Guest Contributor: Controversial Natalee and Joran Movie Set for 2011 Release
Dutch filmmaker Paul Ruven has been filming Me & Mr. Jones since April and is portraying fictional events based on the Holloway case through the eyes of an undercover journalist who visits Aruba five years after Natalee’s disappearance. The central event of the movie follows the journalist and an undercover reporter as they break into van der Sloot’s house and make a “shocking discovery.” In Dutch news, the movie and its filming in Aruba have been a “sensitive” subject, a fact that should warn us about the potential inaccuracies and slanderous portrayals of this “fictional” film.
Taking Advantage of Real Tragedy to Create Drama
While still filming the movie according to its original script, Ruven decided to make changes as the Stephanie Flores case involving van der Sloot escalated. The film now incorporates Joran’s arrest in Peru for the first-degree murder and robbery of Flores. This development is a reflection of Ruven’s desire to include as many twists as possible, making a controversial and potentially popular film that could appeal to the curious or misinformed. At just five years after Natalee’s disappearance, it’s far too soon to be filming fictitious speculation on her and on van der Sloot’s involvement. Any “shocking discovery” in van der Sloot’s house cannot possibly be true to the actual progression of events and should not be widely disseminated to confuse the public.
Riding the Wave of Success
Beth Twitty, Natalee’s mother, wrote a book that was developed into a Lifetime made-for-television movie that depicted real events. The book, Loving Natalee: A Mother’s Testament of Hope and Faith, was incorporated into the movie, Natalee Holloway, to a satisfactory degree as Twitty fully supported this effort and made an on-camera appearance. Premiering in April 2009, it attracted 3.2 million viewers, making it the most successful Lifetime movie to date. Ruven seems to be taking advantage of the fact that the public is still shocked and horrified by Natalee’s disappearance and that people are invested in discovering the truth. The world just isn’t ready for a fictional re-working of Natalee’s tragedy and van der Sloot’s involvement.
Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident education blogger and performs research surrounding College Scholarships. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.
Joran van der Sloot led high-stakes life in South America
Now under arrest for the murder of a woman in Peru, Joran van der Sloot — the prime suspect in the Natalee Holloway case — led a life of high stakes.
BY SIOBHAN MORRISSEY AND JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
Joran van der Sloot was a gambler.
Even as the young man was hounded by suspicions and cameras for his role in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway five years ago, he could be found at poker tables on two continents.
As he sat in a Chilean jail Thursday on charges that he murdered a young woman in Lima, Peru earlier this week, those who know him describe van der Sloot as an athletic and arrogant young man with a yearning for women and risk that led him across the globe.
Van der Sloot met Holloway when he was just 17 at a card table in Aruba. It was one of the last times she would be seen alive. Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in that case. Five years to the day — on Sunday — video cameras would show van der Sloot leaving a poker tournament in Lima with 21-year-old Stephany Flores.
On Tuesday, she was found with a broken neck and wrapped in a blanket at a Lima hotel just a few blocks from the casino. Two days later, van der Sloot’s luck ran out when police in Chile detained the 22-year-old fugitive as he traveled between the resort town of Viña del Mar and the capital, Santiago.
Dressed in a black-hooded sweat shirt and with his brown hair closely cropped, van der Sloot was seen walking calmly and uncuffed into a Chilean police station escorted by three officers.
Van der Sloot’s attorney in New York, Joe Tacopina, cautioned against rushing to judgment.
“Joran van der Sloot has been falsely accused of murder once before,” Tacopina told The Associated Press. “The fact is he wears a bull’s-eye on his back now and he’s a quote-unquote usual suspect when it comes to allegations of foul play.”
Also Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alabama received an arrest warrant against van der Sloot on wire fraud and extortion charges. Money was wired from a Birmingham institution in May to Joran van der Sloot after he requested $250,000 in exchange for the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains and the circumstances relating to her death, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys office.
The information he provided was false, the release said.
SEEN GAMBLING
Noah Acre was playing Texas hold ‘em in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour in Macau in 2009 when he saw van der Sloot sitting across the table.
Recognizing the tall Dutchman from the round-the-clock television coverage that the Holloway case generated, he recalls van der Sloot did not seem shy about his notoriety.
He wore a loud, multicolored jacket with the logo of L.A. Café — a seedy Manila bar and brothel — and was surrounded by an entourage of young men.
