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Proposal for The Big Frame/Seifer

THE BIG FRAME

Marc J. Seifer with Stephen Rosati

A man spends a year and a half in jail awaiting trial, accused of drug trafficking, robbery and murder. He states that he is innocent and does not know any of the people involved. Further, he proclaims that he was not even in the state where the crime was committed at the time that the event took place. He resides in Rhode Island. The murder took place in Florida. Refusing to waive his rights, so begins a complex and riveting courtroom battle as the man fights to block Florida from extraditing him. On the prosecutions side, six eye-witnesses place him at the scene of the crime. They ID him in photo line-ups and state under oath before police officers and Florida prosecutors that they saw this man, Stephen Rosati, enter the apartment with another man, Peter Dallas, and kill the victim, Joseph Viscido, Jr. A third man, Peter Roussonicolos, a.k.a., Pete the Greek, is charged as the mastermind and driver of the getaway vehicle. These three men -- Stephen Rosati, Peter Dallas and Pete the Greek -- spend a combined time of four and a half years in jail as accomplices. Dallas confesses. He describes the crime in a sworn affidavit, and admits that he and Rosati murdered Viscido. After 18 long months in jail, Stephen Rosati, Peter Dallas and Pete the Greek are released as free men. As it turns out, not one of the men were involved in any way. Not only were all three totally innocent, but two of them, Dallas and Rosati, did not know each other and had never met! Whats going on? How can the police locate six eye-witnesses, including one of the alleged killers, to make a case that is completely untrue? Is this really America in the 1990's, or some fascist country of another era? If it were not for the determined efforts of Stephen Rosati's parents, the intelligent courtroom maneuvering of his attorney Jack Cicilline (whose son, David, is presently Mayor of Providence), and a fortuitous break in the case which emerged by an independent police investigation, two of these three men could have been sent to the electric chair, Florida's penalty for murder. I wrote this book because I was there while it was happening. As a handwriting expert, I testified on behalf of Stephen Rosati during his 1990/91

Proposal for The Big Frame/Seifer

extradition hearing, to verify documents dated at the time of the murder. These documents, which included gasoline and credit card receipts and co-signed salary checks Rosati wrote while conducting business in Rhode Island established clear and convincing evidence that Rosati was indeed a resident of the state of Rhode Island conducting business in the state at the same time that Florida was making the case that he was a bummed out drug dealer living in Florida. As the case developed, I became utterly amazed at how inept or misguided our legal system could be to incarcerate not one, but three men, all of whom had absolutely nothing to do with the actual crime. Something is wrong in our society when unscrupulous factions of the police can operate with storm-trooper tactics to build a fabricated case, and then get educated prosecutors and judges to do their bidding, to help send innocent men to their possible deaths. The focal point of the book is Stephen Rosati's extradition hearing, which became the longest in Rhode Island's history, and possibly the history of the country. In the normal course of events, a quick stroke of the pen allows an individual to be extradited from one state to another by nightfall. In this instance, it took an army of witnesses and nine months of testimony, all of this taking place before newspaper and TV reporters who covered it in a sensational way on page one of the Florida and Rhode Island dailies, (over 100 articles in number) and on the evening news. As the reader will come to see, this is not a story about mistaken identity. Rather, it is a sobering account of a legal system gone haywire, where the presumption of innocence is a joke. With steamroller mentality, prosecutors, judges, FBI officials and even a U.S. Attorney General become the blinded dupes of a corrupt police machine that will do anything to make its case. This is a world where drug dealers black-mailed by cops on the beat and protected by use-immunity laws will say anything to reduce a jail sentence imposed by the very people who put them there for the express purpose of manipulating them later on. This is a world where perjured testimony is ignored by a governor and a board of state supreme court justices, where the word of a known lying drug dealer is believed over iron-clad documents and the testimony of half dozen law abiding citizens. This is a world where a castrated judge knowingly sends an innocent man to a possible death sentence, where a prosecutor ignores overwhelming evidence which should overturn his case, where diabolical policemen can offer the removal of death sentences to inmates they know are innocent just so they can punish people who have gotten in their way. This is a true story of one man caught in the vise, using his wits to stay alive in a prison system that could have eaten him alive. And it is also the story of his indomitable parents who give up their worldly goods to pay scrupulous and unscrupulous lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and do every thing possible to save the life of their innocent son.

Proposal for The Big Frame/Seifer

THE MARKET

THE BIG FRAME is a multi-layered true-crime investigative expos written as a mass market legal thriller in the genre of such New York Times best selling authors as Steve Martini, John Lescroart, Scott Turow or Richard North Patterson. A combination murder mystery, courtroom drama, prison tale, and tragic family saga, this story should have wide appeal. On the national level, the story has been covered in the press in The New York Times and Associated Press, and on TV throughout southern Florida and Rhode Island, Southern Massachusetts, Forth Worth and Philadelphia, and throughout the country on the Keith Oberman Show on CNBC. On the local level, the book has a guaranteed market in Rhode Island and southern Florida because of the widespread prepublicity which includes over 200 newspaper articles spanning 15 years mainly in the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel and Providence Journal, and corresponding local TV coverage ABC, CBS and NBC including an appearance of Stephen Rosati and Dr. Seifer on ABC News, Channel 6, Providence on September 22, 2003.

