I guess lawyers don’t understand that corporate “persons” may live forever, but actual people get old.
I guess lawyers don’t understand that corporate “persons” may live forever, but actual people get old.
This post by Scott Dominguez (registered poster) on page 216 of the original thread was interesting for a few reasons, not least that apparently general knowledge about legal principles is not that general, as I mentioned at the time later in the page I don't think the youtube video could fall under slander either - based on my layman's understanding of what published is taken to mean.
"I don’t and have never practiced law in the area of defamation. However, for those questioning my legal expertise based on a previous post and the use of the word slander, I was referring to this - [Youtube Video snipped]
As for representing Frank Meza, I am not. The original email & comment to the LA Times was as a friend at Frank’s request. However, having spent some time on Derek Murphy’s website, I am beginning to second guess my decision as well as our friendship, I get the distinct feeling I have been duped. I feel I need to have a “frank” discussion with him.
I find the consistent lack of photos one of the most damning pieces of evidence. Having only run one marathon myself, how likely is it that someone who doesn’t look like they would be running at the front end of the field but is would be intentionally ignored by the photographers?
BTW – All posts here under Scott Dominguez have been by me, I posted initially unregistered and then registered it to prevent others from using it."
https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9307635&page=215
Legal ramifications wrote:
Would someone who isn’t a lawyer claim to be one? Especially to be a deputy district attorney? Seems to carry legal implications.
Would someone who isn't an Age Group World Record holder at the marathon claim to be one? Especially a well-respected doctor in the community? Seems to carry social implications.
Maybe someone else has posted this, but here is an interview of a legitimate sub 3 hour over 70 marathoner, Gene Dykes:
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/marathonruns-2/voice-of-runners/e/60244086?autoplay=true
Definitely suggest listening to it if you haven't already. As a 46 year old runner who's come close to breaking 3 and had/have the speed at shorter distances that suggests I can, it gives me hope listening to Gene. Plus it is refreshing after focusing on Frank so much or too much, to listen to Gene...
Just watched the documentary. At least the family acknowledge that he cheated. Now, only if Meza's family would do the same, then they can be set free too!
It is a fascinating story! I have listened to multiple podcasts about it and want to watch the movies produced in 2017 about it.
Here is a quote from the Sunday Times, the sponsoring race on their decision to publish the information that Donald Crowhurst had cheated: “It has not been an easy decision to publish this information” the newspaper said in a statement. “The Sunday Times has been in close consultation with Mrs. Crowhurst and she, too, has come to the conclusion that the story must be told.”
they're all at it
lol. wrote:
they're all at it
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49334422
Anyone want to start looking into the sport results for that Eric Woerth politician? If he lies about something so easily shown to be fake, there should be a lot of cheating elsewhere, too.
I assume discussion about the LA magazine online piece will appear here.
I spent a lot of time researching, thinking about Meza, and contemplating whether or not I should write a followup myself. But I think Chris Beam did well enough with few exceptions. And he was on the scene, sat with family. Hard to match that.
If I had written anything, I would have made two main points.
1--Meza cheated. And he was never going to prove himself in the Chicago Marathon or any other witnessed race. If that had been his goal, he could have done it any day of the week with 12 timed and witnessed laps around the Loyola H.S. track.
2--LetsRun and Derrick Murphy did not cyberbully him to commit suicide.
(Also, I did not "grill" Frank Meza when we spoke on the phone. We had a loose, amiable conversation about the confusion around his marathon times. I asked for and he quickly supplied me with three training-partner references. One called me the next day. I never contacted the other two because I had decided--mid April--not to write anything about Meza at that time.)
The evidence that he cheated is as airtight as any evidence can get. And it was corroborated by serious marathon officials at major marathons, even if L.A. reacted slowly. (Which is not necessarily the worst thing in such cases.)
A few LetsRun posters revealed themselves to be, uh, less mature than anyone would wish. However, most posted serious messages, and even crowd-sourced the ongoing accumulation of evidence. Derrick Murphy also only provided evidence. He didn't "pile on." He did what you're supposed to do when investigating a case that is in denial. He kept digging for more details. And he found them.
We are all sorry for the Meza family loss. It's a terrible tragedy. There seems no doubt that he made wonderful contributions to youth, community, medicine, and those closest to him.
We will never know why he chose to commit suicide. Any and all speculation is useless.
RIP Frank Meza.
Excellent and well balanced read. Thanks for sharing...
Amby Burfoot wrote:
I assume discussion about the LA magazine online piece will appear here.
Wow, that article is a steaming pile of crap.
It's clearly written with an agenda to cast Marathoninvestigation and Letsrun as the bad guys.
He doesn't even admit that Frank cheated. Despite all the evidence, he goes out of his way to leave it ambiguous.
I spoke to one runner, an acquaintance of Meza, who was cruising down a stretch in Beverly Hills during the 2013 L.A. Marathon when he saw the doctor running on the sidewalk—in the opposite direction. “We made eye contact,” said the runner, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He assumed Meza had given up. “I’m like, ‘Oh, man, he’s having a rough day.’ ” At the end of the race, he was surprised to learn that Meza had finished in three hours—far ahead of him. “He would have had to pass me and beat me,” the runner said, but he hadn’t seen Meza again on the course. A volunteer coach at Loyola had a similar experience and expressed concerns to head distance coach Diaz in April 2019, but Meza continued to coach there. (Diaz did not respond to requests for comment.)
