1
From: Timothy T Schwartz, 7/31/2017, 4:05 pm. EST.
This document contains point by point response to a demand for retraction made ostensibly by
Athena Kolbe’s lawyer.
I begin with the introductory letter f rom Patricia A Stam/er, the lawyer:
Bradley J. Schrom
Howard Herl2
Victor M. Norris
Rooer1 1>. Geller
Sieve J. Weiss ‘
Woller J. PiSZCLOIOwski
Jeffrey A. Robbins ‘
Kcnnclh r. Silver
Richard H. Schl~s
Gerold P. Covellier
Michclel J. Rex
• Eva T. Canlcrello
Lisa M. Kovolhuno ‘
s 1even P. Jen<ins
Polric:io A. Slomler
Alexander Slollond ‘
Lisa o. Siem
Elizabeth C. Thomson
GoryM. Remer·
Lourie 5. Raab
Doniel W. Rucker
Jon M. Colvert
Joseph A. llellanco
MOllhew J. Turchyn
Delio A. Miller
Fallon YOldo
Amcrique Pliilyow
Dear Dr. Schwartz:
HERTZSCHRAMPC
www.herlzschrorn.com
p,mmle1@hem…-l1r.1n1.con1
July 24, 2017
VIA U.S. MAIL & EMAIL:
schwaitz833@yahoo.com
timotuck@gmail.com
•)0rlh:
(man c.orlor~
1160 s. felegropr Rd
Suite 30C
Bloomfield Hills. Ml 4830.:
ph: 248.335.500C
fox: 248.335.334<‘:
downlown
Chrysler t louse
719 Griswold SI.
Suilo 820 12E
DelrOil. Ml 4822(:
ph: 313.438.5001
fox: 313A38.5002
Of Counse
Richard S. Vic i~
Judge Edward Sosnick ,~ET I
1 >,tio Me-nbe, oi ~to t. o.c. f’Of!
:A~~~,to,uffu.!~
‘Aho C P;. ono ll ,~ ir r,, ,011U1
‘ lo iQM(rnt)vr c,t(.)h,o~
I have been retained by Dr. Athena Kolbe lo address the numerous defamatory statements
contained in your book entitled The Great Haiti Humanitarian Aid Swindle, recently published by
CreatcSpace Independent Publishing (an Amazon.com company) and distributed in e-book form
by Amazon Digita l Services LLC and in hard copy form by Amazon.com, Inc.
It is astonishing that you wrote and then published a book replete with egregious
defamatory content. The various libelous statements are addressed as they appear in your
publication. I J,avc a,motated the relevant portions of your book, enclosed herein. The numbers
below correspond to the numbers I have placed next to scans of your publ ication in the enclosed
annex.
2
In the text below, I have cut and pasted the Lawyer/Kolbe’s commentary and then, in italicized
script, I respond to the points. But first I begin with a summary overview of my opinion
regarding their accusations
Summary Overview
In attempting to expedite an understanding of this conflict I would like to begin by pointing out
that 90% or more of Kolbe’s points have nothing to do with defamation and should not concern
a court. Here is the logic,
First, there are many issues revolving around academic debate. One academic trying to punish
another academic for engaging in a debate over the merits of data and methodologies and
questionable findings has no place in the courts.
Second, there are extensive complaints from Kolbe that I did not accurately recount her personal
history. I’m of the opinion that this is irrelevant as well. My logic is that Athena Kolbe, also
known as Lyn Duff, is a public personality. She claims to have been on Orpah Winfrey twice, to
have been the inspiration for a movie, she’s in books, there are Wikipedia entries for both
Duff/Kolbe personalities. She has a conspicuous online presence as both Lyn Duff and Athena
Kolbe. She is a public person and appears to have made a concerted effort since early
adolescence to be so. I built my profile of her based mostly on those online accounts accessible
to me and the average internet user. I also built it on actually knowing and talking to her. In
effect, I tried to confirm her accounts with what I found online. I’m careful to cite the sources– if
not in the main text then in the footnotes– and to point out the difference between what she
told me and what came from online sources. And I don’t think I in any way malign her in
recounting her biography, particularly her early history. The only negative point I make is that I
couldn’t find any credible online sources to corroborate details. And I couldn’t. And that seems
rather suspicious. And given what has been published and what I discovered about her more
recent past, I argue that I’m justified in being suspicious. She has responded to that with an
extensive list of publications and public appearances she made as an adolescent. If that’s the
case, if she is such a high profile personality and its widely public, that makes my
characterization of her early years based on the available online sources I found irrelevant.
Moreover, her early history is a very minor point, not a major part of the presentation.
Third, Kolbe is especially adamant that I have provided inaccurate accounts of a political
controversy in Haiti at which she was at the center. This occurred when she was a young adult.
But once again, I got all significant information about that controversy and her role from
published accounts available online, all of which are duly referenced. She appears to be seeking
grievance against me for all the accusations that were launched at her during what was a highly
explosive political issue, one the then president of Haiti publicly commented in the Miami Herald
and accused Duff/Kolbe of hiding her identity, falsifying data in favor of his political opponent.
In effect, I do not believe that anyone can hold me accountable for recounting the controversy.
3
Finally, the main issue seems to me to be about a school she has launched in Haiti and her
behavior in recruiting students for that school and in stifling any criticism from students. She
claims it is a “University.” In the book I wrote—that contains chapters Kolbe is demanding I
retract– I document how the school has no approval from the state, nor license, how she
implied and represented it as an internationally recognized degree granting program, how
students have accused her of extorting them, creating false internet accounts and fictitious
administrators, one a family of a US consulate official who threatened to prevent student who
opposed her from ever obtaining visas to the US. And yes, this “may” indeed be “criminal”
behavior. It seems to me that this is the crux of the issue and I would encourage whoever reads
this to take the accusations with the utmost seriousness. We are talking about lower income
youth in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. They earnestly believe, and provided
me with overwhelming evidence that they were duped and conned, misled to believe they were
attending an international accredited University for which many worked for free
(“scholarships”) in hopes of getting internationally recognized diplomas. Data on the
“University” web sites and given to me by US graduate students who came to help teach at the
University corroborate the claims, as does Kolbes plea online for support for “scholarships.”
This is no small matter. Many of these students feel cheated out of precious and scarce tuition
money and they feel cheated out of years of their youth. Some of them studied, paid and
worked scholarships for three years before they realized they were attending a bogus
institution. In seeking to redress their grievances, they were unable to get assistance or support
from the essentially inert post-earthquake Haitian legal system, nor from US Embassy or Kolbe’s
Alma Mater, the University of Michigan. The only hope they have stop the type of exploitation
they believe Kolbe and people like her are carrying out in Haiti is to tell their story. And so they
did tell their story, to me. And they brought me abundant and overwhelming evidence that their
story is accurate and correct, including emails messages. And as mentioned, it is corroborated
by online claims from the School, from Kolbe herself, as well as my own personal experiences
working with the school at its inception. All is carefully documented in the book, additional
detail is provided below, and additional documentation can and will be provided if and when
necessary.
I would also encourage whoever reads this to first consult the original manuscript, a chapter
written largely about Athena Kolbe. The chapter is better organized and better referenced than
the current document. It will inform the reader of the primary issues discussed in this document.
(note that in the chapter all references, emails, and other are in the endnotes)
One final point here, regarding Kolbe’s “University” in Haiti and misleading students: in addition
to email correspondences, letters and webpages—most of which are referenced in the book–
we can provide abundant signed statements from students and staff regarding actions Kolbe
took, threats, sources of emails, probable invention of a consulate official who did not exist, a
school official who did not exist….. And while we cannot bring the students to Michigan or
Florida or wherever– as most do not have visas– there are currently 4 former School
4
administrators/associates, all fluent in English, who have visas, and who have expressed interest
in testifying to the accuracy of accounts in the book and points made above regarding Kolbe.
Kolbe reports in the referenced publication that she was Wayne State graduate student when
she undertook the study. If she was no longer a student of Wayne State University when she
published in 2006 that seems an insignificant point. It does not impugn her reputation one way
or the other. And the mistake on dates is reasonable.
The explanation and data are in the chapter. And I’m not really saying it. I’m only reporting on
the controversy. It was major controversy. There is a published letter from a former President of
Haiti condemning Kolbe and Hutsons’ study, declaring it discredited. Have you asked him for a
retraction? He and other people of notable reputation and stature—good and bad, depending
on your politics– called the study bogus, part of a well financed Artistide campaign… And I fail
to see what this has to do with defamation. These are academic and political issues that have
nothing to do with defamation. Indeed, attempts to put these points into a claim for defamation
quite an insult to freedom of speech, frivolous, indicates a very poor understanding of obvious
rights or, at best, and attempt to SLAP. A waste of my time and that of any legal authority who
might see this.
Once again this is part of the controversy I was recounting. It was all over the press. The plaintiff
was a practicing activist- journalist under one name and then started publishing on the same
political issues but as a scholar and under a different name. The suggestion to many observers—
Chapter 8 – The Rape Epidemic
I. You incorrectly state that Hin 2006 Wayne State University graduate student Athena
Kolbe .. . ” . Dr. Kolbe was not a graduate student when this was published. At this
point in ti rue she had already completed her second Ma.stcr’s Degree.
2. You baselessly claim Dr. Kolbe’s ‘”findings were radically bjased in favor o[
Aristide:· This is not accurate. The findings in thjs study were :10t biased in favor
or against former President Jean Be1trand Aristide or his supporters. ln fact, as you
know, the study did not measure any violence or human rights violations which
took place during President Aristide’s tenure, but began after he was deposed in
2004.
3. Here you make one of many false assertions that Dr. Kolbe changed her name. Dr.
Kolbe did not change her name to Athena Kolbe. This was the name given to her
at birth and it appears on her birth certificate.
5
including the president of Haiti– was that she was attempting to fraudulently influence Haitian
politics. References are in the chapter. I can send you many more if you’re interested. Or you
could just do an internet search. And once again these are academic issues. I fail to see how
reporting on the controversy had anything to do with defamation.
One more time, that was the controversy. She was being accused of just that, manipulating
data, lying…. Even the president of Haiti was weighing in on it. Just take 30 seconds and Google
it. And indeed, it is all highly suggestive that indeed made up data. But at this point in the text
I’m impartial about it. I’m only reporting on the controversy. Where these issues become
important to me, or where I add new data is at the later part of the chapter when I discuss her
school. For that I report claims from the students, claims from the school website, emails… The
relationship between these earlier controversies and what I write about later is that we see this
apparent pattern of deceit and exploitation of social media repeated over and over with
additional studies, data and articles she went on to publish.
I never said she was a criminal. What I say is that the evidence suggests that she may have
engaged in criminal behavior. That possibly includes making up data, but I certainly includes
knowingly misleading Haitian students into thinking they were getting an internationally
accredited education, inventing administrators and facebook pages to intimidate the students,
fabricating emails and information from the US Embassy. All this is well documented and we are
confident that we have the forensic digital evidence. It will be provided when legally required.
Across the top of the academic article is written “University of Michigan/Small Arms Study. And
once again, I fail to see what this has to do with defamation. This is nitpicking. It’s academic.
4. Dr. Kolbe has not l ied about, manipulated, or exaggerated data, nor is she •’inclined”
to do so. Your accusation is baseless.
5. Dr. Kolbe is not now a11d never has been a criminal. She has never been arrested or
charged with a crime and she has not committed any crime:s. These :slatements are
defamalion, per se.
6. Dr. Kolbe has never conducted a research study or been affiliated with a project
titled “The University of Michigan Survey.”
7. Again, you falsely state that Dr. Kolbe changed her name to Athena Koibe. See /./3
above.
6
Well, I’m not sure what hairs are being spliced here. She in fact told me that she did change her
name. I don’t know if it’s true, but she told me she legally changed her name. But that’s not the
point here. Once again, I’m reporting a widely published controversy. I’m getting data from the
internet and articles. Did everyone who published on this issue have to retract their statements?
Did she prove to them and publish a declaration and evidence that she had not changed her
name? If so, I did not find that online, not in newspaper articles or even interviews with her. And
the bottom line here, she was using two different names. She was not just publishing as a
journalist under the name Lyn Duff, and then became a scholar as Athena Kolbe. But we’re not
talking simply pen name. Prior to 2006 everyone in Haiti—including President Aristide—knew
her as Lyn Duff. That was her personal name. But then she became Athena Kolbe, the scholar.
And she did not declare different name. She changed her name in her personal life as well… So it
appears that for a while she was actually trying to be two people. Can a person have two
names? I don’t know if that’s legal, but it’s certainly suggestive of deception. My 11 year old
can figure that out. And there is no evidence that is public, online, that she had ever used the
name Athena Kolbe prior to the mentioned and highly controversial study.
Once again, this is an academic issue. Are you guys threatening to sue me for making an
academic argument or defamation? I’m trying to imagine scholars suing one another for
making academic arguments. It would be the end of the academy. But I do find it interesting
and telling that the writer is trying use this venue to squelch any criticism at all of anything
negative that has been said or written about her. This is clearly about much more than
accusation of defamation and these types of attacks/defenses seem to me powerful
corroboration of the behavior I describe in the book.
8. You wrongly claim that the “only evidence>’ of a “true rape epidemic” was
produced by Dr. Kolbe. This is not true. Her research was not the only evidence of
high numbers of sexual assaults after the 2004 coup. You know that you previously
discussed with Dr. Kolbe that evidence of high rates of assault was also found by
others, both before and after the study you reference by Drs. Kolbe and Hutson.
Their study was published in the Lancet in 2006. Other evidence for an increase in
sexual assaults came from journalists, the United Nations, international
organizalions, in peer-reviewed academic journal articles by scholarly researchers
(both Haitian a11d foreign), and the Haitian government.
7
Ditto. Google it. Kolbe herself talks about how she got death threats, dead rat in the mail.
Hutson got a fake bomb. The president of Haiti was complaining in the press about her… All
this is documented in the chapter. And really, it’s very hard to take this sort of points seriously.
She was very much ensconced in politics. She had been close to the deposed president. She is
quoted talking about it. I quote her in chapter. She went on Pacifica radio half a dozen times
with highly charged political reports about attacks on the press, death squads, campaigns of
political rape. All this is well documented. Whether or not Kolbe/deliberately engaged in
manipulation of data for political reasons, I can’t and don’t say for sure. What I say is that it
sure looked like it. And plenty of other people thought so. And once again, these are academic
issues and political commentary that should have nothing to do with defamation.
Kolbe and Hutson did a study of rapes over 22 months between 2004 and 2006. I did the math
and turned those calculations into annual indices of rapes per 100,000 population. It’s math and
it’s a normal thing to do. I did that so that I could compare for the reader the rates she and
Hutson came up with for Port-au-Prince to international rates to show how absurdly high those
rates were. They were higher than the highest rates in the world. I’m rather surprised the writer
doesn’t get that or see why that would be useful. In any case, once again, these points are
academic and seem to me to have nothing to do with defamation.
9. You continue your false presentation of Dr. Kolbe by claiming 1hat she is or was
‘”ensconced in local politics.” Although she does vote in local elections in ~he
United States, Dr. Kolbe is not now and never has been i11volved or ”ensconced” in
local poliLics, eiLher in Haiti or at home.
10. Ors. Kolbe and Huston have never conducted a survey which asked about rapes
only committed in 2004 nor wl11ch tound that :.w percent of respondents had been
raped in both 2004 and another year. Drs. Kolbe and Hutson have never coauthored
a research study which disaggregates rapes by year. Your statements are
false.
8
“Deceptively”? Is that the correct word? This is very good point and it really does not have
anything to do with the data. It has to do with the history of rape in Haiti, US government
subsidies to rape victims that created an inclination for potential beneficiaries to lie about being
raped. I devote a great deal of attention to this issue and it has nothing to with Kolbe and
Hutson or defamation. Read the chapters. It’s all in there. All well documented.
As for the rest of the complaint (second paragraph), I never said they forced anyone to respond
questions. That’s an odd thing for the writer to claim. Seems to me there is some kind of
misreading of the text. I did however go on to point out that it was dangerous and not in the
interest of victims to ask them about rape and who raped them when in fact, as the authors
claim, many had been raped by authorities or paramilitaries who were still in power. This is a
painfully obvious point. To conduct a major survey like this, going into neighborhoods and
interviewing victims while their assailants govern them puts those people in danger. I do surveys
for academics and aid organizations all the time, some of those surveys are on crime and I know
that most academics are sensitive to the safety of respondents and ta that it would be
considered egregiously unethical to put them in this kind of danger. I’ve also discussed this very
issue and what Kolbe and Hutson did and it’s appalling. In fact, it was the Haiti director of a
major NGO who first brought the to my attention. She was aghast that they had done this. But
once again, its very difficult for me to see what this has to do with defamation.
This is yet another rather insignificant point that seems to me has nothing to do with
defamation. But to clarify anyway, there were nine people listed as authors. Eight of them are
associated with Universities. Kolbe was a PhD candidate. That leaves seven. Puccio too was a
11. You deceptive ly state th c. t there is a ·’huge questio n” over Ur. Kolbe’s data that you
fo rth er daim she and Dr. Hutson ·’and everyone else” ignored. You then d escribe a
common form of potentj a\ bias in survey research related to reliance on respondent
rcpo11. As Drs. Kolbe and Bulson pointed ou t in their paper, relying on respondent
rl:port is a lways a limitatio n of any survey. wh ic h is we ll kn own in acade mi a.
Contrary to your statement tha t the potential bi as of rcs pomknt report was igno red,
it was clearly di sc ussed by Drs. Kolbe and H ut so n as a l imitati on in the aiticle about
this survey t hat you cited. Drs. Ko lbe and Hutson did not force responrlcnts to
prov ide evidence of th e sexual assalilt they reported. This is standard, as was their
discuss ion ofrespondcnt report as a li mitation . While :h is may be a “huge 4uestion”
1c you, it is not something that Ors. Kolbe and Hutson have ignored, nor is this fo rm
of potenti al bias in survey research something that scholars would consider reason
tu summarily dismiss findings of a research study, us you have advocated .
12. You wrongly write that Dr. Kolbe and “s ix oth:.:r University [sic] professors” w ho
worked on the 2010 post-quake study were professors . Dr . Kolbe was not a
professo r at the t ime and not everyone w ho worked on this project was a pro fesso r,
uur Jiu they claim to be.
9
PhD Candidate. That leaves 6. If all six are not professors, then ok, it’s not perfect. But
interestingly, on the article there is a listing of all 8 authors, all have Universities associated with
their names, suggesting that the intention was to imply to unwary reader that they were in fact
professors, thereby raising the esteem of the authorship. Below is the author ship listed at the
head of the article.
Athena R Kolbe (University of Michigan), Robert Muggah (Small Arms Survey), Royce A. Hutson (Wayne
State University), Leah James (University of Michigan), Marie Puccio (University of Michigan), Elieen
Trzcinski (Wayne State University), Harry Shannon (McMaster University), Naomi Levitz (Wayne State
University), Roger Jean Noel (MABO Children’s Home, Bon Repos)
The only one who speaks Creole is Roger Noel. He’s Haitian. To my knowledge he has not
education beyond highschool, if that. He was responsible for the incoherent questionnaire I
discuss elsewhere. As for Kolbe’s Creole competence, I just assumed she spoke Creole. She
claimed to have been working in Haiti since 1994. She spent 3.5 years at an orphanage. But she
rarely spoke Creole in front of me or anyone else I know and when she did it was was short, like
ordering food. She teaches in English with a translator… The first time I realized she was
functionally incapable of speaking the language was when she was talking to a maid. That was
sometime in 2012. She could not intelligibly pronounce nor string a sentence together. The maid
had no idea what she was talking about… In any case, this is an insignificant point. If it needs
confirmation, students and faculty from her supposed University corroborate this. I can supply
signed statements from them. We were all somewhat puzzled by it.
And to be exact, this is what I say about her Creole capacity at the time,
To be exact, Duff/Kolbe, speaks no French, a smattering of Kreyol and she understands
even less than she speaks. I would estimate her Kreyol at the linguistic capacity of a 3-
year-old, an observation corroborated by the many students I know who have worked
with her and by Glen Smucker, another U.S. Ph.D. fluent in Kreyol who was baffled by
how she has accomplished so much in Haiti while so linguistically limited. Indeed, I was
rather stunned to learn this myself when I first met her. This is a person, a scholar no
less, who has been working and intermittently lived in Haiti for 27 years. Yet, she is not
functional in the common language. Nor does she make any pretense otherwise. She
uses translators with her students and she does not participate in teaching Kreyol to
foreigners in the courses she offers. Indeed, to my knowledge Duff/Kolbe has never made
an effort to systematically learn Kreyol or French. (page 453)
13. You inacc urately wr ite that none o f t hose researchers, other than presumab ly D r.
Ko lbe, had –any p 1for exp e rien ce s tudy in g or re searching JJa it i.” Thi s is not true.
10
I have absolutely no recollection of any of this. I would like to see the documentation. If it did
occur, I was not the one to apply the test. I could not know whether Kolbe took years of French
instruction unless she provided documentation. I certainly did not test her. As I mentioned, I
would come to learn through interacting with her, seeing and listening to her interact with
Haitians that she was functionally not capable of communicating at a level above that of a 3
year old. And in my opinion, yes, that means you do not speak the language. Once again, this
came as surprise to me because I assumed she was fluent based on her claimed and reported
experience in the country, supposedly working and living there intermittently since 1994. It is
also a source of ongoing consternation for those Haitians who have to deal with her. So if I ever
14. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe docs not speak French or Creole. However, this is
not lrue, and you have previously affirmed that Dr. Kolbe is fluent in Haitian Creole
and you have previously stated that you are unable to assess her French language
skills.
On November 3, 2011. you completed an external language assessment of Dr.
Kolbc’s written, spoken, and oral comprehension skills in Haitian Creole. You did
this for the Social Science Research Counsel as pan of her application for a
graduate fellowship. On this signed form, you identified yourself as “Timothy T.
Schwartz, PhD – schwartz833@yahoo.com … Anthropology Fellow at Museo de
Hombre. Dominican RepLtblic.” You then go on to describe your experience in
Haitian Creole and to state that you are qualified to assess Dr. Kolbe’s language
skills in Haitian Creole. On this form , you certified that Dr. Kolbe was “highly
proficient” in Haitian CreoJe.
On this form. you forther stated that although Dr. Kolbe had provided evidence of
four yeaJs of French instruction and has “intermediate” fluency according to a
written onlinc French language examination, that y OLL, Timothy Schwartz, are
unable to assess Dr. Kolbe’s Ftcnch language skills because you do not speak
or understand the l<“rench lan guage.
