He has also been accused of running a "death row shakedown", where he threatened to testify for the defense in capital cases if he was not given contracts for his services by that state.
[11] In 1988 Leuchter was hired by Ernst Zündel, who was being tried in Canada for publishing works of Holocaust denial, to investigate and testify as an expert witness at his trial, for a fee of $30,000.
[10] Leuchter traveled to Auschwitz and Birkenau to examine the structures identified by former guards, former prisoners, and investigators as gas chambers, and concluded that they could not have been used for mass murder.
[13] In 1988, prior to writing the report, Leuchter had traveled to several sites of structures identified as gas chambers, where, without permission, he collected samples from walls, ceilings and floors, using a chisel and hammer to chip and scrape off pieces of the masonry.
In an interview for Morris's film, Roth states that cyanide would have formed an extremely fine layer on the walls, to the depth of one-tenth of a human hair.
"[10] Leuchter did not examine the walls of the gas chambers until 50 years after they had been used; his critics note that it would have been virtually impossible to discover any cyanide at all using his method.
Since far lower concentrations are required when gassing people than for delousing, it would take only 20 to 30 minutes to ventilate the room; therefore, the forced-ventilation systems used would be more than adequate to allow the gas chambers to be operated without endangering the executioners.
[citation needed] Leuchter's report also made claims about the capacity of the crematoria, although he admitted he had no experience with cremation technology.
Markiewicz decided that the Prussian blue test was unreliable because it depended on the acidity of the environment, which was low in the gas chambers.
Much to the dismay of my executioners, the execution was so badly botched that I am able to stand here before you to speak the truth, and to tell the world that it is not myself, but the Holocaust story that is dead.
I repeat for the record: I was condemned for maintaining that there were no execution gas chambers as Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Dachau, Mauthausen, or Hartheim Castle.
By providing final, definitive proof that there were no execution gas chambers utilized for genocidal purposes by the Germans at these wartime camps, I established the simple fact that the Holocaust story is not true.
[23][failed verification] When he claimed that the Massachusetts Attorney General determined that the sale of the offered equipment was not, in fact, illegal, states started denying his contracts on the basis of his lack of qualifications.
Leuchter has blamed criticism of his work on an "international cabal ... those who have unjustly attacked me and violated my rights ... the Klarsfelds, Shapiros, and Kahns of the world".
"[30] It quoted Edward A. Brunner, chairman of the anesthesia department at Northwestern University Medical School, as saying Leuchter's lethal injection system would indeed paralyze a condemned criminal with Pavulon, but that far from being humane, the paralysis would merely stop the prisoner from screaming at the "extreme pain in the form of a severe burning sensation" caused by the potassium chloride injection.
[3][4] In his memorandum to death penalty states, Carnes observed that in Florida and Virginia the federal courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable.
[31][32] The court in Florida had found that Leuchter had "misquoted the statements" contained in an important affidavit and had "inaccurately surmised" a crucial premise of his conclusion.
[36][37] As a result of those charges, Leuchter signed a consent decree with the board, in which he stated that he was not and had never been registered as a professional engineer, despite having represented himself as one.
[37][38] He settled with prosecutors by serving two years of probation and agreeing to stop disseminating documents in which he presented himself as an engineer, including the Leuchter report.