For those IAI members who might be interested, perhaps some explanation is due regarding the ethics complaint the Molletts filed with the IAI against myself and others. To the best of my knowledge, no explanation was given to the general membership at the recent conference in Providence. Pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee and I will try to make the reporting of this series of events interesting. I will also try to keep this narrative as short as possible while still including some of the pertinent details.
I was contacted by email about a year ago (fall, 2012) by one Robert Dennison using the email
sonofjohn@rocketmail.com. Those who have followed this thread may recall “sonofjohn” posting prior to that. Robert Dennison had questions regarding peer review (technical review) of my work in the examination of fingerprint evidence from the murder of Inge Lotz. I worked on that case as an independent (defense) expert in 2005. Before I sent the final report with my conclusions to the client (Fred van der Vyver), I sent it to several fingerprint experts outside of the US for peer review. Because I concluded that one of the fingerprint lifts was fabricated evidence, I chose senior experts who I believed competent to evaluate fabrication as well as identification. That was in 2005. When contacted by Dennison in 2012 to learn the names of my peer reviewers, I gave him the names of those I could remember off the top of my head.
I received an email a few days later from one of the peer reviewers who had been contacted by Dennison. The peer reviewer advised me that Dennison’s questions were suspect and he believed there was a hidden agenda behind Dennison’s investigation. He further advised that he did not want to communicate further with Dennison and had ceased answering questions or responding to his emails. I thought no more of it.
By the end of the year, an ethics complaint had been filed with the IAI naming me, Arie Zeelenberg, Bill Bodziak, and Mike Grimm for violations of the Code of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct. There were two names filing the complaint jointly, Henry and John MacAlpine (supposedly brothers). My email exchange with “Robert Dennison” and his communications with my peer reviewer were quoted in the complaint. “Robert Dennison” was, in fact, an alias he used to contact me, as now he was using the name “MacAlpine.” I went back to that email and checked the IP address to discover it belonged to the City of Newmarket in Canada.
I assumed a fingerprint examiner in Newmarket Police was behind the complaint and contacted a friend in Canada who, after a few phone calls, assured me there was no “Dennison” nor “MacAlpine” in the fingerprint unit there, and nobody from the Newmarket Police fingerprint unit had filed the complaint.
Although I did not count the pages, I was told by the IAI that the complaint exceeded 1000 pages. The complaint was signed by Henry McAlpine, B.Sc. (Human Movement Science), and John McAlpine B.Sc. (Civil Eng) M.Eng (Cum Laude). The email address they gave was
xmcalpine@gmail.com.
No trace of this pair, Henry and John MacAlpine, could be found in internet searches by myself and the other named “respondents”. After some internet sleuthing, we determined the real names of the men who filed the complaint are Calvin and Thomas Mollett. They are brothers. Calvin lives in Canada, where he works in the traffic engineering department of the City of Newmarket, and Thomas lives in South Africa, where he is mostly just an unsuccessful book publisher. Within a day of the time we made that discovery but before we could confirm it and contact the IAI, the Molletts contacted the IAI and revealed their real names. They said they had used aliases and forged false signatures because they were “in fear” for their safety from me and the others named in the complaint. They were not clear on how they thought we were going to hurt them.
Incomprehensively, the IAI allowed them to change the names on the complaint even after they admitted forging a signature using a false name to the original complaint. By late winter or early spring, the IAI convened several Professional Review Boards to investigate the allegations. Although the investigations were concluded by early summer, we were not advised of the findings until after the conference in Providence.
Meanwhile, the Molletts appeared in a television special in South Africa. On this program, they used the word “liars” to describe us and our work. My favorite part of the program was when Thomas Mollett (the unsuccessful book publisher in South Africa) demonstrated lip prints to the reporter by using a fiberglass fingerprint brush to dust his mouth with aluminum powder and drink from a glass, proudly pointing at the lip print on the glass while he finished the interview with a clown face of monstrous aluminum lips shining in the middle of the television screen.
