details of raphael golb’s impersonation of lawrence schiffman | XKV8R: The Official Blog of Robert R. Cargill, Ph.D.
Raphael Golb is accused of multiple felony and misdemeanor counts of forgery, identity theft, criminal impersonation, and aggravated harassment against New York University professor Dr. Lawrence Schiffman.
the following are the transcripts of two affidavits in support of search warrants to search the home of raphael golb, son of university of chicago oriental institute historian norman golb. golb was later arrested and charged with criminal impersonation, forgery, identity theft, and aggravated harassment in connection with an anonymous internet smear campaign involving scholars studying the dead sea scrolls.
12. Dr. Lawrence Schiffman informs me that an individual has impersonated him via email, and that he has been the subject of an effort to discredit him via email and the internet. This effort to discredit Dr. Schiffman is related to his scholarship and work concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Schiffman informs me that the following emails were sent to NYU personnel, purporting to be from Dr. Schiffman. Dr. Scmffrnan did not send the below emails that were sent in his name, nor did he create that email account, nor did he give anyone permission or authority to use his name to open the email account or send the emails.
Apparently, someone is intent on exposing a minor failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago.
You are not to mention the name of the scholar in question to any of our students, and every effort must be made to prevent this article from coming to their attention. This is my career at stake. I hope you will all understand.
Cory, thanks for your kind words.
This is definitely ruining my week. I don’t know if you can understand how I feel, but it is as if someone had set fire to my beard. The last thing I need now is to be investigated by the dean.
Every effort must be made to prevent this article from coming to students’ attention. This is my career at stake. I hope you will all understand.
I would like to know what action I can take to counter charges of plagiarism that have been raised against me.
Apparently, someone is intent on exposing a failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago. It is true that I should have cited Dr. Golb’s articles when using his arguments, and it is true that I misrepresented his ideas. But this is simply the politics of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. If I had given credit to this man I would have been banned from conferences around the world.
I am especially concerned that this affair may come to students’ attention. My career is at stake. I hope you will understand.
3 A “link”, or “hyperlink”, is computer code embedded within the text of a webpage that, when clicked on, directs the computer user to a particular webpage.
4 Assuming that “Peter Kaufman”, “Charles Gadda”, and “Raphael Joel” were the same person, this use of multiple internet aliases to conduct a discourse would be an example of internet “sockpuppetry”.
is a blog that indicates to the public that it is maintained by user “plagiarist-schiffman”, and which is also highly critical of Dr. Schiffman.
19.	Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (plagiarist-schiffman.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is steve.goranson@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on August 7, 2008 from IP address5 128.122.89.41, and has been modified from that IP address. As indicated later in this affidavit, the IP address 128.122.89.41 indicates that the person accessing this blog was using computers at the NYU Bobst Library. As indicated below, Steve Goranson is a real person who is a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, who informs me that he did not open this email account, or give anyone permission to open the email account.
5An IP (Internet Protocol) address is the numeric address for a computer or device that is connected to the Internet.
This is a blog that indicates to the public that it was created and maintained by user “Larry Schiffman” and which is highly critical of Dr. Schiffman.
21. Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (larry.schiffman.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is larry.schiffman@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on August 4, 2008 from IP address 128.122.89.193, and also modified from this IP address. As indicated later in this affidavit, the IP address 128.122.89.41 indicates that the person accessing-this blog was using computers at the NYU Bobst Library. Dr. Schiffman did not open this blog or email address, nor did he give anyone permission to use his name to open the site or email address.
This is a blog that indicates to the public that it was created and maintained by user “lawrence.schiffman.speaks” and which is highly critical of Dr. Schiffman.
23. Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (lawrence.schiffman.speaks.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is Jewish.museum.schiffman@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on September 24, 2008 from IP address 128.122.89.194, and also modified from this IP address. As indicated later in this affidavit, the IP address 128.122.89.194 indicates that the person accessing this blog was using computers at the NYU Bobst Library. Dr. Schiffman did not open this blog or email address, nor did he give anyone permission to use his name to open the site or email address.
This blog indicates that it was created by “Timothy Fishbane” on or about August 4, 2008, and titled “Dead Sea Scrolls: “Distinguished Lecture Series” at Raleigh Museum” that attacked several speakers, including Dr. Schiffman and other scholars.
25. On October 31, 2008, the following email was sent to a dean of NYU (Richard Foley) that was critical of Dr. Schiffman.
I think you should see this. Among other things, the author seems to be saying that an NYU department chairman took legal action to keep him from publishing?
Some of you might wish to take a look at this article [embedded link to http://peter2kaufman.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/lawrence-schiffmans-dazzling-jewish-museum-lecture/%5D and the public exchange of letters that follows it; among other things, the suggestion is made that one of our colleagues at New York University has taken legal action in an effort to prevent the dissemination of allegations of misconduct that have recently aired on several news sites, including George Mason University’s History News Network.
These allegations, involving the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, are to the effect that our colleague borrowed the published research of another American scholar without crediting him, and attempted to hide this misappropriation by publicly misrepresenting the views of that scholar; that these facts came to light in an interview with a well-known Israeli journalist; but that an investigation into the matter has been blocked at NYU.
Ariel, I see that Larry has you forking out the Jodi Magness junk to your students, rather than Magen and Peleg — this strikes me as rather poor judgment on his part.
