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Real estate can be deadly:  British tycoon kills stubborn tenant

September 8, 2009.  This story just screams sociopathy.

. . . Papalexis quickly positioned himself as king of his world, installing a throne in his office, renting an impressive mansion, and throwing lavish galas that were filled with A-list partygoers . . .

By 2009, however, it had all begun to fall apart. He was fighting against creditors, and was in arrears on rent for his mansion. Worse yet, his girlfriend — a former porn star and prostitute who charged almost $2,500 per night — had turned on him. During a fight, the woman, Rebecca deFalco, asked him if he’d ever killed anyone and Papalexis told her the story of Bambi, a “nobody” who “got in the way.”

In many ways, DeFalco represented another side of Papalexis’ life. In addition to his gilded lifestyle as a member of Palm Beach’s elite, he was also a sadist who described himself on one website as “The King of his own realm.” Certainly, his darker pursuits played a part in Christodoulides’ murder: before strangling the shy, lonely man, Papalexis brutally tortured him. . . .

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/08/real-estate-can-be-deadly-british-tycoon-kills-stubborn-tenant/?icid=main|hp-desktop|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailyfinance.com%2F2009%2F09%2F08%2Freal-estate-can-be-deadly-british-tycoon-kills-stubborn-tenant%2F

DNA Shows Man Is Not Long-Lost Boy

John Barnes and the missing Stephen Damman

John Barnes and the still missing Stephen Damman

DNA testing confirmed that a Michigan man is not a toddler kidnapped on New York’s Long Island in 1955, the FBI said Thursday, closing a chapter in a bizarre mystery that started after the man began researching his roots on the Internet.

The FBI said in a statement that a test showed John Barnes, an unemployed man in his 50s who lives in a trailer in northwest Michigan, is not Stephen Damman, who disappeared at age 2 from outside an East Meadow bakery while his mother shopped.

The sample showed Barnes could not have the same mother as Pamela Damman Horne, the sister of the toddler who was with him when he disappeared, the FBI said. She was found in her stroller, unharmed, around the corner from the market.

The case had raised the hopes of the toddler’s father, Jerry Damman, who runs a 300-acre farm in Iowa, and stunned the community where the Halloween kidnapping occurred. Damman, now 78, had said he hoped for a resolution after five decades of silence.

“It’s too bad we had to go through all of this for actually nothing in the end,” he told The Associated Press.

http://news.aol.com/article/man-says-hes-missing-boy/529079

A detailed series of articles can be found here:  http://www.newsday.com/7.25434?q=john+barnes

It would seem we have a pseudologue here.  It recalls to mind the story of Binjamin Wilkomirski/Bruno Grosjean, the author of Fragments, which purported to be a Holocaust memoir (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/06/14/1999_06_14_048_TNY_LIBRY_000018396).  There are a couple points that I would like to concentrate on here, first, the odd relationship between reality and these individuals and second, the emotional desires aspect of their claims.

I should really write about pseudologia fantastica more often, even if they are just ‘thinking aloud’ posts since pseudologues are such a puzzlement.  Every day readers find me through searching for that term.  My “Suzy Bass — What is Pseudologia Fantastica?”  post is one of my most visited posts (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/suzy-bass-what-is-pseudologia-fantastica/).  In a sense, pseudologic sociopaths are more obvious than other sociopaths because their claims are so extreme.  Apparently readers are searching the internet to understand this phenomenon.

Most sociopaths seem to know perfectly well what’s real or not (though cause and effect are another matter).  Pseudologues don’t seem to know the difference between reality and the stating of it.  In both of these cases the individuals should have known their claims could not survive DNA testing.  That there is a “real” reality out there doesn’t seem to impinge upon their consciousness.

Concerning the emotional desire aspect, both of these cases featured the claimants being long lost relatives passionately wished and waited for.  It appears that this was a prize to be desired for these individuals.  I recall a description of  visitors to the Christian holylands sometimes coming down with a temporary derangement and claiming to be Jesus reincarnated (on edit:  Jerusalem Syndrome).  (To the best of my recollection, this came from a Smithsonian issue in the early nineties — if anybody has back issues to check I would certainly appreciate it.  I haven’t been able to find it in Readers’ Guide however.)  Again, there is a real emotional drive here to be what they think others want them to be or to be what others would respond to.  The psychologists were further quoted saying that these individuals would almost always go back home and return to normal — to me, that’s like saying serial killers go back to normal in between killings.

