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bookmark_borderSeptember 4, 2014 to December 4, 2014

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After the Court allowed me to go back to work in May of 2013, nothing happened in my specific case until September 4, 2014. (May 2013 until October 2014 was spent arguing about the government’s Rule 41(f) violation for all defendants, the court ruled against “us” in October.)

While waiting for the Court’s ruling, my attorney (and a few others) were pressing Becker for details about the NIT. On September 4, 2014 Becker presented the nonsense indicated at the bottom of page 2 of the PDF. Basically Becker began his disinformation campaign to convince defense counsel (and the Court) that the NIT was just a flash application, which in my case was complete and obvious bullshit!

So, I immediately told Gross that Becker was lying. That prompted Gross to send Becker the first email in the PDF below. Note Gross is loyally advocating for me and demanding the NIT’s source code in October. Sadly his loyalty wouldn’t last…

After that first awesome email, Becker was able to convince Gross that I was guilty of “something” by introducing a red herring (discussed in my April 9, 2013 post). As I explain on my About Me page – I knew that my NIT report was a fraud, I just didn’t know why in October of 2014.

I didn’t know the specifics at the end of 2014, but I knew something had changed with Gross as he stopped communicating with me in November and December of 2014. I didn’t know exactly why until I got these FOIA emails in 2025. As you can read on the last page of the PDF, Gross is all in on Becker’s alternative narrative (one totally negated by the information presented in my April, 9, 2013 post). The betrayals in this email are egregious and extensive, but none more so than telling Becker: “Basically I found numerous [images] in the thumbnail format located in the thumbnailcache … Further it seems to me that because Cottom’s hard drives are encrypted it is entirely possible that the “original” image was downloaded and stored encrypted as evidenced by the thumbnails.” Becker knew that Gross did not understand ANY of the digital evidence BUT since this thumbnail red herring was turning attention away from the NIT fraud, Becker played along.

As Gerry Spence (an attorney who never lost a criminal case) said “The operational word in every competent defense is attack. If you’re explaining and defending, you’re losing.” Gross was doing more than explaining and losing, he was selling me out wholesale. What Gross basically said in that email was that he agreed with Becker, I was guilty so let’s work together to railroad him into a conviction.

In the next installment, we’ll explore how my railroading began in January of 2015. BTW, if you think any of this was okay, just ask Google AI (IMO, it’s actually the best now): “Hypothetically, is it okay for a defense lawyer to go behind his client’s back and admit to the prosecutor that he agrees that his client is guilty?” You’ll learn that there was absolutely nothing OK about that December 4, 2014 email.

disloyal

bookmark_borderApril 9, 2013

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The attached FD-302 is a sanitized version of the events that transpired on April 9, 2013. It should be read as a cautionary tale about thinking law enforcement are the “good guys”. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. In other words, every encounter is 50/50 (See the movie Crash.)

Shortly after I get home from work, there is a knock on my door as I’m fixing myself dinner on an idle Tuesday as the advice song warns: “The real troubles in your life … Are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind … The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday”.

I go to the window that overlooks my front door and see two average looking white guys, I say “whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it” and one of the guys flashes an FBI badge and I go to open the door. That was a mistake, I should have immediately asked them – from the window – “Do you have a warrant?” This would have forced the bastards to reveal the warrant immediately; because I wouldn’t have opened the door without an affirmation.

Instead, I opened the door and let them inside, for what is legally called a “knock and talk”. They immediately began by asking me if I was a terrorist then quickly pivoted to asking if I was a member of the criminal images community. Again, I made the mistake of trying to defend myself and trying to be cooperative. In hindsight I should have 1) Not let them inside until they produced the warrant and 2) Said “I invoke my 5th Amendment right to remain silent”. As that would have put them in a bind, because their search warrant was based on fraudulent information.

