| Sam Sloan 2004-10-25, 12:45 am |
| UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
_______________________________________________________________
SAMUEL H. SLOAN,
Plaintiff,
Affidavit in Opposition to Affidavit of Aaron Maslow
No. 04 Civ. 2791 (DGT)
-against-
DIANE HASLETT RUDIANO, GLADYS PEMBERTON, AARON
MASLOW, HY SINGER, KING'S COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY,
ISABELLA JEFFERSON, BROOKLYN REPUBLICANS UNITED
FOR NEW LEADERSHIP, NEW YORK REPUBLICAN STATE
COMMITTEE, SANDY TREADWELL, PETER S. KOSINSKI, and
CAROL BERMAN, NEIL W. KELLERHER, HELENA MOSES
DONOHUE and EVELYN J. ACQUILA, Commissioners of Elections,
Constituting the New York State Board of Elections, and New York
City Commissioners of Elections NERO GRAHAM, FREDERIC M.
UMANE, WEYMAN A. CAREY, MICHAEL J. CILMI, MARK B.
HERMAN, DOUGLAS A. KELLNER, TERRENCE C. O'CONNOR,
NANCY MOTTOLA-SCHACHER, STEPHAN H. WEINER,
Defendants.
_______________________________________________________________
Samuel H. Sloan, being duly sworn, states:
1. Since the filing of this lawsuit, Aaron Maslow, who chaired the
Executive Committee meeting on May 5, 2004 which nominated me for
Republican Party Candidate for US Congress, has resigned all positions
with the party. He has resigned from both the Executive Committee and
from the Republican Party itself. It appears that he is going back to
the Democratic Party, from whence he came about four years ago. His
wife, Lori Maslow, who is on the Republican Party Vacancy Committee,
is presumably going back to the hated Democrats as well.
2. Nevertheless, the affidavit Aaron Maslow dated June 6, 2004 is
still before this court and must be addressed.
3. I need to explain in a bit more detail how I got into this. My
first contact with the Republican Party was when I circulated
nominating petitions for Mike Bloomberg for Mayor in 2001. There, I
met Gally Lim, who was out circulating petitions with me. It turned
out that she got more signatures than any other petitioner in the
Bloomberg Campaign for Mayor. As a result, she was deeply miffed when
Bloomberg gave her no recognition and instead gave recognition to
people who had little to do with his election as mayor as compared
with her contribution. At the Bloomberg Inauguration on New Year's
Day, 2002, she was not invited to be up on the dais where she felt
that she belonged. At the Victory Celebration, I was the only one who
even talked to Gally Lim, because I was the one who realized that she
had done more than anybody else to get Bloomberg elected as mayor.
4. I put Gally Lim on my e-mail list with the other thousand people to
whom I regularly send e-mail. Nearly two years later, she called me
and asked me to join her "Free Burma" campaign. Gally Lim is
originally from Rangoon, Burma and is a big supporter of Aung San Suu
Kyi, the elected leader of Burma who has never been allowed to take
office. I have been twice to Burma and when Gally Lim asked me to
write letters in her Free Burma campaign, I agreed. In return, she
promised to introduce me personally to Aung San Suu Kyi after Burma
gets free.
5. Soon thereafter, Gally Lim called me to invite me to a cocktail
party with Mayor Bloomberg at Mill Basin. I happen to have a beautiful
baby daughter whom I always take with me simply because I cannot
afford a baby sitter, so I took my baby to the party with Mayor
Bloomberg. When the mayor saw my baby, he asked permission to pick her
up and hold her for the photographers. I agreed and lots of pictures
were taken of Mayor Bloomberg holding my baby.
6. Gally Lim then asked me to run as the Republican Party candidate
for United States Senate, especially since the Republican Party did
not have a good candidate. She said that she would handle the details.
I told her that I did not have the resources to mount a serious
campaign. Gally persisted, and finally I agreed to run for US Congress
as a compromise. Gally promised that she personally would collect all
the signatures to get me on the ballot, which I knew her to be capable
of doing. Gally then took me around the party at Mill Basin and
introduced me to the Republican big-shots, including Robert Howe,
Chairman of the Kings County Republican Executive Committee, and Marty
Golden, Republican State Senator.
