From the Har­vey Dent website,

Today’s press con­fer­ence was unex­pect­edly can­celled due to a hostage cri­sis located at a nearby deli. In a self­less move, Mr. Dent entered the premises, exchanged him­self for a woman who was being held at gun­point, and nego­ti­ated the suc­cess­ful release of the remain­ing patrons in the restau­rant. Watch this site for updates. We will release more details when they become available.

Down­load the MP3 Audio of the situation

The hostage sit­u­a­tion was insti­gated by des­per­ate cop, Frank Notaro, he takes a woman hostage before request­ing wit­ness pro­tec­tion for him and his fam­ily. Har­vey Dent exchanges him­self for the woman before Notaro is arrested.

This all took place at Rossi’s Deli — Notaro’s mad­ness was tripped in the event of see­ing his part­ners (Cis­neros) death in a car explo­sion, also killing his entire fam­ily — all whilst leav­ing a mes­sage on Rossi’s answer phone. Down­load the voice­mail mes­sage and lis­ten to the scene

For some back story on Frank Notaro I rec­om­mend read­ing our cov­er­age.

Glenn Barhyte’s email, acces­si­ble through the secu­rity pages at Gotham Police, has two new mes­sages from Frank:

Deal’s Off
I saw it. With my own eyes. Best part­ner I ever had. Dead. What the hell’s going on?

Thank’s For Nothin
Looks like you’re out hav­ing break­fast or some­thing. I knew I couldn’t trust IA to keep my fam­ily safe. I’m going to Rossi’s Deli to take care of Con­do­loro myself, don’t try to stop me.

This is a very large, though side inves­ti­ga­tion tak­ing place as part of the Dark Knight’s viral mar­ket­ing. A lot of inter­est­ing details, doc­u­ments and images have been unveiled as a result of this sleuthing, so I’m going to do my best to relay all of this to you now.

Back­ground on Francis

Fran­cis Notoro is a Gotham police offi­cer that appears on the “Con­cerned Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Gotham” web­site, one of the eight that damned Har­vey Dent in a press conference:

Eight Gotham police offi­cers stood up for the truth today at a morn­ing press con­fer­ence at Gotham’s Hotel Inter­na­tionale. One by one, the police offi­cers took the podium and told their story. Their dev­as­tat­ing tes­ti­mony showed that Dent is a dis­hon­est, cor­rupt, out-of-control pros­e­cu­tor who threat­ened police offi­cers in order to get them to tes­tify against inno­cent cops who Dent wanted in jail. Fran­cis Notaro, Sergeant, told the press corps that Dent had offered him money to tes­tify against an inno­cent cop, Jimmy Scaliano.

He cur­rently fea­tures in CCFABG’s lat­est adver­tise­ment: CCFABG Ad

And update to the Gotham Police web­site, award­ing him the Gotham Medal of Com­men­da­tion:

At a cer­e­mony in City Hall’s Ban­quet Room yes­ter­day, Gotham Police Depart­ment Sgt. Fran­cis X. Notaro received the Gotham Medal of Com­men­da­tion. It is the high­est medal one can receive from the Mayor of Gotham, and requires “an extra­or­di­nary act of courage in the face of real dan­ger to one’s self.” Mayor Gar­cia as well as numer­ous other dig­ni­taries were there to honor Sgt. Notaro, who was accom­pa­nied to the event by his wife Han­nah and his two chil­dren, Samuel, 7, and Rachel, 4.

The com­men­da­tion emerged from Sgt. Notaro’s actions of May 13 of last year. A crazed gun­man began shoot­ing up passers-by in an alley down­town off of Jack­son and Colum­bus at around 2 AM.

Notaro, who was not on duty at that hour but hap­pened to be close by, heard the shots, went straight to the scene of the inci­dent, and shot and killed the per­pe­tra­tor. Notaro’s actions put him­self at grave risk of death, while sav­ing the lives of inno­cent bystanders.

“Sgt. Notaro reflects the very best of Gotham,” said Mayor Gar­cia. “He rep­re­sents the spirit of ded­i­ca­tion, duty, and com­mit­ment to the rule of law that we all can admire.”

