People v. Golb

• Decision Date: 13 May 2014
• Docket Number: No. 72,72
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Raphael GOLB, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

23 N.Y.3d 455

15 N.E.3d 805

991 N.Y.S.2d 792

2014 N.Y. Slip Op. 03426

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent

v.Raphael GOLB, Appellant.

No. 72

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 13, 2014.

Law Office of Ronald L. Kuby, New York City (Ronald L. Kuby and Leah M. Busby of counsel), for appellant.

Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York City (Vincent Rivellese and Alan Gadlin of counsel), for respondent.

Law Office of Marc Fernich, New York City (Marc Fernich of counsel), for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and another, amici curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

ABDUS–SALAAM, J.

University of Chicago Professor Norman Golb is a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This case involves an Internet campaign by Golb's son, Raphael Golb, to attack the integrity and harm the reputation of other Dead Sea Scrolls academics and scholars, while promoting the views of his father.

To accomplish his goal of discrediting and harming these individuals, defendant, using pseudonyms and impersonating real academics and scholars, sent emails to museum administrators, academics and reporters. He published anonymous blogs. He concocted an elaborate scheme in which he used a pseudonym to engage one professor in an email exchange, and then impersonated a different scholar to criticize that professor's emails. Defendant impersonated a New York University (NYU) professor and sent emails to NYU students and NYU deans indicating that the professor had plagiarized the work of Professor Golb.

A New York County grand jury charged defendant with 51 counts of identity theft, criminal impersonation, forgery, aggravated harassment and unauthorized use of a computer. He proceeded to a jury trial, where 31 counts were submitted for the jury's consideration. The jury convicted on 30 counts: two counts of identity theft in the second degree; 14 counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree; 10 counts of forgery in

the third degree; three counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree; and one count of unauthorized use of a computer. Defendant was sentenced to six months in jail and five years of probation on the identity theft counts and to concurrent lesser terms on the remaining counts. The Appellate Division modified the Supreme Court judgment to the extent of vacating the identity theft conviction in the first count of the indictment and dismissing that count, and otherwise affirming the judgment (102 A.D.3d 601, 960 N.Y.S.2d 66 [1st Dept.2013] ). A Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal (20 N.Y.3d 1099, 965 N.Y.S.2d 795, 988 N.E.2d 533 [2013] ). For the reasons that follow, we affirm the convictions for nine counts of criminal impersonation in the second degree and all of the convictions for forgery. We vacate the conviction for identity theft in the second degree; five of the convictions for criminal impersonation in the second degree; all of the convictions for aggravated harassment in the second degree, and the conviction for unauthorized use of a computer.

I.The Dead Sea Scrolls and Defendant's Internet Campaign

As was explained at the trial, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient religious writings dating from the second and third century B.C.E. to the first century C.E.¹ They were discovered in 1948 in caves near Qumran, in the West Bank. Norman Golb, defendant's father, is a professor at the University of Chicago, and a scholar on the subject of the Scrolls. There is disagreement among scholars and experts about who wrote the Scrolls. One view, known as the Qumran–Sectarian theory or Sectarian theory, is that the Scrolls were writings of a Jewish sect, living in or near Qumran.

Norman Golb and others disagree with the Qumran–Sectarian theory. They believe that the Scrolls were writings of various groups and that the writings were rescued from libraries in Jerusalem and brought to the caves for safekeeping at the time of the siege and sacking of the city by Roman troops in 70 C.E. (the Jerusalem libraries theory). Professor Golb challenges the Qumran–Sectarian theory as unsupported by any actual evidence. In his 1995 book, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, Professor Golb discusses not only the history of Scroll research,

but criticizes what he believes to be unethical research practices regarding the Scrolls.

Beginning in September 2006, the Dead Sea Scrolls became the subject of a series of museum exhibits. Defendant engaged in an Internet campaign to criticize those involved in the exhibits because, in defendant's opinion, the exhibits did not present his father's theories about the origin of the Scrolls. One of defendant's targets was Robert Cargill, who at the time was a graduate student at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) working toward his Ph.D. in near eastern languages and culture. Cargill had published on the topic of the Scrolls. In 2007, the Scrolls were put on exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum. For use at that exhibit, Cargill created a digital movie called “Ancient Qumran,” which was a silent tour of the site where the Scrolls were discovered, and he wrote a script to be read in conjunction with the movie. The script did not describe Professor Golb's view of the Scrolls' origins.