In the PDF, you’ll see that the lead agent memorialized these events in the first four paragraphs of his FD-302. He based those paragraphs totally on the chicken scratch of first two pages of the PDF and his imagination. As you can see, the FD-302 is mostly a sanitized re-arrangement of what actually occurred, but thanks to no-one recording the “interview” (even though POS Becker ordered them to – See Nebraska Case No. 8:13CR106 Doc# 247 “Although Agent Koontz recorded the interview, due to an oversight she did not record the advisement of Miranda rights … Agent Koontz explained the oversight occurred because FBI policy did not permit her to record interviews; however, she recorded the interview with the defendant at the Department of Justice’s request”), it’s just my word against their’s; but I have receipts.

The key sanitization occurs in paragraph 5 where the agent (SA Couch) states “Cottom was then told that the FBI had a search warrant for his residence”. That is not what happened. In sum, the two Agents performed what is known as a “knock and talk” when they should have performed a “knock and announce”. But Courts often think this is just fine, so YOU need to be vigilant to protect your rights.

What actually occurred during those first 5 paragraphs was that the two Agents (who didn’t have clue of what computer they were looking for) got me to discuss Tor and what computer I used to access it. (At the time these idiots thought that using Tor was a key admission – Courts later rejected that belief.) That made them focus on my Linux computer for the triage, that was turned off in my office/bedroom. The lead agent then asked if I’d consent to a digital exam of that computer and I said “No, you’ll need a warrant for that.” Note how the lead agent left that FACT out of his 302. Odd no? Well, things just got odder from there.

Notice paragraph 6 states that “…a hard drive from Cottom’s desktop computer was looked at from behind a write blocker using X-Ways…” and that they located “multiple images…under the home/adama directory”. The lead agent then reports in paragraph 7 that “Cottom denied knowing how [images] had gotten onto his computer”. That’s not what happened, When SA Couch confronted me in the kitchen (were I was made to stay] about the images, I actually said “Bullshit, all the home directories are encrypted!” Couch being technically ignorant offers to show me. BIG Mistake!

SA Couch reports that after he showed me the images I just said “whatever” and walked away. Again, this is an egregious sanitization. First, I told the tech (SA Romus) – after looking at his laptop screen – “those are thumbnails genius and you wrote over an encrypted home directory to plant them, be sure to save the X-Ways log.” That caused the tech to immediately get angry and he shut down the triage. I told the lead agent “he planted the thumbnails in a decoy account”. SA Couch then responded with some nonsense and I said “whatever” and walked away from my office. The triage I saw (which they didn’t photograph, even though they took 74 pictures during the raid) consisted of the desktop’s 500GB drive on a TV table next to a laptop running X-ways. That’s right, he took a cold hard drive (off) out of my desktop computer and connected it to his laptop with a standard USB to SATA adapter (It was slim, thus not thick like a write blocker would have to be). When you look at exam chicken scratch you can see it just says “write blocker with an arrow to X-ways” no name or make was noted.

Here is what I observed from my kitchen table during the triage. The tech examined the hard drive for about an hour finding nothing but MP3 files (I had about a half a million). SA Couch stated “You have a lot of MP3s” And I replied “Yes”. I also knew that the home directories were encrypted, so I knew they couldn’t examine them. After that first hour, I saw an agent pick up my locked laptop and open its screen. I knew it would present him with my picture associated with the user name Adama. Unknown to them, the Adama account on my linux box was a decoy, it was there for hackers to make the mistake that the admin account on my windows computer was the same on my linux computer. So my decoy trapped these clowns, a few minutes later they claimed to have found images in Adama’s account. I knew they were lying because 1) I didn’t use that account (no-one could, it was locked in the shadow file) and 2) all home directories were encrypted – thus my response was “bullshit”. (Note: I am asserting that the tech had a script (likely python) that generated the fake thumbnails in seconds. He overwrote/modified the home directory fast because I had told them the linux os drive wasn’t encrypted (which it wasn’t). The tech just falsely assume the home directories weren’t encrypted either. Thus his fatal mistake.)