Of the two pseudologues I believe I have known, one would place himself at the very center of historic events.  The stories would be long and convoluted with the excuses for not being mentioned in the news stories or photos even more so.  I never knew him to draw back from these stories or in anyway signal that he wasn’t serious. The desire to be in these stories seems to have been the driving force.

Police: Duke University official offered adopted son for sex

Frank Lombard
Frank Lombard

A Duke University official is accused of offering his 5-year-old adopted son for sex on the Internet, according to the FBI and court documents in the case.

Frank M. Lombard, 42, was arrested last week at his home in Durham, North Carolina. During an Internet chat, Lombard allegedly offered the child to the person he was chatting with, who was a task force officer from Washington’s Metropolitan Police, the FBI said in a statement.

The chat was initiated after a confidential source facing child pornography charges told authorities they had witnessed a man, allegedly Lombard, performing sex acts on a child over the Internet.

During the chat, according to the complaint filed against Lombard, he told the officer that he had performed multiple sex acts on the boy and that the officer could do the same if he came to Durham.

According to a transcript of the chat, reprinted in the complaint, Lombard allegedly told the officer that he had to hide the abuse from his partner and that he drugged the child with allergy medication.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/30/duke.molestation.internet/index.html

I have known a number of sociopaths to pass themselves off simply as being gay.  Ask any gay friend or acquaintance how many “trysexuals” they know (“trysexuals” of course means what it sounds like, pansexuals who will try anything sexual).  Prepare to be stunned.

Judge tosses out mom’s convictions in MySpace hoax — Girl killed herself; ruling tentative

Lori Drew
Lori Drew
U.S. District Court Judge George Wu
U.S. District Court Judge George Wu

A federal judge yesterday tentatively threw out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide.

U.S. District Judge George Wu said he was acquitting Lori Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization, but he emphasized that the ruling was tentative until he issues it in writing. He noted the case of a judge who changed his mind after ruling.

. . .

Wu said he allowed the case to proceed to trial when Drew was charged with a felony, but she was convicted only of the misdemeanor, and that presented constitutional problems.

. . . .

Prosecutors said Drew sought to humiliate Megan by helping create a fictitious teen boy on the social networking site and sending flirtatious messages to the girl in his name. The fake boy then dumped Megan in a message saying the world would be better without her.

She hanged herself a short time later in October 2006 in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/03/judge-tosses-out-moms-convictions-myspace-hoax/

This story is very troubling.  “Murder by suicide,” I believe, is a great favorite of sociopaths — it’s a crime without consequence.  How did Lori Drew react to Megan’s death?  Was it, “Chortle, chortle, snort”?  I have no idea.

Judge Wu said the ruling was tentative and that he would have accepted a felony verdict.  What kind of nonsense is this?  The jury acted on good faith on the misdemeanor charge — why was it allowed in?  The great danger of sociopathic judges is not the outright corruption I’ve written about elsewhere in this blog, but rather, the siding with the co-sociopathic that appear before him or her.

Anthony Stancl accused of sick sex blackmail on Facebook

AN 18-year-old high school student is accused of posing as a girl on Facebook, tricking at least 31 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves and then blackmailing some for sex acts.

The incidents happened from spring 2007 through to November, when officers questioned Stancl about a bomb threat he allegedly sent to teachers and wrote about on a school’s bathroom wall. It resulted in the closing of New Berlin Eisenhower Middle and High School.

According to the criminal complaint, Stancl first contacted the students through the social networking site Facebook, pretending to be a girl named Kayla or Emily.

The boys reported they were tricked into sending nude photos or videos of themselves, the complaint said.

Thirty-one victims were identified and interviewed and more than half said the girl with whom they were communicating tried to get them to meet with a male friend to let him perform sex acts on them.

They were told that if they didn’t, she would send the nude photos or movies to their friends and post them on the Internet, according to the complaint. Stancl used the excuse to get the victims to perform repeated acts, the complaint said.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sex-fiends-facebook-blackmail/story-e6freuy9-1111118764973

Anthony Stancl
Anthony Stancl

Domination, bullying, arrogance, demonstrating his superiority — it has all the elements.  Blackmail seems to be a great favorite of sociopaths, another crime without consequence (usually).

Murder for ratings? Brazil cops suspect TV host

In one murder after another, the “Canal Livre” crime TV show had an uncanny knack for being first on the scene, gathering graphic footage of the victim.Too uncanny, say police, who are investigating the show’s host, state legislator Wallace Souza, on suspicion of commissioning at least five of the murders to boost his ratings and prove his claim that Brazil’s Amazon region is awash in violent crime. Police also have accused Souza of drug trafficking.

