USCF
U. S. Chess Federation
www.uschess.org
PO BOX 3967
CROSSVILLE, TN 38557-3967
Phone: (931) 787 - 1234
Fax: (931) 787 - 1200
August 2, 2006

Mr. Sam Sloan
1664 Davidson Ave., Apt. 1 B
Bronx, NY 10453

Dear Sam,

This letter is to inform you that Grant Perks has filed an Ethics
complaint against you.

Please read the enclosed material and send your written response to Pat
Knight, Executive Assistant, U.S. Chess Federation, P. O. Box 3967,
Crossville, TN 38557-3967. In order for your response to be considered
before a decision is made, it must be received no later than September
15, 2006. Andy Thall requested an additional 2 weeks be given for your
reply due to the U. S. Open being held during your 30 day reply period.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. If I can be of any
assistance, please let me know. Sincerely,

Pat Knight Executive Assistant
Enclosures


Grant S. Perks
PO Box 9830 Columbus, Ohio 43209


July 26, 2006

Ms. Pat Knight
Executive Assistant
The United States of America Chess Federation PO Box 3967
Crossville, Tennessee 38557

Dear Pat,

Attached are various excerpts from forum postings at uschess.org. In
these postings Sam Sloan, a candidate for the USCF executive board,
makes statements that he knew or should have known to be false. In my
opinion these statements were libelous in nature as they defamed my
character and were made with reckless disregard for the truth. I have
underlined and printed in bold the text of the post that I find the
most malicious.

In Mr. Sloan's statements he alleges that I was fired twice by the
USCF, that I am a current employee of the USCF, and that I broke
federal and state laws in my position as acting CFO of the USCF. He
also charges me with responsibility for financial losses of the USCF.
He alleges that Beatriz Marinello as President of the USCF has
committed criminal acts in the receipt of reimbursements from the USCF
and that USCF employees will manipulate the results of the ballot count
for the executive board in favor Ernie Schlich and myself.

With regard to my employment status with the USCF, I was an employee
during August to November 2003 as Interim Executive Director and then
again as Interim CFO during January 2005 to July 2005. I did do some
consulting work during the last week of May 2006 for which I was paid
as an independent contractor. All of my employment was temporary in
nature, with an agreed duration, therefore I was never fired as Mr.
Sloan states. There was nothing illegal about the payments that were
made to Beatriz Marinello during fiscal year 2005 as far as I am aware.
In his post dated April 18, 2006, which is attached, Mr. Sloan
acknowledges that I am a former employee and that I was never fired.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter. Should you have
any questions I can be reached at or 614-774-2532.

Sincerely,
Grant S. Perks

Grant S. Perks
PO Box 9830 Columbus, Ohio 43209



Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 6:06 pm

Right now, at this very moment, Grant Perks is sitting in the USCF
office in Crossville Tennessee doing work for the USCF for which he is
being paid at standard rates by the USCF.

Grant Perks is an employee of the USCF. It is as simple as that.

If you chose to continue to try to evade the law by insisting that he
is only a paid consultant and therefore can run for the board, you are
heading yourself and the USCF into serious legal problems.

But there is more, much more.

Grant Perks and Ernie Schlich are the official candidates of the USCF
Office. Some of the employees, who are the co-workers of Ernie Schlich
and Grant Perks, will be counting the ballots. How can those of us
candidates who are not employees of the USCF feel confident that there
will be an honest ballot count?

In addition, a lot of the actions of Bill Hall are being questioned,
not only by me but by current members of the board, My posting on this
subject has been censored and removed from the forum. Bill Hall still
has never answered the questions of how much money he paid Beatriz
Marinello and whether she has paid any of it back. He has never
explained his signing that an "emergency" existed and therefore the
USCF needed to spend $650,000 just ten days before the term of Beatriz
Marinello expired, knowing that the newly elected board was majority
opposed to borrowing and spending this money and building that
building.