As you can see from the indecipherable notes the tech took, there is no way to contradict my story. So I had my attorney ask for the X-ways logs from the triage or a picture of it (because I knew they didn’t use a write blocker). The AUSA said neither was available. 100% Suspicious, you betcha! So that’s when they came to the agreement that my case would just be about the NIT. Since I was a legal novice at this time, I trusted my CJA Attorneys. As I’ve documented on this blog, that trust was misplaced

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bookmark_borderThe Injustice System

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Exoneration projects prove our justice system has an epidemic of bad prosecutors. So the POS responsible for my illegal conviction is not a minority, but perhaps the majority.

Regardless, the Eighth Circuit rejected my petition (26-1808). I’m sending a “Motion for Clarification” today, but they’ll probably ignore it. So I feel that I should NOW explain why §2255(h)(1) is deeply unconstitutional.

FYI, a §2255 petition is one of the last ways a federally convicted person (like myself) can ask a court to fix a wrongful conviction. But since I have already filed a §2255, the rules for a second petition become much harder thanks to AEDPA. Under §2255(h)(1), I have to prove that I’ve obtained “new evidence” that proves that no reasonable person could still vote to convict me.

That sounds fair in theory, but in real life scenarios (like mine) it can become a HUGE unconstitutional obstacle. If (as in my case) the government hid evidence and someone (like me) only later got access to records that prove the case was built on lies (which I have done), the court can still refuse to grant the petition. Thus, I end up in a “procedural trap” because the evidence came too late, even though it proves my conviction was wrongfully obtained.

In other words, §2255 cares more about finality than truth. That means that even though I have irrefutable proof of serious wrongdoing, I still may not get a real chance at exoneration. If you’re a normal person -outside our corrupt judicial system- that is obviously ridiculously unfair.

So, at this point, my hopes rest in the WDNY court doing the right thing and un-redacting the email in Exhibit H. Since the 8th Circuit doesn’t have to tell me why they rejected my petition (thus my motion for clarification), I have to speculate. I’ve determined (with the help of AI and AUSA Tessie Smith’s perjurious response) that they justified the denial on their opinion that: “the petitioner relies on redacted FOIA documents (e.g Exhibit H) to allege unconstitutional collusion between the government and his defense team. Speculation regarding what the un-redacted documents might contain does not meet the clear and convincing evidence standard required to overcome the government’s presumption of regularity. Furthermore, allegations of attorney collusion must be proven concretely. Therefore, this Court will not overturn a conviction based on documentary inferences; the petitioner must prove the collusion through concrete evidence and the redacted documents do not meet this standard.”

If this makes you say “this shit is crazy!”, you are a sane person. The government has redacted the information that will get my case overturned. Talk about a conflict of interest! Speaking of conflicts of interests, would you be surprised to learn that Jospeh Leo Howard is in possession of an unreacted copy of Exhibit H? You shouldn’t be because he has (as documented on this blog) refused to supply a single page from my case file AND the Nebraska Counsel for Discipline has also failed to provide me with any acknowledgment of my complaint against him for not providing me with my case file. You should also not be surprised that my case file also contains emails from me to him on July 30, 2015 ordering him to prepare for trial. Proving that he went behind my back to negotiated a conditional plea with POS Becker without my permission. Worse, an email I got from the public defenders office proves that Howard and my public defender (who I trusted in 2015) conspired on July 30, 2015 to coerce me into taking that unauthorized conditional plea.

Howard is also in possession of emails (starting on August 4, 2015) proving that I wanted him to file paperwork to withdraw my plea. Howard ignored my requests from August until November, when he negotiated with POS Becker to do a “reverse proffer” to convince me not to withdraw my plea. When I arrived for the proffer, Joe thanked him for doing it and Becker replied “Sure, we have nothing to hide” That is when I knew Becker was lying. I just glowered at Becker during the proffer, Joe was like “could you try to hide your disdain for him a little?” I said “NO!” But after the proffer, Howard still refused to file the paperwork to withdraw the plea and only did so after I wrote the judge indicating that I didn’t trust Howard or POS Becker.