“The order to execute always came from the legislator and his son, who then alerted the TV crews to get to the scene before the police,” state police intelligence chief Thomaz Vasconcelos charged in an interview with The Associated Press.

The killings of competing drug traffickers, he said, “appear to have been committed to get rid of his rivals and increase the audience of the TV show.”

Souza denied all the criminal allegations and called them absurd, insisting that he and his son are being set up by political enemies and drug dealers sick of his two decades of relentless crime coverage on TV and crusading legislative probes.

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/world/2009/08/11/D9A0T31O1_lt_brazil_tv_killings/

Wallace Souza
Wallace Souza

Texas police shake down drivers, lawsuit claims

Police in the small East Texas town of Tenaha are accused of unjustly taking valuables from motorists.

TENAHA, Texas (CNN) — Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery.

The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.

But Daniels couldn’t go to the police to report the incident.

The men who stopped him were the police.

. . .

“To have law enforcement and the district attorney essentially be crooks, in my judgment, should infuriate and does infuriate everyone,” Whitmire said.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/05/texas.police.seizures/index.html

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The Talented Mr. Gerhartsreiter

Phony Rockefeller

Eyed in 1985 Case – Cops Say Suspect Is German Con Man

Multiple identities.

Claim of amnesia.

Repeatedly inspired confidence.

Ease of lying.

Full expectation that lies will be believed.

Unlimited nerve.

The complete chameleon.

A special report in the Boston Globe (by Levenson & Ellement) on Clark Rockefeller:  Detailed story

To the present:  Liane Leedom, over at Lovefraud Blog, asked readers to support Sandra Boss (Christian Gerhartsreiter’s ex-wife) in the blogs, particularly at the Boston Globe, http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2009/06/02/lovefraud-extra-lets-support-sandra-boss/#comment-38323.  Here’s my post (which includes my post in the Boston Globe):

OK, I posted a comment there. I strongly believe that psychopaths of his caliber are a danger to society, a danger society must be protected from. Involuntary commitment to mental hospitals should be applied to them, with different rules of evidence than required in legal proceedings (but that’s another subject). Anyway, the post:

“Clark Rockefeller” is the real mccoy, a psychopath in full expression, the equivalent of an alien masquerading as a human. Whoever finds the distinctions between his DNA and the norm would win a Nobel Prize.

Psychopathic conmen/bullies move in on their victims inexorably, like rust. His aim from the start was to undermine her personality, her self trust, her strength of character. That he was willing to spend years doing this, single mindedly, is one of the traits of psychopaths. That she lost her ability to defend herself is tragic (that she was able to gain it back, is to her great credit).

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U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent

Kent sentenced to 33 months behind bars

Congressional impeachment proceedings will likely begin today against U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent, who was sentenced to 33 months in prison Monday for lying to those investigating him for sexual misconduct.

[. . . . ]

I submit myself humbly to you,” Kent quietly told the Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in a chilly courtroom with more than 50 onlookers. “My sincere apologies to all concerned.”

Kent, who loudly proclaimed his innocence in court in the early days of this case, could not be fully heard in court Monday when he apologized for his crimes. He said he was “completely broken and in some ways a better person for it.”

[. . . . ]

The most emotional moments came when Kent’s two victims [. . . ] stood sometimes tearfully to ask Vinson that Kent be properly punished for using his power to manipulate and abuse them.

[. . . . ]

He said he hated bullies. How sad,” Wilkerson said. “He’s the biggest bully of them all.”

She said she believes Kent is “crazy” and she fears for her family’s safety.

[. . . . ]

His will, expressed or implied, was considered to be the equivalent of a decree,” [Judge] Vinson said of the perception of Kent in the Galveston federal courthouse.

Prosecutors said Kent, known for his wit and his willingness to berate attorneys and some criminal defendants, had created a “culture of fear” in Galveston, where he was the lone federal trial judge for about 17 years before being brought to Houston after a reprimand from the judicial council for sexual harassment.

Prosecutor Peter Ainsworth said this is an unusual case because of the repeated sexual assaults and devastating impact on the victims, and because of Kent’s repeated assaults on the justice system.

The Houston Chronicle: Kent sentenced to 33 months behind bars — Congressional impeachment proceedings likely to begin today

It is worth noting that an internal judiciary investigation of the same charges (in 2007) simply transferred him from Galveston, where he had been the sole federal judge for 17 years, to Houston.  There is a brief but friendly account of this investigation here, Will Judge Samuel Kent be Impeached?, in comment 4.  More to the culpable point: Fifth Circuit Covers Up Serious Judicial Misconduct

I would recommend investigating every member of that investigatory board — in my experience, sociopaths take care of their own.  I learned long ago, from sociopathic HR officers, that sociopaths have self knowledge and a group identity.