7. After that, Gally Lim called me every day to make sure that I was
still running for Congress and to guide me on my path to glory. She
called Hy Singer, the Party Chairman, and other Republican big-shots
on my behalf. No problem was anticipated because the Republican Party
did not have anyone else who was willing to run for United States
Congress in the Tenth Congressional District.
8. Incidentally, I was warned by other Republican officials that I
could not run against Ed Towns, the incumbent Congressman. It was said
that if I tried to do so, I would be threatened and investigated and,
if that failed, I would be "removed". It was pointed out that nobody
has run against Towns since 1990. Whenever anybody said this, I
replied that I have already been investigated by the FBI, the CIA, the
KGB and the Afghan Secret Police or "Khad". They all have big files on
me. I often receive death threats, some of them from serious people. I
am used to this. No big deal.
9. Gally Lim attended meetings with me at the Republican Party
Headquarters on East 83rd Street in Manhattan and also attended
meetings where I met with Republican Party District Leaders in
Brooklyn. Some of them were not entirely enthusiastic. However, there
was no other candidate. Therefore, the choice was between me and
having no candidate for Congress and the general consensus was that I
would get it. In all this time, I often spoke about the fact that I
have been involved in many controversial activities. I have been
investigated by the FBI. I have been arrested as a spy. I spent time
in prison in Afghanistan. I was president of a student revolutionary
organization at the university of California at Berkeley in 1966-67. I
participated in the Chicago Riots and so on. I told them all about
this. Perhaps they thought I was exaggerating but the main point is
that I never kept any of this a secret.
10. I have had more than 100 newspaper articles published about me
saying very bad or negative things, especially in Pakistan. It is this
quality that I have, that I am willing and experienced in taking on a
whole country and not just a few bad guys. It is because of this that
Gally Lim contacted me in the first place, because she wanted me to
help her in her "Free Burma" campaign and not many were willing to
help. Anybody else who knows much about Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma
would be reluctant to get involved.
11. In paragraph 14 of his affidavit, Aaron Maslow states: "It turned
out that Plaintiff Sam Sloan had fraudulently misled the members of
the Executive Committee". This is completely untrue. At every
opportunity I have talked openly about my controversial background and
so far nobody has been able to point out anything I said about myself
that was not true (unlike both of the current candidates for US
President).
12. Candidate's night, the meeting where the King's County Republican
Party Executive Committee decided on its candidates for election, took
place on May 5, 2004 in the Bay Ridge Manor.
13. Throughout his affidavit, Aaron Maslow makes vague references to
people without mentioning their names. He uses terms such as "some
people". I happen to know their names. In paragraph 7, Maslow states:
"Some people at the meeting were uncomfortable with Mr. Sloan's having
brought his baby up to the podium in a stroller despite the fact that
someone else was with him who could have remained with the baby. They
felt he utilized the baby for eshow-and-tell' purposes." The person
who made this objection was Marianna Blume. As far as I am aware,
nobody other than Marianna complained about the presence of my baby.
The complaint by Marianna Blume was unfounded. I had not brought my
baby for show and tell purposes and I did not have anybody else to
take care of the baby. I had no choice but to bring the baby because I
could not afford a babysitter. Babysitters charge $10 per hour
nowadays. My wife was both working full time and attending college
full time with a full course load and did not have any time at all to
take care of our baby.
14. It was and still is a mystery why Gally Lim did not show up at the
meeting on May 5, when she had promised to come and it was her who had
arranged for me to be a candidate. Perhaps she was unhappy about the
fact that at the reception for Mayor Bloomberg, several of those
present had thought that she was my wife or that the baby was hers.
She did not like that, although she had picked up and held my baby a
few times. Gally told me later than she is looking for a husband. She
obviously did not want anybody to think that she was already taken.
She said however that this was not the reason for her non-appearance
on May 5. She said that something else had come up at the last minute.
15. Paragraph 6 of the affidavit of Aaron Maslow states: "It is
theoretically possible for someone to be granted a Wilson-Pakula
authorization and not be designated on a petition circulated by
Executive Committee members, in which case the candidate would have to
obtain his/her own signatures." Note the use of the key word
"theoretically". It is obvious that no party would grant a
Wilson-Pakula to an outsider if there were any intention of having a
member of a party as a candidate. The Republican Party avoids
primaries like the plague even among party members and would never
agree to a Republican Primary contest between a member of the party
and an outsider. It was clear and obvious that when the vote was taken
on May 5, 2004, this was a vote to grant me a Wilson-Pakula and for me
to be the official candidate of the party. The vote was overwhelmingly
in my favor, as Aaron Maslow admits in his affidavit.