As this blog documents, during my incarceration in 2016 to 2018 I realized that I had been railroaded. Joe refused to provide me with my case file while incarcerated because it was “sealed” and I’m pretty sure he didn’t give Megan the whole file (but I’ve written that her former firm is also uncooperative). HUGE SIGH! Anyway, the bottom line is that I need un-redacted exhibits to win.

bookmark_borderLLMs are not Artificial intelligence

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As I wait for the Courts to rule on my two petitions (Habeas & FOIA) my thoughts have turned to this enormous AI bubble that is about to burst. First, it’s important to understand that LLM’s are not AI. As the link points out, AI would mimic the intelligence of a specific animal, for example – a DOG. Thus, if a computer could mimic the intelligence of a dog, it would be DOG Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

As I love dogs (except for their poop) I would love an AGI android dog in the form of a Corgi. And I would bet that there would be a HUGE demand for such an android Dog. So why don’t we have one? Because an LLM can never achieve DOG intelligence.

A very simplified explanation of what an LLM does is best explained with a numbers example. I’ll call it a large number model or LNM. I train my model on the counting number set, say up to 1 billion. So my LNM knows that the counting set starts with 1 and ends with 1 billion. So when you ask it “What number comes after 300,207?” It easily returns the answer “300,208”. But if you ask it ‘What number comes before 1 or after 1 billion?” – it will make something up. This is what they call a hallucination. When a model doesn’t know something, it will make the answer up, from its knowledge base. In this over-simplified case my LNM’s wrong answer will be from its dataset (1 to 1 billion).

In this context, you can fundamentally understand what a LLM chatbot like ChatGPT is doing. Large Language Models are essentially just next word predictors. (Like your phone does when it tries to autocomplete words for you.) Although, a LLM is that system on steroids. Which is fine, until you understand the costs behind that chatbot writing those words back to you.

And that’s why the AI Bubble will pop, because of the unsustainable costs of keeping it running. Note I’m not saying it’s going to go away, I think Google & Microsoft will keep it around in some form, but an LLM will never achieve DOG AGI because it cannot. But this research may at sometime in the future lead to my dream of a droid Corgi.

bookmark_borderOur BUBBLED President

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As I’ve noted before our president is a clown. According to the most reputable polling organization, a majority of Americans agree with my assessment with just 34% approving of the clown’s performance, which meets the record he set in 2021. Biden was at 40% and Barack Obama was at 59% when they left office. The Orange Clown has “good” company in the below 40% club, see the numbers here.

Also, only a bubbled clown would attempt to construct all these monuments. It’s like he cannot comprehend that the majority of US hate him, and therefore, everything is going to be destroyed after he leaves office. (That will occur in 2027 if the dems get the Senate and it looks like they’re going to…)

America 250 was hijacked by the clown’s Freedom 250. According to all the acts that cancelled and the whistle blowers involved in fund raising. It looks like Freedom 250 was cosplaying as America 250 causing serious confusion and possible wire fraud. But I am a fireworks fan, so I muted the clown’s speech and enjoyed the ridiculous fireworks show (although I liked NYC’s better). I thought the grand finally to Miley’s ‘Party in the USA” was awesome (but I’m 99.9% sure that she would NOT agree).

Happy Birthday America!

bookmark_borderFrom Bad to Worse

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As I noted a few weeks ago, the new Comey prosecution isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Then we had the ridiculously corrupt prosecution of the Broadview Six. Now, – this week – we topped off the prosecutorial misconduct with charging a guy for pulling debris from an algae infested “pool”.

