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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN JOSE DIVISION
---------------------------------------------------------------------- No. C-95 20678 RMW
Richard Bozulich,
Plaintiff,
-against-
James W. Connelley, Elwyn Berlekamp, Nathaniel Berkowitz,
Hartland Snyder, Martin Lowenstein, Anton Dovydaitis, Janis
K. Miller and Ishi Press International,
Defendants.
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DECLARATION OF SAMUEL H. SLOAN IN REPLY TO THE DECLARATION OF HARTLAND SNYDER
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I, Samuel H. Sloan, declare:
1. I have seen and read various motion papers filed by defendants to this case. I wish to address various questions and issues raised by those papers.
2. I incorporated The Ishi Press International in the State of Delaware in 1985. However, that corporation is not the same corporation which is a defendant to this suit, because the Ishi Press International here was incorporated in California in 1986.
3. I have read and studied and am thoroughly familiar with every document and paper which I have been able to obtain regarding Ishi Press International, a California Corporation. This comes to more than 300 pages of documents. I have read the articles of incorporation, the corporate bylaws, and the corporate minutes through November 1994, plus 124 pages of documents submitted by Hartland Snyder as "shareholder records" to the Santa Clara County Superior Court, plus numerous contracts, agreements, letters and faxes exchanged between the parties to this action. As a result, I suspect that I am more familiar with the paperwork and documents pertaining to this corporation than anybody except for Mr. James W. Connelley.
4. One reason that I have made it a point to become so thoroughly familiar with the facts pertaining to this corporation is that I have found it necessary to prosecute my own lawsuit against Ishi Press International. In 1989, Ishi Press International published my own book, Chinese Chess for Beginners. There have been two printings of that book of 3,000 copies each. All 6,000 copies were sold. I have a contract signed by the Chairman of Ishi Press International at that time which states that Ishi Press International will pay me an 8% royalty for the cover sale price of my book. The cover price for the first printing was $9.95 and the cover price for the second printing was $10.95. Therefore, by simple mathematics, Ishi Press International owes me exactly $5016.00. Yet, I have never been paid the royalties owed to me by Ishi Press International. I have also found out that none of the authors of the 10 or 20 other books published or reprinted by Ishi Press International have been paid the royalties which they are due and owing.
5. This circumstance has made it necessary for me to file my own lawsuit against Ishi Press International. I filed that suit in Los Gatos Small Claims Court in October, 1994. The name of that case is Sloan v. Ishi Press International, AS94203278. A trial was held in January, 1995 and a judgment in the amount of $5020.00 was awarded in my favor. Ishi Press International appealed. A trial de novo was held by Judge Flaherty of the Santa Clara County Superior Court on June 30, 1995 as Sloan v. Ishi Press International, Case Number CV748564. Again, I was awarded a judgment in the amount of $5020. This time, there was no further right of Ishi Press International to appeal.
6. Ever since I was awarded a judgment against Ishi Press International, I have been bombarded with extortion threats originating from Hartland Snyder and from Anton Dovydaitis. These letters threaten me with criminal prosecution unless I agree to sign papers to recant the judgment. They also imply that the judgment in my favor was somehow corruptly obtained.
7. These threatening letters have stated that Hartland and Anton are filing criminal charges against me, that I will be arrested and prosecuted soon, that police reports are being made against me and so on. These letters state that all this will continue until I sign papers recanting the judgment which has been awarded in my favor. "There is no need to make the Judge or anyone else aware," states one of the letters from Hartland Snyder.
8. Many of these letters have not been sent directly to me. Instead, some of them have been publicly posted on the Internet, under the newsgroup rec.games.go. As you may be aware, there are more than 30 million regular users of the Internet. There are an estimated 10,000 or more readers of rec.games.go. Other letters have been sent to third parties and eventually forwarded to me.
9. These threats constitute extortion. Here is a sample from one of these letters. This letter was from Hartland Snyder to Richard Bozulich and was dated August 20, 1995:
"Sloan must recant his victory in small claims court and you must admit that your claims against Ishi-US were in error and sign various agreements holding Ishi-US, its management, and directors harmless.
