Friday, January 6, 2012

Producer's Pseudo Offer To Amanda Knox Nothing More Than A Publicity Stunt


How do you bring attention to yourself if you are a small time production company? Why not announce an offer of one million dollars to Amanda Knox for her “life rights?”  Of course you know the offer will be completely ignored by Knox but that is the beauty of the ingenious plan. All you have to do is wait a while, then retract the offer by dreaming up a lame excuse, all while acting as if the offer was completely valid all along. This way you get to leach off of Knox’s name in attempt to drum up a little publicity. Does that sound like a sleazy enough way to garner attention?

Well that is exactly what Chad A. Verdi, President and CEO of Verdi Productions, did recently in order to bring attention to his production company. I realize that I am catering to Verdi’s need for attention by writing about his pseudo-offer to Knox but I feel that Verdi’s ploy is more than ridiculous enough to call out. I hope that anyone thinking about doing business in the future with Mr. Verdi will come to realize what kind of person Verdi has painted himself to be. His recent actions are that of a snake.

So what lame excuse did Verdi use to announce the withdrawal of his lucrative offer? Here is his exact quote:

"After reviewing all the information we had involving the Knox case, I have decided it was not the inspirational feel good story that VP was looking for and we have withdrawn our offer."

Inspirational feel good story? Really? A young woman was brutally murdered and two innocent people spent 1427 days in prison wrongly accused of the crime and Verdi thought this case had the potential to be marketed as a “feel good” story? It appears that Mr. Verdi is either wildly misguided or incredibly dishonest. 

Shame on any credible news agency that allows Verdi to promote his company website and new movie in any article that discusses his “offer.” 

Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher and is currently serving serving sixteen years for the crime. Guede has exhausted his appeals but will unfortunately be eligible for release in a few short years.

In the case of Meredith Kercher, nothing can ever make it right. Her life was stolen from her in an act of senseless violence. Her family will forever be left with the sorrow of her loss. Their suffering has been compounded by the authorities that handled the case. Finding justice for Meredith may have never brought closure but it could have helped greatly as the family struggled to cope. Unfortunately, just as closure will always be out of reach, justice will never come for Meredith. This was guaranteed when two innocent people were convicted for her murder, all while allowing her killer to secure a lenient punishment.

On October 3, 2011, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann spoke loud and clear when he declared that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent, stating they had absolutely nothing to do with Meredith Kercher's murder.

The nightmare for Knox and Sollecito has finally ended and now the healing has hopefully begun. Their freedom is not the making of a feel good story. Their ordeal is a tragedy, leaving only time to heal the damage. Of course Verdi undoubtedly knew this all along.