A law firm that holds a mortgage on the house of Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University, may foreclose on the property, a judge has ruled.
Croce hired James E. Arnold and Associates to represent him in a libel case against the New York Times and a defamation case against David Sanders, a professor of biological sciences at Purdue University who became something of a public nemesis for the Ohio scientist after pointing out problems in Croce’s published work. Croce also needed representation for Ohio State’s research misconduct investigation, and a suit attempting to stop the university from removing him as chair of the department of cancer biology and genetics.
Croce lost each case. Ohio State’s investigation found problems with how he managed his lab that did not amount to research misconduct.
Arnold and Associates was the second firm Croce hired, after his original lawyers at Kegler Brown Hill & Ritter dropped his cases and sued him because he wasn’t paying his bills. Last December, a judge ordered Croce to pay Kegler Brown nearly $1.1 million. To enforce the judgment, Ohio State has been garnishing his wages, and Kegler Brown has filed a motion for the court to allow Sotheby’s to handle the sale of pieces from Croce’s collection of Renaissance artwork, which the county sheriff seized.
After also ceasing to pay Arnold’s fees, according to a lawsuit Arnold later filed, Croce agreed to put up his house as collateral for continued representation, but still didn’t pay.
In a decision dated July 12, judge Jeffrey M. Brown granted Arnold a favorable summary judgment in three counts of the firm’s suit against Croce, as well as finding that the firm has “met the requirements to foreclose” on Croce’s house.
Reached by phone, Arnold confirmed, “I intend to sell his house if he doesn’t pay his debt.”
At the time of publication, Zillow values Croce’s house at $3.2 million.
The court will hold a hearing on December 4 for a magistrate to determine the amount Croce owes Arnold’s firm, which Arnold estimated to be about $650,000 in original fees, plus interest that has been accruing at 21% per year, reaching “probably north of $500,000.”
After the magistrate or a jury decides how much Croce owes Arnold, foreclosure can proceed, unless Croce appeals the decision and provides a bond guaranteeing that a third party will pay his debt if he loses, Arnold said. He added:
It would be wise for him to start to liquidate some of his artwork to pay his debts, otherwise he won’t have any place to put it.
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RW has published Croce more than 10 times. Good luck!
this is some serious obsession. Why is a blog focused on research integrity going this far to stalk someone’s personal life?
This is not his “personal life.” They are reporting on court orders that are in the public domain. Croce tried to use the court system to cover up his misconduct; this approach backfired and he is now facing the consequences of his decisions. This is news.
Croce’s current lawyer should win the ABA’s “most optimistic attorney” award.
Every time I read a Croce article about his art collection, I can’t help but hope that some of it turns out to be fake.
He bought this one at the 2003 Sotheby auction, described in the catalogue as “Attributed to Filippo Vitale Napoli”.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FydCyVOaQAAwaO5?format=webp
“Attributed to” means no signature; no provenance; no convincing evidence from brushwork; but a previous gullible owner bought it from a supplier who reckoned it was by Napoli (and not “After Napoli” or “school of” or “circle of”). Which is to say, the Sotheby’s experts thought it was fake.
3rd-rate 3rd-generation Caravaggists are not high on most museums’ shopping lists. The expected auction price was €3000-5000. If Croce’s intuition was correct and the painting is a genuine Napoli, it might resell for 4 times as much.
In Italian that sort of art is called “crosta”, means worthless painting. It will take many crostas to pay his lawyers.
I worked for a time at THE Ohio State University. Why do they continue to employ this guy? Even if tenured, he has certainly provided cause of dismissal.
Good point….but the ‘THE’ is puzzling….
THE Ohio State University uses this pretentious and pseudo-elevated “THE” as an official emphasis point.
Croce appears to have essentially catalyzed the transfer of a LOT of money from well-meaning taxpayers to grossly overpaid lawyers, with some questionable publications generated along the way. This is depressing.
I usually don’t make comments about the bad consequences people in Science may suffer but, with this “scientist” an exception is in order.
For the curious: There seem to be some photos on Twitter showing sheriff’s department removing paintings from Croce’s home. https://twitter.com/DavidSandersRep/status/1691911129981923400?s=20
Low-resolution monochrome photos from the County Court website, which evidently needs a new dial-up modem.
these news are such a delight
And they just trademarked the use of “The”:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/us/ohio-state-university-trademarks-the/index.html
I agree with Moose. Retraction Watch performs a valuable service when exposing publications where the objective evidence indicates that the main conclusions must be false because they were based on falsified/fabricated data. But any other topic should be out of bounds, certainly items regarding one’s personal life. The story of Dr Croce and Dr Sanders was recently highlighted in a newspaper article by a reporter who, to put it mildly, is highly critical of OSU. The article is at this link: https://columbusfreepress.com/article/how-new-york-times-got-it-so-wrong-politicization-scientific-misconduct. The article underscores how the main conclusions of Dr Croce have been verified many times by independent labs and raises questions about Dr. Sander’s research work. I recommend you read it. But PLEASE – KEEP PERSONAL MATTERS OUT OF THIS FORUM!