"If those things do not occur there will be no agreement until you are permanently removed as editor of Go World and relieved of any other position within Kiseido. Once you are dismissed I would presume that Kiseido, Ishi-US, and Ishi-Ltd will rather quickly develop a working relationship and continue selling your books until appropriate substitutes can be found. Then the rights to your books would be freely returned to you.
"If Sloan does not cooperate and willingly sign similar agreements there are probable consequences. Sloan gets prosecuted for acting as your attorney while trying to appear to the court as a injured author. You find other highly remunerative employment or go bankrupt after which Mitsubishi Bank finds that you deceived them in order to obtain the export loan, tells the Japanese authorities, and you are prosecuted.
"These are not threats. You were disloyal to the creditors, customers, employees, and investors of Ishi-US and Ishi-Ltd. Sloan has been your accomplice. Significant damage has been done. While we do not wish to be vindictive we need to be certain that you and he are legally constrained from making allegations and acting to our detriment again. This can be accomplished either by agreement or we can prosecute or help prosecute you and Sloan so that it will be very difficult for you or Sloan to prevail in the future."
10. Previously, Hartland had written similar letters, building up to this. For example, Hartland's letter dated August 18, 1995 stated the following:
"Dear Richard,
"I have another immediate problem, Mr. Sloan. I am going to have to file further legal action to stop his collecting the $5,000 he was able to win from us. ...
"It would be best if Sloan were simply to recant his suit in such a way that Ishi-US is totally absolved. I am sure you can make this happen. Any number of options are probably available. Sloan could provide the judge with information supporting our assertions and asking that the award be dropped. There is no need to make the Judge or anyone else aware.
"Sloan is a worthy competitor, he won. I want him on my side.
"I'm sure Sloan can, if he wants to, both halt the collections and initiate the necessary court action, tomorrow."
11. There have been many such letters. Here is a letter I received, dated August 26, 1995:
"I also guarantee that they are going to file criminal charges against you. .... There is no doubt in my mind that if you go to Singapore, you will be nabbed at the airport upon your return. Perhaps a trip to Guam on the way back would forestall that. They won't want to pay the money to extradite you across the Pacific, but who knows."
12. In addition to these threats, postings have been made on the Internet that I have threatened to physically harm Anton Dovydaitis (which is completely untrue). Here is something which was posted by Anton publicly on the Internet on rec.games.go on August 8, 1995:
"Yes, but then you aren't getting threatening letters sent to your home, spending time filling out police reportts, or explaining to your wife why she has to pack and get ready to move while I'm away at the Go congress, and to be careful answering the door while I'm gone."
13. That was a follow up to a previous posting by Anton a few days before, which stated in part:
"Date: Friday, 4 August 1995 11:35:25 PDT
........
"However, far more disturbing are the personal threats Sloan has recently made towards me. Last week, Sloan addressed a letter to me personally, demanding that I immediately supply him with a cashier's check for $5,000, warning me that otherwise I would face 'dire consequences.' Understandably, my wife and I are quite upset by this, and we have filed a report with the police. Remembering that Mr. Sloan is a convicted felon, my wife and I no longer feel secure in our home, and so we will be moving some time after the Go Congress. Because this harassment would not have occurred had I not been working for Ishi Press, Ishi has agreed to help pay for my moving costs."
15. On December 3, 1995, just one week ago, Anton Dovydaitis sent me the following letter:
"I do not care about you, the future of Chines [sic] Chess in America, the status of any supposed legal actions you claim to be involved with, your relation with Richard Bozulich, etc., etc. You are an annoying little primate with barely enough social skills to dress, and no concept of courtesy to others. I hope I never see you or your piss stained suit ever again."
"I wish you the pathetic and meaningless life you richly deserve.
"Without regards,
"Anton Dovydaitis anton@infoserv.com"
16. Meanwhile, I have never been able to recover the $5,000 money judgment which has been awarded to me by two different courts.
17. On page 4 in his declaration filed in this court, Hartland Snyder makes the following statement:
"In the fall of 1993, Plaintiff sent a letter, on Ishi Press letterhead, to a competitor, Sidney Yuan, in which Plaintiff threatened to kill him. The competitor circulated that letter among prominent members of the GO community in the United States."
