Discussion:
With the Guilty Plea by Gregory Alexander, does the vow of secrecy at the settlement conference no longer apply?
(too old to reply)
samsloan
2012-04-04 18:43:09 UTC
Permalink
[quote="ChessSpawn"]The confidentiality of the settlement conference,
which I participated in via telephone conference call, is mandated by
the rules of the Federal district court. Violation of that
comfidentiality is punishable as contempt of court. Bowling did not
make up the court's rule. He simply reminded all the participants of
that court rule.[/quote]

The judge ordered us and the USCF to participate in mediation. It was
not voluntary on our part. Had the attorneys for the USCF to
participate they could have been held in contempt. They could also
have been disbarred. This explains why 13 attorneys participated most
of whom had to fly in from other states, especially Texas. The
$600,000 that the USCF had to spend on this litigation were mostly the
costs of this involuntary settlement conference.

I believe that head mediator Daniel Bowling exceeded his legal
authority in forcing us personally to mediate in his bailiwick in San
Francisco and therefore we and the USCF should sue him personally for
our money back.

In addition, we and the USCF should not have been forced to mediate
with hard core criminals like Gregory Alexander, Susan Polgar and Paul
Truong. We had really nothing to mediate with them about. We had no
reason to sit down at the same table with them.
samsloan
2012-04-04 17:43:04 UTC
Permalink
[quote="hmb"][quote="marknibb"]Over last couple of years, there have
been discussions and some movement toward changing the form of
governance of the USCF. I have a hobby of investing and learning
about business. This morning I heard interesting discussion on
morning talk show about buyouts and unlocking value in companies. It
got me thinking about our membership organization. I began wondering
what the value of the USCF might be to a group of wealthy chess
enthusiasts - who might see the brand of the USCF with a value and an
opportunity to give back to a sport they love. How would someone go
about taking the USCF private and at what cost?

...

Should the USCF be looking for a buyer and would it benefit membership?
[/quote]
Mark - Would it be presumptuous of me to guess who you might see as an
appropriate person to take over and lead USCF in the future?

A post you made about two months ago suggests that you have a very
fixed idea of what is best for USCF, and who should be in control:

[quote="marknibb"]The USCF is better off with Polgar in all the
situations you mention - than with what we are left with. What state
of denial are you in? It would be even better for the USCF with
Polgar if the naysayers would be expelled from the USCF. You openly
attack Polgar and supporters - constantly, and yet she still is the
most popular person in US Chess. Why don't you go find another
enterprise to try and destroy?[/quote][/quote]

Thank you HMB for posting this. It puts the persistent demands by Mark
to know "Who leaked the Mottershead Report?" in an appropriate light.

Sam Sloan
samsloan
2012-04-04 23:21:25 UTC
Permalink
[quote="ChessSpawn"][quote="samsloan"][quote="ChessSpawn"]The
confidentiality of the settlement conference, which I participated in
via telephone conference call, is mandated by the rules of the Federal
district court. Violation of that comfidentiality is punishable as
contempt of court. Bowling did not make up the court's rule. He simply
reminded all the participants of that court rule.[/quote]

The judge ordered us and the USCF to participate in mediation. It was
not voluntary on our part. Had the attorneys for the USCF not
participated they could have been held in contempt. They could also
have been disbarred. This explains why 13 attorneys participated most
of whom had to fly in from other states, especially Texas. The
$600,000 that the USCF had to spend on this litigation were mostly the
costs of this involuntary settlement conference.

I believe that head mediator Daniel Bowling exceeded his legal
authority in forcing us personally to mediate in his bailiwick in San
Francisco and therefore we and the USCF should sue him personally for
our money back.

In addition, we and the USCF should not have been forced to mediate
with hard core criminals like Gregory Alexander, Susan Polgar and Paul
Truong. We had really nothing to mediate with them about. We had no
reason to sit down at the same table with them.[/quote]

Judge Patel, sitting in San Francisco, ordered the parties to be
present for mediation in San Franscisco pursuant to the rules of the
District Court. The USCF was represented by counsel from Texas and San
Francisco.