This was interesting and news to me. So Coach Diaz definitely knew about Frank Meza's cheating ways! I wonder if this volunteer coach is Derek Murphy's mole?
I disagree with you Amby on this:
Amby Burfoot wrote:
...even if L.A. reacted slowly. (Which is not necessarily the worst thing in such cases.)
LA Marathon's response and reactions in this whole affair have been terrible. They knew as early as 2015 that Frank was cheating, they were informed by CIM as were regional timers. He has splits in the 2015 LA Marathon that are within 40 seconds of the world 10k record for his age group and he ran an age graded time better than the winner, all on an incredibly hot day! So I disagree with you, LA's slow response was the worst thing in this whole deal (beside's Frank's cheating and final action). What if LA had acted reasonably and DQ'd Frank in 2015? Actually called it what it was, cheating and DQ'd him? Even when DQ'd in 2019, it was a very watered down DQ, didn't explicitly say cheating and they left open the possibility that he could still prove himself. Had they actually had some fortitude to call it what it was, either in 2015 or 2019, maybe friends and family would have actually realized he was cheating and could have helped him?
KawauchiFTW wrote:
Excellent and well balanced read. Thanks for sharing...
"Well balanced?" How? At this point, any article that stops short of declaring Meza's long-term and flagrant cheating to be anything less than a verified fact is either very poorly researched and ignorant of troves of data, or has an agenda.
As Amby Burfoot noted in his above post, "The evidence that he cheated is as airtight as any evidence can get." Beam's article inexcusably still leaves Mesa's cheating in the realms of accusations and allegations.
The Emperor's New Skinz wrote:
KawauchiFTW wrote:
Excellent and well balanced read. Thanks for sharing...
"Well balanced?" How? At this point, any article that stops short of declaring Meza's long-term and flagrant cheating to be anything less than a verified fact is either very poorly researched and ignorant of troves of data, or has an agenda.
As Amby Burfoot noted in his above post, "The evidence that he cheated is as airtight as any evidence can get." Beam's article inexcusably still leaves Mesa's cheating in the realms of accusations and allegations.
I think they are walking a fine line, it is a Los Angeles magazine after all... They do have the photos of Frank on a bike and any reader that reads this:
"On July 3 a LetsRun user posted a photo with the comment: “Frank on a bike?” The image, taken by an official photographer during the 2014 San Francisco Marathon, showed a blurry figure riding a bicycle down the sidewalk. His face was obscured, but his outfit—a black cap, a gray long-sleeve shirt, Nike Zoom Marathoners, green socks—resembled what Meza was pictured wearing at the end of the race. When I sat down with the family and we examined the photo together, they denied that it was Meza. “It looks like someone photoshopped this,” Lorena said, pointing to the shoes. Plus, this man was wearing black athletic pants with a white stripe. “You don’t run a marathon in sweats,” Tina said.".
plus combined with the photos and the article ends with this:
Late on July 4, while word of Meza’s death was starting to circulate, a LetsRun user posted one last series of photos from the 2014 San Francisco Marathon. In each the Golden Gate Bridge looms in the background. And there is Meza, unmistakably, hanging out by a timing mat as other runners blow past him. He wears a familiar outfit: the hat, the shoes, the socks—and long black pants with a white stripe.
They're definitely contradicting the Meza family, just not blatantly...
What's up with LA wrote:
Amby Burfoot wrote:
I assume discussion about the LA magazine online piece will appear here.
Wow, that article is a steaming pile of crap.
It's clearly written with an agenda to cast Marathoninvestigation and Letsrun as the bad guys.
He doesn't even admit that Frank cheated. Despite all the evidence, he goes out of his way to leave it ambiguous.
Meza was never convicted or anything so most publications are going to be reluctant to state him having cheated as a fact. There was nothing ambiguous about the two photographs at the top of the article. No one is going to read the article and think he didn't cheat.
SDSU Aztec wrote:
What's up with LA wrote:
Wow, that article is a steaming pile of crap.
It's clearly written with an agenda to cast Marathoninvestigation and Letsrun as the bad guys.
He doesn't even admit that Frank cheated. Despite all the evidence, he goes out of his way to leave it ambiguous.
Meza was never convicted or anything so most publications are going to be reluctant to state him having cheated as a fact. There was nothing ambiguous about the two photographs at the top of the article. No one is going to read the article and think he didn't cheat.
You mean the picture he quoted Frank's daughter as saying was photoshopped?
Cupcake ? article full of disinformation. Derek’s weight was an issue somehow but Meza’s weight gain and age gain (while his times only got faster) was too subtle to notice, I’m sure.
Meza couldn’t break 5 hours, either, because he was too good to do the whole thing.
SDSU Aztec wrote:
There was nothing ambiguous about the two photographs at the top of the article. No one is going to read the article and think he didn't cheat.
Completely agree. It was well written, mentions a handful of fraudulent races, and has photographs. No one is going to read the article with an open-mind and come away with any conclusion other than Frank was not on the up and up when it came to racing.
Is there a rule against attaching a helium balloon to yourself while running a road race?
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
How rare is it to run a sub 5 minute mile AND bench press 225?
Move over Mark Coogan, Rojo and John Kellogg share their 3 favorite mile workouts
Mark Coogan says that if you could only do 3 workouts as a 1500m runner you should do these
Red Bull (who sponsors Mondo) calls Mondo the pole vaulting Usain Bolt. Is that a fair comparison?