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Date: 19 Aug 2006 11:17:17
From: Sam Sloan
Subject: Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
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Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
When I ran for election to the USCF Executive Board, one of my key
campaign promises was that I would study the USCF financial records to
determine how and why the USCF has lost nearly two million dollars
since 1999 and to investigate the possibility that some of this money
may be recovered.
After I was elected, at my first meeting of the board, I politely
asked to be given certain documents, such as the Truong correspondence
and contracts under which the USCF ultimately paid $39,000 to Truong
and the AF4C contracts under which Eric Anderson agreed to sponsor the
US Championship.
In each case, I was informed that the documents could not be found.
Finally, Executive Director Bill Hall confessed that virtually nothing
from the former USCF office in New Windsor New York had ever reached
the new USCF office in Crossville.
The rest of the board was obviously well aware of this. None of the
other board members expressed surprise at this starting revelation.
I have since been asking around trying to find out how this could
possibly have happened. The best explanation that I can come up with
thus far is that after the vote by the old USCF board to move from New
Windsor, New York to Crossville, Tennessee, it was discovered that the
USCF did not have the money to hire professional movers to move all
the old archives and financial records from the New Windsor offices to
Crossville. As a result, a team of high school students led by Jay
Sabine, son of Harry Sabine, former USCF Vice-President and the
architect of the move to Crossville, was dispatched to New York to
move all the stuff. Upon arriving in New Windsor, they found that the
quantity of material that they were expected to move was huge, far
greater than they had anticipated.
They were faced with a dilemma: They knew that the new incoming board
was opposed to the move to Crossville. They knew that if the move was
not completed by the time that the new board took office, the new
board would reverse the move and would stay in New Windsor.
Therefore, they had no choice in the matter. The only thing left to do
is to throw all the USCF files and records into the local garbage
dump, which is what they did.
There is only one little problem with this, which is that the
destruction of corporate financial records is a crime which may be
punishable by up to ten years in prison.
We need to ask the following questions:
1. What was the role of USCF President Beatriz inello in this? She
had hired herself to supervise the move to Crossville. Was she aware
of the dumping of the records? Did she order it to be done? Did she
witness it? Did she participate in it?
2. The same questions must be asked of Grant Perks, who was Chief
Financial Officer at the time. Perks has been extremely upset at the
results of the election just concluded. Perks has been doing
everything in his power to stop Sam Sloan from being certified as a
member of the board. Now we understand the reason. Perks does not want
to spend time in prison and he obviously realizes that once Sam Sloan
gets on the board he is going to find out about this and make it
public.
3. Similar questions must be asked of Randy Bauer, who is always
writing about how he is Budget Director of the State of Iowa. Did
Bauer know about this? After Bauer lost his campaign for re-election
to the board in August 2005, he became Chairman of the Finance
Committee, a position he still holds. Bauer must have been aware of
this problem. Why has he remained silent?
4. The same questions may be asked of CPA William Brock, who was a
member of the Finance Committee until he resigned in protest to
Sloan's election? Is this the reason why Brock fought so long and hard
to stop Sloan from being elected? Is this why he resigned?
We cannot ask these questions of Tim Hanke, who was USCF VP of Finance
when these events occurred, because Hanke has skipped town, vanished
and disappeared. Is this the reason why Mr. Hanke is no longer
available.
In view of these developments, it is not a surprise that the new
accounting firm hired by the USCF in Crossville still has not produced
a certified financial statement for the recently completed 2005-2006
fiscal year. It has been a standard rule that the CPA Report must be
ready in time for the USCF delegates meeting in August. This year, the
delegates were just given a small paper printout showing a small loss
and no details. Is this the reason why a certified financial statement
has not been prepared? Will it ever be prepared?
Where exactly is the garbage dump or landfill located where the USCF
Financial Records were dumped? Can we still go to the garbage dump and
possibly locate some useful records?
Is it possible that some records were left behind in the basement of
the old building in New Windsor and that the new tenants have not
bothered to throw them out? Can they be recovered?
What about the computer hard drives where some records were
maintained? Have the computers been moved to Crossville or were they
dumped too? Can those records be recovered?
Why has the new board been stonewalling about this problem? Why has
Sam Sloan been asked to hold off on revealing this?
