The Laptop-Gate Affair

The Laptopgate Affair started on December 31, 2006 (New Year's Eve)
when the following statement was noticed on Frank Niro's website
chesssafari.com which was soon thereafter taken down:

http://www.chesssafari.com/SusanPolgar.htm

He wrote:

"Susan Polgar

"I don't know what to say about Susan Polgar beyond the fact that I'm
proud to call her my friend. Susan and her manager/best friend Paul
Truong intervened on my behalf when I left the Chess Federation after
my heart attack in 2003. I wanted my laptop because it had a number of
personal files on it that were important to me. It seemed like a
simple enough request. Not only did Susan and Paul approach the Board
of Directors on my behalf, they offered to pay for it! Then they drove
to New Windsor, picked up the computer, and transported it to me in
Connecticut. I have many wonderful friends but I cannot think of any
other who would have done that."

However, it soon came out that Susan and Paul had not approached the
newly elected Board of Directors. The newly elected Board of Directors
was led by Beatriz Marinello, the new president, and Tim Hanke, the
newly elected VP of Finance. They had not agreed and would never have
agreed to give Susan and Paul that laptop.

More than that, when Frank Niro, who was supposed to have been in Los
Angeles attending the USCF Delegates meeting explaining why the USCF
had lost $300,000 in fiscal year 2002-2003 when he had previously
reported that it had made a profit of $300,000, Frank Niro was instead
in "Connecticut" recovering.

It turns out that this period of "recovering" from a heart attack in
"Connecticut" consisted of playing in extremely high stakes poker
games in the Foxwoods Casino in which he reported that a poker player
had lost $35,000 in a single hand.

http://web.archive.org/web/200608112...TripReport.htm

Now, we are beginning to realize what happened to the $2 million (two
million dollars) in USCF Life Membership funds that went missing in
part during the two-year period that Frank Niro had been Executive
Director. It has been rumored that he lost it playing poker at
Foxwoods.

Susan Polgar responded on her blog as follows:
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007...t-of-2007.html
http://csarchives.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

When the new board took over in August 2003, they were not aware of
the situation. I even offered to pay for it if they refused to honor
the agreement of the previous board with Mr. Niro. However, that was
not neeeded as they agreed to give him back his laptop.

I took the laptop to Mr. Niro who was recovering from a heart attack
in Connecticut. It was the right thing to do.

In regards to personal info on the laptop, Mr. Niro had pictures of
his children in it as well as the book that he is writing to his son.

It does not matter how many times I answer, more lies will surface.

Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
www.PolgarChess.com

Monday, January 01, 2007 12:40:18 PM

However, what quickly emerged after a heated debate on this subject
was that Paul Truong and Susan Polgar had simply stolen the laptop.
They had walked off with it on August 20, 2003. They neither asked nor
received permission from anybody to take it. Nobody had seen them take
it and nobody had known what had happened to the laptop until the
posting by Frank Niro on December 31, 2006 more than three years
later.

We now know that when Susan Polgar wrote that they took the laptop to
Frank Niro in Connecticut, they actually took it to him at the Foxwood
Casino which was in Connecticut where Frank Niro was playing in a high-
stakes poker game.

Please note that the "Fake Sam Sloan", who is now known to be Paul
Truong, posted several times to the thread entitled "The Mystery of
the Computer that was taken by Miss P". The Fake Sam Sloan posted
under the address of ismailsloan @ gmail.com whereas the Real Sam
Sloan posts under sloan @ ishipress.com or samhsloan @ gmail.com

"Miss P" was of course Susan Polgar. "Miss P" and several other
euphemisms were used because under the Goichberg Rules that governed
the 2007 election campaign the word "Polgar" was not allowed to be
uttered unless it was accompanied by words of high praise for Susan
Polgar.

Sam Sloan