Bill Hall knows that if his candidates Perks and Schlich are elected he
will never have to answer these questions, because they are working for
him and paid by him and therefore will never ask their boss
embarrassing questions.

Sam Sloan

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 6:55 am

They used to mean something back in the old days when the board used to
follow what the delegates told them to do. However, that went out the
window when several of the recent boards just decided to completely
ignore delegate resolutions and do what they felt like doing. Just to
cite one recent example, from January 1, 2005 through March 1, 2005,
Beatriz Marinello, the USCF President, appointed herself as Chief
Operating Officer and paid herself $11,000 for her services. This was
completely illegal, a crime, since the members of the board, including
the president, are not allowed to be employed by the USCF or to receive
any money for their services.

Yet, no board member has called her on this.

In the current election we have a situation which is in some ways
worse. The byÂ*laws clearly state that no employee is allowed to run
for the board. By state and federal law, the by-laws of any
not-for-profit corporation must contain this sort of provision in order
to qualify for tax exempt status. Yet, two long time employees are
running for the board in this election, claiming that they are not
"employees" but merely "consultants". This sort of evasion of the clear
intent of the law jeopardizes the tax exempt status of the USCF. The
same people who allowed Beatriz Marinello to take $11,000 of USCF dues
money are now backing these candidates. There is absolutely, nothing,
nothing at all, that the delegates will be able to do to stop these two
candidates from lining their own pockets if they are elected.

Sam Sloan

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 4:40

I am glad that you have admitted that Beatriz Marinello paid herself
$13,926.00 during 2005. You are in a position to know that since you
were the USCF's accountant.

This payment was a violation of the by-laws and therefore a crime under
Illinois Corporate law. The USCF by-laws state in pertinent part:

Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:11 pm

Post subject: Grant Perks paid Beatriz Marinello most of the $13,926.00

I had been trying to figure out why Grant Perks would defend the
obviously exorbitant amount of $13,926.00 which Beatriz Marinello took
for her expenses in 2005, when suddenly I remembered that she took most
of that money while Grant Perks was CFO.

When Beatriz Marinello took over as USCF President in August 2003,
Frank Niro immediately resigned as Executive Director. Grant Perks was
appointed in his place.

However, Perks only lasted a few months before he was fired by Beatriz.
I was surprised at this because Perks seems to be a nice guy who knows
what he is doing. However, one board member told me privately, "Perks
was terrible. He didn't do anything."

(No. I am not willing to reveal who said that, but that is a real
quote.)

Perks was replaced by Bill Goichberg. Goichberg later appointed Ken
Thomas as his CFO.

The problem was that Ken Thomas was a real hard-assed #### who would
not give Beatriz Marinello any significant amount of money. Some flimsy
excuse about it being prohibited by the by-laws.

Beatriz then appointed Grant Perks as the Chief Financial Officer,
which seemed odd because Beatriz had fired Perks as Executive Director
one year earlier. However, as it turned out Grant Perks was a much
better Chief Financial Officer than Ken Thomas had been because,
whereas Thomas had refused to give Beatriz any money, while Perks was
there, his checkbook was always open for her. Perks was a real sweet
guy and any time Beatriz wanted money, Perks was always there to give
it to her.

Since both Perks and Beatriz had check signing authority it is not
known to us outsiders who signed the checks, but one thing is certain
is that it was not the VP of Finance, who is supposed to oversee these
matters, because the VP of Finance had written a letter dated January
2005 stating that he had reenlisted　in the National Guard and had
volunteered to go fight in Iraq. He has not been heard from since.

Strangely, in spite of giving all this money to Beatriz Marinello, she
eventually fired Grant Perks again anyway.

One wonders why.

Under these circumstances, it is fairly clear why Perks would want to
be elected to the board.

Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 4:01 am

Your claim to have spoken to Tim Hanke is not good enough. The by-laws
require that the VP of Finance "sign-off" on all payments to the
President. That means that in order for these payments to be legal,
there must be a piece of paper bearing the signature of Tim Hanke
authorizing Grant Perks, CFO, to pay $13,926.00 to Beatriz Marinello.

