samsloan
2012-11-14 23:47:02 UTC
Samuel H. Sloan
Administrator of Estate
of K. Michael Goodall
with Will Annexed
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
(415) 419-5980
917-659-3397
***@gmail.com
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
IN RE:
THE GOODALL TRUST
(Mis-Entitled by Opposing Counsel as “In The Matter of the Trust for
Michael created under the Goodall Trust dated September 12, 1990”)
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Case No. PTR-99-273030
FURTHER OPPOSITION TO BANK OF AMERICA'S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AND CROSS-
MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ATTORNEYS GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A.
ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A.
LESSER
(Declaration of Samuel H. Sloan)
Defendant Samuel H. Sloan individually and as Administrator of the
Estate of K. Michael Goodall with Will Annexed Declares:
1. I am filing this in addition to a declaration I filed dated
August 24, 2012 in opposition to the motion or sanctions. Although
Bank of America has moved that my filing be stricken, it has not been
stricken as far as I know. My attorney Sam Ware has stated in open
court that he wants to withdraw from this case because he cannot
accuse his adversaries, the attorneys for Guide Dogs for the Blind and
Bank of America, of professional misconduct and for that reason cannot
continue to represent me since I am specifically accusing the
attorneys for Guide Dogs for the Blind and Bank of America of
professional misconduct and, more than that, I am accusing them of
criminal misconduct for knowingly using an obviously forged instrument
to gain control of the $2.5 million Goodall Estate. On November 5,
2012, I sent an election campaign mailing to 4836 voters in my
election district (which is also the election district of Guide Dogs
for the Blind) detailing the criminal misconduct of Guide Dogs for the
Blind and their attorneys. A copy of my mailing is annexed.
2. Their four attorneys have engaged in egregious and often
illegal misconduct in an effort to steal an estate with the estimated
amount of $2.5 million. I am in the process of compiling complaints to
the Bar of the State of California seeking the disbarment of these
four attorneys. I have already complained to the Internal Revenue
Service seeking a revocation of the 501c3 statues of the Bogus Charity
Guide Dogs for the Blind. I just checked with the IRS and their
investigation into this matter is still open. I have also complained
to the California Secretary of State Division of Notary Public
Licensing against the false notarization of all of these documents by
James R. Hastings. That investigation is also still open.
3. I am filing this opposition to the motion for Sanctions in
pro per, as well as a cross motion for sanctions against attorneys
GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A. ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A.
LESSER. Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind have no right,
none whatever, to the assets of the Goodall Trust or to the Estate of
K. Michael Goodall or of the Goodall parents Kenneth F. Goodall or
Rachel A. Goodall. The claims of Bank of America and Guide Dogs for
the Blind are utterly without basis and constitute attempted Grand
Theft. They keep claiming that they are proceeding under The Goodall
Trust dated September 12, 1990. Yet, in all of the papers and
proceedings they have filed in this case, they have never have
produced a copy of the Goodall Trust dated September 12, 1990. They
have not produced a copy of the purported 1994 Trust either. Looking
at the trust makes it obvious why they have never included the actual
Goodall Trust in their documents, because it gives everything to
Michael Goodall and nothing to Guide Dogs for the Blind. It also makes
Kenneth Michael Goodall the Trustee of the Goodall Trust upon the
deaths of his parents.
4. This court does not have and has never had jurisdiction over
this case. Their filings are nothing more than a collateral attack on
the proceedings in the Marin County Probate Court. There were three
hearings in the Marin County Probate Court before the petition by Bank
of America was filed in this court. I attach hereto as an exhibit the
order of Commissioner Harvey E. Goldfine dated May 20, 2011 granting
my motion for an order shortening time. As you will see from this
order, Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America, appeared in
opposition to my motion and nevertheless my motion was granted. This
was before any hearings took place in San Francisco Probate Court. At
the subsequent hearings in San Francisco Probate Court, neither the
attorneys for Bank of America nor the attorneys for Guide Dogs for the
Blind made any mention of the case in Marin County Probate Court that
was filed in January 2011, three months before Bank of America
instituted this parallel proceeding in San Francisco Probate Court.
5. I have annexed hereto a timeline of the events in this case
starting with the death of Mike Goodall on October 5, 2010 following
which I filed the original will of Mike Goodall in Marin County
Probate Court. The wills of his parents, Kenneth and Rachel Goodall,
were already previously filed in that court. As all of the wills,
property and documents in this case are in Marin County and nothing is
in San Francisco, there has never been any jurisdiction here over this
case. Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind are filing here in
San Francisco only because they lost in Marin County Probate Court and
because the San Francisco Judges are bought and paid for by Bank of
America and Guide Dogs for the Blind.
6. Annexed hereto as an Exhibit are 80 pages of frumious emails
exchanged between myself and Gary Rothstein, one of the nine attorneys
opposing little me in this case, starting with his email to me dated
March 4, 2011 in which he identified himself and then demanded that I
withdraw the probate petition I had filed in Marin County Probate
Court. Needless to say, I did not withdraw the petition.
7. All this happened long before I retained counsel to appear in
this case. The court records show that my attorney Sam Ware was first
retained by me on November 10, 2011, ten months after I instituted the
proceeding in Marin County Probate Court and seven months after Bank
of America filed this counter case in San Francisco Probate Court. Now
Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind are moving for sanctions
against my attorney even though they well know that my attorney has
been representing me in accordance with my wishes because this case
was already going months before my attorney got involved.
8. We submitted a motion on newly discovered evidence based on a
treasure trove of documents I found in a locked box, including a power
of attorney dated August 24, 1994, the same date as the purported 1994
Trust. The copy of the purported 1994 trust in the Locked box was
unsigned. This proves that the Goodall Parents never signed the 1994
trust, which is what I have been saying all along, because Col.
Kenneth Goodall always kept a signed copy of anything that he signed.
