientists often seem to The almost-identical suits are dissected later in §C, but a few excerpts are involve a small set of GMU-trained lawyers. That may be coincidence. shown below. Disputed implies more complex refutation than simple False. §4 (misprision), which might involve many more people. ‘3. Defendant John Mashey is a nationally recognized science figure and Later actions might involve §1519 (obstruction of justice). blogger, writing regularly for "Desmog Blog," and has reached into The WR was produced primarily by Wegman and his students, with little Virginia and the nation, creating substantial contacts, thus subjecting him expertise in climate or Social Network Analysis. Even the statistics was to the personal jurisdiction of this court.’ False, although the first is nice poor, and their given affiliations were deceptive. ‘FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS The WR used statistics already proven wrong in 2006, but with even more 6. Edward Wegman was the lead author in a 2006 report to Congress, proof by 2010 and later [DEE2010r, STO2011, STO2014a-d] referred to as the "Hockey Stick Report" or the "Wegman Report," that Wegman used a false claim to avoid providing code used [MAS2012b]. cast serious doubt on the reliability of the statistics used by proponents The WR contained material plagiarized from copyrighted books, as did of “global warming" theories of anthropogenic climate change. Disputed GMU PhD dissertations and other papers. 7. In March of 2009, Defendant John Mashey, via the web blog The WR was not pro bono as repeatedly said, but in fact was claimed for Deepclimate.org performed an analysis of the Wegman Report that credit by Wegman and Said for Federal funds [MAS2013b, MAS2013a]. purported to show plagiarism by Wegman.’ False, wrong date, person. Wegman, Said and their students have compiled a long history of plagiarism, not just in the WR or WIREs:CS, but elsewhere. 8. In March of 2010, based on Mashey's writings, Raymond Bradley, of Claims of “never plagiarized” have now been made in legal records. the University of Massachusetts, made a complaint to Said's employer, GMU repeatedly broke its own academic misconduct rules to protect him George Mason University, alleging plagiarism in the report from one of and in 2012 named him to the Promotions and Tenure Committee. Bradley's textbooks.’ False, based on work of blogger Deep Climate. It violated Federal reporting rules and its report contained clear falsehoods, via FOIAs. It has ignored many well-documented complaints 9. Two different committees investigated the charges and no plagiarism and then changed policies to become even more opaque [MAS2013f]. was found.’ False, by FOIA. I and others have presented evidence of the above in great detail. 19. John Mashey, John Doe, and others used defamation and engaged in By contrast, Wegman has: 3 common law and statutory conspiracy to get Wegman removed from the Denigrated people, but with polemics, not substantial arguments, §B.2. editorial board at Wiley by the letter writing campaign.’ Disputed. In 2011 stopped answering journalists’ questions, except via Johns, Rather than refutations, launched farcical legal complaints, 21. Wegman was never found to have committed plagiarism, and any then failed to follow through, after wasting others’ time and money. such allegation is untrue.’ False, disputed. Unlike scientists with full-time jobs, I could afford to spend much of the last 22. John Mashey, John Doe, and others were motivated by malice, spite, 2 months’ working on this interrupt. I also knew where to go for help, and if and ill will, all driven by a publicly expressed desire to discredit or ruin climate scientists get hit with such things, they should should also. their opposition.’ Disputed. 3 If he would like to point out specific errors, I will happily document and fix them. 2 Wegman, Said and Johns Sue Me For $2 Million Executive Summary MAS2015i 05/19/15 Overview of the rest §Q quotes and analyzes all the interactions with Wiley that I have. After short introductory sections §1-§3, Appendices are the bulk of the text. §Q.1 was mostly published in [MAS2012a, MAS2012c] §Q.2-Q.4 were written to document factual history that contradicts Appendices §A-§D cover Wegman/Said legal issues and context.
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