Incidentally, have you read this interesting review of his talk?
point to the same blog, purportedly written by “Peter Kaufman”, who writes that he had attended a lecture given by Dr. Schiffman the night before, is highly critical of him, and accuses him of plagiarizing Dr. Golb.
19. Dr. Schiffman informs me that an individual has impersonated him via email, and that he has been the subject of an effort to discredit him via email and the internet.3 As previously indicated, Dr. Lawrence Schiffman is a professor at NYU who specializes in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The effort to discredit Dr. Schiffman is related to his scholarship and work concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Schiffman informs me that emails were sent to NYU personnel, from an email account named “larry.schiffman@gmail.com”, purporting to be from Dr. Schiffman, and purporting to admit to plagiarism in the past. Some emails specifically allege that Dr. Golb was plagiarized. The emails point the recipient to view webpages/blogs that accuse Dr. Schiffman of plagiarizing the works of Dr. Norman Golb. The allegations of plagiarism are false.
3 As will be detailed later in this affidavit, investigation has revealed that the individual who impersonated Dr. Schiffman is Raphael Golb. This affidavit will also detail the dozens of internet aliases/email accounts used by Raphael Golb.
20. Dr. Schiffman did not create this email account, did not send these emails, and did not give anyone permission or authority to do so. NYU email recipients forwarded copies of the emails to Dr. Schiffman, and he was able to review them.
21. Records from Google/Gmail pertaining to this email account (“larry.schiffman@gmail.com”) indicate that the email account was created on August 3, 2008 from IP address (Internet Protocol Address)4 128.122.89.32. Publicly available information, as well as NYU personnel indicate that this IP address belongs to the NYU Bobst library. The email account was accessed from IP Address 28.122.89.193 (NYU Bobst5), and 216.165.95.64 (NYU NAT – a pool of internet access IP addresses). As will be detailed later in this affidavit, these IP addresses are generally for NYU’s computers that are available to the general NYU community, and that Raphael Golb had access to.
4 An IP (Internet Protocol) address is the numeric address for a computer or device that is connected to the Internet.
5 As indicated previously, the ultimate location of this IP address was determined based upon publicly available information as well as NYU personnel. For brevity and clarity, this phrase will be omitted in the future.
22. Gmail records of “larry.schiffman@gmail.com” indicate that it sent approximately eleven separate emails purporting to be from Dr. Schiffman, purporting to admit to plagiarism, directing the recipient to a blog accusing Dr. Schiffman of plagiarism, and requesting that the recipient not mention the allegations of plagiarism to anyone. Many of the emails were to multiple recipients. These emails were sent to NYU students, deans, the NYU Provost (the NYU senior academic administrator), and NYU newspapers. In each email, the recipient is pointed to a blog, and advised that past plagiarism conduct has been exposed, and requests that these allegations be kept secret. These records also indicate that the email account holder activated blog: larryschiffman.wordpress.com and larryschiffman.blogspot.com. These are blogs that accuse Dr. Schiffman of plagiarism.
23. For example, Gmail records indicate the following correspondence between email account “larry.schiffman@gmail.com” and other email accounts.
6 A “link”, or “hyperlink”, is computer code embedded within the text of a webpage that, when clicked on, directs the computer user to a particular webpage.
7 Assuming that “Peter Kaufman”, “Charles Gadda”, and “Raphael Joel” were the same person, this use of multiple internet aliases to conduct a discourse would be an example of internet “sockpuppetry”. This affidavit does not imply that use of such aliases, by itself, constitutes a criminal offense.
26. Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (plagiarist-schiffman.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is steve.goranson@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on August 7, 2008 from IP address 128.122.89.41, and that the blog was modified from that IP address. As indicated later in this affidavit, the IP address 128.122.89.41 indicates that the person accessing this blog was using computers at the NYU Bobst Library. As described later, Steve Goranson is a real person who has researched the Dead Sea Scrolls. Mr. Goranson informs me that he did not open this email account, or give anyone permission to open the email account.
28. Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (larry.schiffman.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is larry.schiffman@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on August 4, 2008 from IP address 128.122.89.193, and was also modified from this IP address (an IP address at NYU Bobst library). Dr. Schiffman did not open this blog or email address, nor did he give anyone permission to use his name to open the site or email address.
30. Records from Google (that runs blogspot) pertaining to this blog (lawrence.schiffman.speaks.blogspot.com) indicate that the email address of the person maintaining this blog is Jewish.museum.schiffman@gmail.com, and that the blog was created on September 24, 2008 from IP address 128.122.89.194, and also modified from this IP address (this IP address belongs to computers at the NYU Bobst Library). Dr. Schiffman did not open this blog or email address, nor did he give anyone permission to use his name to open the site or email address.
I am writing to ask why it is that the outrageous misconduct of Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, has never been investigated.
33. On or about July 5, 2007, an article/blog appeared on the internet at webaddress: http://www.voieeofsandiego.org/articles/2007/07/05/letters/078deadsea070607.txt which was titled: Other Side of the Scrolls, By Charles Gadda, New York. The article is critical of a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and the fact that Norman Golb is not properly referenced. In response to this blog, there is a comment by an individual using the name “Tuesday Kuykendall” who praises Dr. Golb’s book, “Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In response to this posting, there is a comment by an individual using the name “Larry Schiffman” declaring that the statement [who declares the comment] by Tuesday Kukendall is “revelatory” and criticizing Dead Sea Scrolls exhibits in general. Dr. Schiffman informs me that he did not post this comment, nor did he give anyone permission to use his name to post this comment.