These are some of the questions that we need to be asking.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 20 Aug 2006 00:45:26
From: Louis Blair
Subject: Re: Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
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Joel Channing wrote (Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:05 pm):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear USCF members,
_
At a closed session of the Board meeting in Chicago it was I
who acknowledged Sam's desire to review the current and
past financial records and asked our Executive Director, Bill
Hall, if they were in good order. His response was that the
last couple of years were in good shape, but the records for
the years before his employment were still in boxes and he
couldn't vouch for them. My understanding of financial record
keeping (which I'll verify on Monday) is that we're supposed
to keep our records for three years, and even if records are
lost they can be reconstructed from bank statements. Based
on my understanding, I recommended that we hire part time
help to archive the last five years' records, and the Board
agreed. (Shortly after the meeting, I emailed Bill Hall to
change that to seven years.) Based on the volume of serious,
yet virtually incoherent allegations Sam has now raised
publicly regarding the subject of a closed Board meeting, I'm
not going to say anything else until the staff has had any
opportunity to research everything.
_
I don't guarantee that our past financial record keeping was as
good as it should be, but I will see that everything is organized
as well as possible so that everyone will be able to review it.
_
I can't tell Sam what to do, but I want to make it clear that he
as an individual does not represent or speak for the Federation.
Only the Board and the Delegates speak for the Federation.
Furthermore, disclosure of the subject of closed sessions is a
serious offence. As far as I am concerned, Sam has behaved
most irresponsibly. The proper thing to do, as I pointed out in
the meeting, would have been to review his findings with the
Board and the staff in order to be sure of the facts before
posturing as a whistle blower.
_
Anyway, luckily I have a lot of energy, but it's a shame to have
to waste half of a Saturday keeping up with Sam's antics.
_
Joel Channing
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Date: 04 Sep 2006 16:38:25
From: macchess
Subject: Re: Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
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Could these kind of discussions be held outside the computer chess
board. Please do only post to the politics board.
Thanks,
Louis Blair a �crit :
> Joel Channing wrote (Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:05 pm):
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear USCF members,
> _
> At a closed session of the Board meeting in Chicago it was I
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Date: 20 Aug 2006 00:38:30
From: Louis Blair
Subject: Re: Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
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Bill Goichberg wrote (Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:37 pm):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
samsloan wrote:
Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been
Destroyed
_
This headline appears to be a gross exaggeration.
_
Quote:
When I ran for election to the USCF Executive Board,
one of my key campaign promises was that I would
study the USCF financial records to determine how
and why the USCF has lost nearly two million dollars
since 1999 and to investigate the possibility that some
of this money may be recovered.
_
After I was elected, at my first meeting of the board, I
politely asked to be given certain documents, such as
the Truong correspondence and contracts under which
the USCF ultimately paid $39,000 to Truong and the
AF4C contracts under which Eric Anderson agreed to
sponsor the US Championship.
_
In each case, I was informed that the documents could
not be found.
_
USCF did not pay $39,000 to Truong. There was a contract
between USCF, KCF and two Polgar groups which resulted
in USCF paying between $19,000 and $20,000 reimbursement
for training expenses for the Women's Olympiad. Most of this
money paid for GM training sessions and player expenses.
_
Quote:
Finally, Executive Director Bill Hall confessed that virtually
nothing from the former USCF office in New Windsor New
York had ever reached the new USCF office in Crossville.
_
According to Bill Hall, USCF's financial records are intact, but
he has had difficulty locating some contracts and believes this
is due to the move. I believe that the claim that virtually nothing
from New Windsor ever reached Crossville is absurd.
_
Quote:
The rest of the board was obviously well aware of this.
None of the other board members expressed surprise
at this starting revelation.
_
I have since been asking around trying to find out how
this could possibly have happened. The best explanation
that I can come up with thus far is that after the vote by
the old USCF board to move from New Windsor, New
York to Crossville, Tennessee, it was discovered that
the USCF did not have the money to hire professional
movers to move all the old archives and financial records
from the New Windsor offices to Crossville. As a result,
a team of high school students led by Jay Sabine, son
of Harry Sabine, former USCF Vice-President and the
architect of the move to Crossville, was dispatched to
New York to move all the stuff. Upon arriving in New
Windsor, they found that the quantity of material that
they were expected to move was huge, far greater than
they had anticipated.
_
USCF used a professional moving company for the move. I
believe that sending Jay Sabine to New Windsor to work on
the move was considered, but not implemented.
_
Quote:
They were faced with a dilemma: They knew that the new
incoming board was opposed to the move to Crossville.
They knew that if the move was not completed by the time
that the new board took office, the new board would reverse
the move and would stay in New Windsor.