The money spent on this mediation was not anywhere near the amount you
claim. That is in part because the USCF was represented by counsel
paid for by its insurer.

Bowling did force anyone to mediate in his "bailiwick." The mediation
was ordered by Judge Patel to take place via the ADR offices of the
District Court in San Francisco.

Contrary to your incorrect assertion, Judge Patel had the power to
order parties to litigation to appear for court ordered mediation.
Status as a criminal, indicted or otherwise, is irrelevant. I did
question whether of not I had to obey Patel's order as I was not a
party to any litigation in her court. I was advised that if I refused,
I could expect Judge Cuimmings in Texas to order me to attend.

Sam, I detect an escalating irrationality to your statements.
Moderators, I do hope that you will make Sloan factually substantiate
his assertions prior to posting. Having to constantly correct his
foolish mis-statements is a burden no USCF member should have to
suffer.

Sam, please do sue Bowling. I suspect the District court will know
exactly how to handle you, my friend.[/quote]

If you look at the original order by Judge Patel, which I still have,
it contemplates mediation by telephone conference. Nowhere in the
original order does it say that all the attorneys had to fly to San
Francisco from all over the country to attend the mediation.

It was Daniel Bowling who contacted all the attorneys and ordered them
to come to San Francisco. The USCF attorney in Springfield Illinois,
David Herman, refused to attend, saying that he was not licensed to
practice in California and he could be disbarred for attending there.
There was a heated exchange of emails between Bowling and Herman over
this. Bowling many times threatened Herman with sanctions if he did
not come. By the way, these emails themselves were required to be kept
secret.

The Texas attorneys for the USCF such as Huttenbach and Jeff Jones
were unwilling to take the risk of disobeying Bowling and risking
sanctions from the San Francisco judge. Therefore, they flew in. You
were an attorney but you had not appeared as counsel on this case so
you successfully took the risk of not coming.

Altogether 13 attorneys attended, including the attorneys for Polgar
and Truong, Whitney Leigh and James Killion. They were locked up in
two adjoining rooms for three days while Daniel Bowling went back and
forth between the two rooms, trying to get the Polgar side to come
down in their demands or the USCF side to come up in their offer. I
sat outside the two rooms in the lobby watching this going on as I was
required to be there although not in one of the two rooms. It was
because of my vantage point of sitting outside of the rooms where all
this was taking place that I got to personally witness the arrest of
Gregory Alexander. He was being kept in a separate room, apart from
the others. I saw the Secret Service go in and put the handcuffs on
him. As I was the only one present, other than the Secret Service
Agent and Daniel Bowling who led the Secret Service to him, Gregory
Alexander called out to me "Mr. Sloan". Larry Parr has characterized
this as similar to in the times of Stalin, when Stalin would order the
execution of somebody, the victim would call out "Stalin" just as the
ax was coming down on his neck, as if calling out to Stalin to save
him.

It was this three days of mediation involving 13 attorneys that
caused the USCF to incur a $600,000 legal bill. Just multiply it out.
Each attorney was charging between $300 and $500 per hour. Each one
sat in the rooms for at least 48 hours. What is 13 times 48 times
$300? The USCF is lucky it got away as cheaply as it did.

Sam Sloan
samsloan
2012-04-05 04:01:08 UTC
Permalink
Just to clarify, I am not thinking in any way of filing suit against
Daniel Bowling. It would go nowhere, I agree.

However, I am strongly considering filing an ethics complaint against
Daniel Bowling for threatening and cajoling and basically forcing all
the lawyers to come primarily from Texas and spend three days locked
up in a room with each other and with him and telling them that they
cannot come out until they agree to a settlement.

Not only that, after no settlement agreement could be reached and the
judge terminated the mediation, Bowling continued to insist on
mediating anyway. Nobody dared object because then Bowling would
report that we were not cooperating.

In short, Bowling treated our highly paid and highly qualified
attorneys as a bunch of children and himself as the Boy Scout Troop
Master. The result was the USCF had to spend $600,000 in legal fees.

I had some choice words to describe Mr. Bowling which some of you will
remember and I will not repeat here.

Sam Sloan

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