Lucas Smith is Back

Back in July, I helped expose Lucas Smith, the BS artist who was auctioning on eBay a supposed Kenyan birth certificate for Obama. Smith disappeared for a while, but reemerged in mid-August in a series of WorldNetDaily articles. Amusingly, WND has simultaneously run headlining articles publicizing Smith's claims alongside separate articles declaring that his claims are bogus. Thus, they position themselves to help spread lies and falsehoods while positioning themselves to be able to deny any responsibility for spreading those same lies and falsehoods.

Anyhow, after releasing a couple of incredibly poorly shot videos, Smith has submitted an unsworn declaration in Orly's latest case of Barnett v. Obama. It's not an affidavit, because it is neither sworn nor notarized, but it's a form of federal declaration that is given equal consideration to an affidavit.

So let's consider some of the things Smith as to say in this declaration:

1. My name is Lucas Daniel Smith. I am over 18 years old, am of sound mind and free of any mental disease or psychological impairment of any kind or condition.

2. I am a citizen of the United States of America, I am 29 years old and I was born and raised in the state of Iowa.

Given that Orly is involved with this declaration, it's not terribly surprising that its content is already odd. Including "born and raised" information in a declaration is terribly irrelevant to the subject at hand. On the other hand, not including any information about where Mr. Smith can presently be found is an atypical omission for a declaration of this type. The court, after all, has no clue who "Lucas Daniel Smith" is, or how to locate him.

4. On February 19, 2009 I visited the Coast General hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

In contrast to this claim in the declaration, back in late June/early July, Smith said "This spring I traveled through Kenya and it's capital Nairobi." Now instead of "this spring," he says he was in Kenya in February.

5. I visited the hospital accompanied by one more person, a natural born citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as “Zaire” and before independence as the “Belgian Congo”).

I see two things in this item worth noting, one questionable, and one just odd. The odd one is the inclusion of the political history of the Congo. Why that belongs in the declaration is beyond me; it's as relevant as the state of Smith's birth.

The other is the mention of Smith's associate, a "natural born citizen" (funny how that phrase makes it in) of the Congo. Based on previous postings by Smith, that person is "Andylenny." Here is a photo of Smith (left) and Andylenny (right):



I don't know the man, and I've never seen him in person, but "Andylenny," to me, looks hardly more like a Congolese citizen than I do. And I have five bucks that says the airport in that photo isn't even on the same continent as Kenya.

6. I traveled to Kenya and Mombasa in particular with the intent to obtain the original birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama, as I was told previously that it was on file in the hospital and under seal, due to the fact that the prime minister of Kenya Raela Odinga is Barack Hussein Obama's cousin.

A lot to unpack here:

First, there's the matter of Smith's intent. Here he claims he went to Kenya intending to get the birth certificate, having been told previously it was at a Mombasa hospital. Back in June, Smith said that he was in Kenya simply on travel, and that he first started hearing talk about a Kenyan birth certificate when he was already in Kenya.

Second, Smith says he was "told previously" that there was a birth certificate on file with the hospital. Back in June all he said that was he "delved and found" that a birth certificate was on file at the hospital. No substantive difference, but Smith's source both times remains unstated. If he learned it by calling the hospital or contacting the state, you think he'd say so. But given his subsequent claim that he had to pay off a military official to get at the physical document, why would the hospital or the state be so open on the phone? On the other hand, who else in Nairobi would even be able to tell him decisively that he should make a 200+ mile trip to Mombasa? And why is that information not relevant to share while the history of Congo's name-changes is?

Third, Smith repeats the outright lie that Obama and Odinga are cousins. Putting a proven false statement in a court declaration isn't very smart, and it certainly doesn't encourage the reader to trust all of his less-verifiable claims.

7. I had to pay a cash “consideration” to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while I obtained the copy of the birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.

8. The copy was signed by the hospital administrator.

9. The copy contain the embossed seal.

Kenya had a military officer in the hospital? In the records office? One that he simply slipped a few bucks, which not only allowed him to look at the records, or photograph them, but to walk away with a sealed document that was stamped and signed by the hospital administrator? Seriously?

