US govt yet to present evidence against Kim Dotcom

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Wed, 25 Jan 2012 7:00p.m.

The judge and Kim Dotcom

The judge and Kim Dotcom

Kim Dotcom is tonight in Mt Eden Prison.

Denied bail, he now faces an attempt to extradite him to be put on trial in the United States.

The judge considering the bail application today revealed no evidence against Dotcom has yet been filed.

Remember, this is not a New Zealand prosecution, it's an American one.

But such is the persuasiveness of the US authorities, that millions of dollars in cash and assets have already been seized or frozen.

Dotcom, original name Kim Schmitz, reportedly earned US$42 million last year.

The FBI says it was through racketeering and copyright infringement, but defence lawyers are promising a "fierce battle" about those copyright issues.

In the meantime, Dotcom's mansion on the hill is empty except for a few staff and his family.

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Comments

27 Jan 2012 02:43p.m.

arf wrote:

i could'n't agree more with all of the above, with the reservation that the distinction between 'legitimate' and not implicit in American Justice's remarks belongs to a paradigm that is not one we should respect. Andrew, beautifully said

27 Jan 2012 09:16a.m.

ian wrote:

Shit - we need the US Govt [or any one ] to sort out our child bashing problems, much more than chasing Kim Dotcom.

26 Jan 2012 01:43p.m.

ridley wrote:

This is not right its all word of mouth evidence, he has been made out to be a villain beyond reason.Banged up without bail, no firm concrete evidence against him. Pity the powers that be, did not put as much enthusiasm into these people that bash and kill little children. Cases where there is only three four people involved. Do they arrest them all and keep them in custardy till they get to the bottom of it. Far from it they run around saying they have not got any evidence to act on thats despite some unfortunate child ether dead or dying in the hospital.At the end of the day its all about money

26 Jan 2012 10:55a.m.

Neil wrote:

Agree with the above comments - since when did the police force become a tool for big business. It's already happened in the USA (FBI) why are we letting it happen here. This is simply large US corporations trying to protect themselves and their profits. Why was Kodak allowed to go under because of new technology but not the big music and film companies? The old saying of "something stinks in the state of California" comes to mind..

25 Jan 2012 10:12p.m.

Tip wrote:

Encrypt your pron and patite movies and store them on Telstra cloud. The Feds wont shut down that Globalist. Lol

25 Jan 2012 10:08p.m.

Andrew wrote:

Don't you think that in a society like NZ that prides itself on its freedom and fairness, the presentation of convincing evidence should always preceed armed police swarming all over your property and rifling through all your possessions before taking them away? This whole incident raises serious concerns about a police force seemingly free from the usual legal constraints found in a democracy. This is the sort of behaviour you might expect to see in a police state, not in New Zealand It also raises important questions of accountability and legal responsibility. As a minimum police need to explain just how all the property being taken is accounted for, how it is catalogued, whether this is done independently of police, what safeguards are in place to ensure everything taken is catalogued and how securely and adequately such property is stored. Equally, who within the police is strictly legally liable for any errors in documentation and for property catalogued but subsequently damaged or lost? If Dotcom and associates are subsequently found not guilty, where does the burden of proof and liability lie for any lost, damaged or stolen property? Lets remember no evidence has yet been presented,no court process to examine the facts has occurred but millions of dollars of property has already been seized by the state. This sort of thing didnt happen even under the worst laws of the dickensian era. If police bosses still believe they can deflect accountability away from themselves and pass on the the consequences of such poorly thought out actions to the long suffering taxpayer then they need to be rapidly cured of these delusions. Can someone please explain why we still have a minister of police???

25 Jan 2012 08:07p.m.

American Justice wrote:

I wonder if this is a repeat of the Tuhoi case, our police rushing in before thinking about how they could argue a case in court. The Megaupload site did contain files with material that was still in copyright, but it also contained a lot of legitimate stuff. In US law the issue is about the proportion of these two types of materials and the degree of knowledge Mr Dotcom had about the contents of (each?) file, probably rather uninteresting when it all gets started and likely to end up in the US Supreme Court before it is finally resolved. That Mr Dotcom had sufficient money to live near the Chrisco mansion shows that he could run a business successfully, distinguishing him from some of our (alleged) criminals, but the amounts involved are small compared with the South Canterbury Finance case: we would have been better served if the police had put half the effort into local white collar crime.