I wouldn’t describe this group feeling exactly as loyalty.  I would say that it’s more visceral than that, I believe sociopaths simply can’t stand to see one of their own brought down by a non-sociopath (similar to the proverbial “pain in the head”).

Further allegations of outrageous behavior:

Cathy McBroom, Kent’s former case manager, said he “bragged” about his ability to intimidate people. “He told me everyone was afraid of him.”

McBroom’s complaint began the case, which expanded when allegations from the judge’s secretary Donna Wilkerson were added.

McBroom said making the complaint had been “incredibly stressful” and led to the breakup of her marriage and the loss of her home. She said it forced her to give up what she considered her dream job and put her entire life under a public and legal microscope.

One would think I was the criminal,” said McBroom, 50.

[. . . .]

Kent, speaking softly as he stood before Vinson, described himself as “completely broken” and “in some ways a better person for that.”

The San
Francisco Chronicle: Federal judge in sex case gets nearly 3 years

Notice the transition from arrogant bullying and braggadocio, displayed not only during his judgeship in Galveston but also at the beginning of the trial, to abject begging.  In my experience, sociopaths are both shameless and prideless — whatever works is their credo.  Prideless begging is simply the manipulation he thinks the situation calls for (while bullying was the manipulation called for in other situations) — Kent is communicating nothing about his inner state or acceptance of blame.

Earlier post on Federal Judge Kent:

Items of interest, some recent,some not so, some that suggest possible sociopathy, some that scream it

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I’d like to look at the continuum from imprisoned failed sociopaths to SAPs (socially adept sociopaths).  Basically they are all adherents of the credo, ‘you call it cheating, I call it winning.’  The failed sociopaths have problems with the cheating part (i.e., getting caught), the SAPs can be phenomenal at it.

In my opinion across the spectrum they all have characteristics in common.  They are all like a child in a candy store.  Their wants are as big as their eyes, with the same childhood sense of entitlement.  They want everything they see.  A low level sociopath will simply reach out and start taking and end up in jail.  A SAP will be able to restrain this reaching until safe opportunities present themselves.  But the basic desires are identical. There is also a whole panoply of related arrested development characteristics.  In my opinion, all sociopaths are in a state of immature sexuality.  Essentially they never progress past childhood sex play, orgasms are simply thrown in.  Similarly, their personality, reasoning, moral, etc. development are also stunted.

Though they may not choose to do so, all sociopaths in my opinion see nothing intrinsically wrong with seducing a 13 year-old girl neighbor into prostitution, incest, “Dress Grey” raping of a straight or closeted gay buddy (i.e., individuals who would be unlikely to press charges due to the publicity), spreading AIDs with no concern, torturing a child in front of a parent, or a parent in front of a child, viewing others as tissue paper to be used and discarded, etc.  I believe this to be true no matter how well educated, well dressed or well spoken a sociopath may be.

What then separates the SAPs from the failed (and caught) sociopaths? I see the situation as being the balancing of two countervailing pressures.  One pressure, drive actually, is to reach out, take and dominate.  The other pressure is simply the need to get away with it, which has both internal and external aspects.  Failed sociopaths lack the internal resources to restrain themselves (apparently, some people, including many professional researchers, consider only these individuals to be true sociopaths — they couldn’t be more wrong).  Other sociopaths have the internal resources, but only if the external environment (i.e., the threat of some punishment) necessitates it.  The continuum is really a scale of talent at being hypocritical.  The advanced SAPs are simply magnificent hypocrites — able to bide their time, be patient, realistically assess their position in the food chain (the concept of the food chain is central to sociopath life stories), restrain their arrogance, desire for dominance and rudeness and wait for opportunities without consequence for indulging their sociopathic wants, etc.  Hypocrisy is simply their main lifetool, as swimming is the main lifetool for a fish.

It is always educational, when evaluating a possible sociopath, to note how the individual consistently behaves around those “lower in the food chain” — it can be quite amazing.  If a superior is a devotee, sadly they will often believe the sociopath and not their eyes.