The Fan Inves­ti­ga­tion and Mystery

“jlevine”

All the infor­ma­tion posted so far is read­ily avail­able on the viral sites. Here is where the jour­ney really begins. Look­ing at the updated Gotham Police page, the pic­ture of Frank Notaro used asks not to be hotlinked — this begs us to look at the URL:

the​gotham​times​.com/​m​e​d​i​a​/​j​l​e​v​i​n​e​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​/​g​t​p​0​0​3​3​9​.​jpg

By incre­ment­ing the num­ber on the image we can find a few more pic­tures of Frank with his chil­dren. The name in the URL, ‘jlevine’ refers to one James Levine, cited in The Maiden Avenue Report:

TIMES REPORTER LEVINE: “MEDIA PACKRAT” PREPPING EXCLUSIVE NOTAROINTERVIEW?

Using the known folder and try­ing some dif­fer­ent file names, this inter­view is uncov­ered: Down­load, here’s an excerpt:

Notaro: Har­vey Dent offered me cash money to lie about a good cop.
Levine: Yep, that’s what the ad says.
Notaro: Cash money. To lie.
Levine: What cop was he try­ing to pros­e­cute?
Notaro: James Scaliano.
Levine: Scaliano, Scaliano…Ahh, Scaliano, this is the guy who was found guilty of shak­ing down shop own­ers for pro­tec­tion money and roughin’ up guys for the shy­locks.
Notaro: Lies. All lies. Scaliano was a good man.

Voice­mail Messages

Mov­ing swiftly on, hope you are with us so far. Onto a site we uncov­ered a short while ago, that of CCFABG leader Joseph (aka Joe) Can­do­loro. On this page is a tele­phone num­ber, 1866 626 8049, com­bin­ing it with the price of “Joe’s favourite” at Rossi’s deli (1149), yields voicemail.

Joe’s Favorite
An 8oz sir­loin cooked to order and 3 fan­tail shrimp, breaded and fried. $11.49

The first mes­sage we hear is a lit­tle gem from Albert Rossi which reveals a secure doc­u­ment num­ber, IA176495U (“killed by the men upstairs”) and he leaves his num­ber at the end of the mes­sage, 1866 580 3840. Use the pin “9482” to access his voice­mail — these let­ters cor­re­spond to his mother’s name Zita (we found this out at St Swith­uns). Using this a series of voice mes­sages were uncov­ered. These mes­sages reveal the secret sto­ries of three char­ac­ters — Can­do­loro, Rossi and Notaro. Within a mes­sage to Rossi, Notaro reveals his num­ber to be 1866 626 608 3515. Com­bin­ing this with his date of birth as a pin (32976 — aka 3/29/76) we get access to another phone and set of messages.

Down­load Pack of all MP3 Voicemails

Secure Inter­nal Documents

Now onto the real nitty gritty. Every­thing so far has been triv­ial. For those that didn’t know, the Gotham Police web­site has a secret login page at this loca­tion. Back in Decem­ber we used this to retrieve some secret doc­u­ments. We login using user­name: Barhyte­Glenn, pass­word: tevre­den­heid,

By sub­mit­ting Frank’s name to the We Are The Answer web­site, you get this email response,

Thank you for your sub­mis­sion. Offi­cer Fran­cis Notaro is cur­rently being inves­ti­gated to deter­mine his guilt or innocence.

We Are The Answer will keep the cit­i­zens of Gotham informed regard­ing this, and other, inves­ti­ga­tions of police officers.

UmVmOg0KSUE4MjM0OTcxDQpJQTgzNzYxMjENCklBODM4ODU1NQ0KDQo=

That code at the end is very intrigu­ing. It turns out that it is Base64 encoded, decod­ing this gives us three doc­u­ment num­bers, IA823497, IA8376121, IA8388555.

Log­ging into the secure doc­u­ments page and enter­ing the num­ber from Rossi’s voice­mail reveals the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion into the use of deadly force by Franci Notaro — this shows that his story has incon­sis­ten­cies. The doc­u­ment has since been removed from the archives (as per the voice message).