Then there's the document itself:



There are some aspects of the document I find odd and curious (e.g., the lack of a birthday for Barack Sr.; the complete lack of a residence line for the father; ), but nothing that I can firmly state is hard evidence that it's a fake. But one feature stands out to me as the strongest evidence of fakery: the seal. Not only is it not a government seal for either Kenya or Mombasa, but it's terribly generic. It just says "SEAL" in the center, as though it was a bottom-level embossed sealmaker, bought from an office supplies dealer for about $25.

All in all, nothing totally concrete, but we have a combination of questionable and unsupported assertions along with some statements that are rather inconsistent with claims that Smith himself has previously made. Above I said that I'd put five bucks on the line that the photo of Smith and Andylenny wasn't taken in Kenya. I'd put another five bucks on the line to say that Smith hasn't so much as stepped foot in Kenya in 2009.

There's a Birther Suckered Every Minute

So after having his previous five auctions pulled, Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa posted a sixth eBay auction on the evening of July 2. I don't know if he'd seen this blog, but he'd definitely seen the fallout on FreeRepublic:

So now eBay removes my listing for selling a picture? That doesn't sound bizarre to anyone? And I read that people are finding information about Smith posted on the internet which supposedly discredits him? Smith is a scammer? Give me a break.

And now when we go to log into InspectorSmith's Youtube account our password is not recognized. All this for a scam, huh, a good laugh?

Just the other day I noted that I was thankful for freerepublic dot com. Reminds me of a bunch off lukewarm turncoats. Change your opinion every time that the wind blows in a different direction. Here's another quote, “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” - Alexander Hamilton. And what, what will be your opinion tomorrow? "O" was born in the USA? Make up your minds, have a little backbone.

I happened to stumble across the auction less than ten minutes after it was posted, and although I promptly reported it to eBay (with a link to my last post attached for good measure). Yet it's still there, four days later. And no, I'm not going to link to it.

At first, I wondered why eBay wasn't acting this time. Then I realized why: Lucas isn't breaking the rules this time. In fact, while I rather doubt this was his plan from the start, he's ended up engineering quite the ingenious little scam here.

Here's the relevant parts of the auction listing, stating exactly what the auction is for:

Autographed photo of Smith and Andylenny, abroad. In airport.



There won't be anymore eBay auctions for documents, stories or dissertations.

The photo in this listing is up for auction. On the left is Smith and on the right is Andylenny. This photo will be signed by Smith, as Smith. This will be the only autographed photo put up for auction. One auction, one winning bidder, one photo. No more. There wont be duplicate photos or other photos for auction later. (Though I might try a relist if eBay kicks this auction off before enough people have had the chance to see this photo.)

You are welcome to copy and paste, or save, the digital photo in this listing. This auction is not so much for $$$ gain. It's meant to give a face or two to the O proof story. If anyone comes forward with our O proof other than one of the two faces that you see in this auction then you'll know that it wasn't the proof offered in our five previous auctions. Also this picture will vouch for the credibility of the soon coming Youtube video. If you don't see one of the two faces that you see in this auction then you'll know that it's not our Youtube video.

For the record I want to state that this auction is for an autographed photo of Smith and Andylenny. Signed by Smith, as Smith. You are not bidding on anything other than that, there will be no accompanying documents. There will be no meeting at the Iowa Capitol Building. This is not an attempt to circumvent eBay policies.

This photo will be shipped USPS Priority Mail. It will be shipped free of charge (domestic addresses) to the winning bidder.

For this, Lucas's auction has so far received a total of 21 competitive bids, for a current high bid of $2,850.00. The starting bid was $100. And there are still over three days left.

He makes it abundantly, and repeatedly, clear that the auction is ONLY for the photo, and nothing else. He continues to talk the Birther talk, but still offers up nothing that actually backs up his previous claims. He doesn't even explicitly claim the photo is from his alleged trip to Kenya; it's just a photo of himself "abroad. In airport." Given what we know about Lucas Smith's history, and given the look of this photo and the other photos he previously posted, it's incredibly likely that this photo was taken in the Dominican Republic.

Yes, some gullible Birther is about to be the proud owner of a three thousand dollar Caribbean travel photo. Signed by some dude from Cedar Rapids.

The ingenious part of this is that after that transaction takes place, I'm not sure that Lucas Smith will have done anything actionable. He clearly states that he's auctioning a signed print of that photo. He, presumably, will deliver a signed print of that photo. This auction listing is not misleading or even ambiguous as to what's being offered for sale. The winning bidder simply isn't going to have anything to stand on if they complain to eBay; they bid for a photo, they won a photo. It's not eBay's fault or Lucas's fault that they were stupid enough to pay three grand for it.