Sadly, this kinda prosecutorial misconduct at the DOJ isn’t new; but – like everything else -, the current administration has put it on steroids. Which I guess is a good thing, the corruption in my case was easy for the Courts to ignore (hopefully they’ll finally correct that). But this blatant corruption on steroids is simply impossible to ignore. I suspect an AUSA is going to loose their Bar Card over this nonsense eventually. I know I hope Keith A. Becker does.

bookmark_borderDeadline is Today

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So the deadline to respond to my Habeas petition is due today, if they didn’t ask for another extension. I asked the FOIA Judge to speed up the un-redacting of Exhibit H and “they” thought it prudent to ask the AUSA in that lawsuit what they thought about that. Whatever, it will all come out in the end. It’s all just so corrupt. As the Cato institute has documented, there is a strong AUSA bias in federal Courts. They asserted “the key takeaway is that the composition of the federal judiciary is massively imbalanced in favor of former government advocates compared with former government opponents” SMDH!

Update June 25, 2026 – The AUSA filed their pathetic and perjurious response to my petition on June 4, 2026 (I got it in the mail on June 11, 2026). I mailed my response to their response reiterating that TB2’s LOG IS FAKE, and it was filed on June 16, 2026. I now await the Court’s decision…

bookmark_borderEyeball Stats

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So, I’m waiting for the AUSA’s response to my latest habeas petition (26-1808 & 26-1809 because the clerk apparently put my exhibits in as a separate case number). I’ve noticed that my eyeball stats have increased for certain posts (they mostly remain at 0 because most people just read the “scroll”). So that means something I guess…

The reply should arrive any day now, I’ll post an update when it does…

UPDATE: The Nebraska’s AUSA was ORDERED to reply to my habeas petition on May 12, 2026. They got the Court to give them an extension to June 9, 2026. SMDH!

bookmark_borderHam Sandwich Indictments

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As I’ve been stating since 2021 when I started this blog, it is an objective statement of fact that a “good” prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. The term was coined by a Judge in 1985. My case proves that correct, but the current indictment against Comey is a concrete example of this fact.

The problem with grand juries is that the process is flawed. It’s supposed to be made up of skeptical members of the society (your peers). But it is often made up of partisan hacks, highly sympathetic and deferential to the prosecutor as a trustworthy person who wouldn’t lie to them. Unfortunately, many prosecutors (like Keith A. Becker) are not trustworthy people.

As one former prosecutor put it; “I became a prosecutor because I don’t like bullies. I stopped being a prosecutor because I don’t like bullies.” – I concur…

bookmark_borderExhibit H

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So, I want to break down the main evidence for my newly filed petition, EXHIBIT H, posted below (and in another post). It consists of 4 pages, two of which are mostly blacked out. I got this document from the government AFTER I filed my FOIA lawsuit (still in “Summary Judgement” phase as I write this).

After not hearing from Joe Gross (my NE attorney) for over a month (late November 2014 until January 2015), he emails me in early January 2015 that; 1) he’s hired experts to examine the NIT without my advice or consent & 2) they are on their way to the FBI Omaha office as he wrote that email to me. My knowledge of the NIT at this time was that something was wrong with it; because, my session ids were different when they should be the same and the browser reported that the previous page is the current page. Both anomalies were HUGE red flags.

For clarity, remember that I was arrested on April 9, 2013 based solely on the evidence in the table on my about page. I immediately determined that table had two HUGE red flags, strongly indicating that the evidence was fraudulent. Joe Gross ignored that FACT for about a year as he pursued a dismissal based on the government’s Rule 41(f) violation. That litigation lasted until October 2014 – when the NE court denied the Rule 41(f) dismissal motion.

So, on October 8, 2014 Gross informed Becker (the POS prosecutor) that he intended on challenging the NIT via a motion called Daubert. As a preliminary matter, Becker had inserted into the discovery process a “declaration” that the “NIT” was a flash application on September 4, 2014. I rejected that assertion immediately, based on solid technical grounds. Becker tried to reiterate his nonsense on November 10, 2014 – I forcefully rejected it and Becker embarked on egregious prosecutorial misconduct.

