E-mail sent from Jeff Martz to John Geissman, October 3rd, 2007:

Dr. Geissman,

     I appreciate your response.  In answer to your last question, I
was unsure of what sort of response to send, as the message implied
that action was forthcoming rather than completed and wanted something
specific to respond to.  I apologize if it seemed rude.  We are
mindful of your efforts on our behalf, and appreciate that your
personal authority to deal with the problem is limited.

     I want to reiterate that we are not asking for Lucas' behavior to
be openly addressed by the department or the university just for the
sake of rebuking him.  Our primary concern is that Lucas has the power
to mass produce non-peer reviewed scientific papers under no purview
except his own, which he can (and more importantly, DOES) use to take
credit for the work of others.  This is a serious compromise of
scientific integrity, and yet, as these technically constitute a valid
form of scientific publication, we are ethically required to cite them
as valid scientific literature.

      This is a totally unacceptable situation for anyone concerned
about scientific integrity, and yet getting anyone to take any sort of
action or even offer an opinion on the subject has been largely
fruitless.  In addition to yourself, we have to date contacted the
Department of Cultural Affairs, the Society of Vertebrate
Paleontology, the Governor of New Mexico and the Attorney General of
New Mexico.

      All have either failed to respond, informed us that their
ability to deal with the problem was limited, or (in Ashman's case)
dismissed the matter with an oblique threat.  I am sure that you can
appreciate our concern with this state of affairs.  We also thought
that the department might be concerned with the impact that Lucas'
behavior might have on its image, and that you should be notified as a
courtesy if for no other reason.

     You mentioned raising and discussing our concerns, but not
whether you thought we had a convincing case.  In response to your
first question, we want a clearly stated opinion as to whether or not
Lucas and his colleagues committed academic theft or not, even if no
action is immediately forthcoming.  The discussion and documentation
we provided should be enough to come to a conclusion, and if any
additional documentation is required that was not inlcuded in the
package, please let me know what you need, and I am more than happy to
provide.  You also mentioned discussing the matter with Dr. Lucas, but
not what his response was.  If Lucas has provided any sort of rebuttal
to our concerns, we would like to hear them.

      Please let us know if there are any further developments in this
case, or if a new NMMNHS Bulletin edited by the contributors is in the
works, so that we may more sharply focus our apprehension.  With
respect,

Jeffrey W. Martz, M.S.
PhD student (Vertebrate Paleontology)
Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University