i think there’s a reason that the da’s office waited until (long after) the schiffman emails to charge and arrest golb. i think there’s a reason they limited the charges to only those involving forgery, impersonation, and identity theft surrounding the schiffman case. (golb took out other emails in the names of other individuals, but schiffman’s was the highest profile impersonation.) while he certainly intended to harass/defame me and others, those items are rightly resolved in civil court. you’ll notice that in all of the counts against golb, none of them involve what he did to me and other scholars prior to the schiffman impersonation. it appears the defense is attempting to blur defamation with impersonation, but the da’s office’s case is quite focused. however, the growth and escalation of the smear campaign from one of criticism on comments and blog posts to the schiffman impersonation over the course of a couple of years should demonstrate that this was not some one-time mistake or simple joke, but part of a premeditated, well-organized, well-executed campaign to harm scholars.

I am not very interested in the Qumran debate, but I think the legal case is interesting. I am not a lawyer, but I only see one thing that I understand to be illegal in the case. The guy obviously impersonated Dr. Schiffman and harrassed him by writing his students in one email. The plagiarism accusation might be wrong, but he can still claim it if he wanted to, since he seems to offer what he considers to be good proof. I don’t see that as illegal, but I don’t understand the plagiarism charge. The sock puppets were morally wrong, but maybe not legally wrong. I also don’t understand if he impersonated other real people besides Dr. Schiffman in these emails.

Kenneth Greifer