AccusersSmitten

Above is Tom at his table in the National Archives Reading Room. Note correct procedures -- no hat, no jacket, no brief case, no pen, only one folder at a time. Respect for the records at all times. Ten years at the same table, five days a week.

And here is our dining room at home, the scene of the fateful meeting, January 12, 2011, in which two Federal detectives came to my house, unannounced, and insisted that I had tampered with a Lincoln document. I sat in the middle chair. Greg Tremaglio sat to the left. Mitch Yockelson sat to the right.They did not advise me of any right to remain silent. They bullyed me into a false confession, with a mixture of threats and promises. Later, a polygraph (lie detector) test and forensic document examiner's report (handwriting expert) both proved that I was innocent.

The repair of my honor and reputation will be a long and arduous path.

Below is a photo of the Rotunda of the National Archives. This is the tourist side of the building, facing Constitution Avenue. After we found the Patrick Murphy court-martial, with the 1865 date, we called it to the attention of the Archives staff. They examined it carefully, pronounced it a "National Treasure," and exhibited it in the Rotunda for many weeks. Not one of the thousands of tourists who viewed it saw anything amiss. Later it was evaulated again by a curator (no longer with the Archives) who saw no problem with it. Strangely, fourteen years later, the Archives staff "discovered" an irregularity. I knew nothing of this until the fateful morning when the two detectives knocked on my front door. I, foolishly, I let them in.

The central display is the Declaration of Independence

The polygraph test report has two pages of text and four pages of computer analysis. The image below shows the conclusion. Note that the word "deception" is a continuation from the previous line, which stated "no deception." A PDF of all six pages may be obtained by contacting civilwarjustice@aol.com.

A board certifield forensic document examiner has looked at the document, focussed on the "1865." No "4" is discernable under the "5. The "1" "8" and "6" are successively fainter, as though Lincon's dip pen was going dry. The "5" is much darker, perhaps the result of redepping. Perhaps there never was a four.
However, the plot thickens. The National Archives Facebook entry under Conservation, shows extensive technical tests on the "1865." They conclude that the "4" was scraped off, very delicately, and a "5" placed at that spot. We spent ten years in the same chairs at the Archives. We were ten feet from a guard, who sat on a raised platform. Employees from the record control desk circulated frequently. We shared our four-seat table with two others, usually strangers. There is no way I could have slowly scraped off a numeral without someone noticing. It could only have been done in a private area, and the only private areas are those accessible to employees with a key. The "scaping" story points blame away from me and onto to someone else. The deception and hypocricy of the Archives only deepens.