I'm not even sure it's WorldNetDaily's fault, but they're definitely guilty of some willful journalistic ignorance on this. They've posted multiple stories on Lucas's auction, often burying mention of his failure to evidence his claims. And although they ran a front-page story on the appearance of this auction, they have run no stories about all the revelations that have come to light about Mr. Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The most positive explanation for this failure is that WND has just somehow failed to see those reports; the negative explanation, on the other hand, is that while WND led its readers down the rabbit hole of believing this guy's fiction, they're afraid to admit their mistake now. And so rather than cop to it and look foolish, they're playing silent and allowing readers to continue believing in this guy enough to pay him thousands.

Of course, this doesn't tell us anything new about WND's journalistic integrity. But I think it does show us just how much contempt WND truly has for its own trusting readers. It could save some gullible reader a lot of financial pain by running a simple correction and apology; but while Joseph Farah is willing to pay ten grand for Obama birth witnesses, it seems that eating a little crow is more than he can afford.

Now of course, maybe the bidders aren't being serious either, and have no intention of paying. I'm not sure if we'll ever know the answer to that. But even then the great irony will be that they will be the ones violating eBay policy in this particular auction, not Lucas. He may be a crook and a liar, but doggone it if at the end of the day he hasn't managed to con the Birthers without actually promising anything he can't deliver. If it wasn't for the fact that he made it so easy to track down his real identity, I'd almost suspect he was a decent conman.

colmado_naranja Revealed

As previously reported, WorldNetDaily has been feverishly covering the eBay seller colmado_naranja, and his auctions for the alleged Obama Kenyan Birth Certificate that he claims to have in his possession. There have been plenty of twists in this story, almost entirely on the part of colmado_naranja's own representations, but there's one 'twist' that I'm compelled to cover, and cover immediately.

Here is the latest auction, now reduced to simply auctioning off signed photographs. In it, colmado_naranja ndicates that he intends to upload a video to his YouTube account, InspectorSmith, and posts several photos of himself:

   

One enterprising Free Republic poster put that name and photo together with the seller's apparent home of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and stumbled across this photo:



That's a CBS Photo of the Day, from a year ago. The caption reads "Lucas Smith rides his bike through the water after checking up on his flooded house in the southwestern area of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Friday June 13, 2008." It looks an awful lot like colmado_naranja, doesn't it? And it's not an understatement that he has an interesting Wikipedia page. References to "Colmado Scarlette" and a Smith-penned book about the Bush Administration?

So "colmado_naranja" is apparently Lucas Smith, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Another quick round of Googling promptly turns up thisstory from the Syracuse Post Standard:

Jim Jr. was born with one kidney. It kept him going for the first 18 years of his life. He rarely missed school, and even felt fine the day a school nurse took his blood pressure and realized something was wrong. Go see a doctor, she told him. Right away...

Jim Jr. was put on the national kidney transplant list in November 2001, five months after doctors diagnosed him with end stage renal disease...

In late 2002, a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, sent an e-mail to the family. The man, who called himself Lucas Smith, said he was 23 years old and had emigrated from Russia five years earlier. He had seen the Web site and, Smith said, he wanted to help.

The Wilsons stopped searching for a donor. Smith passed all of the medical, physical and psychological tests. They thought he was going to save their son's life.

Then, on May 3, 2003, Smith sent Jim Wilson Sr. an e-mail saying he wanted to be compensated for donating his kidney.

Wilson said they would pay his airfare, but because it was illegal to receive money for an organ donation, they wouldn't give him any other cash.

Five months after holding out a lifeline, Lucas Smith disappeared.

Jim Wilson Sr. called the Cedar Rapids police.

Yes, at least one Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa has previously attempted to extort money for a valuable commodity in his possession, only to never deliver on it. Maybe it's the same Lucas Smith of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Maybe not.

Bravo, Joseph Farah, for putting this story and this attempt at con-artistry in the limelight. Bravo.

Update (7/3): Another FreeRepublic poster ran Mr. Smith's name through the archives of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and unsurprisingly, Lucas Smith has a criminal history. Most notably, in 2000 he pled guilty to passing several bad checks after opening a bank account with false information, and in 1998 he received a deferred judgment on a charge of forgery.