Do you have such a signed document? Can you produce it? If so, kindly
post this document on the BINFOS. If you cannot produce any such
document, you need to pay back the $13,926.00 you improperly paid to
Beatriz Marinello.

Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 8:35 am Dear Joel,

With all due respect, you are new to the USCF and to chess and do not
know the history. At year end 1999 the USCF had $2 million cash and
equivalent in the LMA. We know that this money was real, that it
existed, because it was invested in a mutual. fund, the Oberweiss Fund.

By 2005 the money had vanished. It had been lost. The Oberweiss account
no longer existed. That is how we know that the USCF lost two million
dollars.

The person who has been blamed more than anybody for this loss of $2
million is your friend Don Schlutz. However, it is clear that Don had
little or nothing to do with these losses. Don just met four times a
year with the other board members and discusｓed and voted on policy.
There is no way that he could have known what was going on in the
office and the huge losses that were being sustained, especially since
the office was reporting in quarterly and month-to-Â*month reports that
the federation was profitable.

Most of these losses have been attributed to accounting errors,
especially to improper booking of multi-year memberships. One of the
people working in the office and making there errors was Grant Perks.

You state above that his "abilities will be invaluable in the analysis
of, and setting up of controls over, our finances." Notice that you use
the term "will be". He has already been the executive director and the
chief financial officer in years past. When he occupied those positions
in those years, that was when he should have been making "the analysis
of, and setting up of controls over, our finances." He did not do a
good job then. That is in part why we lost two million dollars. Why do
you think he will do a good job now?

By contrast, during the period when Ken Thomas was CFO the USCF was
hugely profitable. Beatriz Marinello and her hatchet man Stan Booz
viciously attacked Ken Thomas daily. Thomas finally left and Beatriz
brought back Grant Perks who had been fired by Beatriz previously. That
is when the losses started again.

There was no reason why the USCF needed to lose $2 million. For
approximately the decade leading up to 1999 the USCF consistently had
revenues of $3.5 million per year. Check the figures. With $3.5 million
coming in, there is no way that competent management should have lost
any money at all, much less two million dollars.

I recommend that you ask around and learn more about this history
before deciding whom to endorse.

Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:05 am

This all sounds very well and good and downright reasonable, except for
the fact that it was announced at the ballot count in New Windsor on
July 23, 2005 that Grant Perks had been fired in a telephone conference
call on July 20, 2005.

Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:48 pm

This was the subject of much discussion at the ballot count. Everybody
else heard that Grant Perks had been fired. I am surprised that you did
not hear it.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:53 pm

I do not know whether Grant Perks was working for the USCF when DeFeis
was there but I do know that Grant Perks has done accounting work on
and off for several　years.

I also know that during those years the USCF lost two
million　dollars.　Obviously, it was because of the accountants that
these losses　occurred because had we known it we would have fired a
substantial part of our obviously bloated 43 person staff.

So, Grant Perks does bear some part of the blame and for that reason he
should not be a candidate for election.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:53 pm

The case I am planning to file will be called Sam Sloan vs. Grant Perks
and Beatriz Marinello. I will be suing on behalf of the USCF in a
derivative suit to recover the $13,926 that Grant Perks improperly gave
to Beatriz Marinello and to remove Grant Perks from the ballot.

I have not drafted the complaint yet, so this is not finalized but I do
not plan to make the USCF a defendant and therefore the USCF will not
have to hire an attorney.

They can just leave Grant Perks to twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

Sam Sloan


Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:14 am

But this is not an even deal, because you are running this time
illegally, and I am getting ready to file a court case against you in
court in Illinois to knock you out of this election and also to revoke
your CPA license if you do not voluntarily withdraw your illegal
candidacy.

Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 9:44 am

What Grant Perks is doing on the other hand is completely illegal and
100% improper.