9. Now, they are apparently claiming that the newly discovered
evidence was not newly discovered because it could have been
discovered earlier. However, they know full well why it was not
discovered earlier, because Bank of America broke into and burgled the
Goodall Mansion on February 28, 2011, taking everything. They took the
entire contents of the house including all the furniture, books and
records and they changed the locks on the doors. When I returned to
the house the next day, which was March 1, 2011, I discovered the
house completely empty except for an issue of the San Francisco
Chronicle dated February 28, 2011, which their burglars had obviously
brought in because we do not read that newspaper and none of us had
been in the house for a week before the burglary occurred.
10. I have also annexed 80 pages of emails I exchanged with
Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America, starting on March 4,
2011. As soon as Gary Rothstein identified himself as attorney for
Bank of America, I immediately demanded a return of the Goodall
Property to the place from which it was taken which was the Goodall
Mansion. Gary Rothstein refused to return the stolen property. Thus,
Gary Rothstein is a criminal in possession of stolen property (along
the lines of his uncle Arnold Rothstein).
11. This forced me to file an 850 Motion in the Marin County
Probate Court for recovery of estate property. When I discovered that
Bank of America and Michaans Auction House planned to auction off all
the Goodall Property on March 25, 2011, I filed a motion for a time
shortening order, which was granted on March 20, 2011 with Gary
Rothstein in opposition. The hearing date was set for Monday, June 13,
2011. On the eve of the hearing date, Michaans Auction House returned
the Goodall Property to the Goodall mansion, but they did not restore
it to the condition in which it was taken which would have been
impossible. Instead they returned it in a jumbled mess in a hundred
storage boxes. They placed all the storage boxes in the Goodall Garage
where they sit to this day.
12. Thus, I could not discover the “newly discovered evidence”
sooner than I did because Bank of America had stolen it. Their agents
broke into the Goodall Mansion on February 28, 2011 and took all the
documents. Even when it was returned mostly in storage boxes, we have
no way of knowing whether they went through the boxes and removed
documents helpful to our case. What is especially important here is
that although I labeled it Newly Discovered Evidence, the Bank of
America and James R. Hastings have had that evidence all along. All of
these documents were created by James R. Hastings, who was attorney
for Bank of America. If you will look at the documents filed under
this case number in year 2000, you will see that James R. Hastings
appears as attorney for Bank of America. Thus, he has always had them.
In order to keep these documents hidden, he ignored our subpoenas and
he ignored and disobeyed orders of this court.
13. This court seems to have forgotten that by order dated
January 20, 2012, James R. Hastings was ordered to produce the Goodall
Trust unless he could not find it, in which case he was ordered to
file a declaration stating what efforts he had made to locate it. On
February 2, 2012 James R. Hastings filed a declaration stating that he
had searched all his files and could not find the trust. However, at a
hearing in open court on May 7, 2012, Alicia A. Adornato, attorney for
Guide Dogs for the Blind, stated in open court that James R. Hastings
had found the 1994 Trust Document in the Estate Planning File “at
exactly where he always said it was”. This statement was confirmed at
the same hearing by Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America.
14. Mike Goodall wrote letters to James R. Hastings dated 1999
stating that that he was contesting the trust. I have witnesses
including myself and Roy Hoppe who will testify to that. It is
important to remember that in a declaration filed in this court in
this case, James R. Hastings states that he was attorney for both the
Goodalls and Bank of America at the same time. By refusing to produce
the Goodall Files, James R. Hastings deprived us of the evidence we
need to prove out case. I do have letters that attorney Richard
Rothman wrote to Mike Goodall in 1999 advising him not to contest the
trust because by doing so he will lose everything and replies by Mike
Goodall insisting on going ahead with the case anyway. Thus the claim
that Mike Goodall did not contest the trust within a 120 day period is
simply not true.
15. Thus, both attorneys stated that James R. Hastings lied
under oath when he said that he could not find the document.
Furthermore, Hastings is in contempt of court for failing and refusing
to produce the document, as required by the order of January 20, 2102.
16. Previously, Counsel for the Estate of K. Michael Goodall
subpoenaed the relevant documents from Attorney James R. Hastings and
required him to appear at a deposition. Hastings appeared on November
11, 2011 with Attorney Don A. Lesser but did not bring any documents
at all. Among the reasons he gave for refusing to produce any
documents was that to do so would violate the Attorney Client
Privilege of Bank of America. James R. Hastings has been representing
or claiming to represent all parties to this case including the
Goodall Parents, Michael Goodall, the Goodall Trust, the Bank of
America and even the heirs of the Goodall Estate, Frank Thornally and
Roy Hoppe. This is the most outrageous violation of conflict of
interest imaginable. If Hastings is not disbarred for this, the Canons
of Ethics are meaningless.
17. If Hastings had complied with the subpoena properly served
upon him, he would have produced the Power of Attorney the Goodall
Parents gave to Kenneth Michael Goodall on August 24, 2012. That would
have ended the case because that Power of Attorney placed Kenneth
Michael Goodall in complete control of the trust upon the deaths of
his parents. Thus, that document proved that Bank of America was never
the proper trustee of the trust. This would mean that Bank of America
and James R. Hastings would have to pay back to the Trust and to the
Estate all of the money they have stolen from the Trust Assets since
1999, including the money they are using to pay the attorneys fees of
Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America here.
18. Attorney Don A. Lesser who appeared at the deposition on
November 11, 2011 as the Attorney for James R. Hastings has since
stated that he has withdrawn as attorney for James R. Hastings but
need not file a notice of withdrawal because he has never appeared in
this case. However, that is not correct. Don Lesser did appear in this
case by filing a pleading Dated December 29, 2011 entitled DECLARATION
OF DON A. LESSER OPPOSING RESPONDENT SAM SLOAN'S MOTION TO COMPEL
PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS AND FURTHER DEPOSITION FILED BY PETITIONER
HASTINGS, JAMES. At the deposition on November 11, 2011 I told Don
Lesser that his client James R. Hastings would be going to jail
because we can prove that Hastings never saw Kenneth F. Goodall on
August 24, 1994 or at any other date in 1994. We know this because
Kenneth F. Goodall was hospitalized at that time, being terminally ill
with Cancer of the Esophagus. On July 25, 1994, an operation was
preformed for a Feeding Jejunostomy in which a feeding tube was
inserted in his abdomen. From that point until his death on September
10, 1994, he could not process food or talk in the normal way. Thus,
the only way Hastings could have seen him was by going to the
hospital, which he testified he did not do.