_
Therefore, they had no choice in the matter. The only thing
left to do is to throw all the USCF files and records into the
local garbage dump, which is what they did.
_
According to Bill Hall, this did not happen.
_
Quote:
There is only one little problem with this, which is that the
destruction of corporate financial records is a crime which
may be punishable by up to ten years in prison.
_
We need to ask the following questions:
_
1. What was the role of USCF President Beatriz inello
in this? She had hired herself to supervise the move to
Crossville. Was she aware of the dumping of the records?
Did she order it to be done? Did she witness it? Did she
participate in it?
_
2. The same questions must be asked of Grant Perks,
who was Chief Financial Officer at the time. Perks has
been extremely upset at the results of the election just
concluded. Perks has been doing everything in his power
to stop Sam Sloan from being certified as a member of
the board. Now we understand the reason. Perks does
not want to spend time in prison and he obviously
realizes that once Sam Sloan gets on the board he is
going to find out about this and make it public.
_
To suggest that Grant Perks may be guilty of a crime is an
utterly outrageous attack; there is no evidence that Grant
destroyed any financial records or did anything improper.
During the period when USCF recovered from near
bankruptcy, Grant served the Federation well, as an interim
ED. a CFO, and a Finance Committee member. He is also
probably the most prominent chess promoter in Ohio. A
tragic result of the election, perhaps worse than who was
elected, is that Grant has become so embittered as a result
of the attacks on him that he may drop out of USCF.
_
Quote:
3. Similar questions must be asked of Randy Bauer,
who is always writing about how he is Budget Director
of the State of Iowa. Did Bauer know about this? After
Bauer lost his campaign for re-election to the board in
August 2005, he became Chairman of the Finance
Committee, a position he still holds. Bauer must have
been aware of this problem. Why has he remained
silent?
_
4. The same questions may be asked of CPA William
Brock, who was a member of the Finance Committee
until he resigned in protest to Sloan's election? Is this
the reason why Brock fought so long and hard to stop
Sloan from being elected? Is this why he resigned?
_
Speculation regarding who might have destroyed records
serves little purpose other than to injure the reputations of
those named, and the concept of the Finance Committee
asking that records be destroyed is bizarre.
_
Quote:
We cannot ask these questions of Tim Hanke, who was
USCF VP of Finance when these events occurred,
because Hanke has skipped town, vanished and
disappeared. Is this the reason why Mr. Hanke is no
longer available.
_
In view of these developments, it is not a surprise that
the new accounting firm hired by the USCF in Crossville
still has not produced a certified financial statement for
the recently completed 2005-2006 fiscal year. It has
been a standard rule that the CPA Report must be ready
in time for the USCF delegates meeting in August. This
year, the delegates were just given a small paper
printout showing a small loss and no details. Is this the
reason why a certified financial statement has not been
prepared? Will it ever be prepared?
_
The annual audited financials were distributed to the
Delegates as usual in Oak Brook.
_
Quote:
Where exactly is the garbage dump or landfill located
where the USCF Financial Records were dumped? Can
we still go to the garbage dump and possibly locate
some useful records?
_
Is it possible that some records were left behind in the
basement of the old building in New Windsor and that
the new tenants have not bothered to throw them out?
Can they be recovered?
_
What about the computer hard drives where some
records were maintained? Have the computers been
moved to Crossville or were they dumped too? Can
those records be recovered?
_
I believe all New Windsor computers are now in Crossville.
_
Bill Goichberg
_
Quote:
Why has the new board been stonewalling about this
problem? Why has Sam Sloan been asked to hold off
on revealing this?
_
These are some of the questions that we need to be
asking.
_
Sam Sloan
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Date: 19 Aug 2006 15:24:53
From: Barnabas Collins
Subject: Re: Virtually All USCF Financial Records have been Destroyed
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On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:17:17 GMT, [email protected] (Sam Sloan)
wrote:
>Where exactly is the garbage dump or landfill located where the USCF
>Financial Records were dumped? Can we still go to the garbage dump and
>possibly locate some useful records?
You've never been to the a local town dump have you?
Even if you found them they'd probably be covered with who knows what
and smell to high heaven.
Maybe the best route is a forensic accountant?
>Is it possible that some records were left behind in the basement of
>the old building in New Windsor and that the new tenants have not
>bothered to throw them out? Can they be recovered?
Has someone inquired about this?
Maybe the most important question at this point is why would anyone
in their right mind want to join the USCF? Sounds like on messed up
organization.
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