18. Upon reading this allegation, I placed a telephone call to Sidney Yuan at his home in Fremont, California. I told Mr. Yuan about what Hartland had written. Mr. Yuan replied that it is absolutely a lie. Mr. Yuan said that he never gave copies of the alleged "death threat" to any body, other than to the FBI and to the local police.
19. Mr. Yuan further stated that in early January, 1994, he did receive a threatening letter which he believed at the time came from Richard Bozulich. Mr. Yuan made complaints both to the local police and Attorney General's Office and to the F.B.I. However, only about two weeks later, Mr. Yuan, to his great surprise, received a telephone call from Richard Bozulich, who stated that he had just flown in from Japan, was in San Jose Airport and wanted to meet him. In spite of his great apprehension, Mr. Yuan did in fact go and meet Mr. Bozulich. Subsequent to that meeting, Mr. Bozulich started regularly publishing articles written by Mr. Yuan in Go World Magazine. As a result, Mr. Yuan has since concluded that the "threat" he received was not serious and possibly was meant as a joke.
20. Mr. Yuan further stated that several months ago Anton Dovydaitis sent him several requests asking for a copy of the letter. Mr. Yuan refused to send it to him. Later Chris Kirshner (phonetic spelling) of the American Go Association called Mr. Yuan and asked for a copy of that letter. Mr. Yuan also refused to give it to him.
21. Mr. Yuan states that he has never given a copy of this letter to anyone other than to members of the law enforcement agencies, including the police and the FBI and a person in the AG's office. Mr. Yuan further states that he has no idea how Hartland Snyder was able to obtain a copy of this letter.
22. In an e-mail letter to me dated November 17, 1995, Mr. Yuan stated:
"I was quite amazed that Hartland claimed
"Thanks again,
"Sid"
23. I was in Japan for about one week ending on October 3, 1995 and I visited the office of Takashiro Yoshikawa, the President of the Japan Computer Go Association. There, I happened to see a letter lying around the office which I was able to recognize as the letter in question. From another letter which accompanied it, I was able to determine that the allegedly threatening letter had been mailed to Japan by Hartland Snyder. I also saw correspondence which Hartland Snyder had written both to Mr. Yoshikawa and to John Power, who is the former editor of Go World Magazine and the author, editor or translator of numerous books on the game of go and other subjects. These letters from Hartland asked Mr. Yoshikawa and Mr. Power to disconnect themselves from Richard Bozulich and to have him fired as editor of Go World Magazine.
24. The allegedly threatening letter I saw did not contain the signature of anybody. The letter could have been mailed by almost anybody. At least a dozen different people could have had the information necessary to compose that letter and the motive to want to mail that letter, including Hartland Snyder himself. I do not remember the exact details of the letter and I did not make a copy, but the general gist of it was that Mr. Yuan should go into some kind of partnership with Mr. Bozulich or else "I will kill you."
25. I have not read the case law in this area, but I suspect that this letter would not constitute a death threat in the legally accepted meaning of the term. In the first place, the letter was written in a joking, sarcastic style and I feel that it would be difficult for any reasonable person to consider this to be a serious threat. In addition, Mr. Bozulich states emphatically that he did not mail the letter and that he does not know who did. I have my own opinions on this subject but I will not state what those opinions are. In any event, it is apparent that there has never been any active investigation by the law enforcement authorities of this letter and that Mr. Yuan and Mr. Bozulich, in spite of being competitors, are now on friendly terms.
26. It is also apparent that Hartland Snyder has been actively circulating this letter. Not only has Hartland Snyder mailed copies of this letter to Takashiro Yoshikawa and to John Power in Japan, but he has also quite obviously circulated that letter among prominent members of the GO community in the United States. In short, the allegation which Hartland Snyder makes of others is actually true of himself. I had numerous conversations with Hartland Snyder in October and November 1994 and at every one of these conversations, Hartland Snyder stated: "Richard Bozulich threatened to kill Sidney." In fact, the only person whom I have ever heard bring up this letter was Hartland Snyder himself. Had Hartland Snyder not repeatedly mentioned this letter, I would not know about this to this day.