16. It was then that Diane Rudiano got involved first by saying that
she wanted time to search for an alternative candidate. Diane Rudiano
said that she had two ladies in mind that she wanted to approach about
this, but had not been able to reach them. (Later it developed that
one of these ladies was Isabelle Jefferson and the reason Diane had
not been able to reach her was that she had gone to South Carolina for
the Summer.) Aaron Maslow objected to any delay because he said that a
decision needed to be made right away so that he would have time to
send the petitions to the printer in time to be ready for the period
of six weeks allowed for petitioning. Maslow pointed out that 150
different petitions would have to be printed because the State Senate
Districts, State Assembly Districts, Civil Court Judge Districts and
Congressional Districts do not run together. Two city blocks next to
each other might be in the same Congressional District together but in
different assembly districts, for example. Also, a voter is only
allowed to sign one petition. This had caused a problem two years
earlier when Marty Golden had circulated his own petitions, which had
caused some other petitions to be invalidated.
17. There was a somewhat lengthy debate back and forth between Diane
Rudiano and Aaron Maslow on this subject. All this time, I was
watching through a crack in the door, because I was not supposed to be
in the room. After being turned down on her request for an extension
of time to search for an alternative candidate to me, Diane Rudiano
proposed that a weighted telephone vote be taken. During this debate,
Marianna Blume had suddenly stood up and said that she would like to
be a candidate. Marianna Blume had not presented herself as a
candidate during the presentation phase of candidates night and nobody
had nominated and seconded her. Nevertheless, Diane Rudiano used this
development to propose a weighted telephone vote between myself and
Marianna Blume.
18. There was also a debate with regard to how much time to allow for
this weighted telephone vote. Aaron Maslow wanted it to be concluded
quickly. Diane Rudiano wanted more time. All this time, I was watching
this wondering why Diane Rudiano's proposals were even being
considered. I did not yet know that in addition to being Secretary to
the Kings Country Republican Party, Diane Rudiano is also the Chief
Clerk of the Kings County Board of Elections and thus has the power of
life and death over any candidacy.
19. Finally, it was agreed between Diane Rudiano and Aaron Maslow that
she would be allowed one week until May 12 to take this vote. I was
unhappy because I had already been approved as the candidate. However,
I obviously was in no position to complain plus several other
candidates who were also watching told me that Marianna Blume was just
a nut and that nobody would vote for her. They were to be proven
right.
20. A meeting was held at Giando on the Water on May 12. At this
meeting, Diane Rudiano, who was still pretending to be friendly to me,
told me that the vote had been taken away from her by Aaron Maslow
because she was "too slow". I spoke to several other district leaders.
None of them told me that they had been contacted about this telephone
vote. They did not even know about it, and they were the ones who were
supposed to be voting. At the meeting, which had about 150 people
present and which was said to be the largest meeting of the Republican
Party in Brooklyn in decades, all of the Republican Party officials
and candidates were asked to come forward to be presented to the
crowd. I was called up and brought up with me my wife and baby. I was
introduced to the assembled crowd as the Republican Party Candidate
for US Congress from the Tenth Congressional District. Marianna Blume
tapped the Chairman of the meeting on the shoulder and whispered
something to him, and then he said "Marianna Blume wants to run for
Congress too". It was clear however that her supposed candidacy was
being ignored.
21. The meeting concluded at 10:30 PM. Aaron Maslow has not been
present. I have been told that his absence had something to do with
the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew. In any event, it was clear that I
had won the vote. Gally Lim was present. She told me that she was
resigning her position as campaign manager of my campaign. She said
that she was too busy. It seemed obvious that somebody had spoken to
her during the meeting and had told her to stop supporting my
candidacy. Since that night, I have never heard from, spoken to or
seen Gally Lim. Several other Republicans I know have said that she
has stopped coming to Republican Party meetings. The Kings County
Republican Party may have lost their best petitioner.
