The Ease and Evil of Internet Libel

Barry Pittard (March 2006) 

 

 

Two pro Sathya Sai Baba activists - Gerald 'Joe' Moreno and Lisa de Witt - have recently stated on Yahoo and Moreno on his website as well that I am the father of my former partner's eldest son, and that I made her pregnant with him when she was 15 years old. 

 

Their statement is untrue and defamatory.

 

This libel has caused distress to those who are not even remotely connected to the cause of which I am a part – the former devotee exposure of the many and serious worldwide allegations against Sathya Sai Baba and certain of his servitors.

 

Moreno states that he has two sources of information:

• A webpage relating to my former partner's business. (Actually, upset by Moreno's email to her, she has since taken the page down and updated it).

• Certain informants among devotees. He states “it is well known, among Sai Devotees” 

However, that old webpage (which he has so glaringly misinterpreted) indicates the real situation, and an objective reader would see that what my former partner really wrote was a) Referring to the then Present: "My family is: Barry Pittard, my partner," etc., and b) Referring to the Past - she wrote:  (Z's) "father and I separated in 1995.” “Z”, of course, is that man’s son, and not mine.

 

It is of course no mystery to most that:

 

-         There are millions of blended families

-         One's partner can have had a child or children by a former partner

 

Those who have uttered this libel might reasonably be expected, therefore, to forthwith withdraw this shockingly untrue, defamatory slur from the Internet and acknowledge – unequivocally – that they were wrong. If there are Sai devotees who Gerald Moreno says are in touch with him who he thinks substantiate the interpretation he has made from the old webpage, then it would be good that they too stop uttering the same untruth.