Petition for Rehearing and Suggestion that the Rehearing be En Banc
samsloan
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
__________________________________________
Sam Sloan,
Plaintiff- Appellant,
Docket No. 08-5813-cv
-against-
Hoainhan "Paul" Truong, Zsuzsanna "Susan" Polgar, Joel Channing,
William Goichberg, The United States Chess Federation, Bill Hall,
Herbert Rodney Vaughn, Gregory Alexander, Frank Niro, Grant Perks,
William Brock, Randall Hough, Randy Bauer, Jim Berry, Texas Tech
University and United States of America,
Defendants
_________________________________________________________________
PETITION FOR REHEARING AND SUGGESTION THAT THE REHEARING BE EN BANC
_________________________________________________________________
Plaintiff-Appellant hereby submits the within petition for rehearing
and rehearing en banc because the petitioner believes that the panel
of this honorable court failed to understand the significance of this
important case. Sloan v. Truong, et al., 573 F. Supp. 2d 823 (S.D.N.Y.
Aug. 28, 2008)
This case involves defendants who sent out thousands of pornographic
newsgroup postings on the Internet targeting a chess organization that
has 30,000 children as members. By ruling as it did that this case
does not present a federal question, this court has opened the
floodgates of Internet pornography targeting our children. The two
principal defendants were actually in Mexico City, Mexico
disseminating their child pornography at the very moment that this
case was originally filed.
In addition, one of the judges on the panel making that decision,
Judge Sotomayor, was just nominated to the United States Supreme Court
by President Obama. Naturally, opponents of her nomination are already
looking at this and other cases and her nomination may not be able to
withstand this inquiry.
Yours, Etc.
Samuel H. Sloan
1664 Davidson Ave., Apt. 1B
Bronx NY 10453-7877
Tel. 917-507-7226
samh...@gmail.com
May 22, 2009
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
__________________________________________
Sam Sloan,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
Docket No. 08-5813-cv
-against-
Hoainhan "Paul" Truong, Zsuzsanna "Susan" Polgar, Joel Channing,
William Goichberg, The United States Chess Federation, Bill Hall,
Herbert Rodney Vaughn, Gregory Alexander, Frank Niro, Grant Perks,
William Brock, Randall Hough, Randy Bauer, Jim Berry, Texas Tech
University and United States of America,
Defendants-Appelees
_________________________________________________________________
PETITION FOR REHEARING AND SUGGESTION THAT THE REHEARING BE EN BANC
_________________________________________________________________
This case arose because of thousands of pornographic newsgroup
postings that appeared on the Internet signed “Sam Sloan”. Sam Sloan,
the plaintiff-appellant here, did not send any of these pornographic
newsgroup postings. These pornographic postings were directed to
members of the United States Chess Federation, a national organization
with more than 30,000 children as members.
The Administrator of the website of the United States Chess
Federation, Brian Mottershead, was assigned to investigate these fake
and pornographic newsgroup postings. After a thorough investigation,
Mottershead determined that Paul Truong was responsible. The way he
was able to determine this was by matching IP addresses. At the time
Truong was caught doing this, he was transmitting from Mexico City,
Mexico. Truong had carelessly used the same computer with the same IP
address to transmit these pornographic newsgroup postings to the
Google Newsgroups and then had logged in under his real User ID to the
USCF Issues Forum. Not only were the IP addresses the same, but the
user agent strings were the same, the type of computer used was the
same and everything else was a perfect match. Perhaps Truong thought
that because he was transmitting from Mexico City, he could not be
identified as the perpetrator. He was proven wrong.
Paul Truong and his wife Susan Polgar had just been elected to the
Executive Board of the United States Chess Federation, defeating Sam
Sloan, who had been running for re-election as an incumbent. Actually,
Troung had been doing these fake pornographic postings for more than
two years, as he had started in June 2005. The result was more than
2500 pornographic Internet postings. Since some of these were
crossposted to two or three places at the same time, the total number
could be counted as 5,000 to 7,000 pornographic postings.
All this was reported confidentially to USCF President Bill Goichberg.
However, Goichberg refused to take any action, except that he
recommended that it be referred to the Ethics Committee, a do-nothing
group with no real power. Eventually, the Mottershead Report leaked
out and was reported in the New York Times. After a reasonable amount
of time had passed with Goichberg doing nothing about the Mottershead
Report and in view of the fact that Goichberg was politically allied
with Susan Polgar, wife of Paul Truong, plaintiff filed this suit,
naming Truong, Polgar, Goichberg and the rest of the USCF Board as
defendants.