In March 2012, you completed a similar language evaluation for another fellowship
where you stated that Dr. Kolbe has professional working fluency in Haitian Creole.
ln your attached letter for this evaluation you stated that Dr. Kolbe has a “working
knowledge” of “French (reading)” and ” inlermediate” “French (oral
comprehension)” skills.
Fmther, in a skype conversation with a third person doing research in Haiti, in June
2012. you stated that Dr. Ko lhe is “surprisingly fluent” in Creole and that though
she would not be able to do simultaneous tTanslation for this this third person, you
said Dr. Kolbe “speak[s] enough [Creole] to help [th.is person] get [their work] done: ‘
11
said that she was “surprisingly fluent” I was “surprisingly mistaken.” And regarding her literacy,
she was totally illiterate in Creole, as attested by the experience with the WFP questionnaire. It
was one of the early flags regarding her patterns of deception. She had sent surveyors out to do
5,000 interviews with an incoherent questionnaire. Elsewhere in these pages she admits that
happened but she says it was questionnaire that had mistakenly gotten into a pile. How an
incoherent questionnaire gets reprinted hundreds of times and given to surveyors who are then
sent to the field, I don’t know. Does not seem plausible. I think she’s tripped herself up on that
one. And again, with all the supposed time and experience in Haiti and given that she is an
academic, she should have mastered the language long ago. I can provide ample testimony
from Haitian students and US graduate students.
I don’t know where this comes from. At the outset of the chapter it states very clearly that she
claimed to have lived on and off in the orphanage for 3.5 years. If somewhere it says “12 years”
it’s a typo. Here’s what I say in the very first paragraph of the chapter,
While working on creating the radio station, Duff lived in a Port-au-Prince orphanage
owned by then President Jean Bertrand Aristide, newly returned from exile. Duff would
live in the orphanage and help with the children for the next three and a half years.
(page 237)
This is another academic point that should have nothing to do with defamation. I painstakingly
document the history of rape accusations in the book. And regarding Kolbe, she had made
similar “findings” as far back as 2006. She had also published about it as a journalist under the
name of Lyn Duff.
15. Dr. Kolbe did not ”live wilh orplmns” for 12 years in Haili. She worked with street
children, not orphans, and that was only for the first ~hree years that she was in
1 Tai ti.
16. Here you wrongly claim that Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues “jumped on the rape
bandwagon”. However, looking at. the dates of the research studies in question, this
is not possible. The study to which you were referring was conducted, but not
published, bafore the reports of sex ual assault were publicized. Dr. Kolbe and her
colleagues independently found the same thing that journalists and other
researchers also found.
12
I did not say they did not conduct it. I said they may never have conducted it. And I give a lot of
very good reasons to believe they may not have. Including the impossibility of conducting a
survey in 2 weeks time, six weeks after the Haiti earthquake, when some 20% of the respondent
were not even in Haiti, and some 50% were in the countryside or encampments. Yes, very
suspicious. I can provide correspondence from Columbia University Professor and recognized
world authority on disasters who also finds it suspicious. And the results were absurd. This is all
in the chapter and documented. And ultimately, I never said they did not conduct the survey.
And elsewhere I say very clearly that they may simply be accepting data from surveyors who did
not do their jobs. I say this in several places. And I point this out in endnotes. And Kolbe herself
told me that one of the people who hired her for the survey had incidentally caught a surveyor
filling out questionnaires in a tent, alone, with a beer in his hand. They were not even trying to
catch him. What would have happened if they checked on the others? And I know from having
worked with Kolbe that in at least one major WFP survey they had done 5,000 surveys with an
incoherent questionnaire mentioned earlier. I had just been hired. Her survey supervisor left
with a team and several hundred questionnaires. I pulled one out of the box after he left and
was appalled to see that it made absolutely no sense in Creole. It would not even have been a
good first draft. Someone barely literate had tried to write a questionnaire. Again, this is after
they had conducted 5,000 surveys. Kolbe could provide no explanation She was embarrassed.
We recalled the team that had left—they did not want to come back. Meanwhile, I took the
survey instrument home and spent the night fixing it with my team. That in itself suggested they
had never done the survey. And I know from her survey employees that she has never vetted or
checked on data. No follow up. I could go one and on. If we go to full disclosure I can almost
certainly supply statements from surveyors to this effect, including those who helped me correct
the mentioned survey questionnaire. But in the end, it should not be necessary because the
findings from the data make no sense (I detail that in the chapter), and, I did not state factually
that she lied or invented those surveys, but that she may have and that the data and
impossibility of the logistics suggest so.
17. You false ly clajm that Dr. Kolhe and her colleagues did hot conduct the survey that
they conducted. This is a lie. The study was fielded and the find ings analyzed and
reported, as has been described by authors in numerous reports. Hard copy and
electronic files of all completed study instruments are on file with the University,
should this matter be litigated.
13
Once again, I did the math and turned the rate they estimated in the 6 weeks after the
earthquake into an annual rate. If I did not do that, the rate has no reference, it’s just a number.
But turning it into an annual rate allows us to compare it to rates all over the world. We can
understand just what it means to us, just how bad was it. That’s defamatory? I would add that,
once again, these are academic issues. To my knowledge no scholar ever has or ever would or
ever could sue another scholar because they called into questions their findings and
methodologies.
I could offer an extensive response to this but it simply has nothing to do with defamation. I can
not imagine a court caring about our survey methodologies.
Academic and amply documented.
18. Herc you mischaracterize the study you seek lo cnt1c1ze. Dr. Kolbe and her
colleagues conducted a study of a six-week period, during which there was crisis
and displacement. This is not the same as doing a national study to estimate an
annual rate of sexual assault, which is what you arc inaccurately claiming by saying
that Dr. Kolbe and colleagues estimated ”7% of al I women annually” were raped.
This study by Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues is not one which can be used lo calculate
national annual rates of any particular crime nor should it be used lo do so. Their
study was geographically limited to the areas they surveyed and did not include a
population sample which was nationally representative. Your statements are a gross
mischaracterization of their research fi ndings.
19. In this section, you misstate both the sh 1dy rnethodology and lielding. The study
methods and fielding procedures were d early explained in various repo1is which
you lrnve cited and used e lsewhere. Your misrepresentation here, in an attempt to
bolster your argument, can only be see:, as intentionally di shonest.
20. You wrongly accuse Dr. Kolbe of reporting “suspicious” research findings.
Hovvever, it is false to claim Dr. Kolbe’s findings are suspicious.
14
Amply documented and a reasonable inference given the school she founded and controlled has
no recognition, implies on the website that it is international, that “someone” at the school
invented people who apparently do not exist , overwhelming evidence for all this, including
emails, internet statements, accusations from Haitian and US students, accusations from her
staff.. See the chapter and below notes
This is academic argument, not defamation. And no, there is no evidence that there were
250,000 street children in Port-au-Prince, not now and not in the 1990s. The figure is probably
closer to 10,000. Nor was “Dr Kolbe” a doctor at the time. Nor was she a recognized expert in
statistics on street children. And really, “Dr. Kolbe” is going to sue me for taking issue with her
claim that there were 250,000 street children.
That’s what I gleaned from conversations with her and from her online biographies and
Wikipedia (which in these pages and accusations she admits to be aware of and hence should be
accurate). It’s documented. And I hardly see what this has to do with defamation.
Chapter 9 – ·’Politics of Data: Tbe Pretender”
21. The chapter title uses the tenn “The Pretender.” The chapter is about Dr. Kolbe. Tt
is false to state she is a ”pre~encler.”
?.2. The insertion of the word “sic” into the quote falsely implies tha1 Dr. Kolbe was
wrong about the number of street children, the fact that she was working with
child:en, or the fact that the chi ldren were homeless. There is nothing in the quote
that is inaccurate or a mistake.
23. You erroneously state that Dr. Kolbe left Haiti in 1997 and did not return until 2004.
This is not accurate.
24. Dr. Kolbe has never claimed to be a “war correspondent.” Tliis, u::; wdl as other
info rmation in your book, was taken from a Wikipedia article that she did not author
and :u r which she is not responsible. In this instance, and others, you present the
material from Wikipedia as if they were statements made by Dr. Kolbe and then
attempt to refute the statements while accusing her oflying about such information.
15
Whether through her own efforts—as I suggest in the chapter — or others, Duff and Kolbe both
are very public figures. She makes that case in this document. As Lyn Duff she claims to have
been on Oprah Winfrey twice, that she was the inspiration for a movie. And one only need
google her to see that she has a highly public profile. But even without that, I explain that I got
the information from Wikipedia. And I know from conversations that she’s aware of the
Wikipedia and edits it. And she admits so in her accusations. So, if claims of not being a front
line war correspondent were false, why didn’ she edit them out? Moreover, her presences on
Wikipedia as both Kolbe and Duff and Wikipedia’s refusal, as she claims, to take the entries
down, are more evidence for her being a public personality. In any case, I never say they’re false
or true. I say they are indeed suspicious. And the reason I say that is because there are no online
articles of her having written about anything in any of those places….
I got this from conversation with her and from online accounts. That’s when she went to Wayne
State. She and internet accounts put her in Haiti from 1994 to 1997. Between 1997 and 2004
she was traveling and in Israel half time. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say she moved to
Michigan fulltime in 2004. But this seems a trivial issue.
ln this instance, again. Dr. Kolbe has never claimed to be a “war correspondent.”
As you know, Dr. Kolbe worked for an international news wire service and covered
social issues, typically those related to children and youth. Wh_ile she did work in
some areas where there had been wars, reporting on war has never been in her title
nor has it been the focus of her work.
Additionally, Dr. Kolbe never worked “on the front lines” in Croatia, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Vietnam. She reported on lraq and Afghanistan before 9/1 1 and
her reporting focused 011 youth culture. education. food security, and gender issues.
The reporting she did in Croatia was about economic development, not war. Her
reporting from the Middle East. during times when there were activities occurring
which could be construed as war. focused on rel igion. culture. and youth issues,
whi le her reporting on lraq and Afghanistan post 9/11 was all on social and
economic jssucs, not war.
Dr. Kolbc’s reporting in Vietnam was on child labor, ethnic minority children and
youth, and migration, not on war. Dr. Kolbe was born in 1976, ten months after the
Vietnam \Var ended, so she was not alive, much less working as a journalist, during
the Vietnam War. She has never claimed to be a “war correspondent,” much less a
war correspondent 111 the particular countries mentioned.
25. You state that Dr. Kolbe moved to Michigan in 2004. This is not accurate.
16
Regarding Lyn Duff enrolling in Wayne State under the name Kolbe, this is what I gleaned from
highly published controversy. And she published her academic work under Kolbe. If I got this
wrong, I think it’s a fair mistake. That’s what was being stated in online sources. There is even
interviews with her to this effect.
Regarding my claim that she had never used the hyphenated name Duff-Kolbe, I did not check
her social security card or school enrollment records. I doubt I could get to them. And I think
having to do so would be an undue burden on a researcher. And in the very public controversy
over her having two identities, Duff preceded Kolbe. And moreover, Duff and Kolbe are both very
public figures. As mentioned, and as she claims in these pages, as Duff, she was on television
talk shows, an inspiration for a movie, and she was a highly published journalist, so I searched
the internet exhaustively for the name Lyn Duff-Kolbe, Kolbe-Duff and found nothing that
appeared to be here. And in her defense during published interviews—when accused of
changing her name– did she specify that he only used the name on SS card and licenses and as
school enrollment. She said that had been her name, the one she used before becoming a
journalist. So my assumption was that if this highly public figure left no online trace of having
ever used a hyphenated name, then she wasn’t using it. I might have been technically wrong,
but I was being as truthful as I could be, and given her high public profile, it’s a reasonable
mistake. Indeed, publicly and professionally it’s true. Professionally she had never used the
26. You state that Dr. Kolbe “enrolled under the name, not of Lyn Duff, bul of Athena
Kolbe.” This is not accurate.
Dr. Kolbe’s academic records from high school and undergraduate university years
use the name ·’Athena Lyn Duff-Kolbe” in her official records and transcript, as did
her social security card, dri ver’s license, and school identification cards.
Though she had a DBA (“doing business as”) declaration with the IRS stating that
she worked as a journalist publishing under the name ·’Lyn Duff,” Dr. Kolbe’s
academic records clearly used both of her parent’s last names and her fu ll first name
on the records. For personal reasons umelated to politi1,;s or research or Haiti, in the
late 1990s, Dr. Kolbe decided to drop her mother’s surname, Duff, from her
hyphenalcd last name. She did this legally and openly. During a period of transition,
all uC her identification listed both of her parents’ surnames and the amendment
page of her passport listed her «also known as” name as “Athena Lyn Duff-Kolbe.”
When applying for graduale school (for all three of the graduate schools she
attended and graduated from) Dr. Kolbe, of course, informed the universities of her
hyphenaled name. They were also aware because it was the name used on her
undergraduate records und was still the name listed on her social security card.
There is nothing dubious or suspicious about Dr. Kolbe’s actions.
17
hyphenated name. So, her claim that it was a perfectly natural for her to use one name while
operating as an activist-journalist and at the same time publish explosive academic and highly
political charged survey finding is dubious, indeed, very suspicious. One does not have to be a
journalist to see that. But to make matters worse, we’re talking about a woman trained in
journalism. She didn’t know that something was wrong with what she was doing? Hmm. Look,
I’m not the only one to be appalled by this. As mentioned earlier on, this was a major
controversy in Haiti. Under her new name, Kolbe managed to publish highly explosive political
data on Haiti, data that could have and seemed target to encourage US military intervention,
data demonstrating that Lyn Duff was right, and she published it in one of the world’s most
prestigious medical Journals (Then British Lancet). Once again, we had the Haitian president
weighing in on the controversy.
Once again, yes, many reasons to suspect her use of two names. But just the same, it’s a highly
public controversy that I was recounting. If repeating the details—with references in the
endnotes– makes me guilty of defamation, you should sue the former president of Haiti and all
the academics and political commentators who weighed in on the controversy.
27. You present lhe use of Dr. Kol hc ·s given name as something that was done with
malicious intent. While it is true that she continued to publish using her mother’s
maiden name, this is standard practice in journalism. Once a journalist establishes
themselves as a wr itet using a particular byline:, it is ill-advised to change that byline
even if the wri ter gets married, divorced, or otherwise begins to nse a different name
in his/lier personal life. However. Dr. Kolbe compiied with both the spirit and the
teltcr of the law by info rming her employers, university. and the IRS (as well as her
friends) of her fu ll name. This was not secret, as you imply, nor was it un
a published aulhor to continue using their original byl ine. Indeed, Dr. Kolbe
media accounts still include her byline as an “also known as” name. She t
hidden this.
18
Part of the above was missing from notes, but I glean from the latter part that the point is that
the Kolbe and Hutson study was not biased and that because I imply that it was I’m guilt of
defamation. Once again, we’re talking about a major and highly public controversy. I cover it in
detail in the chapter. Yes, as an academic, a specialist in statistical methods and in Haiti, and
despite that fact that I was sympathetic to the Aristide regime, I find conclusions from the
survey absurd. I simply do not believe them. But I did not say that in the text. I recounted the
controversy and the logic of why so many other people did not believe them, especially everyone
who was against the Aristide regime. I explain and document this in the chapter. And I don’t
need to be a lawyer to know that this has absolutely nothing to do with defamation. These were
highly public issues that were played out in the press.
See above.
grnup or a nother. This, by the way, was the focus of a publicly available master’s
thesis using Lhis data set which was provided to you in 20 11 by Dr. Kolbe.
However, you have cl1osen not to reference that information here becau se it does
not support your false narrative. This second piece did what the Lancet paper did
not: it looked at what groups of peop le were most likely to be victims of violence
and crime. Dr. Kolbe is co-authored on a conference presentation (as are two of the
other professors you criticize) where the presentation examined targeted violence
and specifically illustrated, statistically, that the violence was nol one-sided. Dr.
Kolbe and her colleagues have never claimed or posited that violence was onesided
and your assertions to the contrary are false.
33. You pose two Lnaccurate hypothetical reascns why a person’s name might differ
from his/her reporter byline. l\either orthese suppositions are accurate explanations
of what occurred. You are :ully aware of the accurate basis for the difference
between Dr. Kolbe’:-; byline and her name because you personally discussed it with
her.
34. J: is emirely fa lse to claim that Dr. Kolbe concealed her identity.
35. You wrongly clain-, that Dr. Kolbe “concealed her identity’· because she was
fhrcflt~nerl with rleA.1 h by British people involved in a conspiracy. This is not
accurate and does not reflect the events as they were reported at the time. ·1 ‘he death
threat:; and h.arassrnent happened afLer the study was published, nearly a year after
the research was completed . There’s no relationship between Dr. Kulbe’s dmice
regarding her name and 1.he later ceath threat. In fact, she never assumed that she
would receive a death threat and was surprised when it happened.
19
I do not say I got that Scotland Yard information from Emmesberg Article. I got that from Kolbe
herself in a conversation. And all that is recounted in the Emmesberg article which is coming
from Kolbe/Duff herself—getting ‘outed’ by a British intellectual, claims of death threats from
British voice, dead rat in the mail, fake bomb in the mail—all that supports Kolbe/Duff having
told me that Scotland Yard was involved. If all that happened, wouldn’t Scotland Yard/police in
Britain have gotten involved? Again, I’m saying Kolbe said that. And given all that she said in
publication, I don’t see why anyone would doubt she said it. And I say in the text, that it’s her
side of the story. I was only trying to give as full an account of the claims and accusations as
possible given the information from published accounts from Kolbe and that I had gotten from
Kolbe herself during interviews. But whether this minor point about Scotland Yard it’s true or is
irrelevant. There is nothing about Scotland Yard that adds or detracts from the story or that
negative impacts Duff/Kolbe. I certainly don’t see how it relates to defamation. What’s relevant
is that Duff/Kolbe accused a British National of revealing her location online, she claimed that a
British voice called and subsequently threatened her, that she got a dead rat in the mail… Those
are the relevant points. And yes, it was all rather suspicious. And yes, it sounds like a British
conspiracy, does it not. It was also highly public and highly published account.
This is academic. And yes, they did. They said that she should have made her double identity
public…..
Really? I’m a critic and I know who reviewed the data and it was Kolbe’s colleague. And I am not
The only Haitianist. I have colleagues, many of them. We discuss these things…. And yes,
everyone I discussed it with finds it an appalling conflict of interest that a colleague of Kolbe at
36. Your summary of the Ernmcsbcrg article is inaccurate in :-nyriad ways:
a) There is no mention anywhere in the article of Scotland Yard, disposable
cell phones or a British ex-con;
h) Dr. Kolbe never cl.aimed there was some British conspiracy; and
c) You fa lsely state that Dr. Kolbe said Scotland Yard “dropped the issue.”
l his is false. Dr. Kolbe never claimed this and she never made any
statements about Scotland Yard in the article.
3 7. The lancer never seated that Dr. Kolbe concealed her identity or concluded that she
‘·should not have concealed a double identity.”
38. You falsely write “critics noted that tt1e person who reviewed the data.” You fo il rn
ident ify such critics, becallse none exist.
20
Wayne State would have been asked to review and judge her data in a situation a serious as her
being accused of contriving the data to infer with Haitian politics. I’m a little shocked that the
person who wrote the comment doesn’t see the logic. And I did not pull this out of thin air, who
reviewed the data is published. See the endnotes. Also, this is once again academic. I don’t see
how it relates to defamation.
Don’t see the point. Trzcinski—the one who had reviewed the data back in 2006-07 came back
to Haiti in 2011-12 and worked with Kolbe, publishing articles based on data gathered during
her surveys…. It’s referenced.
I got these accounts from Kolbe herself. She claims that Wayne State denied her all the credits
had earned working toward her PhD and pushed her out. If it’s not true, I’m not surprised. I
admit that I should have taken more care believing anything Kolbe/Duff told me. But in view of
the highly public and well documented controversy, it seems reasonable to believe. I may also
have some references for this. If we go to court I’ll check. For now I don’t see this as a major
39. You falsely claim that Dr. Trzcinski “joined” Dr. Kolbe ‘•mining the data” to get
publications needed for tenure. However, at the time Dr. Kolbe worked with Dr.
Trzcinski. in 2007, Dr. Trzcinski had been tenured since the 1990s.
40. You falsely stale lhal Wayne State administrators “were not ;;o forgiving.” This is
not true. First, there was nothing to fo rgive. Second, Dr. Kolbe was honored for
her research in Jlaiti at graduation. incl udi11g being c1warded the Ellen Z”verling
thesis award, an annual award for the best thesis in the ~choo;.
41. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe v.-as :erminated from her Ph!J program and “sent
off with a master’s degree.” T:1ere is 11u lrulJJ tu this. Wayne State University
(WSU) did not have a PhD program at the time that Dr. Kolbe was completing her
MSW. The cloctoral program at WSU’s School of Social Work did not stmt until
1hc year after Dr. Kolbe g1athiale,L fh. Kolbe wa~ never a matriculated student in
WSU’s social work PhD program, though she did take a few classes in the doctoral
program during the year she was preparing to start a PhD at the University of
Michigan. Dr. Kolbe was offered a piace in tl1e WSU PhD program in 2008 but
opted to attend the University of Michigan instead.
Dr. Kolbe has never been expelled or forced out from any program.
f urthcrmorc, she was not ” sent off ‘ after she fin isl1ed her MSW. lnstead, the dean
created a paid research assistant position for lJr. Kolbe, so that she could stay and
assist professors with research at WSU for another two years. She left that position
voluntarily, two years Inter. Dr. Kolbe was never fired or expelled.
21
point, especially in view of the overwhelming about of evidence that together supports a pattern
of deceit.
I have no idea what this is a reference to. I’ve never heard of HURIDOCS. But if it’s a reference
to ethics, what I do know is that you should be careful asking perfect strangers questions that
could be traumatic, should not ask children questions about sex or trauma without a carefully
controlled environment. And I do know that you should avoid the endangering the lives of
respondents. Those are standard ethics that all researchers are a ware of and share. Most of us
don’t need a standardized anything to know that. It’s human compassion, consideration for
others.
As for the Kolbe’s enumerators, yes, some have come to work with me. That’s in part how I was
able to verify things like Kolbe not being present on any surveys, never having vetted data…..
But to characterize them has ‘field much of my research’ is a misrepresentation.
This is academic debate. But I have almost no doubt that if we call up the editor of the Lancet
and asked him/her he would not agree that it’s ok to knock on doors in developing countries and
ask perfect strangers about rape, ask their kids about rape, and to do this when a substantial
proportion of the accused rapists are suspected to be none other than the governing authorities,
I might add authorities that the survey designer (Kolbe) had, under the name of Lyn Duff,
already accused of engaging in intense campaign of rape and murder. Did I miss something
there. Does HURIDOC say that’s ok. Does the writer not understand the gravity this?