19. Attorney Don Lesser has probably researched this and found
out that his client lied and this explains his insistence that he has
withdrawn from the case even though he has not done so. However, the
damage has been done because, as a result, neither Bank of America nor
James R. Hastings has produced anything at all. They have produced
zero documents. They refuse to produce any sort of accounting or to
provide any information whatever about the Goodall Money. At the time
of the Death of Rachel A. Goodall in June 1999, she had between
$900,000 and one million dollars in cash and securities. None of this
was with Bank of America. It was in other places such as the Kaufman
Fund and Charles Schwab and USAA Investment Management. James R.
Hasting by virtue of his position as “Estate Planner” knew where all
the money was and proceeded to contact all these financial
institutions and have all the money transferred to an account with
Bank of America that he controlled. Mike Goodall, upon seeing the
money in the accounts he had been controlling suddenly slip away and
disappear, filed the instant case, IN RE: THE GOODALL TRUST, Case No.
PTR-99-273030.
20. Here, the Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind make
another false claim. They claim that Mike Goodall is barred by Statute
of limitations from making these claims. Not only is there no such
statute of limitations but Mike Goodall did timely object within the
purported 120 day period. That is the reason he filed this case in
December 1999.
21. Back then, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Bank of America were
trying to steal all the money right away. They were not satisfied to
wait until Mike Goodall died. They wanted the money immediately. As a
result, they filed three pleadings in this case stating that Mike
Goodall was contesting the trust and thus should be cut out of the
will immediately. As usual, Gary Rothstein lied to the court when he
said that Mike Goodall's case was for “Declaratory Relief”.
22. If the court will trouble itself to look at the pleadings
filed in this case (something this court has not done until now) it
will see three separate documents by Bank of America and James R.
Hastings all dated February 2000 stating that Mike Goodall was
contesting the trust and thus should be cut out of the estate with the
money presumably going to the Dogs. I have seen correspondence from
Thomas Horton who was already involved in this case in 1999. Thomas
Horton is the “Planned Giving Director” for Guide Dogs for the Blind.
According to the 990 Forms filed with the IRS, Guide Dogs for the
Blind receives an average of $30 million in donations per year. One
wonders why they are so much more successful than other worthy
charities in raising funds. One wonders whether some of this $30
million per year is not criminal theft similar to the $2.5 million
they are trying to steal from the Goodall Estate in this case. Perhaps
some of these “donations” are stolen and not voluntarily given.
23. When Mike Goodall was alive, Bank of America and James R.
Hastings said that he was contesting the trust and thus should be cut
out of the estate under a “No Contest Clause”. However, after he died
they reversed positions and said that he had not contested the trust
and thus was barred from doing so under a statute of limitations.
24. From the first responsive pleading I filed in this case and
at every hearing thereafter, I have objected to the jurisdiction and
the venue of the San Francisco Probate Court. I object again here. It
is obvious that this case does not belong in the San Francisco Courts.
It belongs if at all in Marin County where all the parties resided,
lived, died and are buried. They never had any assets in San
Francisco. All the documents were executed in Marin County. Even the
attorney involved, James R. Hastings, has his only office in Marin
County and rarely comes to San Francisco.
25. It is obvious that Bank of America is relying on the
corruption of the courts in San Francisco. Every observer has noticed
this. All the issues involved in this case have previously been
decided in my favor by the Marin County Superior Court. When Bank of
America loses a motion over there, they file the same motion over
here, without telling the San Francisco Judge that the issue has
already been decided against them by the Marin County Courts.
26. An example of this is their entirely bogus Statute of
Limitations Claim. They filed exactly the same motion in Marin County
and lost. Undaunted, they came over here and filed the same motion
without telling the San Francisco Judge that the issue had already
been decided against them in Marin.
27. We are prepared to prove and will prove at a hearing if
given the opportunity to do so that Kenneth F. Goodall did not and
could not have signed the purported 1994 Trust in the circumstances
claimed by Mr. Hastings. In addition, the notary signatures by James
R. Hasting are obviously improper because they do not state what he is
notarizing and are on separate sheets of paper. He could have added
that page or changed the pages years later.
28. Even if Kenneth F. Goodall did sign the purported 1994
trust, that should not change the outcome because the 1994 purported
trust DOES NOT give the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind unless Mike
Goodall dies before his parents do. Since Mike Goodall outlived the
last of his parents by 11 years in that his father died in 1994, his
mother died in 1999 and Mike died in 2010, all the money goes to Mike
and his estate according to the wording of the 1994 purported trust.
29. The Probate Examiner in this case was Helen Yune Trowbridge.
According to her website, she is a new hire who got this job by
obtaining a paralegal certificate from San Francisco State College.
She is not a lawyer. She stated in her Probate Examiners Notes that it
would be “logical” to give the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind as a
more worthy recipient than the heirs of Mike Goodall. The judge's
statement in open court that it is “logical” to give the money to
Guide Dogs for the Blind, using exactly the same word, shows that he
was just allowing his probate examiner to decide this case.
Apparently, the court was deciding that Guide Dogs was more worthy of
receiving the money rather than the heirs and friends of Mike Goodall.
However, the courts should not be allowed to decide whom they would
like to receive the money. It should be according to what the
documents unambiguously state and in this case the documents
unambiguously state that the money goes to Mike and his heirs.
30. I have shown the purported 1994 Trust to a dozen different
attorneys and they all agree that the wording of the trust DOES NOT
GIVE the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind. Guide Dogs gets the house
and the money if and only if Mike Goodall died before his parents did,
which did not happen. The reason the San Francisco Judge decided
otherwise is he has never read the document.
