Factual Errors
BY: ANONYMOUS
Jan 4, USA (SUN) — This is in reply to the recent article by Krsnananda dasa, "New Vrindaban: It's All Over Now, Bar the Cover-up", which contained certain errors.
Unfortunately, I know a whole lot more about this New Vrndavana murder case than I care to. I will point out what I know to be the inaccuracies in this article. Frankly some points are somewhat inconsequential, but if the writer is wrong on certain very public facts it lends some doubt to the overall presentation. Given the issue being discussed it is clear that every and all effort must be made to make sure the truth is being told and old scores not being revenged through the medium of the Sampradaya Sun using unsupported assertions or gossip.
Quoting from the article:
"One night in L.A., Tirtha, with Janmastami as driver, found Sulocana Prabhu parked up in his mobile home. Sulocana was shot in the head through a window while sitting at his word processor (we are informed)."
The first point of fact is that Tirtha was alone when the actual murder occurred. Tirtha was assisted prior to the murder by Los Angeles devotee, Krsna Katha dasa, and at various points that night he was in the company of this Krsna Katha fellow. Krsna Katha several months later was arrested and threatened with being charged as an accessory to the murder. Eventually he was granted immunity in exchange for quite damning testimony, which was instrumental in gaining Tirtha’s conviction.
Janamastami was involved at various points leading up the killing but was not present on the night of the actual murder. Secondly, Sulocana Prabhu was shot immediately upon getting into his van after having exited the home of a devotee he was visiting. I suppose his van could be considered a “mobile home” but it certainly gives the reader the impression Sulocana Prabhu was sitting in his trailer house and was shot through the window.
Third, Sulocana was not working on his computer. According to the homicide detectives who I was initially interviewed by, and eventually became friendly with, the evidence at the scene indicated Sulocana's murder was a classic ambush killing. They were quite certain that mere seconds elapsed between Sulocana getting into his van and Tirtha (who was laying in wait in a nearby rental car) rushing up and firing through the driver’s side window.
"After the murder, Tirtha and Janmastami split up."
They could not have “split up”, again because Janamastami was not there.
Tirtha was never under close surveillance. He was a suspect in a first degree murder case who was being actively pursued by the police, thus the second Tirtha's whereabouts (which Tirtha was making quite the effort to conceal) became known to law enforcement, he was immediately arrested. Thankfully cops don't let suspected serial murderers run around loose so they can "surveillance" them.
"Subsequently, Kirtanananda and Tirtha dutifully took the fall for the murder."
Keith Ham did not even come close to taking any kind of a "fall". Quite to the contrary, Keith Ham made every effort to lie his way out of this legal disaster that had landed flat in the middle of his little kingdom, especially, of course, all the murders committed in connection with the criminal enterprise which was laughingly being referred to as "New Vrndavana". The guilty plea he made in his second trial was prompted when Tirtha unexpectedly got up on the stand for the prosecution and began being completely truthful about Mr. Ham's involvement in Sulocana's killing.
Originally Ham had been offered a quite generous plea agreement which called for a very light prison sentence, something around seven years in exchange for pleading guilty to some of the lesser fraud and copyright charges which the U.S. Attorney had him completely dead guilty on. The other charges, which were not supported by completely airtight evidence, would be dropped, including Sulocana’s murder.
Ham, fresh off having won the appeal which granted him the new trial must have thought he was at the start of a winning streak. After having his first conviction and the 77 year sentence that went with it thrown out, Ham, wallowing in over-confidence (amongst other things) quickly and unequivocally told the Prosecution to go to hell, clearly convinced that he was going to get out of this whole thing unscathed. He soon learned the huge difference between paying famed attorney Alan Dershowitz $300,000.00 to find some procedural flaw in the previous trial, and going forward with the new proceeding facing all of the previously presented evidence, with the addition of the convicted hit man hopping up on the stand and pointing the finger directly at him.
Tirtha began to testify on the morning of the fourth day of the second trial and by lunch break, Ham's attorneys approached the U.S. Attorney to let him know they would be happy to just go ahead and take that friendly little plea agreement that had been offered some weeks before the start of the new trial. This time it was the U.S. Attorney's turn to tell them to go to hell. He countered by saying he would allow Ham to plead guilty to one count, any count of his choosing, but that the judge would then be at liberty to take into account all the other charges and all the testimony that had been heard so far and would have no restriction when passing sentence. This is how Ham wound up with the sentence of 20 plus years for the relatively benign crime of a copyright infringement.
The U.S. Attorney and the FBI guys I spoke to were convinced there were other “fish” who escaped their nets in connection with this case, but exuded a kind of “It goes along with the job” attitude about it. This was clearly not their first case where guilty people had managed to avoid capture and punishment, nor of course would it be their last.
Those are the points I can confidently refute. There are other assertions made by the writer that seem a little too specific, unless he happened to have personally witnessed them. During the time leading up to and during both the trials of Tirtha and Ham, I had access to a pretty good narrative of events provided to me by both the Los Angeles homicide detectives, a couple of FBI agents and, to a small extent, the federal prosecutor Michael Stein. Some of the assertions made by this writer are things I’ve never even vaguely heard about.
As a separate but similar point, the recent Navadipchandra Prabhu article implicating Malati in this mess, he initially refers to the prosecutor as Michael Stein but then erroneously proceeds to refer to as him as Mr. Michael Smith through the balance of the article.
I hope this helps out. This truly was and continues to be an exceptionally low point, not just for devotees, but amongst human beings in general. Simply recalling this handful of details has me feeling quite disgusted and also a bit nauseated.
Your fallen friend and servant,
… dasa