42. Yot1 falsely characterize the use or HURIDOCS, u standardized reporting system
for hu,rnm rights violations and crime. This tool is a typical tool used for a
household crime and human rights surveys, both in the US and in developing
countries. This is the same process you have used to obtain household level data.
You used the same methocls that yoLl are criticizing J1ere. Since 2011, you have
been hiring some of Dr. Kolbe’s euutueraturs to fielJ rn ud1 ol’y11ur research.
43 . Because the research process was standard practice, the Lance/ editors, and those
they had peer review tl1e paper, correctly had no issue with the data collection
orocess.
44. You state that Drs. Kolbe and 1-lutson’ s point was that “the governme111 was doing
thi s.” Though you claim they say or arg–1ed this, they did not. Fl11ther, that was not
their poin t. As bolh Ors. Kolbe and Hutson stated in interv iews at the time, and is
evident in their article. they were more interested in what the United Nations was
doing in its interactions with IIaitian citizens, not the govenunent.
22
Their data was radically in favor of the Aristide government. They found that not single Aristide
partisan or former government authority had raped or killed. All the reports were on the current
government. Does Kolbe and Hutson think that would not be interpreted as unfavorable to the
government. This is another hairsplitting academic point that has nothing to do with
defamation. And it wasn’t even me who accused Kolbe and Hutson. I’m recounting a massive
debate that played out in the press, the internet, and academic forums. The writer would like to
suppress my right to recount the argument and add my own insights? We are not in a
repressive third world country here. This is the US. You, know, Democracy, freedom of speech,
right to debate, academic freedom. I find this really frightening.
Perhaps the writer does not know how things work developing countries. Social networks are
very dense. Strangers come into an urban Haitian neighborhood, go door to door asking
questions about rape… it’s not only not going to be a secret, it’s going to be a major topic of
conversations. And remember, we’re talking about a moment in time when Kolbe/Duff was
claiming the authorities were engaged in a massive campaign of repressions. The writer thinks
this is all ok? Are we on the same planet here? And I do not see this explanation about privacy
and an option for meeting elsewhere in the article.
I don’t have to accuse them of anything they provide all the data to make the conclusion. See
response to # 43. But once again, these are academic issues and debates about ethics. I fail to
see how they have anything to do with defamation….
I did not say that. I don’t know if they got consent. I would hope so. But what I said was that
there is no mention anywhere in the article about Ethical Review by Haitians or any Haitian
academic institution… Imagine French, Russians or Chinese coming to the US and going into
45. You falsely characterize how Lhe re;;earch occurred; that “everyone in the
neighborhood would have known,” etc. However, that is not accurate. The authors
gave people tbe option of meeting with them p rivately [hr the study interview This
was stated at the lime. in interviews and in the article.
46. You falsely stated that Or. Kolbe and her co-author did not follow ethical guidelines
from the World Health Organizati::m (WHO). WHO gives multista5e interviews as
one option, but as you knov,:, this :s Mt the only option available to collect data on
sensi Live Lu pies. ln fact, i l is apparent from your own work that you do not al ways
do multistage intervievv·s. The Wayne State “Un iversity’s Institutional l~eview Roard
({RB) did the ethics re view of Lbl: proposed study, and decided that one time contact
was the cest option to minimize risk, including the risk of psychological distress,
to study pait icipants” Ors” Kolb~ am! 1-hitson followed the WSU IRB’s guiJarn:.;e
which was clone in accordance wi1h WHO’s guidance.
4 7. You falsely state that Dr. Kolbe and her co-author did not comply with the informed
consent process.
23
our neighborhoods and asking about rape, violence, government repression…. Without asking
even an academic if the questions and methods were ethically acceptable.
Repeat of #45
It’s not stated in the version I have.
48. You falsely state that Dr. Kolbe and her co-autbor did not give people the option of
being interviewed in private places and away from their home, when in fact they
did this and th is is renorted in lhe arricle
49. You fa lsely claim 1ha1 Ors Kolhe 11nct Hurson did nol follow ethical guidelines by
i nterviewing people under the age of l 7. However, as clearly stated in the article,
no one under the age ol 18 was interviewed.
50. You falsely assert that Dr. Kolbe and her co-author did not seek approval or advice
from anyone before conducting the research. Actually, the study protocols and
instrument were reviewed by eight academi_c researchers external to Wayne St.ate
University (WSU) attcl four within WSU. ll was also reviewed by the WSU
l nstitutional Review Board (liill) and by the staff person at the school of social
work who served as the liaison to the TRB.
In addition, in Haiti, the research protocols and instrnment vvere reviewed by four
rescar chcrs/expe1is, two of whom wrote letters with comments and suggestions.
Drs. Kolbe and HLttson voluntarily went through a further review process by tbe
Hai tian govenunent and secured written permission from the Haitian government
(led by PM Latortue at the time) to conduct this research. Dlliing t his rev iev.·
process, they were fully i nformcd of Dr. Kolbe’ s previo1.1s work in Haiti as a
journalist and discussed their concerns about how to guard agaimt potential
respondent bias in the data collection process. The Haitian government also
requested that Drs. Kolbe and Hutson add a few survey questions, which they did.
The;; Haitian government provided Dr. Hutson with a letter authorizing him and Dr.
Kolbe to field the study arid later requested copies of the data and preliminary
findings, whjch they provided.
During tl1c smvey translation and back t ranslation process Drs . Kolbe and Hutson
consulted with academics who focus on Haitian Creole language, including one who
authored one of the largest dictionaries of the Haitian Creole language, and they
devoted more than a month to testing and perfecting the translation of the survey so
that it accurately represented the questions they wanted to ask and the HURJDOCS
classification categories lor human rLghts violations.
24
That’s not how it works and Kolbe and Hutson know that. First, nowhere in the article does it
mention ethical review. Second of all, just because the president says you can do a survey does
not give you the right to ask any question you want and to endanger lives. If Donald Trump says
I can do a survey, does that mean I get to ask children anything I want? Also, a very interesting
aside is that the President of Haiti, like so many who have come in contact with Kolbe, would
come to feel tricked and deceived. Thirdly, Ethical Review does not mean chatting up a few of
your friends and colleagues. Thirdly, since when does Wayne State University professors have
the ethical authority to approve research in Haiti. Would they approve of that in the US? Would
it be ok for a University in PYongYang, North Korea to approve the ethics of research in the US?
Kolbe especially knows the demands that academics are asking of ethical review because she’s
tried to force it on others in Haiti. We have some interesting documentation on that. She used
one of the people she invented to push it on Haitian and US students. But once again, these are
ethical and academic arguments. I fail to see how they relate to defamation.
See above
Again, nowhere in the article does it say this. But plenty of references to details about children
being raped.
It’s not a factual statement. It’s an opinion supported by the logic mentioned above. As a
professional and an experienced expert in surveys, I doubt this one was ever conducted.
51 . Yom statemenl is false. On page 2 of the Lancet article, it states “This study was
approved by the Wayne State Uni versily Human Investigations Committee.” The
Wayne State University Tluman Investigations Committee is the approved
insli lulio11al review board approving Lhe ethical conduct of research for faculty,
staff, and students at WSU. This information is readily available on the internet.
52. Again. you falsely state that children were interviewed, when they were not. As
the art icle states. “The survey was administered to wh ichever adult household
member present had had the most Jecent birthday.” (emphasis added) An adult is a
person over the age of 18.
53 . You fa lsely claim that it’ s “highly unli kely” that Dr. Kolbe and her co-author
fielded the survey. Dr. Kolbe and he1 co-aulhor did lhe survey. 1f lhis matter is
litigated, the Universjty has paper copies of all of the survey instruments as well as
all elt:cLrnnic (i]es associated with the j ata in storage.
25
Interesting that you would say the statement is false. As if you are all seeing and all knowing. I
give an extensive argument in the chapter on rape about how “epidemic” rape accusations got
started during the early 1990s with the embargo against Haiti. Women seeking visas
increasingly claimed they had been raped because of the politics of their husbands. It was also
used as a political propaganda tool. After the embargo, the US gave millions in subsidies to
alleged rape victims. Women who could come up with two witness that attested to their having
been raped got stipends, free education for their children…. All this is carefully documented in
the book. It went on for some 6 years. When they cut the stipends off in 1998 or so some 14,000
women, supposed ‘viktim’, marched through the streets with signs demanding their stipends,
“long live money for vikitm.”. It all happened again in 2004…. And that’s why there would be an
inclination for people to say someone in the family was raped when they were not. And this is
what we saw once again after the earthquake. Guess you didn’t read the book.
Well, that should be for the reader to decide. I’m of the opinion that the evidence is
overwhelming.
I did not say that she is a fraud. I said that she may be. And based on the evidence in the book,
much of it from her and from her survey findings, sure looks like it. But again, that’s for the
reader to decide. She could write her own book.
I said that she may have invented data or that she may have simply accepted bad data.
54. Your statement is false. One li tuilatiun of survey research is that people are less
likely to disclose being sexually assaulted during a face-to-face interview; there’s
no eviuence lhuL peo11le are likely to falsely state they have been raped. In the
article, Ors. Kolbe and Hutson acknowledge this, noting that they probably
undcrcuunLed the number of sexuaJ assaults because some people might n.ot want
to tell a strn nger that they were raped.
55. The terms “cJedibiliLy gap” and “suspect l1istory” about Dr. Kolbe arc utterly false.
She dues nol have a ”credibility gap” or a “suspec1 hi story.”
56. You falsely claim Dr. Kolbe is an “academic fraudster.” Dr. Kolbe has never
committed acadern ic fraud or any fraud.
57. You falsely state that Dr. Kolbe invented data. This did not occur.
26
I dealt with this earlier. And no, Kolbe only uses Haitians with below University education. I
know of not a single educated academic collaborator. Of the two I know that she has copublished
with, one might not have finished high school (he’s the one who wrote the incoherent
questionnaire) and the other I suspect Kolbe invented because we can find no trace of his
existence and he has the same surname of the woman that we many students believe that
Kolbe did invent, Balistra.
I did not say she invented it. I said she could have. Anyone could put up a Wikipedia page about
themselves. Some people do. As for claiming that vandalized the site, I don’t understand why on
earth I would do something like that. It would get me nothing or nowhere. Also, that’s an
accusation that qualifies as defamation or slander, i.e. being a factual statement that you know
that whoever tried to take down your Wikipedia page did so from my IP address. I am 100%
certain that’s not true. Also, this appears to be and admission that Kolbe knew about the pages
and the content. So why didn’t she edit out the part that she claims is not true? Moreover, I just
contacted Wikipedia and the only reason they would not take down the page would be because
she is such a public personality. And so I would say that, what we are looking at is a consensus
of public knowledge about Duff and Kolbe, and hence I am in my right to use the source …
That’s what Kolbe told me. There is also reference to this on online bios so I assumed it was her
story. Seems a reasonable conclusion. But when I checked on the online ACLU page, there was
no reference to such a case having ever occurred. So, I concluded that it did not occur. In the
big sweep of things here, given the recurrent patterns of deception on the part of Kolbe, I don’t
see this as a major issue.
58. You fa lsely assert that ”not a single one” of the people Dr. Kolbe collaborated with
had ever been io Haiti or spoke Haitian Creole. These statementc:; Are nntrue. For
instance, you collaborated with Dr. Kolbe, and you claim to speak Haitian Creole.
Many of the people Dr. Kolbe collaborated willLi: ;ht: mt:! in Haili. Some are Haitian.
Some ai-e foreigners. Many speak Creole and/or French. Others have learned Creole
since going to Haiti.
59. You fa lsely state that Dr. K.olbe’s personal history is “invented.” and then you cite
Wtkipedia. Dr. Kolbe did not crnate the Wikipedia entry about herself. Some of the
information on that page is inaccurate. The only time Dr. Kolbe edited the
Wikipedia page about herself was to request that the page itself be taken down and
to report/correct vandalism of the Wikipedia page which was purpo1iedly done by
you or someone ·_tsing the same JP address as you.
60. You falsely claim that the ACLU sued Dr. Kolbe’s school. This is not accurate.
They intervened with phone calls and letters to inform the principal that it was not
permissible to suspend a student for rum1ing an underground school paper. There
was no lawsuit. Nor has Dr. Kolbe ever staled that there was a lawsuit.
27
This is hair splicing. So she finished the 8th grade and then went to the University rather than she
did not finish the 8th grade and went to University. Is that defamation?
Kolbe told me that she was one of the last people in the US to get shock treatments, so I put it in
the story. And in the end, I wasn’t able to verify any of her story, not with sources I thought
reliable. That’s the ultimate point. And that’s what I say. I don’t say it’s true or not. Just that I
can’t verify it. But here, whether or not she was the very last to get shock treatment is
incidental. I did not think enough of the point to pursue it. In fact, personally, I didn’t even
believe it. I thought they stopped all that stuff back in the 1960s. And if it’s true that they
continued shock treatments long after 1992, I’m somewhat appalled. But again, it’s just an
incidental point. Not sure what it has to do with defamation.
For the details here, I’m relying on internet accounts of this very public person. My point in the
end, as mentioned above, is that it wasn’t clear what was true. These comments about errors
highlight that point.
61. You fa lse] y state that Dr. Kolbe left South Pasadena Junior High school before
completing 8Lh grade. Dr. Kolbe completed 8th grade and then started as a full-time
undergraduate student at California State University, Los Angeles the following
fall.
62. You fa lsely state that Dr. Kolbe was one of the ”last people” to get shock treatment
for being homosexual. That practice, unfortunately, continued for years afi er Dr.
Kolbe e.si.:aped fn>m Rivendcll Hospital in Utah in 1992. This was well documented
in news media reports at the time.
63. You inaccurately ::,Lale that Dr. Kolbe began her journalism career at the age of 18
by working at Pacifica Radio’s KPF A In fact, she began working and publishing
as a journali st. before the Ae;e of 18, with an i nternship at the San Francisco
8xamincr and the Tenderloin Times. She continued to publish while working at
Pacifi\.’. Nt:w::, Service under the editorship of Sandy CJose. She did not start at
KPF/\ then as you ,,vrongly claim, and in fact did not work in radio until 1994.
64. After summarizing Dr. Kolbe’s adolescent years, you egregiously and falsely state
none of the aforememjoned events happened. As evidence for your false claim that
28
events did not occur yot1 deceptiveJy write thal ‘”stories of her exploits only exist
on Wikipedia, onl ine biographies, and chat records that Duff may very well have
written herself. No11e of these references . . . can be traced to legitimate
publications.”
However, the events you describe are very ,veil-documented, which is how the
details were put onl ine in biographies and cba1 logs und Wikipedia.
For instance, these events and Dr. Kolbe’ s adolescence were the subject of a 20/20
episode, which aired twice (the second time with an update on Dr. Kolbe’s work in
Haiti). She was on the Oprah show tw ice, once with her lawyer from the Natioual
Center for Lesbian Rights, discussing these events. There was a made-for-TV
movie produced, based loosely on Dr. Kolbe’s story, and a campy gay comedy
entitled ‘·But r m a cheerleader,” which was inspired by Dr. Kolbe’s story.
Dr. Kolbe was featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles at the time
of these events including in the San Frand sc:o Examiner (which published a threepart
series on her and other youth being incarcerated in out of state psychialric
hospitals for being gay), the San Jose Jvfercwy News, and the gay press in a number
of cities. ‘There w<.m; books and academic journal articles written about Dr. Kolbe’s
legal case and about aspects of what happened to her specifi cally, as well as to other
children ,;vho were victimized at Rivendell hospital.
See. for instance:
Abinati. A. ( 1994 ). Legal challenges facing lesbian and gay youth . Journal of Gay
& Lesbion Social Services, 1(3-4). 149-169.
Asen. R. (1996). Constructing the objects of our discourse: The welfare wars, the
orphanage. and the silenced welfare mom. Political Communication, I 3(3), 293-
307.
BlumcnfeJd, °’JI!. J. Christian “Conversion Therapies” & Catholic “Third Way”:
Tmmaculate Deceptions.
Braatz, J. (1 996). Uncommon Heroes: A Celebration of Heroes and Role Models
for Gay and Lesbian Americans. Ilarvard Educational Review. 66(2), 405.
Cruz, 0 . B. ( 1998). Contro lling desires: Sexual orientation conversion and the
limits of knowledge and law. Southern Cal{(ornia L0111 Review 72, 1297.
Duff L. t i 996) . T Was a Teenage Test Case. Cal{jurnia Lowyer, 16, 47.
29
Goishi, M. A. (1 996). Un]ocking the closet door: protecting children from
jnvoluntary civil commitment because of their sexual orientation. Hastings Lcnv
Juurnal, -18, 113 7.
Hearst, A. ( 1995). Public issues, private lives. Columbia Journalism Review, 34(3),
17-19.
Ilicks, K. A. (l 999). Reparative therapy: Whether parental attempts to change a
chi ld’s sexual orientation can legally consti tute child abuse. American University
Lcrw RevieH’, -19, 505.
lJolmlund, C. (2005). Generation Q’s ABCs. Contemporary American Independent
Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream, 153 .
Kemena. B. (2000). Changing homosexual orientation? Considering the evolving
activities of change programs in the United States. Journal of the Gay and Lesbian
Nfedicaf Assucialiun, 4(2), 85-93.
LeRf, S. M. (1 996). How Voluntary is the Voluntary Commitment of Minors-Disparities
in the Treatment of Children and Adults under New York’s Civil
Commitment Law. /3ruoklyn Lav,, Review, 62, 1687.
Molnar, B. E. (l 997). Juveniles and psychiatric institutionalization: Toward better
due process and t reatment review in the United States. Health and human rights,
98-116.
Valentine, S. (2008). Queer kids: A comprehensive annotated legal bibliography
on lesbian, gay. bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. Gay, Bisexual,
Trunsgender, and Questioning Yourh.
Many of the accounts referenced above describe, in excruciating detail, the
circumstances of what happened to Dr. Kolbe and of her journey from the time she
started coming out as a lesbian and running an underground school paper in the 8th
grade, through her late teens and early 20s (what you refer to as her ,: legacy years”).
These news accounts include documents, quotes. and extensive interviews with
ma11y pt:opk invulveu in asp~cls u[Dr. Kolbc’s journey including the lawyers from
the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Legal Services for Children who
represented Dr. Kolbe when she was a child, her social workers, staff and a teacher
from the l10 spjtal in Utah where she was treated to change her sexunl orientation at
the age or 15 and 16, staff from the homeless youth services programs in San
30
Well, I have to things to say to all that. First off, I stand by my conclusion that based on internet
research I found nothing to substantiate her bios. If you look at Wikipedia and you follow the
refences you’ll see that. And all the other references were chats or articles where the journalist
did not provide anything to substantiate her history. I did find a reference to 20/20 but I couldn’t
substantiate that. And if you go on the Oprah Winfrey website and search for ‘Duff gay lesbian’
you get nothing. Again, all you have to do is get online and you’ll see this.
My second point is that this extensive passage above—if it’s all true–substantiates that Duff is a
high profile, public personality—even more so than even I was aware– and so my not giving her
sufficient credit for her public appearances is insignificant. You can hardly call it defamation. I’m
trying to think of analogy. If I say that Sean Penn is a nobody who never played in any movies, is
that defamation? I don’t think it’s defamation. And I certainly did not set out to downplay
Duff’s fame. On the contrary, I would have been happier to find all those articles and interviews.
Perhaps the issue is that they were pre-2000s.
As stated in the text, “if one reads the Wikipedia entry….”
If Duff/Kolbe has an issue with Wikipedia she should sue them. But as stated elsewhere, she
knows about Wikipedia, she was in contact and edited her page, and if they would not remove it
, as she claims, that just supports the point that she’s a public personality as the criteria for
Wikipedia is to only refuse taking down a page if the person is notable. As for me, I wrote in the
Francisco that advocated for her, and the foster family that became her legal
guardians.
Your argument that Dr. Kolbe’s current research should be dismi ssed because you
believe she created a false history, is based on what you falsely claim is a lack of
evidence from reputable sources about these events. However, this stage of Dr.
Kolbc’s life is very well documented.
65. You falsely asse:·t that between the ages of 18-24 Dr. Kolbe had only one full year
of formal educ at on. This is not true. She graduated from college in 2000, at the age
of 24, having spent three years in community college and two years in a four-year
bachelor’s degree program.
66. Again, you are holding Dr. Kolbe responsible for conlent un a Wiki pedia page that
she did not create. Dr. Kolbe never claimed to have been a ‘·front line war
correspondent” in each of these countr1es and Wikipedia does not state this. As a
reporter. she covered many topi~s, most related to chil dren and youth, bnt other
:subjc:ct:s as wt:ll, and a yui<.:k search on LexisNexis, as well as a look through the
archives of the wire service and of Pacifica radio, would document the times and
places s11c traveled and ,;i;,1orked, which includes tl1ese count1·ies and many others.
31
chapter that I was, “Quoting Wikipedia:” And Wikipedia most certainly does portray her as a
War correspondent. Here it is,
By the late 1990s, Duff was a well-established international journalist with postings in
Haiti, Israel, Croatia, several African countries, and Vietnam. After the United States
invaded Afghanistan, she traveled to the front lines as one of the few non-embedded
Western journalists.
As for me being so negligent as not to use Lexis Nexis. Lexis Nexis costs money. Or you have to
be affiliated with an institution. I’m not affiliated with an institution. And I don’t have much
money. I am a lone researcher who lives from one consultant job to another and supports 6
children. My sole access to research documents is through the internet. That’s the best I can do.
If I don’t have access to exclusive journals and research resources, does that mean I can’t write
about what I find for free online?
Kolbe herself posted an extensive account of her conflict with the radio station. Whether
technically she was fired or not, here’s her account of an incident leading to the end of her
employment. I put it in the endnotes. This is Duff/Kolbe account of what her boss said to her.
67. You claim that Dr. Kolbe did not help found Rael yo Timoun. You slate she worked
for Radyo Timoun but was fired. This is not trne. As a teenager, Dr. Kolbe worked
with a radio engineer in Berkeley, CA to build a transmitter which she then brought
to Haiti and set up with the help of an electrician on the roof of Lafanmi Selavi She
then trained a group of street children to me the radio equipment and conduct live
broadcasts. She continued to offer training and raise money by organizing
fundraisers and writing grants for Radyo Timoun and by organizing opportunities
for Radyo Timoun child journalists to visit the United States for training and to
speak at conferences. She continned this volunteer work with Radyo Timoun
through 1999. These activities, individually and collectively, can easily be
describing as helping “found” the radio station.
Dr. Kolbe wrote about this experience at the time in the San Francisco Examiner
and discussed it at several conferences, on radio interviews on KQED and KPFA,
and on the radio program Democracy Now. Other atiicles and media abom Radyo
Timoun also mention Dr. Kolbe’s role as a youth reporter in working with sti-eet
children to sta1i the radio station.
