The whole climategate affair was a quite successful smear campaign where the press was played easily. Michael Tobis has more and you can comment there if you want or on the blogs he links to.
If you want to get someone convicted of murder, just accuse him of two. The stupid “truth is in the middle” crowd will then feel like reasonable good guys by sentencing him from one. Or maybe if they’re journalists, just widely circulate the accusations – they will certainly make people’s life harder even if they had no basis whatsoever.