New York’s highest court will consider overturning convictions in an Internet impersonation case of a man who argues his mockery of scholars in an academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls was protected by the First Amendment.
Raphael Golb, an attorney and writer, was convicted of identity theft for disguising his identity in e-mail messages and blog posts to discredit detractors of his father, a University of Chicago professor, in a dispute over the scrolls’ origins.
The more than 2,000-year-old documents, found in the 1940s, contain the earliest known versions of portions of the Hebrew Bible.
A midlevel court threw out one conviction but affirmed others, concluding the intended harm to scholars fell within the definition of injury and wasn’t protected free speech.
The Court of Appeals hears arguments Tuesday.
(AP)
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One Response
One should not rely on AP accounts.
First the case involved someone we have little reason to be sympathetic with (Golb), a secular lawyer, who attacked a well known frum professor (Lawrence Schiffman) by sending false emails that were disguised to look like they were from the professor in which the professor was claimed to have admitted to plagerizing. It was a blatant lie. Golb was disbarred (stripped of his license to practice law, which is standard for such conduct). Golb is arguing that there is a “right” to lie and cheat on the internet, and to pretend to be someone else and to send emails in that persons name designed to get the person in trouble.
YWN should treat Golb as the Rasha that he is and not present an article treating him as respectable.