Dr. Kolbe was not an employee of Radyo Timoun nor was she ever fired from
Radyo limoun. In the footnotes here, you say thal Dr. Kolbe was fired or quit from
KPFA but KPFA is not connected to Radyo Timoun in nny way, nor was Dr. Kolbe
ever fired from KPF A
Dr. Kolbe has never been fired from employment.
32
I’m management, don’t you understand that? You’re so stupid you can’t understand
that? …. fuck you…you’re through at KPFA…. get out of the movement… you’re too
stupid and out of it to know what’s going on.”
Kolbe subsequently submitted her letter of resignation. Based on this exchange—that
Kolbe/Duff apparently wrote and posted online—I think it’s fair to conclude she was fired.
I didn’t say it factually did not happen that she started a newspaper. I said I could not
substantiate it. And I can’t. No record of a lawsuit with the ACLU. I contacted the school
newspaper. I can provide the correspondence. They never heard of her. If she’s so famous, why
have they never heard of her. The school Newspaper is today called the Tiger, it’s been around
since 1913. Look it up.
68. This asse11ion is without factual basis. The ACLU’s involvement in this matter is
addressed above. Also, the account related lo Dr. Kolbe’s creation of an
underground school newspaper is in the Colurnbia Journalism Review, as well as
in several books and other forms of media about her life story. See, e.g. Hearst, A.
(1 995). Public issues,privale lives. Columbia Journalism Review, 34(3), 17-1 9.
69. Your statements regarding the Pasadena High School newspaper are false. You
falsely state that Dr. Kolbe has lied about events in her childhood and that she did
not start an underground school newspaper cal led ”The Tiger Club” in 1988. The
evidence you give is that you say you called the Pasadena High School newspaper
and that their name is the Tiger Club and that they were founded in 1913.
This is a lie. The Pasadena High School newspaper is the called the Chronicle and
it has been published since 1915.
The South Pasadena High School newspaper is called the Tiger, not the Tiger Club.
The tig~r is the school mascot. The name of the underground school paper that Dr.
Kolbe started in 8th grade, was, in fact, the Tiger Club.
33
I’m confused. She changed it to Lyn Duff? And what happened to the hyphenated name that you
claim was on the SS card and school enrollment…. And why are there two Wikipedia entries—
one for Lyn Duff and one for Athena Kolbe– that are written as if they are two totally different
people, neither acknowledging the other. I why was she wondering around Haiti for 3 years
telling everyone her name was Lyn Duff and then 9 years later she was wondering around telling
everyone she was Athena Kolbe. And why is everything online about Lyn Duff prior to 2006 and
everything about Athena Kolbe online after 2006. I don’t think I’ve made any unreasonable
conclusions here.. She also told me that she legally changed her name. And there are interviews
and a highly publicized debate around this very issue, journalist Lyn Duff changing her name to
Athena Kolbe. One only need Google all this. If we make it to full disclosure on all this I’ll provide
the reference and articles.
70. In this section. you again falsely claim that Dr. Ko1be, changed her name to Kolbe.
She did not change her name to Athena Kolbe, as this was 1he name given to her at
birth.
34
() RTD student bus pass issued by the Los Angeles Regional Transit District
in 1989. 1990, and 1991
g) I [ol lywood, CA public library card issued in 1990
h) San Francisco public library card issued in I 992
i) Oakland public library card. issued in 1995
j) Driver ‘s learning permit, issued by the Department or Motor Vehicles in
San Francisco in 1994
k) Listed telephone number in the San Francisco white pages, 1994-2002
I) Social security card
m) Press pass for the Republican National Conven1ion, First Union Center
Philadelphia, issued in 2000
n) State medical insurance identification cards issued while Dr. Kolbe was in
foster care in 1989, 1990, l 992, J 993, 1994 and then Dr. Kolbe ‘s Medi Cal
post-foster care benefit cards issued in 1995 and 1996
o) Application to a journalism training program at UC Berkley, 1995
p) Temporary press credentials issued by the Los Angeles Police Department
and press pass for the Democratic National Convention, both issued on
Augusl 11, 2000
q) KPF A identification card and press passes issued in l 994, 1996, 1998,
2000, and 2002
r) Press access card for Vietnam, issued in 1998
s) Temporary press pass for China, issued in 1997
t) Government Press identiiicalion card for Israel from the years 1999-2004
u) Visa application for Brazil in 1998
v) Visa application for travel in India applied for in l 997 and granted in 1998
w) T nternational vaccination card for yellow fever issued in 1998 and again in
2003, which states that Dr. Kolbe is a journalist and her name is “Athena
Duff-Kolbe”
x) School TD for Peralta Community College District, issued in 1995, 1997,
and 1999
y) 13us permit certifying that Dr. Kolbe is a person with a hearing disability,
issued in 2004
z) Dr. Kolbe’s savings account, mutual fund accounl, and IRA
aa) federal and state income taxes filed 1994 thrnugh 2004 (al whid1 point Dr.
Kolbe’s accountant began filing the documents as “Athena Duff-Kolbe”
doing business as “Lyn Duff’; this continued through 2009).
bb) A letter or invitation and letter of sponsorship from a local journalism
s<.:hoo1 for Dr. Kolbe’s application for a visa to Tndia in J 997
cc) Temporary press credentials for the White House, issued in 1999
dd) Press pass for the Republican National Convention held in San Diego.
issued in 1996
35
What I find most notable about all this new information is that Kolbe/Duff was was apparently
prone to use multiple identities from an early age. But once again, there is nothing about all
this accessible online. Nothing I could find. Nor in interviews surrounding the Haitian political
rape and murder controversy was any of this evidence cited. In the chapter I am recounting the
controversy. It pertains to Haiti. No one in Haiti cares what she called herself before she got
there. She got to Haiti as a journalist calling herself Lyn Duff. She became very well-known under
that name. She was closely associated with President Aristide. There is no evidence and I have
met no one in Haiti who knew her in those days by any other name than Lyn Duff, which she
published articles under. Then, in 2006 she published what would become a politically explosive
study under the name of Athena Kolbe. As recounted, many observers—included the then
president of Haiti Gerard Latortue– found it shockingly biases. Hence the controversy. She did it
without acknowledging her other name (Lyn Duff) or profession as an activist-journalist. It’s all
well documented. That’s what’s at issue in the article, not what she called herself when she was
in grade school.
In the context of the Haiti controversy, no, there was never any reference in to her earlier life.
And once again, I could not verify any of it.
Yes, and I’ve gone over this earlier on and in the chapter. Highly questionable to ask perfect
strangers and children about rape experiences, especially when under the threat and authority
of the people that you, as a researcher, are claiming raped them. But once again, this is
academic and hardly an issue of defamation.
72. Your claim that “no one” ever investigated Dr. Kolbe’s early years is a blatant lie.
Dr. Kolbe’s life before the age of 25 .. vas scrutinized by dozens, 111aybe hundreds,
of jomnali sts, researchers, academics, and government administrators. The
legitimacy of her experiences during these years is a lready well established.
73. You state that Dr. Kolbe’s study published in the Lancet was a case of”questionable
journalistic elhi<.:s, if not outright fraud.” Again, this is false. There is no evidence
of fraud because Ors. Ko]be and Hutson did not commit fraud . Additionally, the
ai1icle they wrote was a peer-reviewed academic research at1icle, not a journalistic
piece and thus, there was no “journalistic ethics” issue involved in its publishing.
74. Here you claim that what you are recom1ting is “not really about Kolbe/Duff ‘ but
you are in fact recounting things about Dr. Kolbe.
36
Yes, Duff/Kolbe appears to be a great example of the irresponsible and exploitive behavior of
foreigners in Haiti and it should be exposed and something should be done to bring these people
and institutions to account.
Yes, I believe that poor data, unsubstantiated data, irresponsibly collected data, opens the doors
for criminals, for people who would conduct fake development, fake charity. It’s an argument.
And it’s an important one. And I think I overwhelmingly substantiate it with data, logic and
analysis. And people like Duff/Kolbe do not want it to change. Hence all these accusations from
her. But it should and must change for the benefit of impoverished Haitians, hence my exposing
her apparent patterns of deception.
Once again, she told me this. In view of the controversy described over the data and her use of
two names and double identity as an activist-journalist and supposedly impartial scholar, it’s
eminently reasonable to believe that she had been pushed out of Wayne State. I think there is
even a published reference for this.
This is all documented in the chapter and I think unequivocal. But in the end, it is academic
debate and has nothing to do with defamation.
75. Your entire paragraph is false. Your accusation that Dr. Kolbe opened the door for
criminals is patently false. Fu1ther, she is not a pseudo-scholar. Dr. Kolbe has not
misled or lied to J)eople.
76. You repeatthe falsehood that Dr. Kolbe was pushed out of Wayne State University.
This is not true.
77. You falsely state the basis of the critique of your data. Dr. Kolbe and her co-author
said is tbat it was inconceivable that your data was representative. not becm1se of
who funded it, but because of the methods you employed and tlrnlyuu huin publicly available reports.
37
A “blatant lie”? Interesting choice of words. Kolbe and I were once friends and discussed at
length the death estimates. These were private discussions. I expected and repeatedly sought a
discussion with the entire group of authors. This never happened. I have ample documentation
of me reaching out in writing. But I reached out to Kolbe. I understand now that Kolbe never
passed my messages or written summaries of the issues onto the others. Regarding Matts
Lundahl, yes, later there was correspondence between him and me and I referred him to Kolbe.
But Matts was not part of her team. He’s and independent researcher. Our exchanges with him
came much later and have nothing to do with Kolbe and Muggah publishing an Op Ed in the LA
Time without consulting me nor their refusal to respond in writing to my list of issues with their
study. But in the end, the fact that I requested discussion and debate and it never happened is
enough to substantiate my point. Be glad to provide documentation. Although, I fail to see how
it’s relevant to the main issue. Seems academic
I don’t falsely claim anything. I opin, based on the evidence and logic, as expounded earlier on in
#17, that it may never have been done. Here is what I said,
I did not say they did not conduct it. I said they may never have conducted it. And I give a lot of
very good reasons to believe they may not have. Including the impossibility of conducting a
survey in 2-weeks time, six weeks after the Haiti earthquake, and when some 20% of the
respondent were not even in Haiti. Yes, very suspicious. I also provide references and examples
for how hard it was to find people. And I can provide correspondence from Columbia University
Professor and recognized world authority on disasters who also finds it very suspicious. And the
78. Here you falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues refused to engage in a
disc L1ssion with you about death estimates. This is a blatant lie. Not only did Drs.
Muggah and Kolbe discuss their methodology and findings with you at length in
person, Dr. Kolbe also engaged in a written correspondence with you about this
topic. This written discussion is documented in Mars Lundhal’s 2013 book “The
Pol itical Economy of Disaster: Destitution, Plunder and Earthquake in Haiti” where
he quotes email correspondence and conversations between Dr. Kolbe and you. Dr.
Kolbe provided these emails to Dr. Lundhal wjth your permission and you also
forwarded Dr. Lundhal a number of emails which included correspondence with
Dr. Kolbe about this very issue. Some of that correspondence from you, however,
contradicts statements you make here about Dr. Kolbe and her research.
79. You falsely claim, that the referenced study may never have been done, when in
fact it was done.
38
results were absurd. This is all in the chapter and documented. And elsewhere I say very clearly
that they may simply be accepted data from surveyors who did do their jobs. I say this in several
places. And I point his out in endnotes. And I know Kolbe herself that they had accidently caught
a least one surveyor filling out questionnaires in a tent. They were not even trying to catch him.
And I know from having worked with Kolbe that in at least one major WFP survey they had done
5,000 surveys with an illegible questionnaire (it made no sense in Creole), suggesting they had
never done the survey. And I know from her survey employees that she has never vetted or
checked on data. No follow up. I could go one and on. If we go to full disclosure I can almost
certainly supply statements from surveyors to this effect. But in the end, it should not be
necessary because the findings from the data make no sense (I detail that in the chapter), and, I
did not state factually that she lied or invented those surveys, but that she may have and that
the data and impossibility of the logistics suggest so.
I’m not sure what this is about, but knowing Haiti, having done at least 100 major surveys in the
country over the past 27 years, the claim that they interviewed the exact same respondent
makes me even more incredulous. You won’t find the same respondent in 93% of the cases if you
come back the next day. They came back months after the earlier survey. At that point, even
without the earthquake, I can tell you from experience that 10 to 20% for those original
respondents would be somewhere else. Ether in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas or the
country side. And in addition Kolbe et al are making the claim that they accomplished this in 2
weeks, 6-weeks after the earthquake. In the book I make even more points about the absurdity
of this. It didn’t happen. But I don’t even say that, I opine. I say it is unlikely…. And I give the
logic.
80. You inaccurately describe the methodology used by Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues.
Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues interviewed the 01i ginal respondent or another person
from their house if that person bad died. Also, respondents provided data on
themsel vcs :md al I other household me:nbers.
81. You have wrongly and clearly misapplied the University of Miami study (about
injuries) to their stucly, wluch included deaths and injuries related to the earthquake,
and also included deaths and injuries unrelated to the earthquake which happened
in the weeks fo llowing the earthquake. Your statement does not accurately reflect
the relationship of the findings i..t1 Dr. Kolbe’s publication lo Lhe University of
Miami’s survey findings. Dr. Kolbe and her co-author did not say that children were
more likely to have been injured than others, they said that children were :nore
likely to have died from their injuries. A.nd this is backed up by the other research
as well. Young children and the elderly are more likely to die from certain types of
injuries common with earthquakes.
39
Well, I beg to differ. I would even say that I’m appalled by Kolbe’s lack of understanding of the
issues that she professes to be an expert in. Indeed, that’s in large part what the chapter is
about. But this is all academic and has nothing to do with defamation. This is scholarly debate. I
don’t think a judge would meddle with these points and I don’t understand what ever possessed
lawyer to allow all for this long winded and almost entirely irrelevant rant. I can only interpret
this as some kind of attempt to overwhelm me with accusations.
I’m qualifying myself and my opinion. What’s false about that? I didn’t do more than 100
surveys in Haiti? I have not been at this since 1990?
Once again, I’m appalled by what I see as your failure to understand the issue or admit a single
point. But also, once again, this is more academic debate that has nothing to do with
defamation.
Once again, appalled by what I see as your failure to understand an issue or admit a single
point. But also, once again, this is more academic debate that has nothing to do with
defamation.
82. You make a definitive statement premised on your having done 100 surveys in
llaiti, that Or. Kolbe and her co-au1hor could not have possibly done what they did.
This is a baseless assenion and plainly false.
83. The Kochar quote, from an aii icle published three years after Dr. Kolbe’s study, is
about comparing differences in recovery rates between children and adults for the
exact same injury. Dr. Kolbe did not do this, as children and adults did not
necessarily have the same kind of injuries. They were not comparing reco very rates
from one uniform type of injury. Yot1r use of this quote is misleading and dishonest.
84. In the ir study, Dr. Kolbe and coJleagues stated that deaths post-quake could not be
easily attri.buted lo the earthquake. You se: up a false dichotomy compa1ing 3 %
from the CDC with Dr. Kolbe and colleagues study which reported 25%, as if 25%
of the people ‘Nho died, died because of the earthquake. This is not true. 25% of
the sample of dead people (those who were alive in !ale 2009 but dead in early
2010), died during or atler Lhe eaithquake. Dr. Kolbe and colleagues did not claim
that those people each died from the earthquake, and in fact, they cited specific
examples of people who died from other things, like diarrhea. The 3% figure from
the CDC is a different kind of study, which estimated excess deaths directly
amibutable to the earthquake. Your comparison is dishonest.
40
I do not see this stated anywhere in the article.
I suggest or opine that it may not have occurred. And I’ve backed it up with abundant logic and
argument.
No, that’s not what I stated. I stated,
Few to no institutions or scholars cited the figures at the time. Nor did the media pounce
on this particular study.
Note ‘at the time’. I then go on to say that nevertheless it became part of the academic record,
implying that yes, others would go on in the future to cite it as good data, evidence of how it
really was. And that’s why what it is so dangerous to permit publication of sloppy data and
illogical conclusions. That’s why it was so important that I publish this book and so important
that we have freedom to debate and to expose apparent academic and/or negligence. It’s the
argument I’m making. I couldn’t care less about what Kolbe does in her personal life. The issue is
that when shoddy, unvetted data collection gets into the academic record and becomes the
official narrative. And as Kolbe and Muggah themselves say—their very point in attacking me
85. You falsely claim that Drs. Kolbe and Hutson did not follow ethical guidelines and
that children were interviewed. However, as clearly stated in the article, no children
under the age of J 8 were interviewed. Ethical gui delines were carefully followed,
as described in the arti cle, to minimize psychological and social risks to the
participants including limiting the time spent interviewing. giving the respondent
the option of a private or alternative place to do the interview, and offering to come
back to interview later when the respondent could speak in private.
86. Again, you falsely make an accusation stating that the survey ·•didn’t occur.” This
is not true and there js no evidence to support lhis assertion.
87. You falsely state that ” few to no scholars” cited this study. This is not accurate. The
study was commissioned by the UN Development Program. A number of
international and national actors contributed to the creation of the survey including
the World Bank, the Haitian government, and the UN 171ission in Haiti. They widely
used the data and it was integrated into (and cited in) the Post-Disaster Needs
Assessment in Hai Li. The analysis was also widely cited in the press and in scholarly
publications. A quick google search illustrates that 77 publications cited just one of
the numerous publications using data from this survey in 20 I 0.
41
and my work in the LA Time– this is dangerous, lives are at stake, accurate data is critically
important in assisting vulnerable people poverty, and we desperately need robust discussion
and critique, all of which I provide abundant evidence Muggah and Kolbe did not pursue, Kolbe
in fact deliberately avoided. And yes, based on that and all that is said here, I think that Kolbe is
extremely dangerous and should be held accountable. She not only avoided and apparently hid
my attempts to pursue discussion over her survey and data on the death count, in this
document, she is apparently trying to use legal means to repress the debate and discussion
provided in the book I wrote.
I am justified in opining that Kolbe and Muggah were not satisfied with press coverage based on
the deduction that, if they were satisfied, they would not have written and submitted their own
articles to several of the most widely circulated newspapers on earth. There were doing that
despite the fact that they were publishing reports and successfully persuading other journalists
to publish articles about their work, not least of all Trenton Daniels of the Associated Press.
Muggah is not a journalist, and Kolbe claims here in this very document that she is not either,
yet in addition to their other work, they made significant efforts write those articles writing and
get them published in major newspapers. So what’s unreasonable about the conclusion that
they they’re not satisified? This is one more absurd defense she’s making about nothing. And is
there being unsatisfied a bad thing? I don’t think I said that was a bad thing. What’s bad is that
the data is apparently shoddy and the conclusions do not jibe with what we know from
elsewhere. And regarding the timing, I see that I did get the timing backwards. But whether the
referenced AP article came before or after the particular referenced article that Kolbe and
Muggah wrote is incidental. It has nothing to do with the main point or with defaming anyone.
In nether article did Kolbe and Muggah say that the data they were citing was their own. If they
had been transparent they would have said in the main text that, “In an earlier study, the
author(s) found…” That’s not what they did. They cited the data as if it belonged to someone
else. For example, in the Sunday edition New York Times article entitled, “Haiti’s Silenced
Victims” they write,
88. You falsely claim that Drs. Kolbe and Muggah were “not satisfied” with the
Associated Press coverage of their research and “sensed opportunity” so they began
publishing their own ai1icles; the example you give is of an op-ed that that was
p11blished in the Guardian. This is a false characterization of how and why Drs.
Kolbe and Muggah \-‘i1rote this op-ed for the Guardian, which was authored before
the Associated Press article was written.
89. You falsely claim that Ors. Kolbe and Muggah “never let on” that they had
conducted the research cited in this quote themselves. This is a lie. Drs. Kolbe and
Hutson cited their other previous studies.
42
Although Haiti routinely suffers from political and natural disasters, rape is an especially
insidious crisis. Haiti’s brutal dictatorships used rape as a political tool to undermine the
opposition. A 2006 study reported that some 35,000 women and girls in Port-au-Prince
were sexually assaulted in a single year. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake,
residents of the capital’s tent cities were 20 times more likely to report a sexual assault
than other Haitians.
That’s a reference to Kolbe and Hutsons’s infamous ‘Lancet report,’ the study I described earlier
on and in the book, the one so politically explosive, published while Kolbe was also writing
published politically charged articles under the name of Lyn Duff, and that the president of Haiti
said had been discredited….. Yet there is no acknowledgement in this New York Times article
about any of that, and not even that Kolbe herself conducted the surveys. The article says, “A
2006 study reported…” That’s genius that she did that. But no, it’s not academically honest.
Hmm. So it was removed. I saw no hypertext.
This was somewhat stylistic. It’s also descriptive, not factual. I do not claim to peer into the mind
of Kolbe see her fantasies. I’m writing a book. And it’s perfectly fair having documented all that I
had documented and referenced to make the conclusion that Kolbe was living a type of fantasy
from the past. She became the accomplished journalist that she struggled to become years
before. These are big papers: LA Times, the Guardian, New York Times. As for her actually
90. You false ly claim that Ors. Ko lb e an d Muggah neve r let [sic] on to readers” that
they we r citing their own re earch. This is false. The online versio n of the op-ed
had a lin k to th e study cited so that when readers clicked on the sen tence the y were
taken directly to the Lancet article which clearly identifi es Dr. Kolbe as o ne of the
a uthor s. The in -text citation was incl uded by Drs. Ko lbe and Muggah but was
remo ved by th e New York Tim es ed itor prior to publication , ho wcv r a hypettext
link to th e st ud y was inc luded.
91. In thi s section, you rep eat the li e you made prev iousl y, that Dr. Ko lb e was not an
accomp li shed journal ist a1 a yom1g age . You claim t hat sl1e on ly “fanta sized ‘ about
being a ·’jo urn ali st for the world ‘ most imp rtant main str eam media out let .”
Between l 99 4 an d 2000, when Dr. Kolbe was working in pri nt jo urnal ism, she wa
pub I ished in a numb e r of mainstrcm11 medi a outlets incl uding the Washingto n Post ,
th n.n Francisco Exam iner and oth er lar ge dail y papers . This was not her first
article in a major daily paper. And it was not. as you cla im a foray back int o
journalism ; Dr. Kolbe wrote an opinio n piece as a guest writer , someth ing th at is
common fo r academics. Despi te th a t fact tbat it was published i11 the New York
Times she did not write a journali tic article an d she is no Jong r wo rking as a
journalist, s he do es not c laim to be doing so or want to d o so .
43
having been a major journalist as a teenager and young adult, yes, I believe that she thinks so.
