Free Press Release Sites: Deception - Part 1

Exposing Barry Pittard
The Australian Pit-Bull Of The Anti-Sai Movement

Just recently, Barry Pittard has been deliriously spamming articles on free press-release sites and various forums against Sathya Sai Baba. The following article is one such example:

Email: bpittard@optusnet.com.au
Keywords: Tim Sullivan, Associated Press, Sathya Sai Baba, a backlash was born, Barry Pittard
Update Date: 1/20/2007

Considering reports on the BBC, Times of London, Telegraph, The Guardian, and other Western media of corruption by India's most controversial guru Sathya Sai Baba, there is another side of India - that gives hope. Tim Sullivan (Thu, Mar/09/2006) Associated Press reported, "What surprised India was its own reaction: Protesters took to the streets, holding candlelight vigils and waving signs calling for justice; newspapers have kept the story on the front page day after day; officials from the president to the capital's police chief have called for a review of the investigation. In a country that had all but resigned itself to its barely functioning legal system, a backlash was born".

The paragraph above is deceptive and misleading. The quote from Tim Sullivan has absolutely nothing to do with Sathya Sai Baba whatsoever! Barry Pittard did not inform his readers that Tim Sullivan's article was about the killing of Jessica Lall. Sullivan's article never said one word about Sathya Sai Baba (directly, indirectly or otherwise). Barry Pittard did not provide a link to Sullivan's article and never made it clear that Sullivan's article did not pertain to Sathya Sai Baba. Reading Barry's blurb above, one is left with a wholly different impression.

Tim Sullivan's article is provided below:

Outrage over verdict rattles Indian justice
By Tim Sullivan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 11, 2006

NEW DELHI -- The facts of the case appeared straightforward: On a hot summer night in 1999, a young woman tending bar in an upscale New Delhi restaurant refused to serve a drunken patron. It was about 2 a.m. Closing time, she told him, had passed. So he shot her in the head.

Dozens of people witnessed the killing of Jessica Lall, bullet casings were recovered, and a suspect was quickly identified. But that suspect, Manu Sharma, 24, was the son of a powerful and wealthy politician with interests in sugar mills. He was only a few years out of Mayo College, one of India's elite boarding schools. Among the friends with him that night were a coterie of the young, the rich and the well-connected. He and his friends, who were accused of helping cover up the crime, insisted they were innocent.

The victim, a model on the fringes of New Delhi society, had few such connections. For six years, the case moved through the courts -- fairly speedy for a legal system hobbled by corruption and a maze of bureaucracy. Few were surprised when the verdict was announced Feb. 21 and all nine of the accused were acquitted.

What surprised India was its own reaction: Protesters took to the streets, holding candlelight vigils and waving signs calling for justice; newspapers have kept the story on the front page day after day; officials from the president to the capital's police chief have called for a review of the investigation. In a country that had all but resigned itself to its barely functioning legal system, a backlash was born. "I had virtually given up on the case, but the aftermath has surprised me most of all," Sabrina Lall, the victim's sister, said in an interview. "One can feel somewhat hopeful now that some good will come out of all this."

On Monday, a sweeping police complaint was filed charging investigators had suppressed evidence and witnesses had given false testimony as part of a criminal conspiracy to protect the accused men. While no one was named in the complaint, police officials insist new trials are very possible. "We will bring out the truth," New Delhi Police Chief K.K. Paul told reporters.

But truth has been a rarity in the Lall investigation, and many wonder whether the uproar over this case -- with its beautiful, middle-class victim, cast of witnesses out of the gossip pages and a crime scene in a refurbished mansion -- can bring change to an exhausted legal system in which the poor suffer more than anyone. India's courts are so slow that cases can take decades to resolve. Bribery is often openly demanded, and the powerful seldom face prosecution. Illustrating that more than anything else are the dozens of members of the Indian Parliament, and hundreds of state legislators, who stand accused of crimes ranging from tax evasion to murder.

For the poor, the situation is far different. Last month, a 70-year-old villager was released from prison after serving 38 years without trial. The police had lost his files, and he had simply been forgotten. "People have started feeling that criminal trials are like a cobweb where small flies are getting caught and big people are dashing through," the Indian Supreme Court said in a ruling this week on another case.

Many who work in the courts agree. "Those who run this country, the ruling establishment, are not particularly bothered by the collapse of the justice system," said Prashant Bhushan, a prominent lawyer. "It is the common people in this country who are being hurt." The Jessica Lall case, critics say, is proof of how money and power produce legal leverage. After Miss Lall's killing, one key witness recanted his testimony and, according to relatives, suddenly became wealthy.

Another witness disavowed his initial testimony, saying it had been transcribed by the police into Hindi, a language he insisted he barely spoke. He is now an actor in Hindi movies. Police forensic investigators offered up contradictory reports about whether one or two guns had been fired. The socialite family that owned the restaurant, set in a quiet courtyard behind what was once a summer retreat for British colonialists, reputedly had the crime scene cleaned up before the investigation was completed.

The problems had long been clear. "There has obviously been a conspiracy between the accused and certain officials," Chief Paul -- now the police chief, then a deputy police commissioner -- said in a 2001 report on the investigation. But the case trundled on until the acquittals. Mr. Bhushan, the lawyer, laughs when asked if he has hope for serious reform. Those "who are in power, they don't have any interest in reforming it. They are the beneficiaries."

One is left to wonder why Barry Pittard is attempting to deceive others by making it appear that Tim Sullivan's article is somehow associated with Satya Sai Baba. It isn't, it wasn't and it never has been. There are simply no comparisons between Tim Sullivan's article and Sathya Sai Baba.

1. Sathya Sai Baba has never been charged with any crime.


2. Sathya Sai Baba has never been convicted of any crime.


3. Sathya Sai Baba has never been acquitted of any crime (because he has never been charged with any crime).


4. Since no charges have ever been filed against Sathya Sai Baba by any alleged victim, there have been no verifiable incidents of "legal leverage" being bought with money or being influenced by political power, etc. Where Sathya Sai Baba has been accused of these things, Indian Rationalists and vindictive ex-devotees are the ones fueling these conspiracies.


5. Sathya Sai Baba has never murdered anyone and no one has ever claimed having witnessed such an incident.


6. There has never been a single incident where protesters held "candlelight vigils" against Sathya Sai Baba for any alleged crime (because he has never been charged or convicted with any crime).


7. There has never been a "backlash" against Sathya Sai Baba for any alleged crime (because he has never been charged or convicted with any crime).

Barry Pittard, the ever-deceiving conspiracy theorist, is attempting to con people with deceptive articles published on free press-release sites. After 6 years of getting nowhere against Sathya Sai Baba (and finally being held accountable for his many failures), Barry Pittard is attempting to renew his attacks with extra venom.

It hasn't worked in the past and it isn't working now. Barry Pittard has lost all credibility. How incredibly frustrating it must be for Barry Pittard to accept this fact.