27. It is apparent that Hartland Snyder regards both Richard Bozulich and Sidney Yuan to be his competitors. Hartland has stated that he intends to "gobble up" Mr. Yuan's small book publishing company, which is Yutopian Enterprises in Fremont. I have also found out that Hartland Snyder has written a letter to Ing Chang Ki, a wealthy philanthropist in Taiwan, asking him to stop subsidizing both Mr. Bozulich and Mr. Yuan. In short, Mr. Snyder is trying to damage the reputations of both of his two main competitors by circulating death threats through the U.S. Mail. I suspect that his actions in doing this may be illegal.
28. I have also found out that Chris Kirshner (phonetic spelling) of the American Go Association dis-invited Richard Bozulich from attending the Annual Congress of the American Go Association held in Seattle in August, 1995, because of the allegations he had heard from Hartland Snyder and Anton Dovydaitis that Richard Bozulich had threatened to kill Sidney Yuan.
29. Returning to my own situation, Mr. Fred Lorenzino, a mutual friend of both myself and Hartland Snyder, informs me that in October, 1995, he received a call from Hartland Snyder, who told him that I had threatened to kill Anton's wife and Anton as well and that the poor woman was mortally afraid that I was going to kill them both.
30. I have never remotely threatened Anton or his wife. In fact, I have only met Anton twice and I did not even know that he had a wife. I have been extremely cautious and correct in my dealings with these people. It has been my observation that both Mr. Bozulich and Mr. Sidney Yuan have been exceptionally cautious in dealing with them as well. Common sense and a knowledge of human experience dictates that if a person states repeatedly and without foundation that you are trying to kill him, then the truth may be that probably he is trying to kill you or at least is thinking about it. I cannot think of even the slightest reason that I might have for wanting any harm to come either to Anton Dovydaitis or to Hartland Snyder. All I want is to collect the $5,000 judgment which has been rightfully awarded to me by two different courts.
31. At the same time, only last week, I received a completely unprovoked letter from Anton Dovydaitis which stated: "You are an annoying little primate with barely enough social skills to dress, and no concept of courtesy to others. I hope I never see you or your piss stained suit ever again."
32. A normal person, upon receiving such a letter, would react. However, I happen to be an exceptionally level headed person and have not retaliated. The fact that Anton would send me such a letter and post similar statements about me publicly on the Internet proves that he does not believe his own nonsense about me threatening to kill him and his wife.
33. In summary, the pattern seems to me to be clear. Both Hartland Snyder and Anton Dovydaitis have repeatedly sent threatening and abusive letters to people. They, then claim that those very people have sent threatening letters similar to the threatening letters which they have sent. I can produce every letter that I have ever written in my life and I have never remotely threatened anybody.
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VERIFICATION
I, Samuel H. Sloan, am not a party in the above entitled action. I have read the foregoing declaration and know the contents thereof. The same is true of my own knowledge, except as to those matters which are stated upon information and belief, and, as to those matters, I believe them to be true. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of California that the foregoing is true and correct.
Samuel H. Sloan declares under penalty of perjury under the laws of California that he is not a party to this action and that on December 11, 1995 he served the within declaration by mailing a true copy of the same to:
Howard D. Neal
________________________
DATED: December 11, 1995
From: "Anton Dovydaitis"
Organization: American Youth GO Association
Subject: Sloan, Bozulich, Ishi Press, Kiseido
Newsgroups: rec.games.go
Distribution: world
14. In fact, the "threatening letter" which I had sent to Anton was nothing more than a politely worded e-mail letter asking him to pay the judgment which had been rendered exactly one week before my letter. My letter was not sent to Anton's home, and indeed I have no idea where he lives. However, according to his subsequent postings, Anton runs Ishi Press International out of his home, so I suppose that any mail addressed to Ishi Press International would go to his home.
that I circulated the death-threat letter
in the go community. I can testify against
that in court if necessary.
Samuel H. Sloan
December 10, 1995
--------------------------
Samuel H. Sloan
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
6200 Antioch Street, Suite 202
Oakland, California 94611
Samuel H. Sloan
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