Group Claims It Has Pictures Of Davis Taking Illegal Contribution

The Mercury News ^ | Tuesday, Oct 08, 2002 | Mercury News Wire Services

[fight_truth_decay]

The executive director of a law enforcement group that endorses Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon said today he had two photos showing then Lt. Gov. Gray Davis accepting a campaign contribution in his state Capitol office -- in violation of the law.

[smith288]

Of course, this could be the cynics in all of us for having such a gift if true.... Too good to be true is what alot of us think appparently.

[for-q-clinton]

Photos not showing up!

those were pretty large graphic files and the website he used to post it has disabled his site for a while because he's exceeded his bandwidth quota.

If anyone else has the large photo(s) please post them (or a link to them).

[Heyworth]

I think that the key that it isn't what it purports to be is the view out the window. There's an ivy-covered wall few feet past the window, and a small tree in front of it and more trees beyond. It's clearly a first floor office with a tight yard/garden. Now look at some pics of the California State Capitol building. There's nothing that looks like it could match, and it's unlikely that they'd put the Lt.Gov's office on the bottom floor. Also, given the shots of interiors of the building available, the ceiling seems way too low. I don't know where it was taken, but it wasn't taken at the State Capitol Building.

[RonDog]

From Yahoo! News

Tue Oct 8, 4:41 PM ET

Monty Holden, the executive director of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs (COPS), provided this photograph Tuesday Oct. 8, 2002, that allegedly shows then Lt. Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites), left, accepting a check from COPS' former Executive Director Al Angele at his state Capitol office. (AP Photo/California Organization of Police and Sheriffs )

Tue Oct 8, 6:31 PM ET

Deborah Pacyna press secretary for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, holds up a copy of a Jan. 31, 1998 photo allegedly showing then Lt. Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) accepting a campaign donation in his Capitol office. Pacyna showed the media around the lieutenant governor's office in Sacramento, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2002, to let them compare the layout of the office to the one in the photo. The California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, a law enforcement group allied with Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, Gov. Davis' opponent in his bid for re-election, released the photo Tuesday showing Al Angele, right, then executive director of COPS, allegedly handing Davis a $10,000 campaign donation.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

[for-q-clinton]

Thanx for the repost of the pictures, but the ones we had posted earlier appeared to be a better quality (you could zoom in quite a bit without lossing details.)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Rats!

Who is up there? ,-- farmfriend -- do you know where Davis had his office as Lt Governor?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

He would have been in the Lt Gov office!

[Yardstick]

You make some good points, Carry Okie, but it still looks like a juxtaposition of two different lighting situations to me.

In the pic in post #57, the highlight on the upper right side of Davis' head is very concentrated, clearly the result of a direct reflection of a light source, not a reflection of a lightsource that has been been diffused by a previous reflection (like from having bounced off the wall to the right).

It's really the lighting that does it (or doesn't do it) for me. I think a skilled photoshopper could clean up the borders and other telltale signs and technical details associated with the merging two images, but they can't fix the lighting. Actually, in this case, I think they did a pretty good job of selecting images with compatible lighting -- just not good enough.

On the other hand I could be dead wrong ;-D

[A Navy Vet]

"No single flash could do that."

You do know there are dual extended flash setups, not to mention the onboard camera flash? It such a confined space with that kind of setup, you could get ALOT of fill.

[heleny]

If you've taken a lot of photos, you will notice that either the foreground or background can be in focus but not both.

The smaller the aperture, the larger the range of distances that stay focused is. Consider a pinhole camera: everything is in focus. Many higher quality photos use larger apertures, which require the lens to be focused on the subject of the photo. (It's nice to photograph people with the background blurred but the faces in focus.)

[for-q-clinton]

Based on the fact that this camera puts one of those ugly red dates on each photo, I bet it wasn't a pin hole camera :-)

[Yardstick]

Yeah, cramped quarters, outboard flashes, reflective surfaces that aren't visible in the photo. Still, there is a palpable dissonance in the lighting situation; the angles and intensity of the highlights and shadows associated with the men and with the room are in disagreement IMO. Hope I'm wrong about it, though!

[heleny]

Based on the fact that this camera puts one of those ugly red dates on each photo, I bet it wasn't a pin hole camera :-)

Oh, of course it wasn't a pinhole... practically nobody uses those anyway, but they provide the highest depth of field. Cheap modern auto-focus cameras have small apertures and large depths of field. An indoor setting has relatively small distances between the subjects and the walls, so it is easy for everything to be in focus with regular instant cameras (many of which will provide the date stamp).

[Saundra Duffy]

DUMP DAVIS!!!!

[tubebender]

TV5 out of SF covered this but I had a phone call and missed it except for a closeup of the check.. At least it has some legs real or not. (that never stops the "Rats)

[Gophack]

The Lt. Gov's office IS on the first floor of the Capitol, and there is about 40 feet of foliage outside of the Lt. Gov.'s windows. Remember, this was nearly 5 years ago, the grounds are constantly changing, but if you are heading west in Capitol Park (towards the State Capitol), the LG's office is on the RIGHT (north side) and the Gov's office is on the LEFT (south side).

I'll try and remember to bring my camera to work together and capture a picture of the LG's corner.

[Lawdoc]

"the governor hadn't seen them and "has no recollection of this whatsoever."

So did accepting apparently illegal contributions in his office become so frequent for Davis that he can't say for sure whether it happened or not? Seems that the best he can come up with is to say that he doesn't recall. Lawyer weasel words IMHO, and I would know!

[Future Useless Eater]

be careful, dont get tooooooo far out ahead of the
grey headed freak or else the Dem's will yank him off the
ticket and replace him with a last minute surprise!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OK!

[Aunt Polgara]

There's another alternative for the doctoring of the photo. Perhaps it is only the check, or the check and the hands which were photoshopped into the picture.

I surely do hope that the picture is genuine. If it proves to be a fake, Simon can kiss his campaign goodbye. There is always the chance that someone is trying to discredit the campaign by giving them this photo, she said with paranoia. :-) Kinda like whoever gave Babs Streisand the fake Shakespeare quotes.