But in my internet searches I did not find any evidence of that. The only citation I find for work
by Lyn Duff or Kolbe before 2006 were the Haiti 2004-2006 articles where Lyn Duff was an
activist Journalist—many would say a radical one– for what’s considered a relatively radical
radio station. Google it and see for yourself. On the other hand, if I Google any of the 20 or so
serious journalist friends of mine, I get scores of articles by them in major papers.
Again, based or Kolbe’s account to me and on the logical consequences of the controversy and
her double identity, I think I made no unreasonable assumptions. Highly public debate.
I have no recollection of this whatsoever. I’m amazed that Kolbe would. That was five years ago.
We spoke twice? I doubt I would speak on Skype. If we communicated on Skype it would have
been written. I would like to see the minutes to that conversation. Perhaps I knew about the
survey, perhaps, but the first time I recall it coming to my attention was after publication of
another New York Times article, that one claiming that in 6 months there would be famine and
so the aid agencies should import food. Indeed, the report I first learned about when CARE
International directors wrote and asked me my opinion. I wrote and told them how wrong and
irresponsible that prediction was. I have the emails for that. I was appalled that they had
written this and it was in fact my last straw of having any association with Kolbe. I discuss the
logic in the chapter. It was a radically irresponsible claim. Peasant subsistence strategies are
adapted to hurricanes and floods. Unless it was a hurricane as destructive as category 5
Hurricane Matthew that struck the south in 2016, someone who understands Haitian peasant
subsistence strategies would never make a prediction like that. One would in fact expect the
opposite. First off, the hurricane hit at harvest season so most crops were not lost. Secondly,
some of the most important peasant crops—such as sweet potatoes– respond positively and
92. Your assertion, ug ni n, that Dr. Kolbe was terminated fr om Wa yne Stale U ni versity
is false.
93. Your cluim that Dr. Kolbe was not in the so uthern parl of Haiti during this week is
false. In c redibly, you know this is the case, becaus e you spoke w ith Dr. Kolbe v ia
Skype tw ice that week. You spoke with the guardian and others at the home you
s hared w ith Dr. Ko lbe at that time and they told you she was unavailable to do a
favor for you because she was in the South doing research. You al so discussed, at
length, t he situation with the woman w ho was sexually a ssaulled, who you argued
(at the Lime) had not bee n raped, but was just regrettin g a vo luntary sexual
encounter. Your s tatements about D r. Kolbc’s medica l condition and her alleged
limitations are reckless and false.
44
rapidly to the flooding, so 6 weeks after the hurricane there likely to be bumper crops. Thirdly,
peasant crop cycles in Haiti are 3 month not 6 month cycles.
These authors claim that there would be a famine is 6 months is part of the basis/logic for me
concluding that Kolbe and her co-authors were not qualified to be making those conclusions.
And it was dangerous. They published it a major report that they circulate to the NGOs. They got
it into the mainstream US press. ‘Impending famine, send aid…’ It alarmed the aid agencies,
encouraged massive waste and contributed to sabotaging the efforts to reinforce local
production, something that I’ve been studying and writing about for 20 years. And, sure enough,
there was no famine. Less than six months later the crops were all coming in bumper yields,
helped by the rains from the hurricane. Anyone knowledgeable and responsible expert in Haitian
peasant subsistence strategies would have predicted that.
As for verifying that Kolbe was not in the South or present for the rape, that comes from her
surveyors. They say that neither she nor Muggah were there nor, according to one of the
supervisors, has she ever been on a survey. And really, no one expects them to be there. I
coordinate surveys constantly, and I personally do not have time to go to the field anymore. And
no client expects me to go. And my physical presence would help very little. The surveyors are
moving fast, they’re all over the place. There is no reason for a designer or analyst to be in the
field, other than spot checking work. But even that can be done using GPS point, telephone and,
if necessary, a follow-up team of surveyors. So if Muggah and Kolbe were there, it would be
unsualy. And it makes even less sense in the case of Kolbe because of her health and Muggah
because he is busy with many tasks and lives in Brasil. So given all the evidence, yes, it’s
eminently reasonable to conclude that Muggah and Kolbe were not there. The only issue that
I’m taking here is that they wrote about the rape experience and seeking help first hand, as if
they were present, they then used that firsthand account to establish credibility with and
sympathy from the reader.
As for me claiming that the woman had not been raped, I never said she had not been raped.
How would I know?
As for me saying that she was “regretting a voluntary sexual encounter” there’s another
defamatory statement and a very cheap and tasteless shot at my character.
As for Kolbe’s medical condition. That might seem somewhat insensitive and perhaps I should
not have brought it up. But I’m not saying that being obese or having this medical conditions is
bad or that it’s her fault. Only that it is limiting, and prevents her from any kind of field
participation. It’s factual. She was at the time and long has been obese. She also suffers quite a
number of ailments that I do not think I specified–she is on several medications, including
psychotropic medicines, and has hearing aid and visions problems. So my statement is factual–
considerably worse than I describe in the book—and it’s only meant to bolster the evidence and
allow the reader to judge if what I’m saying justifies the conclusions I make at the end of the
chapter.
45
Wait a minute. You’re saying that The New York Times editor went to Haiti and verified that
Kolbe and Muggah had been in the South of Haiti? Are you serious? And what is the relevance
of the medical report? I never said the rape did not occur. My point was that evidence suggests
that Kolbe and Muggah were not present yet they recounted the story first hand. And then they
disingenuously referenced Kolbe’s likely flawed data form the past as if to prove the rape
epidemic and political rapes of 2004-2006 were indisputable facts, referencing it without noting
it was Kolbe and Hutson who had overseen the research. The writer thinks that’s ok? This was
classic duplicity and exploitation of the media. Fake news. And I would very much like to see a
signed statement from Muggah that he was present. I have this strong suspicion that Muggah
would not sign off on many of the claims that Kolbe makes.
I’ve dealt with this. Kolbe might, just might be able to sing Frere Jacques. But no, she is
functionally illiterate in Creole and French. My experience is that Her linguistics competence in
Creole is about that of a 2 or 3-year old. If this is defamatory I can have former colleagues of her
attest to what I’m saying and sign statements to the effect. Just one hint to that in this very
document, she writes about the “Ministry of Education (MOE).” That’s an English acronym that
she must have invented. It’s MENFP, Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Formation
Professionnelle. And if you want to say it in English its’ Ministry of National Education and
Professional/vocational Training.
This is a reference to the above NYT article. It’s substantiated. See above explanation.
94. Again, you falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe, and/or Ors. Kolbe and Muggah made up
an event that never occurred. However, it did occur. The New York Timr:,s editor
verified the facts before they published the op-ed. including obtaining a copy of the
medical report.
95. You assert that Dr. Kolbe speaks no French and very little Creole, which is false.
See above.
96. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe and her co-author lied, falsified data, and
·’projected” themselves to be a place where they were not. This is not true.
97. Your statement that Dr. Kolbe lied and duped people, The New York Times, and
academic journals is false.
46
I do not say that I factually caught her making anything up. I say ‘she might have’ and that ‘the
evidence suggests….’ And as evidence we have this repetitive and overwhelming pattern of
deceit.
Based on all the evidence that is indeed the implication.
The point is being missed. This point is not really about Kolbe. Yes, nobody checks Kolbe’s data.
Not for the surveys I discuss in the book. This I know. I know this from participating in her
surveys (I in fact worked for her on a survey), I know this from talking to surveyors and
supervisors who worked with her, I know this from the absurdity of many of the survey findings.
All this is documented in the book.
Moreover, talking to enumerators about whether or they conducted a survey is not sufficient in
itself to verify data. GPS points only help determine where surveyors were; it does not mean
they actually interviewed anyone, or that that they did it correctly. It only means they went to a
location. And on all the surveys I reference, Kolbe did not use tablets. On the survey I worked
with her on, there were no GPS devices. If anyone on her surveys was ever collecting GPS points
for her—as she claims regarding other surveys—they were relying on GPS devices. That’s not
good. My experience is that many Haitians surveyors make a mess of recording the points. But I
don’t even contest that. What I’m saying—and what should be clear from the discussion of
identities of respondents being a secret—is that verifying surveys means calling or re-visiting
respondents to verify they were in fact interviewed. All the evidence I have from her, from
98. Here again, you accuse Dr. Kolbe of ·’making up” her research. This is a lie. Dr.
Kolbe has never ·’made up” research data, analysis, or findings.
99. Your t itle falsely implies that Dr. Kolbe is a liar and that she chose to work in
lm;ation where she could not be called a liar.
100. You falsely state that no one did, could, or would check Dr. Kolbe’s datn. This is
not true. Your own book states tl1at, at least one of Dr. Kolbe’s studies was heavily
checked. You offer zero evidence that no one ]1as or could check her data.
Some ufthe data Dr. Kolbe has collected is publicly available and is 11sed by others.
For a number of studies, the funders have required checks of the data inclmling
processes by which they accompany the enumerators, interviewing the enumerators
when Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues are not present about their data collection
methods, tracking the OPS coordinates and locations of the interviewers while they
are in Lhe field, and a number of other methods 10 assw-e that data collection happens
as planned and that data is ,H.:vurnlt:. These methods have been described in previous
studies as well. You have zero firsthand experience or knowledge to say that Dr.
Kolbe’s data was not been checked by others.
47
surveyors and supervisors working for her and from the absurd results from the data indicate
that she never did that. BUT the big point here is not about her and her surveys. The big point is
that “no one would or could check the data.” She could and should have checked—and
apparently did not—but no one else can because they can’t. And the reason they can’t is
because its unethical to reveal the identities of respondents. So what I’m saying is that, IF she
has falsified data or IF her surveyors have done it, no one can verify that. And the reason is
because of the ethics. And that’s one of the things that makes surveys an inviting endeavor for
liars and cheaters, whether Kolbe or her surveyors and supervisors or someone else.
And in the end, by the way, the acid test regarding the data is if the findings are logical. Her’s
were not. That’s the point of the long discussion about those findings. They consistently, in
survey after survey over a period of 12 years, made no sense in context of other data and other
surveys.
I did not say she fabricated data. I don’t know what Kolbe really does. I said she may have
fabricated it or her surveyors may have fabricated it or she may have simply accepted shoddy
data.
See above
101 . Dr. Kolbe has never fabricated data. This is a lie.
I 02. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe collected data which was either not verifiable or
that she did not verify the data. The steps used to verify data were clearly outlined
in a number of Dr. Kolbe’s publications, as were the steps that were used dming
fielding to assure accurate data collection while protecting tht: rights uf human
rights victims. To state that “no one checks the survey” is false.
l 04. You have falsely stated that human rights priorities dictate that researchers cannot
divulge informant’s names. This is a clear and intentional misrepresentation, as is
your assertion that every survey begins with a promise that the person’s name will
be kept secret is not true. Some surveys begin this way, but not all surveys are
anonymous and confidential. In fact, for some of the surveys Dr. Kolbe performed,
she t·equircd contact information including names and phone numbers in addilion
to addresses or the CiPS coordinates ofthe individual’s home. In fact, the one study
you worked on for the World Food Program for which Dr. Kolbe was the primary
investigator included collection of the respondents’ names and national identity
numbers. You are intentionall y misrepresenting Dr. Kolbe’s work. Researchers
may or may not divulge names depencljng on the circumstm1ces and what has been
48
This is splicing hairs. But the point stands. In the vast majority of surveys the respondents names
and identities must be kept confidential. It’s a type of cardinal rule among academic researchers
and aid agencies. All my clients are adamant about this. And it’s especially important when
conducting doing surveys about the government, violent crime victimization, and evaluating
whether or not respondents benefitted from an aid program. And it’s logical. Making available
the identities of respondents who are critiquing the source of aid could mean that do not get
any more aid, get cut from programs or singled out for retribution by corrupt NGO workers or
local powerbrokers who are brokering access to the aid. Making available the identities of
respondent who have been victims of criminals, gang, members corrupt police or other
repressive authorities can put those people in danger of retribution. Does the writer not
understand this? I hope that Kolbe is not revealing the identities of people interviewed.
See earlier comments. And I’m not sure what’s the contention. During this time she wrote at
least four articles for major newspapers. They’re referenced in the chapter.
Its based on the abundant evidence provided before opining that “the data could only have been
bogus, shoddy or at least extremely shoddy and manipulated”. Here is the full quote.
Kolbe/Duff’s use of social media, her transformation back to being a journalist and her
publication of stellar articles based on what could only have been bogus or at least
extremely shoddy and manipulated survey data was only part of her brilliance.
I do believe that Kolbe is manipulating data. And the last part of the chapter, where we discover
“someone” inventing people and facebook pages and pressuring students who challenge her
with fictitious US consulate officials confirms for me and many of her students that she may
indeed be a criminal. But I’m not directly saying that at this point. Here, I’m only saying that,
based on the evidence, her survey data is bad. That may be her fault, it may be her surveyors, it
may just be sloppy data collection methods and lack of checking. It may be all the above. Its’
what comes next that helps us pass judgement and make inferences about Kolbe’s disposition to
be dishonest.
dictated by the TRB. Dr. Kolbe conforms to the standards required by the ftmders
and the university employing her.
1 05. You fa lsely c I aim that Dr. Kolbe has “transformed” back to being a journalist. She
is not a journal isl any more, nor has she cJaimed such.
106. Dr. Kolbe· s data is not bogus, shoddy, and manipulated.
49
I wrote about this above. I was indeed privy to the formation of the University at the beginning
and so I know for a fact and can demonstrate with correspondence that it was the creation of
Athena Kolbe. I never “resigned” from anything as I never had an official position. Nor did I
really want it. My interest was to create a type of anthropological institute inside the school.
That was when I believe, as she claimed, that it was being launched under the auspices of the
University of Michigan. So with that promise in the future, I helped Kolbe start the school,
helped her find a house, staff, and I temporarily taught there until, as with virtually everyone I
know who worked with her (excepting her partner Puccio), I began to discern the patterns of
deceit that I outline in the book. I could supply a very long list of people complete with
signatures who have had the same experience. Also, to everyone I know who had anything to do
with the school, Kolbe is the managing authority and owner. I can supply a long list of people
who will attest to that as well.
I wrote that!? If I ever said or wrote such a thing it was at her behest and direction and when I
too had been led to believe that Kolbe was starting a legitimate University under the auspices of
the University of Michigan. This was her story at the beginning. But I really doubt I ever wrote
anything about the school or anything that had do with administration. I was there for some
planning stages. But I was in Africa when Kolbe started the school. I was not even there when it
began but rather came back to find it in full swing. And I quickly distanced myself when I
realized that Kolbe was misrepresenting the school. Eventually I cut ties altogether.
107. Your sta1eme11t that Dr. Kolbe is the “sole owner” and “chancel lor” ofETS is false
As you know, you and Dr. Kolbe co-directed ETS when it was first fo unded.
Following your resignation in 2013, Marie Puccio became a co-director. Dr. Kolbe
has never heen the sole owner or sole chancellor of ETS, nor has she ever been a
chancellor. Iler title is the Director of Social Work Education.
108. You c]ajrn that Dr. Kolbe “cleverly crnfted” the description of the ETS as a
” internationally supported degree granting institut ion”. However, this wording was
written by you, not by Dr. Kolbe, in a proposal f01 the creation of ETS that you
submitted to a potential collaborator.
50
As mentioned above, yes, I too was misled into believing that the school was under the auspices
of the University of Michigan. But as stated, I was in Africa the entire time that Kolbe got the
school started. Within months of returning I realized that the school was a scam and began to
distance myself, including sending a long and detailed email to the Dean of Social Work at the
University of Michigan outlying my concerns.
This is all well documented. The quote in fact comes from ETS website. If it’s been changed we
can provide the earlier pages and claims.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
109. Here you claim that Dr. Kolbe ‘·associated” ETS with the University of Michigan
(‘·U oC l\.f ‘), and that dt1ring the first year most students believed that they were
aLtending U of M. During t his time, you were the co-director of ETS and thus
equally responsible for communicating to students. In any event, Dr. Kolbe never
misrepresented the relationsh ip of ETS to U of Mand cenainly never told students
they were attending U ofM or earning a degree from U of M. She is not responsible
for any 1nisrepresenLation by you. Dr. Kolbe is grateful for the support that ( J of
M’s School of Social Work dean and faculty gave in the creation of ETS but she
has never misrepresented a relationsb.ip that did not exist. Jn fact, some students
have stated that yo11 were the one who told them that the program was part of C of
Mand one provided an email where you made thjs statement. Tl1ere is no evidence
that Dr. Kolbe ever stated this and there are many years of emails, statements, and
letters to students and others in which Dr. Kolbe continually corrected your
misrepresentations about her, ETS, and U of M.
11 0. You falsely state Dr. Kolbe wrote/said that the course of study at ETS is a
prerequisite lo ” hecoming ‘ licensed sociiil workers.”’ You put ‘licensed social
workers· in quotes as if you were quming Dr. Kolbe, however, 1his is not a quote.
There is not Ii censure of social wurkern in Hai~i, lhus, the program of srncly at ETS
does not result in a social work license in Hait1. The C:TS program of study does,
however. prepare students for some aspects of social work licensure 111 Lhe United
States, shnirlrl they choose to obtain a social work license abrnad.
111. Your statement in ttis portion of the text is also false. There are o:1ly a handful of
students wbo have work/study scholarships. As you know, your statements about
the tuition costs, scholarships, and who scholarships were offeted to, are also false.
51
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
112. Your statement that people were “fooled” is groundless. You have no evidence lo
support this statement.
113. You falsely state that ”U.S. researchers came to the school and paid Kolbe/Duff for
room, board [sic] and Kreyol lessons given ay the unpaid student teachers.” No one
has ever paid Dr. Kolbe for room/board in Haiti or Creole lessons. The Creole
Language Program is operated by ETS and has never been directed by Dr. Kolbe.
Furthermore, you falsely claim that Creole classes are taught by ”1:npaid student
teachers.” Creole instructors are paid and receive a salary which is substantial ly
higl1er than the average salary for teachers. Creole language instructors also receive
housing, pa11ial board, paid training, paid vacations, health insurance, and/or a
tui tion waiver, in addition to their salary
114. You falsely state the credentials of the faculty at £TS. All ac,aclemic classes at ETS
are taught by a professor who has a graduate degr ee in his/her field of academic
sn1dy. Social work practice classes are taught by people who have an MSW plus two
years of posl-MSW practice expeJience. The Ollly classes which might be taught by
someone who does not have a Masters’ degree are basic computer and typing
classes, or beginning level English language classes, though such classes do not
fulfill degree requirements a.t ETS and are offered for professional development
purposes only. Many ETS professors have PhDs and all academic classes which
count towards the degree programs are taught by people with a Master’s Degree or
higher. ETS does not discriminate against Haitian faculty; qualified Haitian faculty
are also welcomed to teach at ETS.
52
That’s interesting statement. You’re claiming that anyone can just open a University in Haiti
within approval from the government? We will provide a written letter from authorities at the
MENFP—if not the Minister himself—expressing how outrageous that assumption is
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike. Among the documentation, can provide the application to MENFP.
That’s from 2014, not 2012. And there is not a single Haitian teacher or administer listed on the
application.
I did not claim that. That was written in a paper he was to co-present with Kolbe, as stated in
the chapter. The obvious and most likely person who would have filled out that application is the
lead academic applying to give the paper: Athena Kolbe. Here’s Balistra’s byline,
Sergio Balistra, PhD , Faculty of Social Science/Department of Sociology, State University of Haiti, Detroit, MI
And here is what was written in his University of Michigan Obituary,
A Port-au-Prince native, Balistra received his university training in social science at the
State University of Haiti in Port-au-Prince. He held advanced degrees in Sociology and
Statistics. Balistra was fluent in English, French, and Spanish, in addition to his native
language, Haitian Creole.
Now who do you suppose wrote that? This is who wrote that,
Athena R. Kolbe, MA, MSW
University of Michigan
Joint Doctoral Student
Social Work and Political Science
11.’i. Tl~ere is mi licens11re of universities in Haiti Nor is there a body in the United
Stales which liccnscu. unjversities located in IIaiti.
116. You falsely stale that Dr. Kolbe has no association with I laitian academics. This is
not true and you lack evide11ce to support this assertion.
117. Your assertion that Sergio Balistra obtained his PhD from the State University or
llaiti is not true. He was a research assistant on a project a( lht State University of
Haiti. However, he obtained h is PhD elsewhere. Neither he nor Dr. Kolbe bas not
ever claimed otherwise.
53
Furthermore, the writer is claiming that Balistra was a “research assistant on a project…”, but
no self-respecting Haitian PhD is going to be anything less than a director. He certainly is not
going to work as an assistant under the direction of US graduate student working in Haiti. And
the claim that he got his PhD elsewhere—meaning apparently in the US or Europe—makes the
prospect all the more dubious. A Haitian with a PhD from a developed country comes back to
Haiti to research as an assistant for a US undergraduate? Hmmm. Could you share the name of
the University where he got his degree?
Interesting that the writer would factually claim that I do not know people who knew or worked
with her at that time? Were they all fake?
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from surveyors and
Kolbe’s survey supervisors at that time that they did not work with any Haitian PhD by the name
of Sergio Balistra.
Based on the evidence. Amply documented. And it is in contrast to her claims that the school
was founded in association with some dozen Haitian professionals. Indeed, Kolbe belabors this
point in touting her University online, claiming that she consulted with the state University, that
only a handful of foreigners were and are involved, as if this was a Haitian institution with Kolbe
acting as a mere guide. As of 2012, there were 0 Haitian professionals on the application for
recognition from the MENFP, the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training. I can
share that application at disclosure. Absolutely none were involved in founding the school. As
Kolbe attests elsewhere, I know, I was a witness to her founding the school.
11 8. You lack any foundation to claim that Dr. Kolbe ‘s colleagues did not ever m(;t
Sergio 13alistra. As you know, you did not know Dr. Kolbe during the relevant time
period. Not did you know the people Dr. Kol he worked wit h_ durin:; this time Nor
have you spoken to “everyone” about Mr. Balistrn.
119. You falsely claim that “since transforming herself into a scholar” Dr. Kolbe had no
connections with Haitian academics except for one person who you claim does not
exist. However, th is is false. You have no evidence or information ~n what
connections Dr. Kolbe did or did not have tJ1en or what connections she has now.
As an at.:Live member of the Haitian Stud.ies Association she has long standing
relationships with a number of Haitian academics. Your statement is simply false.
54
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
And “voluntary”? So getting a license to open a university in Haiti is just a voluntary thing?
Anyone can open a university, but some volunteer to seek approval from the authorities. Are
you serious?