22. Since the meeting concluded at 10:30 PM and most people could not
get home until 11:30 PM or Midnight and since almost all of the
district leaders were at that meeting, except for Aaron Maslow and his
wife who were not there, and since I was announced as being the
official candidate, it was clear that I had won the vote. The deadline
for voting was May 12. In the debate between Aaron Maslow and Diane
Rudiano, it had been made clear that this vote would be final. There
would be no more votes and no extensions of time. Diano Rudiano had
accepted this, although she had clearly wanted more time.
23. Therefore, I and everyone else was startled and surprised when,
the following morning, Aaron Maslow announced that Adrienne Britton
had won the vote. This was impossible for several reasons. Adrienne
Britton had not been nominated or seconded as a candidate. Her name
was not in the vote. The vote had been between me and Marianna Blume.
Nobody else was authorized. They could not just bring in some new
person, without a vote at the meeting. Also, Brinmore Britton had been
at the meeting on May 12. He had one of his daughters with him.
Brinmore Britton was introduced to the crowd as both a district leader
and as a candidate for State Senate. Brinmore Britton has a bunch of
daughters. One of these is Adrienne Britton. I spoke to Brinmore
Britton several times during the meeting on May 12. He introduced me
to his daughter but I do not remember if the daughter he introduced me
to was Adrienne or Mavis or another of his daughters. We are on quite
friendly terms and at no time did he say that his daughter was running
for Congress either to me or when it was announced to the group that I
was the candidate for Congress.
24. Paragraph 10 of the affidavit of Aaron Maslow states:
"10. On the following Wednesday, May 12, 2004, I conducted a
telephone poll of State Committee members representing Assembly
Districts in the 10th Congressional District. It was conducted on the
basis of a weighted vote, each State Committee member casting a vote
equal to one-half of the Republican enrollment in that part of the
Assembly District represented by him or her which was within the 10th
Congressional District. My records indicate that 9215 votes were cast
for Adrienne Britton (daughter of a State Committee member), 972.5 for
Plaintiff Sam Sloan, and 444 for Marianna Blume.
25. These numbers do not add up. They are mathematically impossible.
The only correct number is the 444 votes for Marianna Blume. There are
888 voters in the district she represents, and therefore she is
entitled to cast half of those votes. She cast the 444 votes for
herself, and nobody else voted for her.
26. As to the 9215 votes for Adrienne Britton and the 972.5 votes for
Plaintiff Sam Sloan, there is no mathematical way that these numbers
could have been achieved. I know the exact number of votes that each
district leader was entitled to cast and I have tried every possible
permutation and combination. I was a math major in college and I
scored 800 on my math college boards and I can state categorically
that these numbers were impossible. Anyway, I got more votes than
Marianna Blume, the only other candidate.
27. Next, the affidavit of Aaron Maslow states:
"13. I will now return to May 12, 2004. On that date,
Plaintiff informed Diane Rudiano (per a telephone conversation she had
with me) that he was famous and she should check his Internet Web
site."
28. The conversation to which Aaron Maslow refers took place not on
the telephone but at the meeting at Giando on the Water on May 12.
Diane Rudiano was still pretending to be friendly to me. She said that
she wanted me to "work with" the party, meaning that she wanted me to
step aside in favor of a candidate which she had not found yet. She
said that there was an "ethnic issue" with me being a candidate,
obviously referring to the fact that I am white and my district is 60%
Black. She said that the Republican Party wants to concentrate on
"winnable elections" meaning that she and the party considers the
Tenth Congressional District to be hopeless and that there is no point
in supporting a candidate there.
29. I replied that I am not going to step aside and that I will be
fighting this right up to election day. (Notice that I did not lie). I
also stated that I firmly believe that I can and will defeat Ed Towns
for election, assuming that my name is on the ballot.