Even more illegal was the act of Beatriz Marinello of appointing
herself Chief Financial Officer while she was also President. For that
and her other acts she is entitled to jail time, in my opinion.

Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 11:28 am

I mean we already know that this election is rigged in favor of Perks
and Schlich. It is perfectly obvious that when two regular office
employees are running against three outside candidates and especially
when the three outsiders are going to probably want to fire a few
people and change some of the office procedures if they win and
especially when the office staff is going to be counting the ballots,
anybody can just figure out what the result is likely to be. How stupid
do we think anybody is?

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:44 pm

The Delegates Call has arrived and it reports on page 14 the payment to
Beatriz Marinello of a whopping $4,993.64 paid during the fiscal year
ending May 31, 2006.

Since the term of Beatriz Marinello as President ended with her ouster
as President on August 14, 2005, it is apparent that almost all of this
$4,993 must have been taken between May 31 and August 14, 2005.

Thus, it seems that Beatriz Marinello was paid a total of $18,919.00 in
just one year. Since she was a volunteer, she was not supposed to have
been paid anything at all, except for actual expenditures that she
could document.

Almost all of these payments were made while Grant Perks was CFO. Grant
Perks was ousted on July 20, 2005, so some of the money may have been
paid after that, but still Grant Perks bears responsibility for most of
these payments. Perks is running for election now. If he is elected, we
can forget about getting the money back.

Bill Hall, who was hired by Beatriz just before her term as President
ended, has always had a soft spot for Beatriz. For example, it was
found out that Bill Hall had given Beatriz money to take a trip to
Italy, even though this payment was never authorized by the Executive
Board or by the President. One wonders if this $4,993 includes the
money she was given for her trip to Italy. Beatriz claimed that she was
going to pay back the money she received for the Italy trip. One
wonders if she ever did.

Sam Sloan

Post Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:11 am

The deadline has not passed and there are five certified candidates for
the two open slots on the USCF Executive Board. They a Mike Goodall,
Randy Hough, Grant Perks, Ernie Schlich, and Sam Sloan.

I am happy with this lineup, and not for the reasons you imagine. I am
happy because all of the candidates are very long-time chess
personalities, who have been around forever. All of them are devoted to
the betterment of chess. None of them would want anything bad to happen
to the USCF. None of them are members of slates or are fronts of
unnamed persons with hidden agendas.

For the past 30 years in almost every election there has been a
Goichberg Slate opposed by a Dubeck Slate. This has made it almost
impossible for third party candidates to be successful. However, this
year, Goichberg and Dubeck have apparently decided to sit it out. I do
not think that any of the candidates are in the pocket of or beholden
to either of them, or anybody else for that matter.

One thing that is unusual is that of the five candidates, three are
former employees of the USCF. Randy Hough, Grant Perks and Ernie
Schlich are all former employees. Ernie Schlich still works for the
USCF but on a volunteer basis only. Previously, he was Technical
Director. Grant Perks is a former Executive Director and also a former
CFO. Randy Hough was in charge of the USCF Rating System back in the
mid-1980s.

I have absolutely no objection to this. Former employees know the
federation better than almost anybody else and have much to contribute.
Moreover, none of them were fired or unceremoniously thrown out or left
under a cloud, as far as I am aware.

Frankly, if I had known how strong the field was going to be, I
probably would not have run. I just looked up Randy Hough, Grant Perks
and Ernie Schlich and I found that each of them have played in or
directed more than six hundred tournaments in the last ten years, an
amazing record.

I do not think I have much of a chance. I do hope that the big power
brokers stay out of the race this time. I hope that they let the best
man win for a change.

Sam Sloan


Pat Knight
From:
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 7:44 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: Sam Sloan Ethics Charge
Hello Pat,

Attached please find a pdf of my ethics complaint against Sam Sloan.
Bill Hall has agreed to wave the $25 filing fee. I will send a check to
the US Chess Trust.

Best,
Grant