The USCF retained counsel to defend this suit and separate counsel
specializing in Internet law to investigate the allegations made in
the complaint. It did not take long before both defense attorneys
realized that Paul Truong was guilty as charged. One result was that
Proskauer Rose, the attorney assigned to defend Polgar and Truong,
withdrew from defending them, after Truong refused to cooperate.
Polgar and Truong were then assigned separate counsel.
Meanwhile, confidential communications between the attorneys
representing the USCF and certain of the board members started
appearing on Polgar's websites. These postings were a violation of
attorney-client privilege. When asked how she got them, Polgar claimed
that they had been leaked. However, the Internet attorney discovered
that somebody had hacked into and broken into the Yahoo email account
of Randy Hough, a board member, 111 times. Therefore, the Internet
attorney, Karl Kronenberger, started a case in San Francisco Superior
Court, USCF vs. Does 1-10, to identify who had broken into Hough's
account. The reason for San Francisco as a venue was that Yahoo is
headquartered there.
The result of subpoenas served in that case was that it was
established that Gregory Alexander, an agent of Susan Polgar, had done
this. Later, the “Smoking Gun” was found in the form of an Instant
Message from Polgar to Alexander asking him to do this. (Surprisingly,
Truong does not seem to have been involved in this.)
Polgar then retaliated by filing a lawsuit in Lubbock, Texas federal
court, naming everybody (including the plaintiff-appellant here) as a
defendant. She immediately offered to settle, saying that if the USCF
dropped its case against her she would drop her case against
everybody. This offer was immediately rejected.
Meanwhile, another victim of the impersonations of Truong filed a suit
in federal court in Philadelphia. That suit, Parker vs. Sloan, is
still pending. (For reasons unknown, Parker also sued the plaintiff
here.)
Finally, the USCF filed a case in Springfield Missouri Chancery Court
seeking to remove Polgar and Truong from the USCF Executive Board. In
that case, the complaint here in Sloan vs. Truong is Exhibit A filed
over there.
That case has been removed to federal court and a motion to remand is
pending.
The result was that the case now before this court is one of five
federal cases and three state cases all involving the same parties,
facts and issues. These cases are all currently being actively
litigated in federal district courts in San Francisco, Lubbock Texas,
Philadelphia, and Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois. There are
motions currently pending in all of these cases. All of these
pleadings can be downloaded using the PACER System.
There four pending related cases all have the same or similar parties
and the same or overlapping facts as those pending in four other
judicial circuits. These are:
USCF vs. Polgar, Northern District of California, 3:08-cv-05126-MHP,
Marilyn H. Patel, presiding
Polgar vs. USCF, Northern District of Texas, 5:08-cv-00169-C, Sam R
Cummings, presiding
Polgar vs. USCF, Central District of Illinois, 3:09-cv-03069-JES-CHE,
Jeanne E. Scott, presiding
Parker vs. Sloan, Polgar, Truong, USCF et al, Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, 2:08-cv-00829-JCJ, J. Curtis Joyner, presiding
All of these cases are being actively litigated. There are motions
pending in all of them. As a further complication, it is being
reported that both the United States Secret Service and the FBI are
investigating the underlying facts behind these cases. One of the
defendants here, Gregory Alexander, informed Judge Patel in the San
Francisco case that his home was searched and his computer was seized
by the US Secret Service in its investigation of these cases.
In a motion filed on April 17, 2009 in Lubbock Texas Federal Court,
counsel for the USCF stated:
“In her discovery requests, among other things, Plaintiff seeks to
discover documentation which is the subject of a federal investigation
and not able to be produced by the Defendants. Defendants have been
advised by law enforcement agencies conducting a federal investigation
of Susan Polgar and Paul Truong not to disseminate information or
documentation pertaining to the investigation to third parties. Thus,
Defendants seek a protective order from the Plaintiff’s requests on
these grounds,”
Several of these cases did not crop up until after the district court
below here had made its decision to dismiss the complaint. The court
below did not seem to realize the overall impact of all these cases.
This case had been marked submitted in February 2008. Nothing was
submitted after that until the district court made its decision.
Meanwhile the New York Times had published 12 articles about this
case. Al of these can be read on nytimes.com . There have also been
articles about this case in the major news dailies in Chicago, Boston,
San Francisco and London, England, among many other places.