31. The fact that a judge of this court would make the
ridiculous remark that it is “logical” to give the money to Guide Dogs
for the Blind demonstrates what I have long known which is that the
current judges of the San Francisco Probate Court had never read the
file on this case. I know and can prove this because I have regularly
checked with the record room at 400 McAllister Street and they have
informed me that the case file had been at all times in the court
archives in the East Bay and at no time has the case file been brought
up to San Francisco for the judges to look at it until October 19 when
the judge ordered it to be brought up for the hearing on October 29,
2012. This case was extensively litigated in 1999 and 2000 with
hearings before Judge Dorothy McMath who was the Probate Judge at the
time. This case was never finally decided and no judgment was entered.
Taking advantage of this, Bank of America filed a new case under the
old case number. I have contended ever since that this was wrong and
should not have been allowed. Then, to mislead the courts, they have
changed the name of this case. Bank of America keeps calling it “In
The Matter of the Trust for Michael created under the Goodall Trust
dated September 12, 1990”. This is false. The correct name of this
case is “In Re: The Goodall Trust”.
32. They made this change in name to mislead the judges of this
court by suggesting that Mike Goodall was deemed by his parents to be
incompetent and incapable of managing his finances and thus set up
this trust to protect him from himself. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The Goodall Parents were devoted to their only child and he
was to them. Even if they had doubts about their son, they would not
have cut him out of their estate, because Rachel A. Goodall was an
invalid who could not walk without help and thus was dependent on
Mike, after his father Col. Goodall had died.
33. After this case was pending before the court for ten years
with no final decision reached, a new judge came on the case in 2011
and, with a wave of the hand and giving no reason for the decision,
decided the case in favor of allowing the Bank of America to proceed
without bothering to read the court file which has been all the time
in San Bruno. This was obviously a corrupt decision.
34. No doubt Guide Dogs for the Blind entered this case thinking
they could easily steal the $2.5 million, as they have done so many
times in the past. Perhaps they should have researched my background.
Had they done so they would have learned that I am famous for arguing
orally and winning a case before the United States Supreme Court, SEC
vs. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978). What would have been wise for
them to notice is that it took me seven years to win that case. That
case was started in 1971 by a meritless suit the SEC filed against me.
It took me seven years to fight this case all the way up to the US
Supreme Court, where I won. This should have told them that filing
meritless lawsuits against me is not a good idea.
35. Similarly, I am prepared to fight this case for at least
seven years or for however long it takes to win because I know where
the truth lies, which is that Guide Dogs for the Blind has no remotest
right to the money. I plan to put Hastings in jail, to get Rothstein
disbarred, to have Guide Dogs closed down and put out of business by
the IRS, to have all the tax deductions taken by their directors and
donors declared invalid by the IRS, and perhaps even to remove the
corrupt judges from the bench if they keep issuing these boneheaded
and stupid if not corrupt decisions, so be prepared for a long fight.
WHEREFORE, for all of the reasons set forth above, the Motion by
Sanctions by Bank of America must be denied and Sanctions should be
imposed on attorneys GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A. ADORNATO, JAMES R.
HASTINGS and DON A. LESSER.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State
of California and the contents thereof are true and correct to the
best of my knowledge and belief.
DATED: November 13, 2012
Samuel H. Sloan
Verification:
Samuel H. Sloan declares:
I have read the Answer to BANK OF AMERICA'S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS the
CROSS-MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ATTORNEYS GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A.
ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A. LESSER filed in this matter,
and I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of
California and the contents thereof are true and correct to the best
of my knowledge and belief.
DATED: November 13, 2012
Samuel H. Sloan
AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE
I hereby state that I am not a party, I am over 18 years of age and on
November 13, 2012 I served a copy of this motion and the exhibits
attached thereto to the following:
James R. Hastings
1003 3rd Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
Gary D. Rothstein
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
One Embarcadero Center, 30th Floor
San Francisco CA 94111
Alicia A. Adornato
Attorney for Guide Dogs for the Blind
Reed Smith LLP
101 Second Street, Suite 1800
San Francisco CA 94105
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Mr. Thomas Horton
Planned Potential Beneficiary Giving Director
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc.
350 Los Ranchitos Road
San Rafael, CA 94903
Sam Ware
700 Larkspur Landing Circle, #199
Larkspur, CA 94939
John L. McDonnell, Jr.
Reed Smith LLP
1999 Harrison Street, 24th Floor
Oakland CA 94612
Don A. Lesser
1010 B Street
Suite 350
San Rafael CA 94901
Jerry R. Hauser
Miller Hauser Law Group
4 Embarcadero Center, 39th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Robert J. Rothman
601 California St Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94108
Deborah Rodgers
Bradley Luxury Division
851 Irwin Street
San Rafael CA 94901
Roy Hoppe
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
Frank Thornally
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
Julia Bentley Lemons
Apt. 308
12800 Marion Lane W
Minnetonka, MN 55305-1368
Surviving Sibling of Rachel Goodall
Robert B. Bentley
Timberwood Senior Living Rm. #34
5020 WE 44th St.
Oklahoma City, OK 73135
Helen Beth Bentley Perry
7926 Praver Drive W
Jacksonville,FL 32217
Surviving Sibling of Rachel Goodall
Clenda Fern Bentley Zinar
4536 Chatman Street
The Colony, TX 75056
Beverly Gale Bentley Young
2316 Trenton
McKinney, TX 75070
Vickie Bentley Hankins
14580 NE 6th
Choctaw, OK 73020
Jeffrey Bentley
4701 N Douglas Boulevard
Spencer, OK 73084
Chad Everett Bentley
1609 Teepee Trail
Kingsland, TX 78639
Jeanette Goodall Phillips
152 S llth Street
Salina, Kansas 67401
Kristin Kane
University of California
Berkeley College of Engineering
College Relations
208 Mclaughlin Hall #1722
Berkeley, CA 9472A-1722
Bank of America
1000 4th St.