30. In the course of this somewhat lengthy conversation, I did state
that I am famous, which the Courier Life chain of newspapers has since
pointed out was a big mistake. The reason this came up was that I told
Diane Rudiano that I was not concerned that the Republican Party was
not going to provide any money to help in my campaign. I do not need
to pay people to hand out flyers on the street. I can generate my own
publicity. I have a website which gets more than 15,000 unique
visitors every day and more than 50,000 hits every day. I can generate
my own publicity. Indeed, I have since then received more publicity
that all the other Republican Candidates in Brooklyn combined. My name
has often been in the local newspapers and in the New York Sun and I
had a letter published in Playboy Magazine last month in the issue
with the Olympic Swimmer on the cover
31. Two paragraphs down in the affidavit of Aaron Maslow, after
explaining what he found after obviously spending many hours reading
my website, which has 3024 pages on it, Aaron Maslow states:
"16. With this being on people's minds it should not be
surprising that when it came time to re-vote after Adrienne Bramwell
declined the designation, nobody wanted Plaintiff Sam Sloan to be the
Republican candidate in the 10th Congressional District."
32. This is a typo, because Bramwell is dead. He means Britton. It is
not true that "nobody wanted Plaintiff Sam Sloan to be the Republican
candidate in the 10th Congressional District." I am in regular contact
with several members of the Executive Committee who voted in my favor
and all of them that I have spoken to have stated that if the vote is
held again, they will vote for me again. Not one person that I know of
that voted for me then would vote against me now. Several of them are
candidates too and they would like to get the benefit of the publicity
I can bring to them and to the party.
33. Next we come to the most important point, which is that Aaron
Maslow states:
"17. I too had been concerned in the days following May 12,
2004, that a Wilson-Pakula had been granted to Plaintiff Sam Sloan,
after seeing his Internet Web site. I looked at the Rules of the
County Committee and re-read the provision concerning Wilson-Pakula
authorizations. Upon doing so, I came across that provision which
states:
A nomination for Representative in Congress shall be made by a
majority vote of the members voting at a meeting of County Committee
members representing Election Districts contained within the
Congressional District in which the election will be held. [Article
VI, Section 1]
"20. In re-reading the rules, it became apparent that the
Executive Committee lacked the authority to grant a Wilson-Pakula
authorization -- it could only be granted at a meeting of County
Committee members representing Election Districts within the
Congressional District. Thus, I told fellow Executive Committee
members at the time that they should not be concerned since the
Wilson-Pakula granted to Plaintiff Sam Sloan was invalid."
34. However, attached hereto are the complete rules of the Kings
County Republican Party. These rules do not say what Aaron Maslow
claims they state. It is true that Article VI, Section 1 on page 10
says that a nomination for Congress shall be made at a meeting of the
County Committee. However, Section 9 on page 11 of the same rules
state that the Executive Committee can make that nomination as well.
In general, the County Committee only meets once every two years, in
odd-numbered years. It is always the Executive Committee that decides
on the candidates. Aaron Maslow seeks to make a distinction between
the authority to grant a Wilson Pakula and the authority to nominate a
candidate for Congress. However, a careful reading of the rules shows
that there is no such distinction. In short, if my nomination was not
valid, then all of the Republican Party nominations for Congress made
at the meeting on May 5 are invalid. Incidentally, the Republican
Party Candidate for the Ninth Congressional District, which is Major
Owens District, got kicked off the ballot because of a cover sheet
error being blamed on Theodore Alatsas, who succeeded Aaron Maslow
after he resigned. The original candidate nominated at the meeting on
May 5 was a white man. However, Diane Rudiano wanted a Black Woman
just as she wanted a black woman for the Tenth District in which I am
running. She finally found a Black Woman. However, when a mistake was
made and she did not sign the cover sheet, she was kicked off the
ballot. Therefore, there is no Republican running for Congress in the
11th Congressional District.
35. The distinction Aaron Maslow seeks to make does not exist. If the
argument made by Aaron Maslow is correct, then all of the Republican
Candidates for Congress are not properly on the ballot, except for
Peter Hort because Peter Hort is running in a District which is partly
in Manhattan. Thus, it is clear that Aaron Maslow is trying to craft a
distinction which will result in making my candidacy invalid but the
candidacies of all of the other Republican Candidates in Brooklyn OK.
This distinction simply does not exist in the rules he cites. It is
noteworthy that the rules require that nominations take place at a
"meeting". There is no provision for a telephone vote in the rules. It
is also noteworthy that he states that he wrote these rules himself,
but failed to follow his own rules.