Not only did ETS students report writing to University, but so did US students. We can provide
documentation if necessary. As for the reference to 1994 (2014?), yes, a great many students
and a great amount of information about the school came our way. The students were trying to
get us to help them make a legal case against Kolbe. I did not do that. I believe what Kolbe did is
terribly wrong, but is was not my fight. It was the students fight. I offer to give them advice and
help if I could. But it was their fight. And also I’m not a lawyer and Haitian courts are ineffective
fiasco, hence people can start schools, misrepresent the schools, invent administrator, threaten
lie and cajole and con all they want and get away with it. I will share the information with you if
we ever get to court.
120. You claim that in 2011, students at EIS “began to realize” that the school had “no
accredi tatio11 inside or outside of Haili.” This is a false statement on several levels.
First, there is no accreditation process for universities in Haiti, there is only a
voluntary process of recognition by the Ministry of Education. There is no body
which accredits schools of social work in Haiti. Therefore, it won lei be impossible
for ETS, or any other school of social work (including the Haitian State
Univcrsi1y·s school of social work) to have obtained accreditation.
Secondly. your statemen: is false becat:se you claim that students “began to realize”
– there was no process of realization which took place because students were
always fo lly informed with regular communication from. the ETS faculty about th~
process of government recognition in Haiti and where ETS was in that process.
121. You false ly claim that in January 2014, ETS students wrote to a Cniversity of
Michigan dean, Laura Lein to complain. This is entirely false. No letter or email
was writ1cn or received by Dr. Lein as you have described.
Jn October or 1994, a woman who had dropped out of ETS after failing her first
semester of classes, who was at the time employed by yo u, wrote (purpmtedly at
your behest) an unsigned email from a newly created anonymous email address sent
from an [P address that was also used by some of your employet:s. H:..iwever, this
person was 1101 a student at ETS and had not been for some time.
55
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
122. Your assertion that Dr. Kothe retroactively increased tuition is false. None of the
ETS faculty, jncluding Dr. Kolbe, or auyuue else, evt:r retrual:Livdy increased
tuition for ETS students. The tuition for ETS has never changed since the clay ll1aL
the degree program was opened by you and Dr. Kolbe.
123. This is a blatant lie. No one was expelled from ETS for not beiug abk (u pay their
bill. Students were given payment plans startin6 their first term and some students
took time off and then returned when they could pay their hill. Nn one ”los:” their
credits. If a sn.:dent earned the credits then they have credit for the classes they took.
124. This is yel another example of a lie that you told at the time and which you have
now put in print. At that point, the degree program al ETS had only been open for
two years, not three, so this is not accurate. Also, since you claim that Dr. Kolbe
retroactively increased the annual tu;tion by $100 USD, Lhis would only be $200
that students who stmied in 2012 wudu have to pc1y, not $900. However, even with
your math errors, the statement lS still false. No student was told retroactively to
pay more tuition.
125. Again, this is a false accusation. No student has ever lost credits fo:- courses that
they took and passec at ETS. The only way a student can ” lose credits” is by fai ling
a course.
56
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
So the writer admits there is a letter and that it came from the wife/partner of Kolbe, Maria
Puccio. But the writer says it was altered. That could probably be determined through forensic
digital techniques, but once again, I’m not saying that I know factually that so and so happened.
I’m reporting what the Haitian students and US students told me and the evidence they
provided. Given all the other evidence from before, claims on the websites, and the
overwhelming pattern of apparent deception stretching back more than 1 decade, as well as my
personally experiences, it’s abundantly clear that I am being as truthful as I possibly can.
126. You claim Lhat 29 students “challenged” Dr. Kolbe by refusing to pay their tuition
and writjng a letter to the US embassy to complain ctboul Dr. Kolbe. This is false.
No such events ever took place.
127. Herc you falsely state that the US Embassy did not respond to the “challenge” of
29 students, but that Dr. Kolbe did. This is false. Dr. Kolbe did not respond to any
such events because these events did not occur.
128. The cmai I that you quote appears to have been altered by you or someone dse after
it was received by Professor Puccio. This is not the email that was received by
Professor Puccio.
Additionally. you falsely state that the letter was “inadve1tently ci rculated to the
entire SlLtdent body.” This is again, false. It was a private email sent to Pro fessor
Puccio which was stolen by an employee of your colleague, Erika Childs. Ms.
Child’s employee ha<.;kt::u Professor Puccio ‘s email account, forwarded this and
otl1er emails to ETS students, to Ms. Childs, and to your employee, Keely Brnokes,
who both then disseminated them widely despite being told by Professor Puccio of
this theft from her email account. This was a private email obtained th.rough illegal
hacking, not one that wns sent publicly as you fa lsely imply. It was not shared with
ETS students by Professor Puccio or Dr. Kolbe, nor was lhe content something that
they 1hcmsclves endorsed.
57
And in this case, we can address the clear the whole thing up if Kolbe would simply produce
Jennifer Balistra. The writer admits the letter existed, and that it was origainally from the
Jennifer Bilastra. Bilastra claims in the letter that her husband worked in the US consulate and
then threatened that ETS students who did not retract all their claims about ETS and write a
detailed letter of apology regarding ETS and send that letter to the consulate would have a hard
time getting visas…. If anyone reads the letter, just about any part of that letter that I can think
of seems to qualfied as extortion, fraud, intimidation…. These are the things that lead me to
suggest in the book that Kolbe’s behaviour “may” indeed be “criminal”. But let’s get Jennifer
Balistra to tell us what parts of the letter were redacted.
As for Erika Childs and Keely Brookes, they were Kolbe’s employees. I did not know any about
them until they came to us, as so many have, appalled at what was going on with Kolbe and ETS
and seeking advice. One of the reasons they decided to come to us is because Kolbe had been
apparently been telling them malicious gossip about me. And now, having experienced Kolbe’s
inclination for lying and manipulation, they realized that perhaps what she said about me
wasn’t true. I don’t get into that in the book. It’s irrelavant and Kolbe’s slander of me has had no
impact on my personal or professional life, not that I know of anyway. But what I learned from
the US graduate students and the Haitian student was that Kolbe’s duplicity and her apparent
willingness to cajole, intimidate and lie was all far worse than I had ever fathomed. And far
more harmful as, at this point, some students had been attending university for 3 years and
could expect to get nothing from the experience. We can discuss all that and what evidence
they have against the school at disclosue. As for the letter, no, it was a group of students who
brought it to us. As I just said, they felt deeply betrayed. These students are mostly poor. They
were handing to Kolbe what for them were enormous sums from their parent’s and family who
all thought that the student was earning an international degree to become licensed social
workers. They feel like she deceived them and robbed them of money and years of their lives.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students, foreign
and Haitian.
We can and gladly will provide ample documentation and attestation from students and staff,
foreign and Haitian alike.
129. Your statement that ”students” recanted allegations is false because no student
made allegations and thus, no student recanted the said allegations. The allegations
to which you refeJ were made by yuw· employee, whu was nul an ETS student.
58
It’s not my claim. It’s the students. I’m recounting their story.
It’s not my claim. It’s the students. I’m recounting their story.
So the writer knows a lot about Jennifer Balistra’s facebook page. And the writer is claiming
Jennifer Balistra is real. Let’s meet her! Get Jennifer Balistra to send me a letter how the
students lied to me and she really exists.
As for the facebook page having all those pics, Kolbe know that’s not true. And I know it’s not
true because I reviewed it right before “someone” took it down. We can share what digital
evidence we have. And these things I’m saying are retrievable through forensic digital methods.
1 ‘.JO. You l~ilsely daim that students asked Dr. Kolbe for a meeting with Jennifer. No
student ever asked Dr. Kolbe or anyone else in the ETS administration for a
meeting, face-to-face or otberwis~, with Jennifer Balistra. The only person who
requested a meeting was your employee, Keely Brookes, who then did not show up
fur the meeling. You also falsely state that Dr. Kolbe told students that Jennifer
Balistra was sick and therefme unable to meet. This is a lie. Dr. Kolbe never made
these slatemenL; and students who wanted a meeting with her could have asked her
directly.
131. Your statement that Dr. Kolbe has claimed that Jennifer was paraplegic or
introverted ts false.
132. Your statement here is false . .Tenrifer’s Facehook page lrnd n lot of photos of her
baby, vacation photos, and pbotograp:–is of events. Her page i nctuded photos of ETS
students in a group photo of her Creole class, ‘?v-hich included some RTS students
in it becat:sc they were Creole instructors.
59
Ok. Let me see if I understand where you’re going with this. You’re claiming that Almathe—who
has been defined as my daughter but who is not my daughter, but rather a Haitian women who
I helped helped as an orphan and sent after her parents died when she was 10 years old–
created Jennifer Balistra? But it was Puccio—Kolbe’s partner/wife, who told her to do it? And
then, if I’m getting the logic, the password was not changed after Almathe left the school, so
maybe someone– perhaps me–substituted a different photo for the original, ostensibly to frame
Kolbe. Why would someone do that? So that three years later they could include it in a book?
Hmm. A seed of doubt? Well, first off, just so the writer understands my personal feelings, no
one I have ever met, least of all Athena Kolbe, is so important to me that I would sacrifice my
integrity and jeopardize my reputation. Yes, I find the students story important and I hope that
they will find justice or, as one of the leaders of the group that originally came to me said, ‘at
least in see that she stops victimizing other young Haitians.’ But for me, ultimately, the reason I
bothered to write about Kolbe, her history and the school, is because it’s an excellent example of
a wide spread problem in Haiti: deception and radical misrepresentation of what is going in the
country executed by institutions and individuals, such as Kolbe, to collect money in the name of
the poor, but not in the interest of the poor, and much of which never makes it to the poor.
That’s what the book is all about. And getting back to Jennifer Balistra, what about all these
other emails from Balistra and the presence of Balistra on the list of administrators and on the
school website? Did someone hack the site and put her there.
133. Herc again, you 1epo1i events and details that did not occur and which art: nut lrnt:.
Jennifer Balistra’s accounts for gmail1 google for classroom, and the Schoology
learning management system were created by your daughter. Almathe Jean, who
set up tht: account at the request of Professor Puccio, a standard practice for new
students and faculty members at ETS. Ms. Jean, who left ETS several weeks before
the events you are recounting occurred, created a password for this gmail account
(the password was not changed until late 2014). lf an incorrect photo was used, or
if Jennifer’s actual photo was replaced, it was by your daughter Almathe, a
disgruntled former employee of ETS or by someone with whom your daughter
shared tl1e login infonuation
Furthermore, you cla:im that “tech-savvy students povped the picture into Tineye”
and discovered it was a cropped stock photo. However, this is also not true. IL was
d011e by you, not a student, and then you told others, including some ETS faculty
members and your daughter about it, and they then 8hared the what you had done
vVith others.
60
But more important here, you’re saying that Jennifer Balistra in fact exists? Where did she go?
Did she die in an earthquake like Sergio Balistra, the other colleague of Kolbe’s who appears to
be invented?
I’m pretty sure that these kind of frantic attempts to blame others can be weeded out through
forensic digital methods. But that’s totally unnecessary. The overwhelming logic and the fact
that no one who has anything to do with the school ever met these people would suggest to any
reasonable human being that they were invented by “someone.” And once again, I don’t think I
made any factual accusations. I never claimed to have seen anyone creating fictitious web
pages. I presented the logic and left it for the reader to decide. I might have made opined
statements based on the evidence and then pulled it together in conclusions, but I invented
nothing. And we can provide overwhelming evidence and testimony what I do say.
And it’s not like a single shred of evidence. We’re talking about years of what appears to
patterns of duplicity published online, in reports, major newspapers, school websites. And then
we have all these student testimonies and emails. We have all the web pages and we have all
the emails where “someone” is having the fictitious Bilastra intimidate students. Not least of all
with the claim that her husband works for the US consulate and that students who publicly
complain about Kolbe and ETS will never get a visa to the US. It’s Kolbe school. I don’t think
anyone who has ever come in contact with the school is under any delusions about that. So why
would anyone else but Kolbe write a letter like that. And again, it’s not simply an argument
about one little fact. It’s a pattern that is well documented, and repeated over a period of at
least 10 years. The school and creation of fictitious people is simply the climax
As for the TinEye issue. I suppose accusing me of discovering the photo was fake supports the
idea that maybe I framed Kolbe, which seems to be where the writer hopes to go with that.
That might, just might, be interesting if there was not just one but two Balistra, a name rare on
the internet and unheard of in Haiti. There was Sergio Balistra, a supposed Haitian who lived
before the earthquake. And then there was Jennifer Balistra, a supposed Peruvian who
appeared in something like 2013. Both were Kolbe’s colleagues. But she’s apparently the only
one who ever met either them. Moreover, this patterned use of Jennifer Balistra and her
frequent intervention in conflicts on Kolbe’s behalf pretty much puts to rest any reasonable
doubt whose interest she served. Indeed, I think you’re going to have a hard time convincing
anyone that I or Almathe invented either of the Bilastra’s or hacked or tampered with emails or
internet sites. Why don’t you blame the Russians? And again, we have documentation and can
provide written and notarized testimony from dozens of former students about the Bilastra(s)
61
At this point in time, when I learner of Jennifer Baliatra, I had nothing to do with the school nor
had I had anything to do with the school for almost 2 years. I know absolutely nothing about
Jennifer Bilastra until the students—US and Haitian alike—came to me with all the cited
information. No reason to doubt them, especially given that Bilastra does not exist. But yes,
once they brought Bilastra to my attention, I investigated to so I could be confident that the she
in fact did not exist.
As for if the students investigated. Oh yes, they did. So did US graduate students. And so did
teachers at the school. And oh yes, those pages were gone. That I did follow, and with
fascination. But more interesting here, the writer is claiming they were not gone? That they
were active in 2015. Could we see some evidence of that? And, the writer is admitting that she
knows Bilastra? That she knew when those accounts were pulled down? And she’s saying
“active”. What exactly is mean by “active”? Were they pulled down and put up again? Has
anyone else ever met her Jennifer Bilastra, before or since. We would all like to meet her. Could
you put us in touch? In fact, if you can produce Jennifer Bilastra, and she can attest to having
worked with Kolbe and ETS, that she’s from Peru, and that her husband was with the US
consulate in Haiti, I will immediately and voluntarily retract the chapter and issue profuse
apologies.
Let’s see her! Lets’ talk her. Produce her! Put us all in touch! You have my email. Have her write
to me!
Look, there is ample evidence and any reasonable observer would conclude that Balistra was
invented. Evidence from the students and US teachers that she did threaten students that if they
did not cooperate with ETS and, by corollary, Athena Kolbe, they would not get visas. All the
134. No ETS students ever told Dr. Kolbe or anyone else al ETS thl they thought
Jenni fer did not exist. This accusation originated with you and is has never been
falsely claim that somehow in response to this accusatim1 being made to Dr. Kolbe,
tho..t Jennifer Bol istra’s Faccbook and Google accou11t.-; w~rt: c’gune Lhe next day.”
This is again false. Her Face hook and Google accounts were still a:::tive as recently
as lale 2015.
135. Agajn, you claim that Jennifer Balistra does not exist. She does and this accusation
is false. There is no evidence to support your accusation other than your lies and a
Grnail account registered in Jennifer Balistra’s name to which you had access
through your daughter.
62
evidence for a reasonable person to make that conclusion comes from students and US grad
students and is in the book.
As for the part about my “daughter” and me having access to Balistra’s account through her.
Almathe is 28 years old, and at that time she was living with and employed by Athena Kolbe.
Well there is some evidence regarding language skills. In 27 years of living and Working in Haiti I
have never seen someone write an English acronym for a Haitian ministry. It’s MENFP, Ministère
de l’Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle. And if you want to say it in English
its’ Ministry of National Education and Professional Training.
But the most interesting part of this comment, to me, is that the writer admits the school has no
accreditation, and that, in effect, Kolbe misled students, sold them worthless educations.
If there is any question all about any of this, particularly about the legality of simply opening a
University in Haiti with no approval, I can get a letter from the Minister of Education explaining
the details. Even the primary schools must be registered.
As for the reference to me, I never applied to the MENFP for anything regarding Kolbe’s school. I
offered to help. But that was when I was misled to believe the school was a serious endeavor,
was legal, was under the auspices of the University of Michigan. That was before I understood
the extent of the deceit, whereupon I withdrew and, in an attempt to be responsible, wrote to
the University of Michigan dean of Social Work and told expressed my concerns. I will provide
that letter on disclosure. Moreover, when I offered to help, I offered in the context of having a
committee of academics managing the school. A board of directors. Kolbe made it quite clear
that she intended for no one to be able to challenge her absolute control over the school. I don’t
discuss that in the book because it seems so unnecessary given all the other evidence and
complaint from students and staff. But I can probably dig up some emails that will verify that. I
can also provide the 2014 application, which has no Haitians listed on it as staff, director,
assistant, advisor or anything else, none at all.
136. Here you falsely claim that in reaction to some events which neveT occurred (a
fictional complaint made to the Ministry of Education) (“MOE”), that Dr. Kolbe
then began to work on getting official recognition for ETS. Again, this is lie. There
was no complaint by ETS students to the MOE so no act ion was taken in resporn.:ie
to events which did not occur. Furthermore, you know that Dr. Kolbe and you both
began the process of official recognition in the beginning of 201 2, when ETS first
began offering a deg1ee program. Lastly, since there was never any compl2.int hy
1:;Ludents to the MOE, the ministry never intervened nor did anyolle foar that they
would do so.
63
Interesting reaction. If there is a “Haitian director” this is new. When I was familiar with the
school, and the time I wrote about, there were no Haitian directors or even Haitian professionals
with University degrees. Nor is there a Haitian director listed on the 2014 application for a
license from MENFP. They’re all foreign. Four of six are grad students. One is a PhD who says
she was put on the application without her consent. The other is an obscure professor who, if I
recall, I tried to contact but did not reply.
Also, be glad to get a letter from the Minster of MENFP regarding their policies.
As for me being a director, yes, Kolbe gave me a nominal title as “director” and offered me
partnership. I think I mentioned this above. But that was something she was pushing on me and
I now interpret her earnest attempts to recruit me as a trying to garner credibility because I am
a writer with a reputation for honesty and critiquing aid. It would have given her credibility.
What I was interested in was creating an Institute of Anthropology inside of this University of
Michigan supported School of Social Science. But I was never involved in any meetings with
anyone besides Kolbe. I do not recall ever being introduced to anyone who was going to be a
director or board member, especially none who were Haitian, albeit I proposed quite a few of
them. I can probably dig up emails attesting to that. Kolbe wanted no one else involved in the
school who might challenge her control. That was clear. And then when I got back from the
work for the US Government in Congo and found the school was in full swing, I was not invited
to any meetings with a board of directors or introduced to anyone. At some point Puccio showed
up, but I never understood what her role was more than her being Kolbe’s partner/wife. I was
told erroneously, that she was a “professor” a University of Michigan. She was not. She was a
grad student. But I never had any meetings with her. And she knew nothing at all about Haiti.
Anyway, when I began to realize something was seriously amiss, that it might well all be sham
and so eventually I pulled out and wrote the University of Michigan. And yes, I had a moral
obligation to tell students that the University was fake. It was not just unaccredited– by any
institution or state authority—the students weren’t being taught useful information. I was
teaching several classes and Kolbe quite literally cut them off mid semester. I can only assume
I 37. Your narrative is full of lies . First, Dr. Kolbe and the ETS leadership team first
submitted a request for recognition to MOE in 2012, the year the degree-granting
programs were created, not in 2014 as you claim. Second, this request was not done
in response to student concerns. Tt was filed during the fi rst term ETS was opened,
while yoll were still a director at ETS and before you sta1ied creating concerns for
the studenL::; by lying to them about Dr. Kolbe and encouraging them to drop out of
school. Third, ETS bas never been run by a board. Fourth, the director of ETS is
Hai tian and Dr. Kolbe and Professor Puccio (who are US citizens) are members of
the leadership team but are under the leadership of a Haitian director. Fifth, the
LeadeTShip team has never included any other “University of Michigan graduate
studenLs.” There has always been a Haitian on 1he leadership team.
64
she gave them credit for what I never finished teaching. And nothing in the school was really
English, as Kolbe claimed. Had I not taught them in Creole, few of the 40 or so students in the
classes would have understood a word I said. Yet, at the same time, there was nothing Haitian
about it, except the students. The students were not qualified to be in an English school. Most
were not qualified to be in college. And they were not being brought up to a level that qualified
them at a university level. The teachers were not qualified as professors… Indeed, when I was
there, the only teachers beside me were Almathe Jean, who has high school diploma. And
another Haitian teacher who has not University education. But no, I didn’t encourage people to
drop out. I probably should have. But I was leery at the time about engaging in a conflict with
Kolbe. We all understand her to be vindictive and seek retribution. There are many of us who
have avoided conflict with her after experiencing lies, some malicious. Example with me, after I
left she told people I stole tablets from the house. Others were threatened by apparently false
administrators and a wife of a US consulate official. It’s all discussed in the book and below.
There is much more that I did not discuss. But getting back to the issue of me encouraging the
students to leave the school, I did not do that, even though I should have. It was not my place. If
some asked I gave my opinion. But I did not go out of my way. I was an am extremely busy with
other work.
Well, that’s not true. You’re supposed to have a license and approval from the Haitian State. I
find it incredible that anyone would try to claim differently. Shows contempt for Haiti.
Moreover, the writer has already admitted knowledge to the contrary.
But unfortunately, you’re right in that Haiti is full of foreigners who do as they please and get
away with it. That’s part of the point I’m making in the book.
I’m getting this from Kolbe’s colleagues and the application …..
138. You write “Kolbe would soon ka.rn that foreigners could not get a license to open
a private University [sic] in Haili .” This is false. Several universities in Haiti have
been opened by foreigners including one which was opened the same year as ETS,
whose director was also an Americun PhD candidate in the United States at the
time. FmtJ1errnore, there is no “license” needed to open a university, there is only a
voluntary process DfrecogniLion hy MOF..
139. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe “learned” that only someone with a PhD could
open a university. This is not trne. Dr. Kolbe did not learn this as this js not true.
65
Yes, this is from one of Kolbe’s former colleagues/staff. It’s a trivial point. Given all the evidence,
no reason not to believe her.
Overwhelming evidence suggests she did just that. Inventing and intimidating students. Jennifer
Bilastra is the icing on the cake.
All substantiated earlier on in this document and the book. All well substantiated… Plus it’s one
more academic issue that has not place in a case of defamation. More evidence that the
complaints are an act of desperation.
140. You falsely write bat a graduate student in the United States came to you with
information about the name of the ETS director. This is a lie. The person who told
you is not a gradv.ate studen1 nor does that person live in the United States.
Secondly. it appears that you deliberately misspelled tbe name the ETS director,
“Sophcnic,” whose name is neither suspicious nor runny.
14 1. ln this section, you falsely state that Dr. Kolbe has produced “shoddy” data and is
··preying on impoveiished Haitians.” Neither of these accusations are true.