San Rafael, CA 94901
Administrator of Estate
of K. Michael Goodall
with Will Annexed
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
(415) 419-5980
917-659-3397
***@gmail.com
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
IN RE:
THE GOODALL TRUST
(Mis-Entitled by Opposing Counsel as “In The Matter of the Trust for
Michael created under the Goodall Trust dated September 12, 1990”)
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Case No. PTR-99-273030
FURTHER OPPOSITION TO BANK OF AMERICA'S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AND CROSS-
MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ATTORNEYS GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A.
ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A.
LESSER
(Declaration of Samuel H. Sloan)
Defendant Samuel H. Sloan individually and as Administrator of the
Estate of K. Michael Goodall with Will Annexed Declares:
1. I am filing this in addition to a declaration I filed dated
August 24, 2012 in opposition to the motion or sanctions. Although
Bank of America has moved that my filing be stricken, it has not been
stricken as far as I know. My attorney Sam Ware has stated in open
court that he wants to withdraw from this case because he cannot
accuse his adversaries, the attorneys for Guide Dogs for the Blind and
Bank of America, of professional misconduct and for that reason cannot
continue to represent me since I am specifically accusing the
attorneys for Guide Dogs for the Blind and Bank of America of
professional misconduct and, more than that, I am accusing them of
criminal misconduct for knowingly using an obviously forged instrument
to gain control of the $2.5 million Goodall Estate. On November 5,
2012, I sent an election campaign mailing to 4836 voters in my
election district (which is also the election district of Guide Dogs
for the Blind) detailing the criminal misconduct of Guide Dogs for the
Blind and their attorneys. A copy of my mailing is annexed.
2. Their four attorneys have engaged in egregious and often
illegal misconduct in an effort to steal an estate with the estimated
amount of $2.5 million. I am in the process of compiling complaints to
the Bar of the State of California seeking the disbarment of these
four attorneys. I have already complained to the Internal Revenue
Service seeking a revocation of the 501c3 statues of the Bogus Charity
Guide Dogs for the Blind. I just checked with the IRS and their
investigation into this matter is still open. I have also complained
to the California Secretary of State Division of Notary Public
Licensing against the false notarization of all of these documents by
James R. Hastings. That investigation is also still open.
3. I am filing this opposition to the motion for Sanctions in
pro per, as well as a cross motion for sanctions against attorneys
GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A. ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A.
LESSER. Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind have no right,
none whatever, to the assets of the Goodall Trust or to the Estate of
K. Michael Goodall or of the Goodall parents Kenneth F. Goodall or
Rachel A. Goodall. The claims of Bank of America and Guide Dogs for
the Blind are utterly without basis and constitute attempted Grand
Theft. They keep claiming that they are proceeding under The Goodall
Trust dated September 12, 1990. Yet, in all of the papers and
proceedings they have filed in this case, they have never have
produced a copy of the Goodall Trust dated September 12, 1990. They
have not produced a copy of the purported 1994 Trust either. Looking
at the trust makes it obvious why they have never included the actual
Goodall Trust in their documents, because it gives everything to
Michael Goodall and nothing to Guide Dogs for the Blind. It also makes
Kenneth Michael Goodall the Trustee of the Goodall Trust upon the
deaths of his parents.
4. This court does not have and has never had jurisdiction over
this case. Their filings are nothing more than a collateral attack on
the proceedings in the Marin County Probate Court. There were three
hearings in the Marin County Probate Court before the petition by Bank
of America was filed in this court. I attach hereto as an exhibit the
order of Commissioner Harvey E. Goldfine dated May 20, 2011 granting
my motion for an order shortening time. As you will see from this
order, Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America, appeared in
opposition to my motion and nevertheless my motion was granted. This
was before any hearings took place in San Francisco Probate Court. At
the subsequent hearings in San Francisco Probate Court, neither the
attorneys for Bank of America nor the attorneys for Guide Dogs for the
Blind made any mention of the case in Marin County Probate Court that
was filed in January 2011, three months before Bank of America
instituted this parallel proceeding in San Francisco Probate Court.
5. I have annexed hereto a timeline of the events in this case
starting with the death of Mike Goodall on October 5, 2010 following
which I filed the original will of Mike Goodall in Marin County
Probate Court. The wills of his parents, Kenneth and Rachel Goodall,
were already previously filed in that court. As all of the wills,
property and documents in this case are in Marin County and nothing is
in San Francisco, there has never been any jurisdiction here over this
case. Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind are filing here in
San Francisco only because they lost in Marin County Probate Court and
because the San Francisco Judges are bought and paid for by Bank of
America and Guide Dogs for the Blind.
6. Annexed hereto as an Exhibit are 80 pages of frumious emails
exchanged between myself and Gary Rothstein, one of the nine attorneys
opposing little me in this case, starting with his email to me dated
March 4, 2011 in which he identified himself and then demanded that I
withdraw the probate petition I had filed in Marin County Probate
Court. Needless to say, I did not withdraw the petition.
7. All this happened long before I retained counsel to appear in
this case. The court records show that my attorney Sam Ware was first
retained by me on November 10, 2011, ten months after I instituted the
proceeding in Marin County Probate Court and seven months after Bank
of America filed this counter case in San Francisco Probate Court. Now
Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind are moving for sanctions
against my attorney even though they well know that my attorney has
been representing me in accordance with my wishes because this case
was already going months before my attorney got involved.
8. We submitted a motion on newly discovered evidence based on a
treasure trove of documents I found in a locked box, including a power
of attorney dated August 24, 1994, the same date as the purported 1994
Trust. The copy of the purported 1994 trust in the Locked box was
unsigned. This proves that the Goodall Parents never signed the 1994
trust, which is what I have been saying all along, because Col.
Kenneth Goodall always kept a signed copy of anything that he signed.
9. Now, they are apparently claiming that the newly discovered
evidence was not newly discovered because it could have been
discovered earlier. However, they know full well why it was not
discovered earlier, because Bank of America broke into and burgled the
Goodall Mansion on February 28, 2011, taking everything. They took the
entire contents of the house including all the furniture, books and
records and they changed the locks on the doors. When I returned to
the house the next day, which was March 1, 2011, I discovered the
house completely empty except for an issue of the San Francisco
Chronicle dated February 28, 2011, which their burglars had obviously
brought in because we do not read that newspaper and none of us had
been in the house for a week before the burglary occurred.