36. This court has asked about the question of whether the vote was
unanimous in my favor or not. The vote was by a show of hands. The
vote was about 75% in my favor. The only person anybody can remember
voting against me was Marianna Blume, who also spoke against me.
Nobody can seem to remember how Diane Rudiano voted, but she either
voted in my favor or did not vote at all. I am almost certain that she
did not vote against me, in spite of the extremely hostile actions she
has taken against me ever since.
37. It turns out that the votes of both Marianna Blume and Diane
Rudiano were invalid because neither of them live in the district they
represent. Article III Section 3 on page 6 of the King's County
Republican Party Rules states that all district leaders must reside in
the district they represent. Now, look at the official printout of the
District Leaders which I obtained from the Board of Elections, which
is annexed. It says that Diane Rudiano resides at 258 Schenck Avenue
and represents the 54th Assembly District. However, 258 Schenck Avenue
is in the 55th District and so her vote is invalid. Please look this
up. Similarly, it states that Marianna Blume resides at 1661 11th
Avenue and represents the 58th District. However, 1661 11th Avenue is
in the 44th Assembly District, so her vote is invalid. Please look
this up as well. I was tipped off to these improprieties by Republican
Party insiders. Aaron Maslow would have you believe, until he switched
sides himself, that nobody likes me in the Republican Party. However,
this is not true, as I still have my sports fans.
38. Subsequent to the Affidavit of Aaron Maslow, Isabelle Jefferson
returned from her three month trip to South Carolina. By then, she was
on the ballot because the place I had earned on the petitions had been
given to her. She immediately demanded that her name be taken off. It
was obvious that this was going to happen and I had predicted it in my
papers filed in this court. The reason this was obvious is that
Isabelle Jefferson is a Black Woman, which is what Diane Rudiano
wants, plus she is also rich and very presentable. She owns an
apartment building and drives a fifty thousand dollar car. A wealthy
Black Woman who lives near to Diane Rudiano's supposed address is
obviously the perfect candidate, so obvious in fact that if she wanted
to run she would have been nominated and accepted long ago. This
proves that Diane Rudiano knew all along that Isabelle Jefferson did
not want to run.
39. After Isabelle Jefferson declined the nomination, they substituted
Harvey Clarke. It should have been noticed that there was something
odd about this nomination because he had registered to vote for the
first time in his life on June 4, 2004, and yet he is a university
professor of political science, who would presumably be registered to
vote. I assumed that he had only recently moved from another state.
However, it turns out that he has lived in Brooklyn for 20 years.
Recently, the truth has been published in the local newspapers I knew
about it a few days earlier but promised not to spill the beans until
the news reporter could publish his scoop. Harvey Clarke just became a
US Citizen on or about June 4, 2004, the same day he first registered
to vote. This makes him ineligible to run for US Congress, because
Article I Section 2 of the US Constitution says that a person must
have been a US Citizen for seven years in order to serve in Congress.
Nevertheless, the name of Harvey Clarke is still currently on the
ballot as the Republican Party Candidate for US Congress.
40. The bottom line is that I am the legitimate Republican Party
candidate for US Congress for the Tenth Congressional District. A
Wilson-Pakula was validly granted to me. I won both the vote taken on
May 5, 2004 and the vote concluded on May 12, 2004. Neither Adrienne
Britton, nor Isabelle Jefferson nor Harvey Clarke are entitled to a
spot on the ballot. My name belongs on the ballot and this court
should so order.
WHEREFORE, for these reasons, a temporary restraining order and a
preliminary and permanent injunction should be granted providing the
following:
1. Requiring that the name of the Plaintiff be placed on the ballot in
the General Election to be held on November 2, 2004 as a candidate for
Congress from the 10th Congressional District.
2. Directing, requiring and commanding the Board of Elections in the
City of New York to place and print the name of the petitioner herein
on the ballot as a candidate for election to the United States
Congress from the Tenth Congressional District in the General Election
to be held on November 2, 2004; and
3. An order enjoining and restraining the said Board of Elections in
the City of New York from printing, issuing or distributing for use
during said General Election in the Tenth Congressional District any
official ballot upon which the name of the petitioner does not appear
as a candidate for election to the United States Congress.
4. Such other and further relief as may be just and equitable.
________________________
Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to Before me this 24th
Day of October 2004
_________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC
|