Apparently, the current rage in the field is the argument over whether sociopathy is a normal-to-special-trait continuum (similar to tallness) or a present/not present trait (such as blue eyes).   It is the latter.  The only way that so-called scientists can make the former argument is that they have no idea of what they are talking about.  See the story of the five blind men and the elephant.  This is quite apparent from the amazing quote from J. Seabrook’s “Suffering Souls, the Search for the Roots of Psychopathy” in The New Yorker, “Unlike most academic psychopathy researchers, Kiehl has spent many hours in the company of his subjects. When he meets colleagues at conferences, he told me, “they always ask, ‘What are they like?’ These are guys who have spent twenty years studying psychopaths and never met one.” http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/081110fa_fact_seabrook

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Sometimes I get searches asking “Is sociopathy real?” Sometimes friends say, “You have the strangest interests.”  And sometimes I criticize scientists who I feel have emotionally straitjacketed themselves in the pursuit of their vision of science.  Also, I believe strongly that any individual is “allowed” to draw conclusions from their own experiences and life.  However, for those who believe only what comes with an “official imprimatur”, please check this out:

Research in the real world

Research in the real world

Psychopathy and the Law Symposium http://www.psychopathysociety.org/forms/sssp_law.pdf

Mind you, I’m not ceding that their approach is superior to mine.  I claim to understand sociopaths from an acting “motivation of the soul” level, which I believe is the deepest level of understanding.  However I’m delighted with any high profile, public forays into sociopathy.

It’s interesting to note that non-sociopathic actors can indeed play sociopaths, but sociopathic actors cannot play characters of any real psychological depth.  I recently caught portions of two sociopath movies, Catch Me If You Can and Training Day. Catch Me left me thinking that the writer had no real understanding of sociopathy, unless he was intentionally glorifying it.  The main character wasn’t written as a sociopath but more as a nice guy with strange talents.  Then I found out (just now) that it was written as an apparently autobiographical sketch by the main character (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464/).  Wow!

I thought Denzel Washington did a good job playing the corrupt cop, Alonzo (though a sociopath of that caliber would most likely have really “dead eyes” in my opinion — I don’t know if that would be playable).  Training Day is a true sociopathic study (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139654/).  Note that it features multiple socipathic characters, they do in fact run together, they are not all egotistical loners.  I should study both of these movies in depth.

It turns out that the Psychopathy and the Law Symposium, above, is simply a warm-up, a pre-conference workshop, for the following:
3rd Biannual Conference of The Society for Scientific Study of Psychopathy, April 16-18, http://www.psychopathysociety.org/forms/sssp_conference_2009.pdf

UPDATE

Over at Lovefraud Blog Liane Leedom, M.D.,  has three posts covering the above conference:

Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, meeting highlights: At-risk children

SSSP meeting highlights: The psychopath’s inability to love

SSSP meeting highlights: Psychopathy in women

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Judges Accused of Jailing Kids for Cash

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=7178686&page=1

Penn. Judges Get Kickbacks for Placing Youths in Privately Owned Jails

An unprecedented case of judicial corruption is unfolding in Pennsylvania. Several hundred families have filed a class-action lawsuit against two former judges who have pleaded guilty to taking bribes in return for placing youths in privately owned jails. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are said to have received $2.6 million for ensuring juvenile suspects were jailed in prisons operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care. Some of the youths were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. An estimated 5,000 juveniles have been sentenced by Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2002. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/17/penn_judges_plead_guilty_to_taking

At this point it’s hard to say whether either of the two judges are in fact sociopathic.  However it is a sociopathic characteristic to see others as pawns to be manipulated in one’s own interest.  Blighting or destroying young lives would be of no concern, at all, to sociopathic judges.  Sociopaths see us as cows to be milked, with no concern for our lives, let alone our emotions.

Obviously, not all evil, corrupt individuals are sociopathic.  However I believe sociopaths set the bar — whether we’re talking of wilding teens, Abu Ghraib torturers, criminal speculators or corrupt judges.  I do not believe one can understand evil and corruption without a knowledge of sociopathy (this is one of the main reasons I write this blog).  Non-sociopathic corrupt individuals still have a conscience, that acts as a drag on their actions similar to friction.  The example of the conscienceless sociopath is of great use to them and to a certain extent frees them from that drag in my opinion.

I would say that sociopathy is the wind in the sails of corruption, crime and evil.  (I have to apologize to my loyal readers who read every post, I will be repeating succinct but communicative phrases that I write or borrow, again and again.  It seems I have a number of accidental visitors with no real interest in sociopathy — if I can send them away with a phrase or two that sticks in their mind that would be good.  Of course it’s not like there are legions of such loyal readers, in fact, next time you are all in town, maybe I’ll take everyone to lunch.)