10. I have also annexed 80 pages of emails I exchanged with
Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America, starting on March 4,
2011. As soon as Gary Rothstein identified himself as attorney for
Bank of America, I immediately demanded a return of the Goodall
Property to the place from which it was taken which was the Goodall
Mansion. Gary Rothstein refused to return the stolen property. Thus,
Gary Rothstein is a criminal in possession of stolen property (along
the lines of his uncle Arnold Rothstein).
11. This forced me to file an 850 Motion in the Marin County
Probate Court for recovery of estate property. When I discovered that
Bank of America and Michaans Auction House planned to auction off all
the Goodall Property on March 25, 2011, I filed a motion for a time
shortening order, which was granted on March 20, 2011 with Gary
Rothstein in opposition. The hearing date was set for Monday, June 13,
2011. On the eve of the hearing date, Michaans Auction House returned
the Goodall Property to the Goodall mansion, but they did not restore
it to the condition in which it was taken which would have been
impossible. Instead they returned it in a jumbled mess in a hundred
storage boxes. They placed all the storage boxes in the Goodall Garage
where they sit to this day.
12. Thus, I could not discover the “newly discovered evidence”
sooner than I did because Bank of America had stolen it. Their agents
broke into the Goodall Mansion on February 28, 2011 and took all the
documents. Even when it was returned mostly in storage boxes, we have
no way of knowing whether they went through the boxes and removed
documents helpful to our case. What is especially important here is
that although I labeled it Newly Discovered Evidence, the Bank of
America and James R. Hastings have had that evidence all along. All of
these documents were created by James R. Hastings, who was attorney
for Bank of America. If you will look at the documents filed under
this case number in year 2000, you will see that James R. Hastings
appears as attorney for Bank of America. Thus, he has always had them.
In order to keep these documents hidden, he ignored our subpoenas and
he ignored and disobeyed orders of this court.
13. This court seems to have forgotten that by order dated
January 20, 2012, James R. Hastings was ordered to produce the Goodall
Trust unless he could not find it, in which case he was ordered to
file a declaration stating what efforts he had made to locate it. On
February 2, 2012 James R. Hastings filed a declaration stating that he
had searched all his files and could not find the trust. However, at a
hearing in open court on May 7, 2012, Alicia A. Adornato, attorney for
Guide Dogs for the Blind, stated in open court that James R. Hastings
had found the 1994 Trust Document in the Estate Planning File “at
exactly where he always said it was”. This statement was confirmed at
the same hearing by Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America.
14. Mike Goodall wrote letters to James R. Hastings dated 1999
stating that that he was contesting the trust. I have witnesses
including myself and Roy Hoppe who will testify to that. It is
important to remember that in a declaration filed in this court in
this case, James R. Hastings states that he was attorney for both the
Goodalls and Bank of America at the same time. By refusing to produce
the Goodall Files, James R. Hastings deprived us of the evidence we
need to prove out case. I do have letters that attorney Richard
Rothman wrote to Mike Goodall in 1999 advising him not to contest the
trust because by doing so he will lose everything and replies by Mike
Goodall insisting on going ahead with the case anyway. Thus the claim
that Mike Goodall did not contest the trust within a 120 day period is
simply not true.
15. Thus, both attorneys stated that James R. Hastings lied
under oath when he said that he could not find the document.
Furthermore, Hastings is in contempt of court for failing and refusing
to produce the document, as required by the order of January 20, 2102.
16. Previously, Counsel for the Estate of K. Michael Goodall
subpoenaed the relevant documents from Attorney James R. Hastings and
required him to appear at a deposition. Hastings appeared on November
11, 2011 with Attorney Don A. Lesser but did not bring any documents
at all. Among the reasons he gave for refusing to produce any
documents was that to do so would violate the Attorney Client
Privilege of Bank of America. James R. Hastings has been representing
or claiming to represent all parties to this case including the
Goodall Parents, Michael Goodall, the Goodall Trust, the Bank of
America and even the heirs of the Goodall Estate, Frank Thornally and
Roy Hoppe. This is the most outrageous violation of conflict of
interest imaginable. If Hastings is not disbarred for this, the Canons
of Ethics are meaningless.
17. If Hastings had complied with the subpoena properly served
upon him, he would have produced the Power of Attorney the Goodall
Parents gave to Kenneth Michael Goodall on August 24, 2012. That would
have ended the case because that Power of Attorney placed Kenneth
Michael Goodall in complete control of the trust upon the deaths of
his parents. Thus, that document proved that Bank of America was never
the proper trustee of the trust. This would mean that Bank of America
and James R. Hastings would have to pay back to the Trust and to the
Estate all of the money they have stolen from the Trust Assets since
1999, including the money they are using to pay the attorneys fees of
Gary Rothstein, Attorney for Bank of America here.
18. Attorney Don A. Lesser who appeared at the deposition on
November 11, 2011 as the Attorney for James R. Hastings has since
stated that he has withdrawn as attorney for James R. Hastings but
need not file a notice of withdrawal because he has never appeared in
this case. However, that is not correct. Don Lesser did appear in this
case by filing a pleading Dated December 29, 2011 entitled DECLARATION
OF DON A. LESSER OPPOSING RESPONDENT SAM SLOAN'S MOTION TO COMPEL
PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS AND FURTHER DEPOSITION FILED BY PETITIONER
HASTINGS, JAMES. At the deposition on November 11, 2011 I told Don
Lesser that his client James R. Hastings would be going to jail
because we can prove that Hastings never saw Kenneth F. Goodall on
August 24, 1994 or at any other date in 1994. We know this because
Kenneth F. Goodall was hospitalized at that time, being terminally ill
with Cancer of the Esophagus. On July 25, 1994, an operation was
preformed for a Feeding Jejunostomy in which a feeding tube was
inserted in his abdomen. From that point until his death on September
10, 1994, he could not process food or talk in the normal way. Thus,
the only way Hastings could have seen him was by going to the
hospital, which he testified he did not do.