“But PLEASE – KEEP PERSONAL MATTERS OUT OF THIS FORUM!”
What personal matters?
All in the public domain.
“In a decision dated July 12, judge Jeffrey M. Brown granted Arnold a favorable summary judgment in three counts of the firm’s suit against Croce, as well as finding that the firm has “met the requirements to foreclose” on Croce’s house. ”
“The article underscores how the main conclusions of Dr Croce have been verified many times by independent labs and raises questions about Dr. Sander’s research work”.
How can you verify retracted data in retracted papers?
http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx#?auth%3dCroce%252c%2bCarlo%2bM
The story of Dr Croce and Dr Sanders was recently highlighted in a newspaper article by a reporter who, to put it mildly, is highly critical of OSU. The article is at this link: https://columbusfreepress.com/article/how-new-york-times-got-it-so-wrong-politicization-scientific-misconduct.
The reporter in question – Harry Graaf, a retired English professor – credits Gerard Nuovo as his source.
Also,
– where the file “Independent labs” was created on 17/07/2023 by “Jerry Nuovo” (who presumably sent it to Prof. Graaf).
Gerard Nuovo may be a familiar name to RetractionWatch readers, on account of his co-authorship of many of Croce’s retracted papers (not to forget his co-authorship on two retracted papers by Samson Jacob, and on three retracted papers by Terry Elton). I am not totally convinced of his neutrality on this issue. Anyway, if Prof Graaf had consulted more widely, I doubt that he would have concluded that “the accusations [about Croce’s now-retracted papers] were based almost completely on the unproved claims of D.A. Sanders”.
I was inspired to look at the 46 papers that Prof. Nuovo listed as vindicating Croce’s problematic results. Surprisingly many have needed corrections, or are the subjects of PubPeer threads. More to the point, it is hard to see how many of them vindicate Croce (except that they mention microRNAs in some context). If, perhaps, the present commenter “Jerry” / “Reply” / “Reply to Smut” is connected somehow to Jerry Nuovo, I would welcome an explanation of the relevance of those listed papers.
Personal matters means anything unrelated to the scientific articles. Possible foreclosures, personal finances, etc are clearly unrelated to the scientific articles.
An objective read of the article from the Columbus Free Press clearly presents unequivocal evidence from the many independent labs that have verified the main conclusions of the articles by Dr Croce in question.
I agree with the point made in the attachment in the Columbus Free Press article that indicates that a review of all the cases deemed to have scientific misconduct by the ORI/HHS had main conclusions that could not be verified by independent labs and, as the article indicates, were refuted by independent labs. Simply put, if the main conclusions were based on falsified data, especially new, major discoveries, then they will be wrong as defined by not being able to be verified by independent labs.
Personal matters means anything unrelated to the scientific articles. Possible foreclosures, personal finances, etc are clearly unrelated to the scientific articles.
How are attacks on his critics related to Croce’s scientific articles?
The article … raises questions about Dr. Sander’s research work
Reply to Smut
I agree with “Smut Clyde” that the focus should be on the accuracy of Dr. Croce’s work. The long list of independent labs that verified his work in question is thus an important point. In my opinion, it is THE only key point (no implied insult to OSU!).
The question is: why does someone take such a public stance in claiming someone is guilty of scientific misconduct?? What is the person’s motivation? No doubt one reason is that the whistleblower (who works in the lab) has the courage to risk his/her own career and do what is right. The hypothesis is that another reason may be to hide the own’s person misconduct. Noam Chomsky calls this the “Thief-thief defense” (when someone puts their hand is someone’s pocket, takes their money, and points to someone else and say, “Thief! Thief!”, and makes their get-a-way). My own experience is that a focused scientist is too busy to examine other people’s work looking for misconduct. But if a given person does launch a systematic attempt to discredit someone else’s work, then it is fair to ask the question: what is the motivation?. Or more specifically, does the person have the credibility to make such claims? I thus can understand why Dr. Graff examined this subject in his article
https://columbusfreepress.com/article/how-new-york-times-got-it-so-wrong-politicization-scientific-misconduct
There is no need to bring a political scientist, Noam Chomsky, into it.
Problematic data are either there, or they are not there. It’s about the data. Whatever somebody’s motivation is does not make any difference to the data. You can have all the motivation in the world, but if the data are not problematic there is nothing to point out.
“My own experience is that a focused scientist is too busy to examine other people’s work looking for misconduct.”
Is it fair to say that that you only accept allegations of misconduct as credible if they come from an expert in the field who is too busy to make them?
The hypothesis is that another reason may be to hide the own’s person misconduct. Noam Chomsky calls this the “Thief-thief defense” (when someone puts their hand is someone’s pocket, takes their money, and points to someone else and say, “Thief! Thief!”, and makes their get-a-way).
Does this suspicion also apply to the anonymous informant who prepared a dossier of allegations against David Sanders, and sent it to Dr Graff?