Back to judicial and judicial system misconduct I would encourage every accused individual to insist on a jury trial if possible (I don’t know if this applies to juvenile court).  This may be more important than legal representation.  Too often lawyers enter into the process of assembly line injustice, automatically plea bargaining, even if their client is innocent.

Last but not least, the jury pool should be educated to the possibilities of jury or grand jury nullification.  Juries, in effect, are the law, they don’t necessarily have to follow it.

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Fritzl, of course, is the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar and fathering a family with her (three of the children also imprisoned, three raised in the aboveground household), BBC. All incest fathers are vampire fathers, they truly are draining the child’s lifeforce, but this is absolutely the most extreme case in my memory.

The question here is whether Fritzl is a sociopath.  Roughly what I do is check facts and behavior against an informal checklist and then attempt to flesh out the individual and understand his motivations.  For those interested there are well-thought out formal checklists for sociopathy.   The linked Mask of Sanity lays out a checklist in Section III, Clinical Profile, pgs 337 – 366, or see the Table of Contents.  Robert Hare, author of Without Conscience, has a formal diagnostic one, which can be used informally by anybody, in my opinion — not to diagnose, but in an attempt to understand behavior.  This seems to be a reasonable overview: PCL Overview. His own site is www.hare.org.

Fritzl certainly appears to be a sociopath.  There is no internal prohibition against incest for sociopathic fathers at all. Non-sociopathic incest fathers need to overcome their conscience and a very severe prohibition against such acts.  For sociopathic incest fathers it is merely childhood sexplay, as is all their sex.  They are absolutely, totally unaware of any “soul effect” on the daughter (or often, the son).  The sociopathic sense of entitlement is absolute — check.  Urge to dominate — check.  Lying ability — check.  Telling his wife the imprisoned daughter had run away and joined a cult.  Explaining three foundlings to the authorities and his wife (the three infants he brought up from the cellar).  This ability to lie while appearing totally sincere, with complete eye contact with the target to be duped is one of the key sociopathic abilities.  Self confidence — check.  Arrogance — check.  Optimism — check.  No remorse or guilt — check.

I understand he’s been complaining that his wife hasn’t visited him.  Sociopaths don’t understand the “beyond the pale” aspect of their extreme behavior.  For them it’s not beyond the pale, it’s not extreme.  Presumably they believe all of us are capable of the same behavior or would behave the same if we thought we could get away with it.  So now he’s hurt and perplexed that his wife doesn’t visit.

It’s reported that the possibility that he also molested his 19 year old daughter/grand-daughter, Kerstin, is also being investigated.  (It was the hospitalization of Kerstin that exposed the whole situation.)  It would be shocking if he hadn’t.

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Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross-examines daughter at molest trial

A rabbi charged with molesting his daughter subjected her to hours of cringe-worthy cross-examination Tuesday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Israel Weingarten, 59, who chose to represent himself against charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, rambled on all afternoon as his daughter looked away, wiped tears and struggled to understand what he was asking.

“Do I have to answer?” the now-27-year-old asked Judge John Gleeson in a trembling voice before gathering the strength to shoot back when asked why she didn’t complain sooner.

“My feeling of your molesting me was at most fear and blackmail and years of torture,” she said, eyes widening as she wiped tears off her cheeks. “Fear because you hurt me because I told my mother. Didn’t I get hit enough?”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/03/2009-03-03_rabbi_israel_weingarten_crossexamines_da.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Israel+Weingarten

Father Charged With Murder, Rape, Incest Arraigned

Cass County prosecutors on Friday announced charges against a man for allegedly raping his teenage daughter and killing at least one of the babies.

Danial M. Rinehart, 47, was charged with one count of second-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, statutory rape, two counts of incest and two counts of abandonment of a corpse.

Authorities allege Rineha More..rt fathered four children with his then 13-year-old daughter. The girl is now 19. Only one of the girl’s children is alive — a 3-year-old who is now in custody of the state.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=113_1232832702

Possible sociopathic elements of the above stories

Depravity of both crimes and/or situation, though to sociopaths incest is the equivalent of the sex games of childhood, though with dominance and orgasms added.

Rabbi Weingarten representing himself.  Their ego seems to drive them to testify or even represent themselves in court and it seems they can’t imagine losing.  I would say their optimism is often pathological.