19. Attorney Don Lesser has probably researched this and found
out that his client lied and this explains his insistence that he has
withdrawn from the case even though he has not done so. However, the
damage has been done because, as a result, neither Bank of America nor
James R. Hastings has produced anything at all. They have produced
zero documents. They refuse to produce any sort of accounting or to
provide any information whatever about the Goodall Money. At the time
of the Death of Rachel A. Goodall in June 1999, she had between
$900,000 and one million dollars in cash and securities. None of this
was with Bank of America. It was in other places such as the Kaufman
Fund and Charles Schwab and USAA Investment Management. James R.
Hasting by virtue of his position as “Estate Planner” knew where all
the money was and proceeded to contact all these financial
institutions and have all the money transferred to an account with
Bank of America that he controlled. Mike Goodall, upon seeing the
money in the accounts he had been controlling suddenly slip away and
disappear, filed the instant case, IN RE: THE GOODALL TRUST, Case No.
PTR-99-273030.
20. Here, the Bank of America and Guide Dogs for the Blind make
another false claim. They claim that Mike Goodall is barred by Statute
of limitations from making these claims. Not only is there no such
statute of limitations but Mike Goodall did timely object within the
purported 120 day period. That is the reason he filed this case in
December 1999.
21. Back then, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Bank of America were
trying to steal all the money right away. They were not satisfied to
wait until Mike Goodall died. They wanted the money immediately. As a
result, they filed three pleadings in this case stating that Mike
Goodall was contesting the trust and thus should be cut out of the
will immediately. As usual, Gary Rothstein lied to the court when he
said that Mike Goodall's case was for “Declaratory Relief”.
22. If the court will trouble itself to look at the pleadings
filed in this case (something this court has not done until now) it
will see three separate documents by Bank of America and James R.
Hastings all dated February 2000 stating that Mike Goodall was
contesting the trust and thus should be cut out of the estate with the
money presumably going to the Dogs. I have seen correspondence from
Thomas Horton who was already involved in this case in 1999. Thomas
Horton is the “Planned Giving Director” for Guide Dogs for the Blind.
According to the 990 Forms filed with the IRS, Guide Dogs for the
Blind receives an average of $30 million in donations per year. One
wonders why they are so much more successful than other worthy
charities in raising funds. One wonders whether some of this $30
million per year is not criminal theft similar to the $2.5 million
they are trying to steal from the Goodall Estate in this case. Perhaps
some of these “donations” are stolen and not voluntarily given.
23. When Mike Goodall was alive, Bank of America and James R.
Hastings said that he was contesting the trust and thus should be cut
out of the estate under a “No Contest Clause”. However, after he died
they reversed positions and said that he had not contested the trust
and thus was barred from doing so under a statute of limitations.
24. From the first responsive pleading I filed in this case and
at every hearing thereafter, I have objected to the jurisdiction and
the venue of the San Francisco Probate Court. I object again here. It
is obvious that this case does not belong in the San Francisco Courts.
It belongs if at all in Marin County where all the parties resided,
lived, died and are buried. They never had any assets in San
Francisco. All the documents were executed in Marin County. Even the
attorney involved, James R. Hastings, has his only office in Marin
County and rarely comes to San Francisco.
25. It is obvious that Bank of America is relying on the
corruption of the courts in San Francisco. Every observer has noticed
this. All the issues involved in this case have previously been
decided in my favor by the Marin County Superior Court. When Bank of
America loses a motion over there, they file the same motion over
here, without telling the San Francisco Judge that the issue has
already been decided against them by the Marin County Courts.
26. An example of this is their entirely bogus Statute of
Limitations Claim. They filed exactly the same motion in Marin County
and lost. Undaunted, they came over here and filed the same motion
without telling the San Francisco Judge that the issue had already
been decided against them in Marin.
27. We are prepared to prove and will prove at a hearing if
given the opportunity to do so that Kenneth F. Goodall did not and
could not have signed the purported 1994 Trust in the circumstances
claimed by Mr. Hastings. In addition, the notary signatures by James
R. Hasting are obviously improper because they do not state what he is
notarizing and are on separate sheets of paper. He could have added
that page or changed the pages years later.
28. Even if Kenneth F. Goodall did sign the purported 1994
trust, that should not change the outcome because the 1994 purported
trust DOES NOT give the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind unless Mike
Goodall dies before his parents do. Since Mike Goodall outlived the
last of his parents by 11 years in that his father died in 1994, his
mother died in 1999 and Mike died in 2010, all the money goes to Mike
and his estate according to the wording of the 1994 purported trust.
29. The Probate Examiner in this case was Helen Yune Trowbridge.
According to her website, she is a new hire who got this job by
obtaining a paralegal certificate from San Francisco State College.
She is not a lawyer. She stated in her Probate Examiners Notes that it
would be “logical” to give the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind as a
more worthy recipient than the heirs of Mike Goodall. The judge's
statement in open court that it is “logical” to give the money to
Guide Dogs for the Blind, using exactly the same word, shows that he
was just allowing his probate examiner to decide this case.
Apparently, the court was deciding that Guide Dogs was more worthy of
receiving the money rather than the heirs and friends of Mike Goodall.
However, the courts should not be allowed to decide whom they would
like to receive the money. It should be according to what the
documents unambiguously state and in this case the documents
unambiguously state that the money goes to Mike and his heirs.
30. I have shown the purported 1994 Trust to a dozen different
attorneys and they all agree that the wording of the trust DOES NOT
GIVE the money to Guide Dogs for the Blind. Guide Dogs gets the house
and the money if and only if Mike Goodall died before his parents did,
which did not happen. The reason the San Francisco Judge decided
otherwise is he has never read the document.