Not surprisingly, the IAI found all of us named in the complaints in full compliance with all ethical standards and rules of professional conduct. Although we do not know the names of the persons who served on the Professional Review Boards to scrutinize our work, their report completely vindicated the examinations and conclusions of Arie Zeelenberg and myself. I discussed the IAI’s letter to me with an attorney, who advised me that in finding that we had violated not a single provision of the Code of Ethics or Rules of Professional Conduct, the IAI had provided the highest level of peer review possible and verification of our conclusions. If we did not violate any standards or rules, we were in full compliance with them. If our conclusions were accepted without comment, they were valid.
For Mike Grimm’s examination into wound pathology, the IAI concluded that there were no members sufficiently trained in that field to review his work and he could not be found guilty of violating the Code of Ethics or Rules of Professional Conduct by the organization in a field of science it does not include under its umbrella.
I learned from another source in South Africa that the Molletts were writing a book on the Inge Lotz murder. The thesis of their book would be that Fred van der Vyver is guilty, in spite of an iron-clad alibi and a full acquittal, and that he got off because his father hired high priced forensic frauds to confuse the courts. They set out to “prove” the police evidence was correct, not fabricated, and the rest of us had “fabricated” our work.
Of course, Roger Dixon, a South Africa Police Services superintendent, conducted his own examination into the fingerprint evidence and, while not agreeing that intentional fabrication occurred, he concluded without doubt the lift did, in fact, come from a drinking glass and not from a DVD cover as alleged by the police at Fred van der Vyver’s trial.
I believe the Molletts IAI complaint was the rough draft of their book and the whole IAI process was a not-so-shrewd ruse to seek free editorial review of the planned book.
As soon as the IAI released its findings, the Molletts immediately announced the IAI’s vindication of our work constituted a major conspiracy and cover-up of worldwide proportions by the IAI to protect its members. On the website they created as a sales tool for their book, they even named the officers and members of the Board of Directors of the IAI as co-conspirators in this massive cover-up.
The Mollets then emailed every IAI member whose email addresses are in the public area of the IAI website. If they could have got into the “members only” section, no doubt they would have emailed every IAI member.
On their Facebook page, they posted in Afrikaans language a call for action, presented in English translation here as quoted to me by a friend in South Africa:
Thomas Mollett
10:53pm Sep 17
People, it is time for everyone to get actively involved and raise your opinions. It is good to be interested and to care – but it is not enough. Action is needed. It may soon be your loved one who is affected and then there may well be IAI members who will be in court as expert witnesses – then you want to know that they belong to an organisation which has standards and is regulating them. And that its members respect and apply the standards. If you are incensed by the actions of Pat Wertheim and Arie Zeelenberg, I encourage EVERYONE reading here to send an email to the president of the IAI, Ms Lesley Hammer- wherein you express your disgust in no uncertain terms. Ask your friends to do the same and spread the message. Please make a point of it and do it. Not only for Inge but for justice in general. We have no respect for the IAI and do not attach value to their opinion, but people like the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) value their opinions. And they have to be held accountable in any case for these types of “experts” whom they are protecting. Thank you. Her email address is:
lesley.hammer@theiai.org
So here we have two guys who between them have not a minute of formal forensics training, who switch names as often as they switch underwear, who forge false signatures on formal complaints, and whose objective seems to be nothing more than to pimp their book, which is supposedly scheduled for release this month or next. Two guys who think they are forensics “experts” because they can smear aluminum powder on their lips and demonstrate lip prints. If they were members of the IAI, they would have violated almost every point of the Code of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct, but because they are not members, the IAI can do nothing to stop them.
If Thomas Mollett were so honorable that he would want IAI members to complain to President Lesley Hammer about us, then no doubt he would also want members who think Calvin Mollett was unethical to complain to the mayor of Newmarket for using city property (computers) and city time (many emails and posts on this site were done during normal business hours.) I am quite sure that an honorable Thomas would also inform you that the Mayor of Newmarket is Tony Van Bynen, his office number is 905-895-5193, and his email address is
mayor@newmarket.ca. I imagine an honorable Thomas would also advise you that the entire City Council listing with phones and emails can be found at
http://www.town.newmarket.on.ca/en/town ... ouncil.asp
The word “liar” comes awfully easy to the aluminum powdered lips of Thomas and Calvin Mollett. Let’s see what they have to say next.
