Posted by parhad (158.252.215.213) on September 30, 2001 at 18:34:38:
It's odd. The convention I mean... and Jackie and Atour's decision that I should be allowed to come after all, but stopped from speaking to anyone about certain subjects they wished to remain hidden, and barred from selling sculpture or raising money for the Hammurabi Monument. The Hammurabi Monument is officially sponsored by the Federation...we use their bank account to clear donations through. Atour and his wife have been working the crowds for two years now trying to raise funds and from what I hear, they still want to. To date we've all managed to raise around $84,000.00 of which $50,000.00 has gone towards the actual monument...(RELAX, the rest went to fund the making of the maquette and to pay casting costs of $1,500 for each maquette cast in bronze...though you "had me" there).
It wasn't like this was a hard and fast policy of the Federation's. I've been allowed to sell and raise funds for years now. It was cobbled together at the last minute...why? And it isn't as if they ever stopped anyone from selling before, or that they tried to stop the other four or five artists in San Jose from selling their work. And though it was a lie...something I didn't think Atour would do, that the other artists agreed to "kick-back", why wasn't I offered the same option? This wasn't any "policy" decision at all...just Jackie's whim all over again because she couldn't get her way and I suppose Atour felt beholden to her on account of she might have put him and his family on the roof of the hotel to sleep.
Why was I the only one to be singled out for this kind of arbitrary treatment? And never mind about giving me the contract to sign nine days after they drew it up and on the last night of the convention, the night I finally unveiled the sculptures and could begin to sell them. The lawyers who advised them were probably Mark Thomas and Robert Oushalem, both Immigration Lawyers who know nothing about Tort law and business practice...but who are.... FREE.
The answer to this question, the one they'll have to answer before a judge, can't be, "because we wanted to teach him a lesson." You don't mess around with someone's ability to earn his livlihood in this country on such grounds...and the judge wont understand how or when or why the Federation got into the "teaching lessons business" for this one convention, when its bylaws declare as its purpose, and its tax exempt status was granted to it, not to teach uppity sculptors lessons, but to promote Assyrian Heritage...which whatever you may think of me inside the community...I am definitely doing OUTSIDE this community.
You'd be surprised how little it costs to actually bring a case to court, to have a trial date set and supoenas issued. I might even conduct the examination, ask the questions, myself. I've always thought I would have made a hell of a lawyer, if I'd been normal. Wont it be sweet to have Jackie, Alphonse, Atour, the General manager, and a few others, have to swear to tell the truth, the WHOLE truth...sit down...and be confronted by YOORS TROOLY???
I know things they wont want to answer to...things which have a direct bearing on this entire matter...things I sure as hell am not going to repeat here...you see we figured out which IP number or whatever the damn thing is called, belongs to Jackie...and she is one of our most avid readers. You can't bring up irrelevant things in court...but you get to frame the charge in such a way as certain things which might not otherwise SEEM to be related...become central to the issue.
Jackie breached an agreement clearly made between her and I....why? Was it because she got the Fan Todds, or for a more personal reason. And if she thinks she's come up with a good answer...she has to be aware that anything she brings up is fair game on cross examination.
Why did Atour go along with her...why did his wife tell me to just come, that everything would be fine? Don't they realize that everything spoken of in private, with anyone, can be brought up in court...that I can swear to tell the truth...relate a private conversation...then call as a witness the person I claim to have been speaking with...and have THEM have to swear to tell the truth...and tell it, or LIE.
Why would the president of the Federation back Jackie up in such an obviously vindictive effort aimed solely at me...for what?? I mean what reason are they willing to give the court??? Sometimes the truth is much worse than a lie...except that if you lie it shows, judges know these things...and unless you are a good and practiced liar, which those of us who know Jackie know she is...then you could forget under pressure and let on that you lied the previous day or week...that's one reason they take down every word. And when you are caught lying, it not only destroys your credibility for everything else you've said and loses you the case...it also opens you up to a stiff penalty, for if there is one thing judges hate more than anything..one thing which makes a mockery of all the hours they spend trying to get at some "truth"...it's a willfull lie, and since they can't count on always catching a liar...brother do they come down on one when they DO catch one.
It's easy now, as it was then at the convention, to refuse to take phone calls from my lawyer, or lie some more over the phone to an official of some so-called "Artist's legal" representatives...who, by the way, can testify too...it's quite another thing to sit in court, with the judge looming above you, dressed in Black robes, with all the solemn power of the state government behind him...and reel off either lies OR truth, in this case. I don't know which is worse here.
I can't wait for their testimony. How on earth did they ever come to the conclusion that I wouldn't take them to court? You mean to tell me if someone goes down to Ford and costs Atour his paycheck for a year based on some out and out fraudulent claims...Atour would take it lying down? And if someone spread rumors that her company, Chemical Safety Technology, was involved with bogus contracts and they did all of this out of pure spite and malice, that Jackie wouldn't grab some lawyer and go all the way? (I mean in a legal sense.)
I already sued our one friggin senator and forced him to settle...though this time there wont be a settlement with him when I sue him after these other two. What made them think...what about me from just what they've seen these last two years, convinced them I'd take this sort of thing lying down when resorting to the courts is not only a right, but a sacred duty in this case?
Can they be even more clueless than we think? Do they really believe they are invincible, above the Law for one week-end every year? Where do these people come from?