Accordingly, plaintiff-appellant made a motion to transfer. Plaintiff-
Appellant could not have made his motion earlier because some of the
other federal cases had not been filed yet. This court denied the
motion to transfer saying that it should have been presented to the
district judge first. Plaintiff-appellant hereby requests permission
to make that motion. The reason is that the district court lost
jurisdiction when the notice of appeal was filed. However, this court
can and should remand this case to the district judge to at least
allow him to answer that question.
Instead, however, this court responded to my motion to transfer by
summarily dismissing this appeal altogether
ARGUMENT
The opinion below is Sloan v. Truong, et al., 573 F. Supp. 2d 823
(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 28, 2008). Plaintiff-appellant submits that the
district court was in error on two key points: Diversity and Federal
Question:
Regarding diversity, all but one of the defendants clearly are
domiciled in other states. The one remaining in Bill Goichberg.
However, Bill Goichberg is a somewhat unusual case. As the well-known
song goes, “The only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a trunk,
and the only time he's satisfied is when” he is directing a high
stakes big money chess tournament somewhere in the country or is at
the race track playing the houses.
Bill Goichberg is constantly on the move, traveling. He owns and
operates the Continental Chess Association, which is essentially a
high-stakes gambling operation where Goichberg is the House. For
example, this weekend, May 22-25, 2009, Goichberg is running the
Chicago Open with $100,000 guaranteed in prizes.
An interesting fact is that Goichberg never runs these tournaments in
New York State. The reason is unknown. However, in this case, he is
claiming that he is a New York Domicile. Yet, Goichberg HAS NOT YET
GIVEN A STREET ADDRESS WHERE HE LIVES.
Goichberg admits that he does not receive mail in New York State
except for at a PO Box.
Apparently, this court is saying that the burden is on me to prove
that Goichberg does not reside in New York State. I disagree. I feel
that the burden is on Goichberg to prove that he does live here, which
I believe that he cannot prove because he rarely, almost never comes
here and has no street address.
Secondly, the court below said and apparently a panel of this court
agreed that Internet Identity Theft involving child pornography does
not constitute a federal cause of action. I vehemently disagree and I
am shocked that this court would make such a ruling. (Indeed, I
suspect frankly that the panel of judges of this court did not read
the record and did not realize what they were deciding.)
For these reasons I believe that this petition for rehearing en banc
should be granted and upon rehearing this case remanded to the court
below.
I am annexing hereto the complaint I filed in the district court which
I submit clearly sets forth sufficient grounds for a federal suit. I
note all of the other four federal cases based on the same facts have
survived motions to dismiss.
An additional factor to be considered is there is now a new USCF
election campaign going on. There are two slates running: The
Goichberg Slate and the Polgar Slate. Each Slate has four members. I
am the only viable completely independent candidate who is running. I
must confess that my chances of wining this election against the two
most powerful political blocs in chess are not good. However,
according to the allegations in this complaint, both Polgar and
Goichberg should be barred from holding office in the USCF. Thus, the
public interest in this suit is high, since the USCF has 80,000
members (down from the 86,000 is had when this case was filed).
The USCF is on the brink of financial ruin. For the current fiscal
year, the operating loss is $400,000. In the opinion of many, if
either state wins that will be the end of the USCF. Thus, this case
may be the only way to save the organization.
WHEREFORE, for all of the reasons set forth above, this petition for a
rehearing en banc should be granted and upon rehearing this case
should be remanded to the court below.
Respectfully Submitted,
Samuel H. Sloan
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
__________________________________________
Sam Sloan Docket No. 08-5813-cv
-against-
Affidavit of Service
Hoainhan “Paul” Truong, et al
__________________________________________
On May 22, 2009 the undersigned served the within petition for
rehearing and rehearing en banc by mailing a true copy of the same in
a secured envelope with postage fully paid addressed to:
Jeremy Brown
Attorney for USCF, William Goichberg defendants
Proskauer Rose LLP
One Newark Center
Newark NJ 07102-5211
Joseph J. Ortego
Nixon Rose LLP
Attorneys for Hoainhan “Paul” Truong, Zsuzsanna “Susan” Polgar and
Gregory Alexander
50 Jericho Quadrangle
Jericho NY 11753-2729
Emily E. Daughtry
US Attorney's Office
86 Chambers Street, 3rd Floor
New York NY 10007-2632
Patrick M. O'Brien, Esq.