142. You fal se ly stated that Dr. Ko ]be “twice claimed and provided evidence for a
Haitian rape epidemic more severe than any known on eaiih at the time.” This is
not true. There were other conflicts with much higher rates of sexual assault than
Lhose in Hai ti.
143. In this section, you accuse Dr. Kolbe of giving a fi rsthand account of helping a rape
victim for which you claim she was not present. This accusation is false. Dr. Kolbe
was present, and you know that she was because she discussed this wilh you at
lenglh at that lime. Your response at the time was to summarily dismiss the report
the enumerator made of rape. In fact, you responded by advising Dr. Kolbe not to
take action because the woman who was raped likely ·’f -eked him and then
regretted it.” You then gave Dr. Kolbe an example or a time you yourself had been
accused or a rape which you claimed you did not commit.
66
The writer made this accusation before and it’s disgusting. I never did and I never would say
such a thing. I’m surmising that this is an attempt to play off of the fact that much of my two
chapters, those the writer is taking issue with, discuss false accusations of rape and rape
epidemics, including Kolbe’s own claims for rape indices in Haiti in excess of the highest indices
on the planet. Yes, if anyone were to read my analyses they would recognize instantly that such
a comment would be completely out character for me.
Nor was I ever in my life accused of rape.
By the way, these statements are good examples of defamation or slander. The writer states
them factually but, as they never happened, cannot possibly provide proof.
It’s also yet one more example of what would appear to any reasonable observer to be patterns
of deceit, the same kind of tendency we see in the Kolbe’s patterns of manipulation of the social
media, news outlets and academic venues. These are patterns that appears over and over in at
least the past 13 years of Kolbe’s career and public life. Possibly of that past 30 years. The 2004 –
2006 shenanigans were all documented in the press. More is now documented and hopefully,
through its exposure, the abuse will be checked. Yes, the fascinating thing is that this document
Kolbe has crafted and the demand for retraction is itself another example of the behavior I
describe in the book. It’s peppered with invented and unverifiable “facts” for which Kolbe has no
one or document to back it up. And we see the same attempts to use social media and threats
to squelch any criticism. Looking at the retraction demands, they read exactly like the demands
the fictitious Jennifer Bilastra—ETS administrator and wife of US consulate official—made of the
students. Is Kolbe going to threaten to have my passport pulled?
Of yes, I was forward correspondence on this issue. Be glad to share it at disclosure.
144. You falsely claim that ETS is a “gatekeeper’· for research. ETS lias no say in
whether people conduct research in Haiti, nor has the leadership of ETS, including
Dr. Kolbe, ever attempled to do so.
67
Same as above. Reference to Kolbe intimidating students, foreign and US, with threats from the
fabricated Balistra.
I think it’s fair to say that a “real” University is recognized by a State or licensing board,
accredited by at least one credible national or international institution, that it can give
recognized diplomas for the student’s hard work. Kolbe’s ETS is not recognized by Haiti, not
recognized by the US, not recognized by any State or governing entity on planet earth. Nor,
when I was writing and she was collecting money for useless diplomas, was it recognized by an
accredited institution. Not in the US, not in Haiti, not one in any country in the world. That’s in
addition to many other documented shortcomings. But the bottom line here is that Kolbe
invented ETS and then sold it at bargain price to Haitian students desperate for international
degrees. All this is heavily documented in the book and I can provide websites and abundant
testimonies from students and former staff. It’s fake. It might be real in Kolbe’s mind, but it’s
fake. Its’ fraud, it’s deception, and its exploitation of youth in one of the poorest counties on the
planet. And the writer as much as admit it’s fake in these pages, that it has no license or
accreditation.
145. You state that Dr. Kolbe “positioned” ETS to the ”status of research gatekeeper”
by means of a si ttiug un an elhical review board. Then you falsely claim this board
approved research that Dr. Kolbe did which would not have been approved in the
United States. This is false. First, the ethical research com111ittee at ETS did not
exist in 2006, 2009, or 2010, the three years during which studies were conduded.
Secondly, all three of these studies were approved by the fostitutional review boards
of the rn1iversities with which Dr. Kolbe was affiliated al the lime: Wayne State
University in 2006 and the University of Michigan in 2009 and 2010. Third, there
are several ethical review boards in Haiti that primarily review and act as
gatekeepers for foreign researchers; the Ethical Research Cornmi1tee (ERC) at ETS
is not one of them. 1l1e ERC at RTS primarily reviews research proposals by ETS
students, not foreigners.
l46. ETS is not a “fake” university.
148. You fa lsely claim that four foreign researchers and graduate students wrote letters
of complaint ta the University of Michigan School of Social Work. This is not true.
Two letters were sent, one fr.om you, and one from your employee, Keely Drookes,
co-signed by your daughter’s thee-roommate, Erika Childs.
68
Well, the writer just named three of them. Keely Brooks is not and never was my “employee”.
And why has Erika—who never was my employee– gone from my “employee” to my “daughter”
Almathe’s roommate”?
The only thing relevant here is that Keely Brookes considers herself another of Kolbe’s victims.
She came to the school thinking it was credible, worked for free, paid Kolbe money… As for
responses to letters, I personally wrote an email about Kolbe, sent it to the University of
Michigan, and never got a response. I know of at least four other people who did the same. The
lack of reply suggest that University of Michigan staff want to make no statements that would
imply they know of or support the school. As for me and my knowledge of this, Kolbe claimed
that the Dean personally encouraged her to start the school and promised support. I’m sure I
can dig up some old emails to that effect. As for other people who wrote, I know the students
did as well. At least that’s what they told me. And they tried to get me to translate a letter for
them—none of the students of the ETS English school could write a decent sentence in English.
At disclosure. I can retrieve those for you. But really, I don’t see the relevance. The most
important issues here are whether or not the students believe Kolbe fabricated Bilastra to
intimidate them, the letter about the consulate with fabricated threats…. Those are what are
most important. Did she fabricate them? I think that the overwhelming evidence makes it
reasonable for all of us to conclude that she did.
I think we got that one nailed down.
I think we can nail that one down too.
149. You falsely claim that “none” of the two letters was responded to. This js not true.
A representative of the University of Michigan School of Social Work spoke at
length to your employee, Keely Brookes, about the content of her letter. Not finding
Lhe complaints credible .is not the same as not responding to them.
150. Your assenion that Dr. Kolbe lkd to people or financially exploited them is false.
151. You falsely stated that Dr. Kolbe bas been accused of providing substandard
education. ln fact, Dr. Kolbe has never been accused of substandard teaching. She
has received very high student evalqations of her tealhing, both in Haiti and in the
United States.
69
More irrelevant academic issues
No idea what you’re talking about
Extrapolations…. And besides, these are once again academic issues that don’t concern the
court
Repeated point…. Dealt with elsewhere
152. You clc. im that Ors. Kolbe and Hutson did not say how they defi ned rape. This is
not true. They were very clear ahout how rape and sexual assault were defined in
all published repol’ts. In fact, you criticize this earlier in -your book and also quoted
from the portion of the study which defined rape. Drs. Kolbe and Ilutson used the
HURIDOCS standardized classifications for defi ning sexual assaltlts and
different iated between assaults which included penetration with penis, fin gers, or
other objects, forced oral sex, unwanted sexual touching, and other actions. This
was clearly stated in the article.
153 . Herc you falsely state that two different reports, written at different times and for
differem audLences, were actually the same report.
154. You inaccurately state that Dr. Kolhe and colleagues’ research found something
that they did not find. You are alt.empting to reinterpret their findings but clearly
lack 1l1e stati stical skills to so. Dr. Kolbe and her col leagues never said that rate of
sexual assaul1 would hold or that 7% of all women would be sexually assaulted in
a one-year period. This is somethfog that you claimec, and then falsely attributed
to Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues.
155. llere you fa lsely state that the six other authors on the paper you described are
university professors. This is not true nor has anyone ever claimed thi s was the case.
156. This is false. Drs. Kolbe and colleagues never put the percentage of people who
were sexua lly assaulted at )% of those sampled or 6% of all females. This
typographical error was made by someone else and was corrected before
publication and in all circulated copies of the article.
70
Repeated point…. Dealt with elsewhere
This is a misunderstanding of my point. I said that 20% of the people in the second survey
reported having been raped during the earlier period. It was Kolbe’s report. Is she cognizant of
the content?
This is dealt with elsewhere. I made no factual statements. I have no idea what you really did.
But based on the logistics and findings, there are serious doubts.
Yeah, sure, all journalism especially Kolbe’s is the complete responsibility of someone else.
That’s an absurdity. The editors may change what the journalist says, but it’s the journalist
who’s sifting through quotes and information, picking and choosing what’s relevant. And here’s
what I said,
At a certain point, seemingly fed up with the lack of sympathy from the international community, Duff
issued what sounded like a threat that Aristide’s supporters were now justified in launching violent
reprisals entitling an article, “We Won’t Be Peaceful and Let Them Kill Us Any Longer” (Interview with
Haitian Activist Rosean Baptiste, interviewed by Lyn Duff, 4 November 2005).
So I didn’t say that it was a threat. I said it “sounded” like a threat. And it sure does.
157. Thi s is a false representa tion of Dr. Kolbe and colleagues’ research. Th ey neve r
conducted o st udy whi c h interviewed people on ce and then again fom years later
and fo.md t hat fi ve uf 29 peopl e wliu repurl ed a sexual assault in the first s urvey
rep orted an other sexual assault in t he second surv ey. You again appea r to have
invented information.
158. Here agai n you fa lsel y claim Dr. Ko lb e a nd her collea gues did n.ot conduct the
survey wh ic h they fielded.
: 59. You fa lsely clai m th at Dr . Kolbe issue d a threat of violence. You also attri bute this
to a n emotional res ponse wh1 c h Dr. Kolbe d id n ot ex press or fee .. D r. Ko lbe did
not advocate for or against v io lence in this instance; s he w as assigned a story by
her producer. cuuJut:l1::chose th e title, a nd distributed :t w ithout D r. Ku lbt: be in g involved or even be ing
in formed o f such. Dr. Kolbe’s m otivation in co nduc ting t he inte rview was lo fu lfi ll
he r job as a journa list ; she is n ot responsible for the s tate ments made by t hose whom
she interviewed and she has not publicl y expressed a greement o r disagreement with
Stich statements.
71
This is dealt with elsewhere….
This is dealt with elsewhere….
This is dealt with elsewhere…. But just to remind you. Her is the quote from Kolbe’s resignation
letter. This is Duff/Kolbe account of what her boss said to her.
I’m management, don’t you understand that? You’re so stupid you can’t understand
that? …. fuck you…you’re through at KPFA…. get out of the movement… you’re too
stupid and out of it to know what’s going on.”
.
l 60. You appear to have mad e u p most of the content of this narrative. Dr. Kol he never
claimed tha: such British people were battli ng each other and reaching across the
A tl antic to harass her and Dr. Hutson. Nor is there any m enti on in the aiiicles or
statements made by Dr. Kolbe of Scotland Yar:i or individua ls being “sophisticated
enough” to evade Scotlfmd Yard.
16 1. Here you falsely claim that Dr. Ko lbe told the Institutional R ev iew Board one thing
and then did another. This is not tru e. Everything that was repo rted to the IRB was
done and everything that was done WES reported to the TRB .
162. You use th is footnote as evidence of a false statement you made earl ie1 th at Dr.
Kolbe was “fired” from Radyo T imoun. You then seek to cast doubt on whether
the events described in this section ever too k place. The event s as described by Dr.
Kolbe are accurate. Dr. Kolbe resigned from KPF/\ in 1997 in the mid st of a heated
union-m anagement conflict over contract renewal s. She was asked several times tu
return and later did so.
72
This is dealt with elsewhere…. Why would anyone on earth care enough to post a fake
resignation letter from Lyn Duff. And how is it that this was on line for some 20 years and
Kolbe/Duff never knew about it. Documentation is provided. I’m merely citing chat rooms and
posts that claim to be from Kolbe/Duff
Again, a firsthand and highly sympathetic account of Kolbe’s fight with her employer and a
resignation letter. And you’re saying Kolbe did not post it. So someone impersonated her, wrote
the account, and posted it? I find it incredible and telling that according to Kolbe, I did not get
one single fact right. Nothing on the internet is true except for what I could not find. Nothing she
said or posted was really her. And Almathe Jean invented Balistra.
This is dealt with elsewhere….
163. Th.is footnote follows a section of your book in which you falsdy claim that Dr.
Kolbe’s early life story is not true and that tlrns, her research as an adult in Haiti
should be dismissed. You further try to cast doubt on Dr. Kolbe’s integrity by
saying that she may have been the person to have wrilten these comments or posts
and put ihem online. However, Dr. Kolbe did not write the post~ or c.:omments
which you have referenced.
164. Dr. Kolhe did not post her resignation letter from KPFA online. It was posted by
Lyn Gerry (who is not, as you implied, a person created by Dr. Kolbe). Nor did Dr.
Kolbe make this post from Mark S. Bilk, a person she does not know. He was
apparently aware that Dr. Kolbe was a torture survivor because of the extensive
press coverage of her story and the story of other gay youths forcibly subjected to
aversion therapy at the time.
Furthermore, you put the term “to11ured” in quotes to imply that Dr. Ko lbe was not
t011ured. In fact, she was, and this is well documented despile your baseless
assertions that such events never took place.
165. This fo llows a section in which you claim that Athena Kolbe is not Dr. Kolbe’ s real
name. In fact, this is Dr. Kolbe’s name which ~he was given at birth by her parents.
73
This is dealt with elsewhere….
I’m confused because that’s what she and Muggah said in the LA Opinion piece written about
the survey I conducted…
Once again, the writer is imputing motivations and conclusions I did not make. I did not say
anything about conspiracy. I only presented the evidence. Here’s the statement,
166. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe never used her hyphenated name prior to 2006.
However, this 11arne, Athena Lyn Duff-Kolbe appears ou numerous documents and
is easily loiu1d in a number of sourt:c:s. ll is Lhe full name used in the court records
for her guardianship and associated hearings to prevent her ti·om being subjected to
further anti-gay to1ture in 1992. This form of Dr. Kolbe’s name appears in a number
of places during the 1980s and l 990s as previously mentioned.
167. You accuse Dr. Kolbe and her colleagues of referring to themselves as a “team of
North American researchers” as an “academic slight” of your team. This is fa lse.
And, it is irnpMsihle, ~ince Dr Knlbe and her team completed and J:L\blished their
research, describing it as such, long before you did and therefo re did not know that
in the future you would decide to conduct a similar study.
168. Here you f”al sely claim a conspiracy took place where a womar that Dr. Kolbe has
never met, Amy Wilentz, who had strong opinions about the earthquake death toll
influenced her husband, a man you say is an editor at the Los Angeles Times who
happens to edit the opiniou editorial page, lo solit:iL or accept an editorial by Drs.
Kolbe and Muggah which casts your research in a negative light.
This is a false narrative of what took place. Drs. Kolbe and Muggah do nol k.now
Ms. Wilentz and they did not work with a male editor in the submission and
ctpproval of Lheir edilorial, so it would not be possible that they worked with Ms.
Wilenlz’s husband. Vv11en their editorial was published it was a fema le editor, who
has no relationship to Ms. Wilentz, who accepted and edited their piece.
This op-ed was submitted to several newspapers and tbe authors made the decision
to have it published with the Los Angeles Times.
74
As for why Kolbe had published Opinion pages of the LA Times, of all places, as it turns
out that editor of the LA Opinion pages is none other than the husband of Amy Wilentz,
author of the Rainy Season, the major work defending the rise of Aristide. Wilentz and
Lyn Duff were both advocate-journalists working with Aristide in the mid-1990s. Willentz
was unhappy with the death toll controversy and the negative impact that many thought
it had on Haiti recovery effort.
The only statement someone can call into question here is how I know that Willentz was
unhappy about the death count. The answer is that I spent about an hour on the phone with
Willentz discussing it and she wrote about it in her 2013 book, “Farewell Fred Voodoo.”
I’m surprised I put that in the endnotes. But yes, it’s true. That’s what Smucker– a good friend of
mine and a highly respected consultant who has worked in Haiti for 40 years– had to say about
Kolbe after they met. He couldn’t understand how someone who could barely order something
to eat in Creole could be conducting surveys in Haiti. Here is exactly what I say,
To be exact, Duff/Kolbe, speaks no French, a smattering of Kreyol and she understands
even less than she speaks. I would estimate her Kreyol at the linguistic capacity of a 3-
year-old, an observation corroborated by the many students I know who have worked
with her and by Glen Smucker, another U.S. Ph.D. fluent in Kreyol who was baffled by
how she has accomplished so much in Haiti while so linguistically limited. Indeed, I was
rather stunned to learn this myself when I first met her. This is a person, a scholar no
less, who has been working and intermittently lived in Haiti for 27 years. Yet, she is not
functional in the common language. Nor does she make any pretense otherwise. She
uses translators with her students and she does not participate in teaching Kreyol to
foreigners in the courses she offers. Indeed, to my knowledge Duff/Kolbe has never made
an effort to systematically learn Kreyol or French. (page 453)
169. Here you give a long narrative falsely claiming that Dr. Kolbe does not speak
Creole or French. You further state that Glen Smucker corroborated this. However,
either you have lied or Dr. Smucker lied. Dr. Smucker has never spoken with Dr.
Kol be in Creole; they had lunch and only spoke English during the lunch, as they
are both English speakers. I-le would have had no context for evaltiating whether or
not Dr. Kolbe speaks Creole. You claim she is not fm1ctionally fluent in Creole and
that sl1e has never systematica lly tried to learn Creole or French. However, these
are all lies. You have previously affirmed that Dr. Kolbe is fluent in 1 Iaitian Creole.
75
Splitting hairs. Kolbe is ETS
She’s been in and out of Haiti since 1994 . If I said 27 instead of 23 it’s a slip….
Oh yes, I have it. Kolbe gave it to me. And that data comes from the questionnaire that was,
when I got on the job, incoherent. As for why the death count should have been high in the
sample, I think I explain that. They were cash for work recipients considered the neediest and
hardest hit. But out of 5,000 only some 5 had anyone in the household killed din the
earthquake. That’s a flag.
Well, we’re all entitled to our opinions aren’t we. Aren’t we?
170. Dr. Kolbe dces not offer Creole language courses to foreigners. ‘ll1ese classes art:
olforet.l by ETS. Dr. Kolbe does not direct the Creole language program and has
no role in tl:c program’s leadership or day-to-day functions.
17 1. You state tl1at Dr. Kolbe has been liv ing and working in Haiti for 27 years. This is
not accurate.
172. J\gai11, here you have made false statements about research that Dr. Kolbe
conducted and its Endings. You have never seen the complete \VFP dataset n3 it is
proprietary and it was not given to you. The parl of the dalii you had access to was
the po1tion you collected. However, your data had to be deleted ~i·om the dataset
as you did nut follow Lhe study protocols for sampling. F urther, this was a study of
program participants and beneficiaries, aot the general public. Thus1 the results
cannot 1:c generalized to the population as a whole.
173. Again. here you falsely accuse Dr. Kolbe of 1101 producing cr::cible research.
However, the only evidence you produce for th.is is false or based 0:1. yom own poor
statistical skills and misinterpretation of statistics.
76
Call it what you want. But yes, it’s my narrative. It’s my account. So in this case if you want
testimony that it occurred, you can get it from me. As for the technicality of WFP paying me. No
I have a letter from you and the University of Michigan hiring me. You signed the letter. Be glad
to share it at disclosure. As for this repeated point about not following instructions, the issue
was that some surveyors wrote dollars and some gourdes. I know that this is a confusion on all
surveys. In Haiti we have ‘dola’ and we have ‘goud’. One dola = 5 goud. Some people calculate
in one and some the other. Some calculate sometimes in one and other times the other. I’ve
even done a survey on the issue. A properly designed questionnaire can eliminate the problem.
But regarding you saying the data was therefore not good, an analyst experienced with data
from Haitian respondents could have fixed the problem. Until I figured out how to deal with on
the questionnaire, I used to fix those problems all the time. Apparently, the analyst who dealt
with the WFP survey did not have the insight into low income Haitian economic strategies and
behavior that’s that would have empower her/him to do that. They should have asked us,
meaning me or anyone on my team. We could have explained it to them. They did not ask.
174. This narratjve of your initial contact with Dr. Kolbe is far from the truth. You were
llired and paid by the WFP, not by Dr. Kolbe or her colleagues, or the Universi1y
of Michigd.11 as you have falsely cJaimed on your CV. Dr. Kolbe never offered you
$ 10.000 cash to do a one-w-eek survey. Dr. Kolbe never hired, paid, or employed
you. And your “work” was never used in this study though you may have still been
paid. You refused to fo llow the sLu·vey fielding protocols and the data you collected
had to be rccoJlected by others who actually followed the sampling procedures
correctly.
77
First off, yes, that’s exactly it. Kolbe knows very well what a professional statistical
representative and properly conducted survey is supposed to look like. And so when you first
look at her explanations and descriptions, they seem perfect. She even has the habit of
describing the survey process in the first person plural, as if she was there every step of the way.
But the problem, I would learn and recount in greater detail I the book and in subsequent
responses, I that she never was there. And by all accounts there serious and significant
shortcomings in the way the data is collected, verified (or rather, not verified), and transcribed.
And these shortcomings scream out from the her findings. And in the past her findings have so
fit her political leanings and interests of the humanitarian aid sector, while at the same time
being radically out of whack with what we know from other research, that there is good reason
175. You continue ym1r false narrative with another lie, claiming that after Drs. Muggah
amJ Ko lhe puh]ishecl the op-ed in the Los Angeles Times criticizin;; your research,
11ml Dr. Kolbe Then initiated contact with you. This is, of course, not true. A copy
uf your email to her, sent on June 16, 2011, is below:
From: Tim Schwartz [mailto:schwai1z833@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday,June 16, 201 1 8:33 PM
To: a1henadk@aoJ.com
Cc: kolbe@umich.edu
Subject: haiti, st1rveys
ALhern’-,
I’m not sure where 10 begin.
I’ve been meanit1g to get in touch with you for several weeks now.
As fate woulJ have i l, when the controversy over the death count began I had just
finished looking over yolll’ Lancet article. I had fallen into the same trap tnat so many
people must have fallen into. I had read some reference to you being a rabid Artistidc
pa11isan, implying lhat tbe survey \,Vas i1Jfh1ted Lo suit your politics, and so I didn’t take it
seriously. So–this is the fate pait–as I was realizing what an error I made, I was
unwittingly already in the process of getting the same sort of discrediting response to my
‘vvork ….
Just thought I would shore that.
Whal 1 was hoping to discuss with you is some oftl-1e details of the ‘Lancet survey’–as
everyone now refers to it–arnl sume of your Dlher work..