Next up we have the first of the Inter­nal Affairs num­bers, which gives us a wire­tap record­ing between Rossi and Notaro which reveals details of a cover up, regard­ing the events that led to Notaro’s commendation.

Down­load Wire­tap MP3

The sec­ond of the encrypted doc­u­ments is Notaro’s Bank state­ment. Note the $10,000 deposits from JC, believed to be Mr Candoloro.

Last but not least, there is some DNA evi­dence from the crime scene:

These sam­ples prove the victim’s innocence.

Many many thanks to the mem­bers at Super­Hero­Hype

Cin­ema Blend are report­ing that, in pre­view screen­ings of The Dark Knight, most has gone down well — but one scene involv­ing Heath Ledger as The Joker has left peo­ple aghast. There are now rumors it shall be removed for the final cut. To save on the spoil­ers (it’s noth­ing too major), I’ve posted the details after the break.

In other news, the Dark Knight’s first review has sur­faced online, chock filled with spoil­ers and all in Por­tugese, which was found online. Bat­man On Film have posted a very loose trans­la­tion of this — do not read it if you want to enjoy the movie to its fullest. They claim ele­ments match infor­ma­tion that is cur­rently held secret, they are giv­ing it their back­ing and believe it to be gen­uine, I shall remain scep­ti­cal however.

Thanks Keith for both stories!

Read the rest of this entry »

I Believe in Har­vey Dent has updated, there will be a LIVE event:

4/9 PRESS CONFERENCE TO BE STREAMED LIVE ON SUNDAY APRIL 13TH AT 3:00 PM (EDT).

DONUT SUPPLIER NEEDED The Har­vey Dent cam­paign lives and breathes off its vol­un­teer crew. Hun­dreds of Gotham cit­i­zens have joined the cam­paign to change our city. But this week, our donut donor stopped donat­ing donuts to us. And as any­one who has worked on a cam­paign knows, if the vol­un­teers are the life’s blood of a cam­paign, then donuts are the life’s blood of the vol­un­teers. If any of you know of a donut donor who would like to get involved in the cam­paign to take Gotham back, please have them con­tact the cam­paign. Thank you.

Thanks to Bryan and Will for send­ing this in so quickly.

We’ve got some more inter­est­ing viral web­sites for you today. First up, the Maiden Avenue Report has been updated. It now reads, “the end is near” [for Har­vey Dent]. The links to the clown videos have been removed and “spon­sors” have been added which link to new web­sites, most of the pages in rota­tion we have already covered.

Kins­ley Travel:

What’s of most inter­est here is the “Check Flight Sta­tus” panel on the right.

www​.kinsly​travel​.com:

Roman­tic Week­ends
Caribbean Escapes
Pack­age Deals from Gotham to Italy, Greece and the Far East
w Golf Packages

Kinsly Travel is a full-service travel agency with over 25 years expe­ri­ence. THE GOTHAM TIMES travel colum­nist says, “Kinsly spe­cial­izes in find­ing a fun and afford­able trip on short notice.”

A travel agent can take care of busi­ness, let­ting you have all the fun.

“Saved my mar­riage! And you guys did all the work!” – Steve P. from Haysville

“When my bag got stolen, Iris worked with our hotel and our air­lines and put us in touch with the con­sulate! She saved our Get­away!” – Gary R. from South Hinkley

“You did it again! The per­fect escape!” — Mau­reen M. from Pettsburg

Con­tact us:
1866 307 0988
getaways@​kinslytravel.​com

The email response:

“Kinsly Travel! Plan your Get­away with us! Kinsly Travel has been serv­ing Gotham’s travel needs for over 20 years! Now you can check flight sta­tus on our web­site.
Your email is impor­tant to us, and we’ll do our best to get back to you. We spe­cial­ize in per­sonal responses and spur of the moment travel plans.
We can make your get­away fast, effi­cient and fun!”