Attorney for William Brock
309 Elmore Street
Park Ridge, Illinois 60068-3569
Arthur M. Handler
805 Third Avenue, 8th Floor
New York NY 10022
Scot M. Graydon
Attorney for Texas Tech University
Assistant Attorney General, General Litigation Division
PO Box 12548
Austin Texas 78711-2446
June Duffy
Assistant Attorney General of New York
120 Broadway
New York NY 10271 /s/_______________________
Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to before me this 22 day of May 2009
jkh...@aim.com
If only the courts were allowed to order flogging of serial and
vexatious litigants. You lost, Sam. Live with it. Stop making chess
players look like idiots.
polyanker
This is not about Sam Sloan, but about all the garbage that is going
on. Hacking into computers? Violating attorney-client privilege?
Allegedly posting child pornography??? Wow... What is going on here?
I have known of Sam Sloan for awhile. There are certain things Sloan
does not do. If his record of one year on USCF Board is correct, then
Sloan saved everyone a lot of money.
Sloan's post, the way I read it, is to educate the public as to what
is going on. I must admit, something like this sounds like a good plot
for a movie. Polgar being investigated by Secret Service? Sounds
unbelievable... Yet the fact is, neither Polgar nor Truong are running
for reelection for USCF Executive Board.
Where and when will this sorry mess end? I thought Tim Redman's
presidency had problems. Nah, not even close. God! It will require a
Hercules to clean out the dirt that has accumulated with these cases.
jkh...@aim.com
If that were Sloan's point, I wouldn't object (though I wouldn't read
it). What he's doing, however, is filing a petition for rehearing en
banc by the 2nd Circuit. The chances of this happening are
approximately zero. He's not doing this because he expects to prevail;
he's doing it because he can, and there is no penalty to him for
wasting the Court's time and the taxpayers' money.
BTW, there is no evidence (other than Sloan's self-serving claims)
that he saved any money during his wasted year on the Board. If you
think he did, provide an example. All the motions made during that
year (and the votes on them) are public record. He certainly /cost/
the USCF money with the nutcase lawsuit he filed as soon as he was
tossed out by the voters.
foad
"samsloan" <samh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1502c16c-0251-40a2...@h11g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
However, Bill Goichberg is a somewhat unusual case. As the well-known
song goes, �The only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a trunk,
and the only time he's satisfied is when� he is directing a high
stakes big money chess tournament somewhere in the country or is at
the race track playing the houses.
===============
At the track, playing the houses. Betting to place no doubt.
Wotafuckingmaroon.
samsloan
Goichberg or he will sue me over my statement, filed in court, "Bill
Goichberg is constantly on the move, traveling. He owns and operates
the Continental Chess Association, which is essentially a high-stakes
gambling operation where Goichberg is the House. For example, this
weekend, May 22-25, 2009, Goichberg is running the Chicago Open with
Just to make this perfectly clear, what Mr. Goichberg does is
perfectly legal. I have no intention of suing him, and I am sure that
he has no intention of suing me over this remark.
I do wonder why he never holds tournaments in New York State. I
suspect that he got into some kind of trouble over his operation of
the "Bar Point" club (which by the way is depicted in the movie
"Searching for Bobby Fischer") but that was 28 years ago.
Sam Sloan
samsloan
both the best interest of the USCF and Mr. Truong to have acted as Mr.
Truong did by not providing the information requested. Mr. Sloan's
case thrown out of court with predjudice is good for both the USCF and
Mr. Truong. It appears that the strategy Mr. Truongs lawyer employed
was best strategy for both, at least best outcome for both.
Mark Nibbelin [/quote]
You have not been keeping up to date. The Second Circuit reversed the
"with prejudice" part. The three-judge panel ruled that the dismissal
is not with prejudice and that I can refile in another jurisdiction
such as Texas or California.
So, the case is still very much alive. After nearly two years we are
still in the same place.
However, one big and unfortunate change is that the USCF apparently no
longer has an insurance policy to cover lawsuits. Chubb has droped us,
I believe. Thus, if I refile in Texas or California (which I am not
planning on doing provided Goichberg starts behaving himself by
dropping his personal attacks on my family) the USCF will no longer be
protected by its insurance policy. Right now the existing case is
still covered by insurance.