A strangeness in reasoning.  After his wife testifies of her discovery of the incest, Weingarten “complained to Judge John Gleeson that the translator misunderstood Faige’s answer about his father’s ailing health at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.  Gleeson was incredulous. “And you think that was the important part?” he shot back.”  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/05/2009-03-05_exwife_rabbi_israel_weingarten_halfnude_.html It seems that since the crime is of no real significance to them, they can’t sort out what’s truly significant or not.

Israel Weingarten is a rabbi.  The clergy, of all faiths, are an excellent hideout for those who excel at being wolves among sheep.

Danial Rinehart seemed to live as a drifter and freeloader.  His mother:  “Dolores Rinehart described her son as a drifter.  “They’ve been on the run. Dan’s run from Social Security — Dan’s run from everything,” she said. “He didn’t want to work.””

Reflections on incest

Incest varies from rape to seduction, usually closer to seduction.  It is after all using the human body to be close to another that one wants very much to be close to and using the body in ways that it is designed to be close to another.  In a way, the young women in these cases are better off due to the crude and obvious criminal nature of their fathers’ actions — the evil of the vampire father is obvious and the element of self betrayal is nearly absent.  The element of self betrayal and the horribly conflicted emotions are what cause such psychic damage in incest situations, in my opinion.  A father who portrays the seduction of his daughter(s) as being “one of those wrong things that people just do” can be even more damaging to a daughter’s psyche than an incest closer to rape.

The focus on preventing incest must rest on appealing to the fathers, in my opinion.  No daughter can resist a father so inclined, the situation is too close to the normal and healthy “family romance” or so I’ve heard from incest victims and reports from incest group therapy.  Furthermore, incest is not going to occur in a healthy family with a healthy marriage so relying on the mother to protect the daughters is problematical.  For example, an abused wife who cannot protect herself certainly cannot protect the daughter.  Or a woman in a long marriage to a sociopath has had her own personality degraded.  Or the incest occurs at the same point where the wife feels she may be losing her sexual allure.  If the father’s sexual charge from the incest rebounds in the marriage the wife may be even more reluctant to peer behind closed doors.  The “club-over-the-head” to prevent incest by both sociopathic and nonsociopathic fathers must be the fear of discovery and subsequent destruction of reputation of the fathers in my opinion.  Cases such as these should receive prominent coverage.

[March 13 edit] Father too close to daughter is one of the searches that found this post.  Basically I’d say believe the hairs at the back of your neck.  If a situation feels wrong, say the observed physical contact, it probably is.  A family is such an inviolable unit that it is very hard for an outsider to have much influence and a “doting parent” is considered fine and acceptable.

Assuming the search was written by a mother I’d suggest paying a lot of attention to nonverbal cues.  For example, before normal accompanied errands or ferrying the child back and forth from activities (particularly at night), do the child and the father show a heightened state of excitedness?  If you insert yourself in such a trip is there a sudden change in mood or sudden irritability?  The same question if you arrange for the child and father never to be alone?  Does the father become and stay angry?

If the situation is as you fear, do not enter into a situation of “living with craziness,” which is sadly too easy to allow to happen.  Both of the mothers in the above news stories did, though fortunately Faige Weingarten is supporting her daughter now.  A child only knows that they are entitled to their emotions if an adult mirrors them (read Alice Miller, http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_3_12?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=alice+miller+prisoners+of+childhood&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller).  The father has to be brought to justice to protect the child, even though this will mean destroying the facade of the  family (the family is actually already destroyed by the father’s actions).  Failure to do so will leave the child prey to evil manipulations throughout the child’s life.

Incest children (boys also, but most comments here are geared toward girls) grow up with an inability to judge trustworthiness in their relationships — both male and female relationships.  They’ll be taken advantage of over and over again, often by fake female friends.  Girls will sometimes go into prostitution — ‘Nothing wrong with my Dad.  See it’s just like shaking hands,’ and they will effectively Lucia di Lammermoor themselves (drive themselves insane by having sex against the wishes of the soul, effectively taking part in their own rape).  Or an incest victim/participant may go narcissistic — making the calculation that ‘If I didn’t have any emotions, I wouldn’t feel the shame’ and accept only the will and mind as being of the self, emotions then being split off as a manipulation from outside.

(Narcissism is a huge topic I should explore further.  In brief, rigid narcissism is frequently confused with sociopathy.  Both live in a universe of one, are incredibly selfish, have no concern for others’ feelings and can end relationships/marriages as though turning a page in a book.  However, narcissists actually have deep emotions and a soul, they just deny them — sociopaths have neither.  Narcissism is a deep psychological choice, sociopathy is genetically determined.)