Gotham Ferry System

www​.gcfer​ries​.com:

The Gotham Ferry keeps its fair city on the move, with an annual total of 8 mil­lion peo­ple using the ser­vice. 28,000 pas­sen­gers a day — not includ­ing week­end days — travel between the Sheal Ter­mi­nal and Petts­burg Ter­mi­nal. Ser­vice is pro­vided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Gotham Ferry boasts reli­a­bil­ity, with over 97 per­cent in on-time recorded trips.

The Ferry is $1.00 from Gotham to Pettsburg.

Petts­burg to Gotham is free.

Sys­tem Sta­tus Hot­line
1866 296 9883

Call­ing this num­ber gives:

“Thank you for call­ing Gotham Ferry Sys­tem. Cur­rently all fer­rys are opper­at­ing normally.”

And the email response:

Thank you for con­tact­ing the Gotham Ferry Sys­tem, Gotham’s his­toric sea-link. The Gotham Ferry Sys­tem is proud to serve the peo­ple of Gotham City and sur­round­ing areas. If you’re receiv­ing this email in response to a request for infor­ma­tion, we’re either rout­ing your mes­sage to the appro­pri­ate staff mem­ber or unable to respond at this moment. Please be patient.

Gotham Ferry System

Hat tip on this one goes to Bryan, thanks!

I have just been con­tacted by Brian, a lucky par­tic­i­pant of the bowl­ing ball mar­ket­ing cam­paign — though his cir­cum­stances have taken a turn for the worse and he now wishes to sell his beloved prize.

Sorry to propo­si­tion you like this but you were a big pro­po­nent of me being the first to grab the DARK KNIGHT April 1st Viral cam­paign pack­age and I just was won­der­ing if you could send a post for me.

The end of last week I had ter­ri­ble fam­ily emer­gency and we’re going to need all the help we can get money wise. So I decided to Ebay my Dark Knight pack­age. I saw the last one go for $11,520 and if we could get any­where close to that, it’d be an amaz­ing help to my fam­ily. It’s always hard giv­ing out mem­o­ri­bilia that you win, but I know there were a ton of peo­ple inter­ested if there’s just one who has the money to spend it’d change lives. So please, think about it post­ing, if not there’s no hard feel­ings. I left the ebay page as my web­site. Thanks, again.

The Ebay Auction

This is the text from the ebay listing:

On April Fool’s we all watched as one by one the loca­tions were stamped! This is an offi­cial Dark Knight Viral Bowl­ing Pack­age. This was taken from Glen­dale NY at exactly 11:27 April 1st, 2008. It’s an amaz­ing pack­age and I’m being torn asun­der by friends and loved ones to Ebay this awe­some movie tie-in.

The Full Contents

Brown Bowl­ing Bag (in which all the con­tents were found within)

Green and Pur­ple Bowl­ing Ball — Now, the ball holes are large for a good sized hand, I was expect­ing some throw away kids ball or even a fake bowl­ing ball, but this is the real deal. Not only is it a great ball, but it is cus­tomized with your “clown thug” name and the phone num­ber you were sup­posed to call when you picked up the package.

Evi­dence Bag — Another touch of genius the rest of the good­ies were wrapped in an evi­dence bag sealed, no joker face paint though…

Cell Phone — It’s a pretty nice Nokia that has been pre­paid and was used to report you’d received the ball.

Note — From the head clown himself…

Joker Card — This really is the jewel in the crown if you will, these joker cards are beau­ti­ful and creepy at the same time. I’m pretty sure everyone’s get­ting a dif­fer­ent one but mine has an anti­quated feel that just makes it perfect.

PLEASE, bid respon­si­bly. I’m only let­ting this go because of some bad breaks and the price tag reflects me not want­ing to part with the pack­age, I will be happy to keep this, but I know there are those of you who want it more than me, some of you might even deserve it more.

Good luck, and I’ll see you all July 18th…

Given the three clown videos posted on the Maiden Avenue Report, a num­ber of peo­ple have sug­gested these may merely be fan cre­ations, despite appear­ing on an offi­cial viral web­site. The new Clowns Against Dent video seems to be address­ing this. Pre­pare for more creepiness:

Thanks Jackie!