Sam Sloan
samsloan
CCA has held tournaments in the following New York State locations,
and maybe others I don't remember:
Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Catskill, Kerhonkson, Lake George,
Middletown, Monticello, Newburgh, New Hartford, New York City,
Poughkeepsie, Rochester, Rye, Saratoga Springs, Utica,
Washingtonville, White Plains.
Bill Goichberg[/quote]
I did not ask where the CCA has held tournaments. I asked where you,
Bill Goichberg, have directed tournaments. I understand that nearly
all CCA tournaments held in New York State have been directed by Steve
Immitt.
The director is the person who sits at the table and collects the
entry fees as the players line up to play. How many tournaments in New
York State can you point to where you personally have been there
running the tournament, making the pairings, etc.?
I am asking this question because so many other posters here keep
bringing this up.
Sam Sloan
jkh001
Really? And who would they be, Sam? You and your other personalities?
It's hardly novel to see irrelevant imbecilities from you, but this
one is even dumber than most. Who cares?
Vote sanity. Dump the Sloon.
samsloan
[quote]"I did not ask where the CCA has held tournaments. I asked
where you, Bill Goichberg, have directed tournaments. I understand
that nearly all CCA tournaments held in New York State have been
directed by Steve
Immitt.
The director is the person who sits at the table and collects the
entry fees as the players line up to play. How many tournaments in
New
York State can you point to where you personally have been there
running the tournament, making the pairings, etc.?
I am asking this question because so many other posters here keep
bringing this up.
Sam Sloan"[/quote]
The answer is that though Steve did direct some CCA tournaments in New
York state, of these 19 CCA New York state locations, I have
personally directed at least one tournament since 1984 in every one of
them!
Bill Goichberg[/quote]
I did not merely respond to this "on a newsgroup". I responded or
attempted to respond to this right here on the USCF Issues Forum on
Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 3:08 am. When after a day had passed and my
posting had not appeared there, I posted it again. It still did not
appear.
This is just one example of my postings disappearing into as black
hole. I have received no reply to my posting, no explanation as to why
it has not appeared.
Now, Bill Goichberg is allowed to quote and respond to my posting
whereas the original posting by me still has not been allowed to
appear.
People ask why I post the same thing so many times. The answer is that
the Goichberg appointed and controlled moderators delete or block my
postings so often that I never know which will appear and which will
not. So, I have to make duplicate postings to establish a record and
to prevent my postings to the USCF Issues Forum from otherwise being
lost.
Sam Sloan
foad
> This is just one example of my head disappearing into a black
> hole,which is to say, my ass.
samsloan
[quote]Goichberg admits that he does not receive mail in New York
State except for at a PO Box.
Apparently, this court is saying that the burden is on me to prove
that Goichberg does not reside in New York State. I disagree. I feel
that the burden is on Goichberg to prove that he does live here, which
I believe that he cannot prove because he rarely, almost never comes
here and has no street address.
[/quote]
Bill Goichberg does receive mail at a non PO Box address in NYS. I
know this for a fact because I just last week mailed something to his
NYS street address and he confirmed that he received it.
I don't believe that Bill "admits" to not having a NYS street
address. I can believe that Bill wouldn't tell Sam what his street
address is because he doesn't want Sam ringing his doorbell.
Perhaps the most convincing argument that Bill does not reside in NYS
would have been for Sam to provide the court with an address where he
resides.
Harold Stenzel [/quote]
You are mistaken. I did provide an address where Bill Goichberg was
residing at the time I filed the case in October, 2007. Here is that
address:
William Goichberg
Room 267
Santa Anita Inn
130 West Huntington Drive
Arcadia, CA 91007
I also provided the information that he was eating daily at Sir
Georges Smorgasbord, 9 Las Tunas Drive, Arcadia CA 91007, 626-445-1611
which is on the corner of Santa Anita Avenue and Las Tunas Drive. "A
Great place!! All you can eat for $10 !!!", says William Goichberg.
The street address that you say that Bill Goichberg can receive mail
at in New York State is probably his mother's address in Mt. Vernon.
Correct? However, he does not claim that as his domicile and one
cannot claim two domiciles.
The question becomes whether one who is constantly moving from state
to state, never staying long in any one state and spending his nightly
mostly in cheap hotels, can claim any one state as his domicile.
Sam Sloan
samsloan
that the rehearing be en banc of 36 pages has just been granted by the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The order is dated June 16, 2009 but I just received it in the mail
today.
This means that my petition for a rehearing will be distributed to the
21 judges on the court and if one of them is in favor they will vote
on it.
Sam Sloan