Basically, I told Gross that Becker was lying about the NIT and Gross made it clear the Daubert challenge would continue. From November 10, 2014 until January 2015, Becker convinced Gross (proven by FOIA docs) that the NIT was just a flash application. Becker also introduced irrelevant accusations that they had found contraband on my Linux computer. I knew that accusation was also false, but Becker convinced Gross that it might be true and Gross began to deliberately sabotage my defense strategy.

So, in January of 2015 Becker had a HUGE problem, if a defense expert exposed the fraudulent logging system his team inserted into TB2 (the website I was accused of visiting) all of his Operation Torpedo prosecutions could be dismissed (not just mine). Becker (I suspect) somehow got Gross to hire Podhradsky’s team, who I call the “Shills”. In the middle of January, the Shills produced a report that focussed on the Flash Application and how it worked on Pedoboard (NOT TB2). It’s important to understand that the logging system on Pedoboard was legitimate and native and the logging system on TB2 was totally fake / fraudulent.

After I get their ridiculously biased report, I’m furious that they (Gross & the Shills) have deliberately sabotaged my case ending strategy by accepting Beckers Flash App nonsense. So, I – with the help of Gross – petition the Court to have Gross and the Shills removed from my team. The Court grants the motion and assigns Joe Howard BUT things get MORE corrupt, not less.

Howard was appointed in February 2015, so at that time Becker doesn’t know if his Shills will remain on the case. So Becker flies to Buffalo to get a second indictment against me. This was done for the improper purpose of getting me to end the Daubert challenge to the NIT. I refused, BUT Howard also refused to fire the Shills and hire Mercuri. So on May 18, 2015 the Shills write this:

Hi Jeffrey,
I wanted to touch base about our investigation outcome for the Cottom case. Long story short, my team and I found that the NIT was repeatable and Cottom had further questions he wanted flushed out as part of the investigation. Specifically they are attached. Mr. Cottom wasn’t happy with our analysis however the judge wanted my team to continue on for this case . . . .

As you can see, the Shills improperly shared my confidential opinion and their preliminary findings with Becker’s team. That was highly inappropriate act of sabotage, but was nothing compared to what they did in June of 2015.

Remember that the shills have already determined how the Flash Application worked in January, so their June task was to determine the authenticity of the logging systems. (There were two, one on TB2 and one on the server the flash app connected to). As I have proven, the logging system on TB2 was FAKE. That means that the legitimacy of the other logging system didn’t matter at that point because both must be legitimate for the system’s veracity to survive.

So, in this context, you can understand that it was imperative (from Becker’s perspective) for the shills to ignore that TB2’s log was FAKE. Keep that in mind when you read the 4 FOIA pages below. (Read them from Page 4 to 1). On pages 3-4, you’ll see that the lead Shill “Ashley” is writing “Jeffery” again (redacted for some illegitimate reason) on June 8, 2015. She thanks Jeffery for hosting her team on Friday June 5, 2015 and has a few questions for the FBI. This email is highly improper because at this time, there are no proper adversarial questions for the Shills to be asking the FBI. Remember, they already know how the flash app works, they are just analyzing the logging systems. This work is technically complex (analyzing php and python code) but easy for them. They had all the code and the technical skill to “decode” and test it, thus there were no proper adversarial questions to ask the FBI at that time, so we can strongly suspect collusion.

Then, the email chain gets worse on page 2. You can see it is from Becker, to Howard and Podhradsky. The smoking gun sentence is “Also, can Dr. Podhradsky let us know what information her team found/did not find on the data her team reviewed” Worse, on page 1 there is confirmation of illegal collusion where the Shills (Specifically Matt Miller) answered the FBI questions (the blacked out parts on page 2 below Becker’s questions on that page) and ends with Becker satisfied that they accomplished their illegal task of legitimizing TB2’s fraudulent table.

Colluison