TESTIMONIALS

Top writer Nelson DeMille (Gold Coast, Word of Honor, The Generals Daughter, Plum Island) said of Seifers last work: Wizard is a truly remarkable biography of a remarkable man. Seifers telling of the life of Nikola Tesla reads like a novel -half sci-fi and half tragedy.... a wonderfully readable and illuminating biography.... a masterpiece. Former New York City policeman Robert Leuci, who was the topic of Robert Daleys bestselling book Prince of the City, and author in his own right of The Snitch, Fence Jumbers, Double Edge and Captain Butterfly has agreed to write the introduction to THE BIG FRAME. This is an important story, more than just a tale about an innocent man falsely accused, Mr. Leuci said. It is about the abuse of police power.
BOOK LENGTH

The book is approximately 450 pages. It is completely documented and contains a full bibliography, 10-12 pages of endnotes and an index. The book has been edited by award-winning short story writer Adam Kay.

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MEDIA PROMOTION

Proposal for The Big Frame/Seifer

This event received front page coverage in the Providence Journal, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post and the Sun-Sentinel. Other newspapers which covered the story included the New York Times, USA Today, Westerly Sun and Warwick Beacon. TV news organizations also ran the story including CNN and all the local TV stations in Rhode Island and southern Florida. Television shows which have contacted the Rosatis include The Ricki Lake Show, Hard Copy, Dateline, 60 Minutes and 20/20. This case against Florida is presently at trial. Due to the heavy publicity from the Providence Journal, Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel, this may become a national story because the police corruption or ineptitude is of mind-boggling proportions. This case involves not only local detectives, but also higher ups in the Broward County police organization. The governors from Florida and Rhode Island were called in as well as their state prosecutors.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES MARC J. SEIFER

Past editor of MetaScience, Marc J. Seifer, Ph.D., presently edits the Journal of the American Society of Professional Graphologists. With more than 70 publications in periodicals such as Rhode Island Business Quarterly, Journal of Psychohistory, Cerebrum, Hands on Electronics, RI Bar Journal, Lawyers Weekly and Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Dr. Seifer is internationally recognized as a handwriting expert. He is also recognized as an authority on the inventor Nikola Tesla. Featured in The Economist, RI Monthly, Narragansett Times, Glamour and Cosmopolitan for his work in graphology, and in Scientific American, MITs Technology Review, New York Times, Providence Journal, Nature, Library Journal and The Washington Post for his work on Tesla, he has lectured at such institutions as the United Nations, Cambridge University, Oxford University, University of Vancouver, City College of New York, Brandeis University, Long Island University, New York Public Library, Colorado College, Cranbrook Retreat, Industrial Light & Magic and West Point Military Academy, as well as in Boston, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Denver, Detroit, Providence, New York, Santa Fe, Jerusalem, Haifa and Zagreb. Listings include Whos Who in the World and Whos Who in Science and Engineering, Marquis editions. His latest work WIZARD: THE LIFE & TIMES OF NIKOLA TESLA (Birch Lane Press) was boxed and starred by Publishers Weekly, featured in a three-page review in Scientific American as a serious piece of scholarship, high-lighted as a full-page article in the New York Times Long Island section, recommended for all levels by Choice and highly recommended by the American Society for the Advancement of Science. His other works include STARETZ ENCOUNTER (novel), THE LOST WIZARD (screenplay and video docu-drama), THE MAN WHO HARNESSED NIAGARA FALLS, INWARD JOURNEY, a psychology text and HAIL TO THE CHIEF (screenplay).

Proposal for The Big Frame/Seifer

With a B.S. from the University of Rhode Island, five semesters of graphology at the New School For Social Research, photography at the School of Visual Arts, an M.A. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Saybrook Institute, Dr. Seifer works as a handwriting expert and testifies in court. He also teaches psychology at Roger Williams University.
STEPHEN ROSATI

Former Mr. Rhode Island, in 1983, and winner of the Rhode Island Tall Man bodybuilding competition, Stephen Rosati recently also won the Mr. All New England competition in 2000. Stephen has run a number of businesses including telemarketing and real estate companies and the Rhode Island Fitness Center. He has constructed a dozen middle-income and luxury homes throughout the state, has initiated plans to construct a motel and commercial complex, and has also negotiated with an English concern to create a quarry for international export of granite. Stephen is also an avid skier who has competed in jumping competitions. He is presently suing the state of Florida in a multi-million dollar suit for false imprisonment.