Just so you know where I am coming from here, the Lancet survey sounds well done. It’s
clear you knew/know what you’re doing . .t\.nd the results make perfect seme to me. lt
certain:y corroborates wbat all of us who are familiar wilb Hahi at that time would have
expected in terms of numbers. l plan on refetTing to it a chapter i am writing for a book
and so that’s why 1 am hoping to get some more clarificarions.
Hope that you will find time to respnm.l.
Tim
Timothy T Schwartz (PhD)
78
to believe its’ flawed, perhaps even tampered with. That’s the whole flipping point. And this
email above was my first contact with Kolbe. And yes, I too was duped.
What’s more, that email above was from June 16, evidence that I had reached out to Kolbe and
she had my contact before she published the July 12th 2011 in the LA Times where she and
Muggah called our research methods flawed and said that before researchers publish, ‘there
should be rigorous debate on methods because data is important, lives are at stake….’
Below, from July 19th, is the email where she admits to writing the op-ed and publishing it
without asking me for clarifications about the methodology, which she also admitted in another
email she knew nothing about.
The most interesting thing about it, in retrospect, is that after publishing this article which
attacks our methods and about which she never asked me, she begins this message with an
appeal to my emotions: her daughter had a brain tumor. It was powerful. But as time goes on
I’ve come to understand it as yet another example of the pattern of deceit and manipulation I
write about in the book. I would learn in coming years that it was not her ‘daughter’, per se, but
a foster child she had recently begun to take responsibility for and who had a pre-existing
condition. If she ever became her legal ‘foster daughter’—if she even exists– that’s still sad. But
it’s not what it seemed. Another appeal to emotion to detract from yet another deceitful act.
Here’s the email,
— On Fri, 7/29/11, Athena Kolbe <kolbe@umich.edu> wrote:
From: Athena Kolbe <kolbe@umich.edu>
Subject: Re: haiti, surveys
To: schwartz833@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, July 29, 2011, 6:38 PM
Hi Tim:
Sorry to have not responded sooner. My daughter has a been in the
hospital – she has a brain tumor – and I’ve been out of comission
dealing with her stuff and the insurance company for most of the past
month.
I don’t know if you saw it yet but one of my co-authors, Rob Muggah,
submitted a op-ed to the LA Times in response to your report. It was
quite critical of your report. I’m sorry for not having given you a
heads up about this when we were first in touch; as far as I knew it
was submitted right when the story first broke and then was rejected.
But a month later I guess they decided to run it. I haven’t read it
closely yet but it looks like it was heavily edited and my criticism
of USAID for leaking the report but not releasing the methods annex
79
was cut from the final version.
In any event, email is the best way to communicate right now. I’m not
sure when I’m going to back on line regularly.
Athena
—
Athena R. Kolbe, MSW, MA
Social Work & Political Science
Office Location: Haven Hall 6566
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ok. We all have our opinions. Anyone who wants to verify if Kolbe is correct about me being
dumb or lacking in methodological skills can read my reports and articles. As for this reference
to Matts book and methodological issues, they have nothing to do with defamation. Kolbe could
not refuse to talk Matt’s without incriminating herself. I gave Matt’s all I had, including criticism
of Kolbe et. al. study. What he published was up to him. And influenced by whatever Kolbe was
telling him too. But it changes nothing about what I say in the book, my own analysis and
opinions.
176. This is a biz.arre narrative of events that is clearly false and bears no resemblm1ce
to the facts, which are clearly documented in emails between you and Dr. Kolbe.
You engaged in a lengthy ernai I and in-person discussio11 of the results, during
wh.ich it bcc,m1e very clear to Dr. Kolbe that you lacked the statistical skills to fully
understand or discuss the research process in which she was engaged. However, the
discussion. including the emai ls between you and Dr. Kolbe, is quoted in a book
titled The Polilical Econom.v of Disaster: Destilulion. Plunder and Earthquake in
Haiti.
80
Well, you know very well it’s accurate. At least what I recounted. As for what role Noel played,
he was the lead supervisor. He took off with those incoherent questionnaires to conduct surveys
in O’kay. And he was also your only co-author on the 2010 article reporting on the death count,
implying that he was also the lead supervisor on that survey. What more needs to be said there?
That seems like evidence that it’s all worse that I was even suggesting.
As for the incoherent questionnaire, the writer has already admitted in point number ## that the
instrument was flawed. If more is needed might be able to find that instrument. WFP might
have copies. We can certainly get testimony from Egain—who is living in the US now– that it
was incoherent and that we had to spend an entire evening fixing it.
Well, at the time, and regarding you, I can only conclude that based on the questionnaire. You
guys had done 5,000 surveys with an instrument that made no sense. And yes, I’m qualified to
judge. As for Noel ever finishing University, he came to Kolbe’s “University” as an undergraduate
in 2012 and only stayed a few months. So whatever “University” he had been attending, he
apparently did not last long. I also fact checked with some of his colleagues.
177. This narrative of events is false and you appear to have made up the events you say
took place. These conversations and interactions did not occur. The survey
instrument and translation for this particular study was provided by WFP and Mr.
Noel did not play the role in it that you have described. Nor did Mr. Noel disappear
for months.
I 78. Here again you falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe does not read Creole. You add to that
accusation that Mr. Noel, who was at the time a university student, was illiterate.
These are both false statements.
179. You falsely stated that Dr. Kolbe ”discovered” this case and that it occurred during
the fielding of this study, and you follow that up with saying it somehow impacted
the fielding of this study. However, this is a false repn~sentation of events. Events
did not occur in that order, at that time, and in the way in which you havt: porLrayed
them. Furthermore, you claim that Dr. Kolbe used an appeal to emotion to distract
from the creditability of her research; this is also false since the events did not occur
as yuu have described, lhere was no question about the credibility of Dr. Kolbe’s
research, nor was there a diEtraction from the non-existent question of credibility.
81
Yes, that’s right. From what I was told by Kolber, that’s the way it unfolded. I may have emails
about it. And it was quite an appeal to emotion. Did I include the part where Kolbe laughed
when recounting how Stephen, the WFP director cried because he had a 14 year old daughter of
his own…. As mentioned elsewhere, I’m in touch with Byron and if need be we can contact
Myrta and Stephen.
”Minor event”? Well, at least you’re admitting here that there was an incoherent copy. And you
seem to be admitting that Kolbe was not capable of writing the questionnaire, or editing it, or
even determining whether what WFP gave her was coherent. In other words, I should have
inferred from this experience alone that Kolbe was illiterate in Creole. All that is more than
enough to validate my main point. As for my version being a “false narrative,” you’re saying the
research team returned to the office. May I add we asked them to return because they had
some 1,000 or so of those “minor event” copies. That they were headed to Okay to apply them.
And no, they did not return. Kolbe had left the country and they still had not returned. Roger
hemming and hawing, complaining that he had car trouble. I must have a dozen or more
correspondences about that. Kolbe was frantic to get some equipment from him before she
fired him. Yeah, I’m sure that I have plenty of emails to substantiate that one.
Yeah, that survey melted down. The appeal to emotion came just in time.
180. This is another false narrative of events. The WFP survey instrument for this study
was provided by the WFP and translated by them. The final instrument including
translations and back translations was checked and finalized by the WFP. There
was no radical modification based on you being hired or after you were hired. You
are referring to a minor event when the wrong copy of a survey was photocopied
and the rcsc,u-ch team returned to the office to collect the correct cop)’.
181. You falsely claim that the events you described, which did not occt1r as you
described them, resulted in th is smvey “:nelting dmvn” or beingsccn as not
important, or being pushed aside. This is false. Since the events did not occur as
you have described them there was not subsequent melt d(lwn m clumge in priorities
or importance regmcl ing this survey.
82
Yeah, Hutson did not talk to Byron… And Byron was mad. I’m in touch with Byron. And I can be
in touch with Myrta if necessary. I can ask them if they remember. Yes, there seemed to be big
problems and odd things going on behind the curtain, things that Kolbe seemed to be hiding,
that I didn’t see, nor ever said I saw, but inferred based on what I did see and know. And signs
came from Kolbe’s conversations, like Hutson hanging up on her, a statistics professors finding
bad data…. By the way, I wrote Hutson, and never got a reply. I wonder if he would sign off on
that survey, swear the data showed no evidence of problems. And oh, what about the 800 or so
scantrons that will filed in so poorly that Kolbe had to give them back to Roger to be filled in
again. Am I to believe that with no supervision Roger and the team did anything more than
Christmas tree those scantrons? Did check? What that seems to mean, by the way, is that Kolbe
and the professors were not even reviewing the paper questionnaires. They were having the
surveyors and supervisors ask the questions on paper and then transfer that data to scantrons.
That in itself is stunning problem. It means that Kolbe and her crew opened relied on the
surveyors for the entire data transfer process. And that they missed an opportunity to check the
data. AND, I’ll point out, that the professional protocol would have mandated that the data be
transferred from the scantrons not once, but twice. More evidence that the data was either not
verified or collected and recorded in a shoddy manor. Important data, by the way, data that
Kolbe and Muggah pointed out in the LA Times has a bearing on life and death for 1,000s of
people.
At this point in time, by the way, I only thought that Athena Kolbe was incredibly naïve, that
people like Roger Noel and another survey supervisor (that later was none other than, according
to Kolbe, the supervisor responsible for the famous Lancet Survey; whom she subsequently
recounted to me had been taking advantage of her and who she caught giving her bogus data).
It was not until later, with the experience of the school that I began to question Kolbe’s integrity.
And it was not until 2012 and 2013 when I began intensely reviewing and writing about the
statistics for the rape issue that I began to realize her data from 2004-2006, and 2009-2010
182. Here you describe a series o.f events that never occurred. You did not wOTk on a
study which also involved Dr. Hutson. Dr. Hutson never flew to Haiti and never
refused to meet with Byron Poncesgura. Since these events did not happen, Mr.
Poncesgura was not “furious” for being “shirked.” Dr. Kolbe was the lead
investigator on the study which you worked on, not Dr. Hutson. You did not get to
meet Dr. Hutson because he was 1101 there, these events that you claim happened
did not occur. Dr. Hutson never hung up on anyone when talking about surveys for
this st1,1dy nor was he upset about surveys in this study since he was not involved in
this study in any way. You were not hired as, nor did you work as, a “field director”
for this study. This study was not “a mess” nor v,ras it “bogus.” There was extensive
fo llow-up by and with WFP regarding this study for more than a year afterwards.
83
might be corrupted. As recounted in the book, a study I carried out in 2013 left little room for
doubt. And so that’s when I went back and started to pull all this together and realized that
something more might be going on.
Look, I don’t ultimately know what’s going on in Kolbe’s mind. She may be criminal, it might be
something psychological. It might have something to do with her getting shock treatments (or
tortured as she says elsewhere in this document). It might just be a case of egregious negligence
and self-righteousness. She might think that she’s a saint that all she does and has done is
ordained by God. But that’s not what’s at issue here. What’s at issue is that there is this pattern
of apparent deceit and publication of important but illogical findings that appear to be based on
bad data. With that data she’s been impacting the lives of 10 million Haitians. The data she
produced has arguably influenced international politics, providing data that could have
precipitated—and may have been intended to—sway the US support against the then Haitian
interim government. I’m not saying I liked that government. I did not. But it doesn’t justify using
questionable data to destabilize it. And since that time, she again appeared to use questionable
data to embarrass yet another government (in 2012) that was opposed to her friend and
mentor—Jean Bertrand Aristide—and her data has undisputedly influenced the way that aid
organizations in Haiti spend money. And I would and do argue that that all that was also done
irresponsibly and with shoddy or bogus data. This is serious stuff. It should be aired. If she can
respond in print and prove this is not true, great, more power to her. But it mustn’t be swept
under the rug, repressed or hidden. This is the very essence of why we support free speech.
Anyway, all this does substantiate points I make elsewhere and adds additional support to the
deduction that Kolbe was coming up with findings based on data that may well have been
bogus or, at the least, shoddy. But none of this is really relevant as I did not make any factual
statements beyond what I did see, which is the questionnaire. And while the writer has denied
the extent of the use of that questionnaire, she has admitted it was flawed. I might even be able
to locate a copy of that questionnaire as well as correspondence regarding having to rewrite it.
And if this were to go farther, I would like to hear directly from the other professors who were
part of that survey. Can you can get some statements about the excellent data that was
collected?
I think the students and ETS staff provided sufficient evidence for any reasonable observer to
conclude that Balistra does not and never did exist. But if she does, let’s get a statement from
her.
183. You claim that Jennifer Balistra was an administrator at ETS. She was not. She was
a volunteer instructor.
84
I don’t know what title Kolbe officially bestowed on Almathe Jean, but she was de facto head of
staff. Before I get into the justification for saying that, let me once again point out that the
writer keeps saying “daughter” with all the intended weight of Almathe Jean being my
biological offspring and brought up under my auspices and me having nurtured her profound
love and loyalty. The fact is I do care very much for Almathe Jean. I lived my first year in Haiti in
the home of her parents. They subsequently died after I left. I returned, took Almathe Jean to
live in a city with another misfortunate child. With the help of a missionary woman who I was
close to and who had a school, we got Almathe an English education as far as highschool. But
she was not living with me for most of that time. For most of that time I was not even in Haiti.
Almathe may have spent more of her life living with Kolbe than with me. As for loyalty, I’m not
sure that Almathe feels the same way about me as I do about her. After I realized Kolbe was
running a sham school and I disassociated myself with her school, Almathe stayed on as Kolbe’s
main assistant, de facto running the school in her frequent absence. And she did so for
something like 18 to 24 months. And so if this is some kind of attempt to imply that she was
more loyal to me than Kolbe, I don’t think that fits. Getting back to the point about her being de
facto head of staff, we can get sworn statements and emails that demonstrate her conspicuous
role. I don’t know what Kolbe title she had. I can ask Almathe. But she was de facto running the
school.
184. There is 110 position at ETS called ”head of staff’ nor has a 27-year-old high-school
educated Hajtian 1,,voman been in a supervisory position at ETS. You are referring
to your daughter, Almathe .Jean, who was an administrative assistant and
receptionist at ETS. She was not a head of staff.
185. You claim that Jennifer BaJistra “ftrst appeared” in February 20 14 in response to
an accusation of w1wanted sexual advances by Kolbe. This is fa lse. Firstly, at this
point Jermifer Balistra, had volunteered off and on at ETS for more than a year and
completed a Creole language program at ETS, to which you had initially referred
her. Secondly, Dr. Kolbe never made sexual advances towards your daughter,
Alrnathe Jean, who you refer to here as a “27-year-old hi gh-school educated Haitian
woman .. nor was she ever accused of having done so.
85
I think that Balistra is a done deal. I see little room to doubt that “someone” invented her. But I
think I see what you’re doing here. You’re shifting responsibility to Almathe Jean—who is
supposedly my daughter—and to Maria Puccio—who you do not mention is Kolbe’s sexual
partner—and you’re hiding Kolbe behind ETS being an institution that she is claiming she does
not own and is not the director of. The only thing that seems odd is blaming Maria Puccio. But
she’s done that before. According to the students and staff at ETS, Kolbe blamed Maria when
the maids took her to court over an accusation she made against them for stealing. It appeared
to be a type of shell game: Kolbe got called into court so she blamed her partner, the other
foreigner, who was out of the country, thereby obscuring and dragging out the process.
As for the letters from Balistra and this email. I think a reasonable person would simply accept
that the email was real and had not been altered. There was no reason for anyone to alter it. I
got it long after the fact. There was no law suit associated with this email, no follow up on the
accusation that you Kolbe sexually harassed Almathe. I didn’t even know about it until staff
from the school shared the email with me, months if not a year after the fact. And the reason
they gave me the email had nothing to do with Almathe. It was to show the lifespan and
activities of the fictitious Bilastra.
But most importantly here, the writer categorically denies this ever happened. No sexual
harassment, no accusation, and no intervention from Balistra. I’m 100% confident that in
addition to the emails, we can provide sworn statements from Kolbe’s former students and US
graduate students who were at the ETS that these accusations and this intervention by the
Ms. Jean did not complain lo a “US Doctoral student” from the University of
Michigan or from any another 1miversity, nor was such as person (a doctoral student
from Michigan) “newly signed on” as an administrator fo r ETS. You then include
the as evidence an email you present as being sent from Jennifer Bal istra to this
“U.S. doctoral student” who supposedly was from the University of Michigan.
1 lowevcr. the text you present has been altered by you or someone else.
Furthermore, the person to whom this email was sent has never been a doctoral
student and nor has this person ever been affi liated with tht: University of Michigan.
The US doctoral student from the University of Michigan who was at ETS at the
time that Iv1s. Jean resigned from her position was another person entirely and this
person did not receive any complaints from Ms. Jean nor was she the recipient of
this email in either its original or in this, its altered form.
86
apparently fabricated Bilastra really occurred. One more example of Kolbe’s inclination to tell
untruths.
That should be more than enough to convince a reasonable person that one may conclude a con
and fake school. If necessary, we can also get digital forensic specialists to help with verification.
Interestingly, by the way, I don’t think I ever come right out and say that Kolbe created Balistra.
Of course I believe that. But I’m pretty sure I simply provide the evidence available to me and
the students and leave it for the reader to decide. If I make any factual statements in the
conclusion of the chapter, they are built on long list of arguments and data the logic of which
and the sources of which have been provided to the reader thereby allowing the reader to
evaluate for him or herself the credibility of the claims.
See above
Again, I think I see what’s going on here: Kolbe is trying to hide behind the school, as an
institution—even though she admits that it’s not licensed or even a state approved institution.
She was just a director of the Social Work Education. It’s really a Haitian Enterprise that she just
works for. The fact that she’s doing that tells me that she must feel guilty of misrepresentation
and exploiting the students, among other things. As for how and why I make the conclusion
that it’s her school: first, I think that any reasonable person who reads the other comments can
conclude that it’s her school. But more relevant here, I know that virtually no one in Haiti—
Haitian or US graduate student—is under any delusion who founded, runs and owns the school.
And I’m confident that we can provide overwhelming evidence that any reasonable observer
would make the conclusion that it’s Kolbe’s school. Moreover, I’m not just any reasonable
186. You have misrepresented the content, context, and the circumstances under which
this email was written, why, and how it was received. Furthermore, the version you
bave published has been altered from the original version that Professor Puccio
received.
87. Dr. Kolbe is not and does not claim to be a ” longstanding eminent scholarly
authority on Haiti.” Nor is she the chancellor of ETS. ETS does not have a
Chancel tor. Dr. Kolbe is the Director of Social Work Education under the
leadership of the university di rector and as a member of the leadership team. Dr.
Kolbe lrns never “cowed” foreign academics.
87
observer. I have intimate knowledge of the school and her role, as discussed above and as
attested to by the Kolbe herself in the commentary earlier on.
As for the claim that Kolbe thinks she’s a “longstanding and eminent scholar on Haiti.” Given
her publications and high profile on the internet, articles in major newspapers, papers given at
academic conferences, it’s fair to claim that she, Kolbe/Duff, considers herself a longstanding
and eminent scholar on Haiti. The fact that this is being used as a point of denial and contention
is one more example of duplicity and suggests that she is simply disagreeing with everything in
an attempt to overwhelm.
As for “Chancellor”, what would Kolbe like to call herself? Since she invented the school and
completely dominates it’s every working, she’s free to call herself whatever she pleases. She
may call herself the janitor if it serves her interest. But we can and will provide overwhelming
documentation and sworn statements that a reasonable person would conclude that she is the
owner and de factor chancellor of this institution she refers to as a “University.”
Oh yes, they complained. And if this makes it to court they’ll be more than happy to complain all
over again.
Dealt with elsewhere.
188. Here yot1 falsely claim that graduate students had complained about ETS and/or Dr.
Kolbe. This is false. No graduate student has complained about ETS or Dr. Kolbe
in her role at ETS to the University of Michigan, lo ETS, or to anyone else
as:mciatecl with ETS. The two individuals you referenced as having been graduate
students (your employee, Ms. Brookes, and her fri end/roommate Ms. Childs, are
not graduaie students and were not gradl!ate students at any time durjng their tenure
with ETS.
189. Here you again, falsely claim that Dr. Kolbe is not fluent in Haitian Creole though
you yourself have cetiified several times that sJ1e is fluent in Creole.
88
I was making the point in the context of what is arguably the massively irresponsible blunder
and meddling in Haitian affairs that a scholar accomplished since Kolbe and Hutson published
the 2006 Lancet report discussed earlier.
As described above, in 2012 these three researchers predicted that there would be famine in six
months after hurricane Sandy. And they circulated that data to all the NGOs and they got it into
the New York Times via the AP.
Kolbe, Muggah and Puccio sounded the alarm right in the midst of a major attempt to
reinvigorate Haitian agriculture through local purchases. The US government and World Food
Program and the European Union were all pushing programs designed to promote local
production. Not least of all, the new Haitian government launched Aba Grangou, a massive
program that linked food relief to promotion of local production. I was actually working for
CARE at the time to develop complementary strategies to promote local production. While I was
working for them, and while the Government was trying to launch Aba Grangou, these three
scholars declared there was going to be a famine in six months. Again, they circulated a report
to all the NGOs and got it into the international press via the AP. There was absolutely no
reason to believe the hurricane would have long lasting impact on production, and it didn’t.
They arguably set back the movement to promote local production by 3 to 4 years.
Jeez, I’ve written a book largely about his issue. The US was arguably responsible for crashing
the Haitian agricultural sector during the 1980-90s and early 2000s. They did it by flooding the
market with food aid. When the Obama administration came in there were a lot of admissions
of guilt and they launched the massive Feed the Future program, whereby instead of swamping
the developing world agricultural countries—such as Haiti—with food and lowering productive
capacity, they would help rebuild that capacity. The aid that came with the earthquake set that
attempt back. Right about 2012 it was getting underway again. There were voucher programs
in the south purchasing local production. Then came the Kolbe, Muggah and Puccio, not one of
whom knows anything about rural Haitian agricultural strategies. They had no training in rural
Haitain agricultural strategies, no training in agronomy, never had written about it before,
never lived in rural Haiti. Nothing! Wow. And she doesn’t want me criticizing this. Are you
kidding? Is this Russia? China? Is what they did a good thing?
190. You claim that Dr. Kolbe is unquali fied to “weigh” in on academic research topics
in Ilaiti, which you clt:scribe as being “far afield from her own supposed expertise
as food security.” Dr. Kolbe has extensive training and experience including with
research. teaching, and social work interventions in the areas you mention. These
experiences, such as a doctoral degree, various master’s degrees, years of work
exper.iem:(.; in social work, and other experiences, both inside and outside of Haiti,
qualify her to weigh in on the various subjects you mention.
191. You falsely claim that Dr. Kolbc’s data has never been vetted. This is not true.
89
Dealt with elsewhere.