31. The fact that a judge of this court would make the
ridiculous remark that it is “logical” to give the money to Guide Dogs
for the Blind demonstrates what I have long known which is that the
current judges of the San Francisco Probate Court had never read the
file on this case. I know and can prove this because I have regularly
checked with the record room at 400 McAllister Street and they have
informed me that the case file had been at all times in the court
archives in the East Bay and at no time has the case file been brought
up to San Francisco for the judges to look at it until October 19 when
the judge ordered it to be brought up for the hearing on October 29,
2012. This case was extensively litigated in 1999 and 2000 with
hearings before Judge Dorothy McMath who was the Probate Judge at the
time. This case was never finally decided and no judgment was entered.
Taking advantage of this, Bank of America filed a new case under the
old case number. I have contended ever since that this was wrong and
should not have been allowed. Then, to mislead the courts, they have
changed the name of this case. Bank of America keeps calling it “In
The Matter of the Trust for Michael created under the Goodall Trust
dated September 12, 1990”. This is false. The correct name of this
case is “In Re: The Goodall Trust”.
32. They made this change in name to mislead the judges of this
court by suggesting that Mike Goodall was deemed by his parents to be
incompetent and incapable of managing his finances and thus set up
this trust to protect him from himself. Nothing could be further from
the truth. The Goodall Parents were devoted to their only child and he
was to them. Even if they had doubts about their son, they would not
have cut him out of their estate, because Rachel A. Goodall was an
invalid who could not walk without help and thus was dependent on
Mike, after his father Col. Goodall had died.
33. After this case was pending before the court for ten years
with no final decision reached, a new judge came on the case in 2011
and, with a wave of the hand and giving no reason for the decision,
decided the case in favor of allowing the Bank of America to proceed
without bothering to read the court file which has been all the time
in San Bruno. This was obviously a corrupt decision.
34. No doubt Guide Dogs for the Blind entered this case thinking
they could easily steal the $2.5 million, as they have done so many
times in the past. Perhaps they should have researched my background.
Had they done so they would have learned that I am famous for arguing
orally and winning a case before the United States Supreme Court, SEC
vs. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978). What would have been wise for
them to notice is that it took me seven years to win that case. That
case was started in 1971 by a meritless suit the SEC filed against me.
It took me seven years to fight this case all the way up to the US
Supreme Court, where I won. This should have told them that filing
meritless lawsuits against me is not a good idea.
35. Similarly, I am prepared to fight this case for at least
seven years or for however long it takes to win because I know where
the truth lies, which is that Guide Dogs for the Blind has no remotest
right to the money. I plan to put Hastings in jail, to get Rothstein
disbarred, to have Guide Dogs closed down and put out of business by
the IRS, to have all the tax deductions taken by their directors and
donors declared invalid by the IRS, and perhaps even to remove the
corrupt judges from the bench if they keep issuing these boneheaded
and stupid if not corrupt decisions, so be prepared for a long fight.
WHEREFORE, for all of the reasons set forth above, the Motion by
Sanctions by Bank of America must be denied and Sanctions should be
imposed on attorneys GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A. ADORNATO, JAMES R.
HASTINGS and DON A. LESSER.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State
of California and the contents thereof are true and correct to the
best of my knowledge and belief.
DATED: November 13, 2012
Samuel H. Sloan
Verification:
Samuel H. Sloan declares:
I have read the Answer to BANK OF AMERICA'S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS the
CROSS-MOTION FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ATTORNEYS GARY ROTHSTEIN, ALICIA A.
ADORNATO, JAMES R. HASTINGS and DON A. LESSER filed in this matter,
and I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of
California and the contents thereof are true and correct to the best
of my knowledge and belief.
DATED: November 13, 2012
Samuel H. Sloan
AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE
I hereby state that I am not a party, I am over 18 years of age and on
November 13, 2012 I served a copy of this motion and the exhibits
attached thereto to the following:
James R. Hastings
1003 3rd Street
San Rafael, CA 94901
Gary D. Rothstein
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
One Embarcadero Center, 30th Floor
San Francisco CA 94111
Alicia A. Adornato
Attorney for Guide Dogs for the Blind
Reed Smith LLP
101 Second Street, Suite 1800
San Francisco CA 94105
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Mr. Thomas Horton
Planned Potential Beneficiary Giving Director
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc.
350 Los Ranchitos Road
San Rafael, CA 94903
Sam Ware
700 Larkspur Landing Circle, #199
Larkspur, CA 94939
John L. McDonnell, Jr.
Reed Smith LLP
1999 Harrison Street, 24th Floor
Oakland CA 94612
Don A. Lesser
1010 B Street
Suite 350
San Rafael CA 94901
Jerry R. Hauser
Miller Hauser Law Group
4 Embarcadero Center, 39th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
Robert J. Rothman
601 California St Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94108
Deborah Rodgers
Bradley Luxury Division
851 Irwin Street
San Rafael CA 94901
Roy Hoppe
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
Frank Thornally
461 Peachstone Terrace
San Rafael CA 94903
Julia Bentley Lemons
Apt. 308
12800 Marion Lane W
Minnetonka, MN 55305-1368
Surviving Sibling of Rachel Goodall
Robert B. Bentley
Timberwood Senior Living Rm. #34
5020 WE 44th St.
Oklahoma City, OK 73135
Helen Beth Bentley Perry
7926 Praver Drive W
Jacksonville,FL 32217
Surviving Sibling of Rachel Goodall
Clenda Fern Bentley Zinar
4536 Chatman Street
The Colony, TX 75056
Beverly Gale Bentley Young
2316 Trenton
McKinney, TX 75070
Vickie Bentley Hankins
14580 NE 6th
Choctaw, OK 73020
Jeffrey Bentley
4701 N Douglas Boulevard
Spencer, OK 73084
Chad Everett Bentley
1609 Teepee Trail
Kingsland, TX 78639
Jeanette Goodall Phillips
152 S llth Street
Salina, Kansas 67401
Kristin Kane
University of California
Berkeley College of Engineering
College Relations
208 Mclaughlin Hall #1722
Berkeley, CA 9472A-1722
Bank of America
1000 4th St.
San Rafael, CA 94901