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UBS Admits To Massive Tax Evasion Scheme

Banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $780 million and turn over once-secret Swiss banking records to settle allegations it conspired to defraud the U.S. government of taxes owed by big clients.

. . .  UBS executives helped U.S. taxpayers open new accounts in the names of sham entities.

Prosecutors contend that UBS executives used encrypted software and other counter-surveillance techniques to prevent anyone from detecting that they were actively marketing such Swiss bank secrecy — and tax evasion — to American taxpayers.

The clients, in turn, filed false tax returns that omitted the income they earned in their Swiss accounts, according to the court papers.

Federal officials said they had pulled aside a veil of secrecy that hid a corrupt international banking practice.

“This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect for the law,” said Alexander Acosta, U.S. attorney for southern Florida.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/blog/2009/02/ubs-admits-to-massive-tax-evasion.html

In 2006 and 2007 UBS was having everyone brush up on their “‘know your customer’ (KYC) skills and the identification of new trends in suspicious behavior” — even operations staff (on the computer side in my case).  We had to “undertake regular training courses, [. . .] in the form of on-line training” or compliance modules as they were called.  These had absolutely zero to do with our jobs, we never dealt with clients, let alone their money, so we used to call in banker friends to help us with the online tests.  (Above quotes from “Contributing to society, Preventing money laundering, corruption and terrorist financing,” http://www.ubs.com/1/e/about/corporate_responsibility/society/fighting_money_laundering.html.  OOPSIE, that page has been deleted!  OK, here’s another one:  http://www.ubs.com/1/e/polandcareers/ourcultureandvalues/corporate_responsibility/society/fighting_money_laundering.html.  Note that this page is under the heading, Our Culture and Values — one trait of the truly advanced, truly high ranking sociopathic mind is the depth and breadth of its hypocrisy.  Criticizing a sociopath for being hypocritical is like criticizing a fish for swimming — it’s simply their nature.)

It’s apparent now what the strategy was — window dressing.  UBS was putting on a big show of complying with anti-money laundering laws by having all firm personnel be trained in recognizing it — all the while carrying out that very thing through encrypted software and other counter-surveillance techniques (according to the U.S. DOJ).

Now what kind of mind would think a transparent ruse like this would accomplish anything?  Perhaps an arrogant, childish sociopathic mind.  Obviously not every crook is a sociopath.  However, in my opinion, sociopathy is the wind in the sails of evil and corruption.  The normally corrupt are forever fighting their consciences, following the conscienceless, the sociopaths, is a relief to them.

Unfortunately it seems UBS is still the same bank that accepted holocaust gold and sought to deprive the heirs of concentration camp victims their rightful funds.  As late as 1997 bank management thought they could order underlings to destroy Nazi-era banking records.  Fortunately, Christopher Meili, a security guard, turned them in.  (For more information:  “‘Nazi gold’ settlement mixed intangibles with money,” http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/views/y/1998/08/hirsch.nazigold.aug21/; Swiss Banks and World War II, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_Switzerland.)

Suggesting to a sociopathic banker that accepting gold collected from the teeth of concentration camp victims was wrong or the same to an athlete gaining the top of the podium through fraud would only convince the sociopath that the questioner was the one with the problem.  Their code:  you call it cheating, I call it winning.   If the point was to amass gold, the source, to a sociopath, would be utterly of no concern.

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No problem for a sociopath.  Consequences, cause and effect are far beyond the developmental stage of most sociopaths. Joe Jett of Kidder Peabody never thought the parade would end either.

Look at that “little boy lost” look.

Robert Kegan in “The Child Behind the Mask: Sociopathy as Developmental Delay.” In W. H. Reid, J.W. Bonner III, D. Dorr, and J.I. Walker (Eds.) Unmasking the Psychopath. (New York: W.W. Norton), 1986. (1986), p.  68:

The sociopath can sit still, inhibit immediate aims, defer gratification.  Indeed, if he did not have these abilities (which most latency-age children also have), people would not confuse him with an adult even with his adult-looking body (which most latency-age children do not have, and which has more to do with why latency-age children are not confused with adults than people realize).  [Kegan is saying I believe that it is the sociopath’s adult looking body that gets him into the door of adult life which he is actually unsuited for and absolutely untrustworthy in.]

A list of Kegan’s publications:  http://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty_research/profiles/publications.shtml?vperson_id=318

Earlier posts:

Bernie Madoff, probable sociopath, following in the footsteps of Charles Ponzi, definite sociopath

More Madoff — for sociopaths there is no such thing as an ingroup

Welcome to our sociopaths-gone-wild-economy

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