Acre asked van der Sloot why he kept dealing with the media after being burned by a Dutch journalist who released hidden-camera footage that seemed to show him confessing to disposing of Holloway’s body.
“Because they gave me money,” he responded.
“I am pretty good at sizing people up quickly,” Acre said of the man he spoke to several times during the week-long tournament. “He seemed like all he cared about was partying and getting girls. . . . The whole Natalee Holloway thing didn’t seem to weigh on him one bit.”
BIGGER PLANS
Things might have been different.
Van der Sloot, the eldest of three sons, had originally planned to attend university in Florida.
But after his arrest and subsequent release, he returned to his native Holland where he studied business. He didn’t stay out of the limelight for long. Hounded by tabloids and television cameras, he traveled to New York to give a televised account of his involvement with Holloway.
When Acre met him in Macau, van der Sloot claimed to live in Thailand. The same Dutch journalist who had taped him claims van der Sloot was in Bangkok selling Thai women into prostitution in the Netherlands.
As early as last summer, van der Sloot moved again.
“The last time I spoke to his mother, she said he was in South America,” Magda Frans, the secretary at the Aruba Racquet Club, told The Miami Herald.
Joran and his father, Paulus, played doubles tennis at the club, she said.
The night before he was arrested for the first time in Holloway’s disappearance, he played doubles tennis with his father in the Moet & Chandon Anniversary Cup tournament, Frans said.
“They lost,” she said.
The match took place at 7:30 p.m. June 8, 2005. Some 10 hours later, Aruban police arrested him. The day was supposed to be memorable for other reasons: He was to graduate with honors that evening from the International School of Aruba.
It was a double blow to his mother, Anita, who taught at the school.
When reached at her home, Anita van der Sloot sounded composed and tried to politely dismiss inquiries about her son.
She has two other sons, Valentijn and Sebastian. She is now a widow. Her husband died suddenly last February playing tennis.
“I don’t know anything,” Anita told The Miami Herald. “I haven’t been in contact with Joran for a long time, not since his dad died.”
Peruvian authorities say van der Sloot traveled to Argentina and Colombia before arriving in Lima on May 14 for the Latin American Poker Tour.
Stephany Flores’ father, Ricardo, said Thursday he hoped van der Sloot’s capture would bring solace to others beyond his family.
“This is not just about my daughter,” he told reporters in Lima. “There is also the case in Aruba that is pending and we don’t know how many more.”
On MySpace and Facebook pages that appear to have been created by van der Sloot, the young man seems to have the tastes of most men his age.
He is a fan of the South Park television show, scantily clad women, the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. and President Barack Obama.
He’s also a member of a Facebook page called “If I could turn back the time” where users share their biggest regrets. If van der Sloot had any, he didn’t show his cards there.
PG on fact finding Holloway : “No evidence of negative role of the van der Straten ‘
July 10 , 2010 , 12:10 ( GMT -04:00 )
ORANGE CITY – There is no evidence that the alleged relationship between former commissioner Jan van der Straten , and the family Van der Sloot , played a negative role in the investigation into the disappearance of Natalee Holloway . This allowed Attorney General Rob Pietersz know yesterday afternoon .
by our reporter
Alex Lacle
Statements by former Justice Minister Rudy Croes (MEP ) in late 2008, the Public Prosecutor (OM) in response to an inquiry to start the initial phase of the investigation into the disappearance of Holloway . According to Croes would Van der Street research during the crucial early stages have deliberately hindered . ” The statements of Croes could not be proven , “says Advocate General at Taco Stein Amigoe . ” A relationship between Van der Straten and van der Sloot appeared not to be there . ”
In a comment to this newspaper says former commissioner Jan van der Straten ” delighted ” to the conclusions of the report. ” I and my family are seriously affected by the remarks of Croes and the subsequent media coverage . My good name is besmirched . ” Moreover, he stresses that what the grief his family has done in the dwarfed by the grief of the family Holloway . Van der Straten was its alleged role as a direct person , earlier by the Public informed of the findings of fact . Whether the former police chief also been informed of the contents of the full report, he would not say . ” It is so agreed with the prosecution . I’m going to say anything about the content . ” Stein said Attorney General Van der Straten ” just know ” about the content of the final report but had no access .