Using pseudonyms, defendant sent emails to UCLA media addresses including newsmedia@ucla.edu, a UCLA professor, Cargill's doctoral advisor, many other “ucla.edu” addresses, and an entertainment company with which Cargill had signed a contract, criticizing Cargill and questioning his scholarship. Cargill testified that everyone in his department, people in the press room, the Provost of UCLA, and his dean asked him “what the hell is going on, what is this all about?” On a number of occasions, defendant used an anonymous blog to post his grievances about the San Diego exhibit and the Cargill movie.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, defendant targeted Stephen Goranson, a library clerk at Duke University who had published articles on the Scrolls. Goranson disagreed with Professor Golb's theories and criticized them in public Internet forums. In July 2008, writing as “Peter Kaufman, Ph.D.,” defendant separately emailed the Provost and the President of Duke University, as well as Goranson's supervisor at the library, complaining about Goranson's purported Internet attacks on Professor Golb and suggesting that they consider whether this conduct was appropriate for a Duke employee. The Provost responded that a supervisor was speaking to Goranson and advising him of his obligations. Defendant also created an email account under the name of “steve.goranson@gmail.com.”

Defendant also undertook an elaborate scheme involving the impersonation of Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and retired Harvard

Professor Frank Cross. The first layer of the scheme was to assume the pseudonym of “Jerome Cooper” to engage in an email exchange with University of North Carolina Professor Bart Ehrman (who had been slated to lecture at the Raleigh exhibit) about the origin of the Scrolls. Defendant then anonymously published a blog denouncing the selection of Ehrman as lecturer and publishing the emails from Professor Ehrman to “Jerome Cooper,” which defendant said Cooper had been “good enough to forward to me.” Defendant's next step was to create the email address “frank.cross2@gmail.com” and send four separate but identical messages to four University of North Carolina scholars. In those emails from the “Frank Cross” email address, defendant attached links to his anonymous blog entries containing Ehrman's emails, and stated that “Bart” had “put his foot in his mouth again.” He signed those emails “Best, Frank Cross.”

The Scrolls were put on exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City in the fall of 2008, and NYU Professor Lawrence Schiffman was scheduled as a lecturer. Defendant used the pseudonym “Peter Kaufman” to publish an article about Schiffman on the social news website NowPublic entitled “Plagiarism and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Did NYU department chairman pilfer from Chicago historian's work?” Defendant as “Kaufman” wrote of a “little-known case of apparent academic quackery.” He complained of Schiffman's failure to credit Professor Golb for ideas expressed in Schiffman's articles about the Scrolls, and Schiffman's repeated plagiarisms of Golb's work.

Using NYU computers, defendant sent emails from another account he created—“larry.schiffman@gmail.com”—to four of Schiffman's students and multiple NYU addresses of Schiffman's colleagues that included a link to the article. The emails stated, among other things, that “someone is intent on exposing a minor failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago” and that “[t]his is my career at stake.” He signed those emails “Lawrence Schiffman.” Additionally, defendant sent identical emails from the Schiffman email address to the Provost of NYU and the Dean of NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science. Defendant, as Schiffman, asked what action he could take “to counter charges of plagiarism that have been raised against me” and stated:

“Apparently, someone is intent on exposing a failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago. It is true that I should have cited Dr. Golb's articles when using his arguments, and it is true that I misrepresented his ideas. But this is simply the politics of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. If I had given credit to this man I would have been banned from conferences around the world.”

He signed those emails “Lawrence Schiffman, professor.”

NYU's Senior Vice Provost responded to this email, stating that he had assigned the matter to a dean for further investigation. Defendant, as “Schiffman,” forwarded that email from the Vice Provost (including defendant's email to the Provost) to five NYU school newspaper email addresses, asking that they not mention this matter and stating that his “career is at stake.” He signed those emails “Lawrence Schiffman.”

In the fall of 2008, the Scrolls exhibit was...