At the start of the inquiry was announced that the results in outline be published after completion of the review. In February this year it was announced that the final report of the National Criminal Investigation was at the OM . Attorney General Pietersz , who instituted the inquiry in early 2009 , then did not respond “because the report should be discussed internally first . With the recent report about this case to the Prosecutor dismissed . ” We see no reason to continue it . ”
Joran
The Holloway case was recently back in the spotlight by the arrest of Joran van der Sloot in Peru . The 22 -year-old sitting there in custody on suspicion of robbery in Stephany Flores on May 31 Remarkably , the murder of Flores exactly five years after the disappearance of Natalee Holloway committed. Holloway disappeared in 2005 after a night out in nightclub Carlos and Charlies . Joran was the last seen her . He is still the prime suspect in this case.
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Federal Grand Jury Indicts Joran van der Sloot for Wire Fraud and Extortion
For Immediate Release
June 30, 2010
United States Attorney’s Office
Northern District of Alabama
Contact: (205) 244-2001
Federal Grand Jury Indicts Joran van der Sloot for Wire Fraud and Extortion
BIRMINGHAM, AL—A federal grand jury today indicted JORAN VAN DER SLOOT, a citizen of the Netherlands, on charges of wire fraud and extortion for soliciting money from Natalee Holloway’s mother on promises he would reveal the location of her daughter’s remains in Aruba and the circumstances of her 2005 death, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and FBI Special Agent in Charge Patrick Maley announced.
“I want to applaud the FBI’s work on this case,” Vance said. “The FBI worked diligently, and in association with Aruban authorities, to investigate and gather evidence in this matter after learning that Beth Holloway had been contacted and told she could finally gain information about the death of her daughter if she would pay $250,000,” Vance said. “Because of the agents’ dedicated efforts, we are able to bring charges against someone who sought profit in a mother’s grief.”
Natalee Holloway, a resident of Mountain Brook, Ala., was last seen alive, at age 18, on May 30, 2005, while in the country of Aruba. As noted in the indictment, she was in the company of van der Sloot the day of her disappearance.
The two-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges van der Sloot with extortion for exploiting Beth Holloway’s fear that she would never find her daughter’s body or know what happened to her unless she paid him $250,000.
The indictment also charges van der Sloot with wire fraud for using false promises that he would reveal the location of Natalee Holloway’s body in order to induce Beth Holloway to make wire transfers of money.
According to the indictment, van der Sloot caused Beth Holloway to wire $15,000 from her bank in Birmingham to his account at a bank in the Netherlands. The indictment also charges that he caused her to wire $10,000 to lawyer John Q. Kelly in New York so that Kelly could later carry that money to Aruba and deliver it to van der Sloot in person. The indictment identifies Kelly as an advisor and legal representative of Beth Holloway who served as her intermediary with van der Sloot.
The indictment describes how van der Sloot’s scheme to defraud Natalee Holloway’s mother proceeded as follows:
After van der Sloot initially contacted Kelly and said he would reveal the location of Natalee Holloway’s remains for $250,000, he later agreed to lead Kelly to the site of her remains for $25,000. Once identification of the remains was confirmed, Beth Holloway was to pay the remaining $225,000 to van der Sloot.
Van der Sloot received the $25,000 from Beth Holloway and led Kelly to a specific site in Aruba. He identified the site as the location where Natalee Holloway’s remains were buried, although he knew that information was false.
Van der Sloot kept the $25,000, but later confirmed by e-mail that the information he had provided was “worthless.”
The indictment seeks forfeiture of $25,100 from van der Sloot. That amount includes $100 Beth Holloway initially wired to the Netherlands bank to confirm van der Sloot’s account.
The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Whisonant, William G. Simpson and James D. Ingram are prosecuting the matter.
Members of the public are reminded that the indictment contains only charges. A defendant is presumed innocent and it will be the government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
Federal grand jury in Birmingham indicts Joran van der Sloot on extortion, fraud charges
Published: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 3:35 PM
Updated: Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 4:09 PM
An Alabama federal grand jury in Birmingham has indicted Joran van der Sloot on extortion and wire-fraud charges in connection with the disappearance in Aruba of Mountain Brook teen Natalee Holloway.
The indictment, announced today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Birmingham, formally charges the Dutchman of allegations released earlier this month in a federal complaint. Federal authorities contend van der Sloot exploited the fear of Holloway’s mother, Beth, that she would never find her daughter’s body or know what happened to her unless she paid him $250,000.
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