THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
***********************************
Rafael I. PINKHASOV PINCHAS,
Plaintiff,
VERIFIED COMPLAINT
v. Civil Action No.:
________01CV2758_____
Jerald M. JORDAN, Donalda K. AMMONS
and John M. LOVETT,
Defendants.
************************************
I, Plaintiff, presenting my Verified Complaint, respectfully allege the
following:
1. I, Rafael I. Pinkhasov Pinchas ( "Pinchas", "plaintiff" ) is the
former Chairman of the Awards Commission of the International Committee of Sports
for the Deaf with my following residence addresses at 76-54 168 Street Hillcrest
New York 11366 USA and 6 Dadashev Kuchasi Tashkent 700015 The Republic of
Uzbekistan.
2. Upon information and belief, the International Committee of Sports
for the Deaf ( "CISS" ) is an international sports organization with its
following Home Office address at 814 Thayer Avenue Suite 350 Silver Spring
Maryland 20910 USA.
3. Upon information and belief, Jerald M. Jordan ( "Jordan",
"defendant" ) is the former President of the CISS and current CISS Honorary
Member and Member of the CISS Legal Commission with his following addresses at
814 Thayer Avenue Suite 350 Silver Spring Maryland 20910 USA ( office ) and 826
Locust Drive West River Maryland 20778 USA ( residence ).
4. Upon information and belief, Donalda K. Ammons ( "Ammons",
"defendant" ) is the CISS Secretary General and Member of the CISS Legal
Commission with her following addresses at 814 Thayer Avenue Suite 350 Silver
Spring Maryland 20910 USA ( office ) and 11617 Orchard Grove Road North Potomac
Maryland 20878 USA ( residence ).
5. Upon information and belief, John M. Lovett ( " Lovett", "defendant"
) is the CISS President and Member of the CISS Legal Commission with his
following addresses at 814 Thayer Avenue Suite 350 Silver Spring Maryland 20910
USA ( office ) and 5/42 Wright Street McKinnon Victoria 3204 Australia (
residence ).
6. Like myself, the defendants in this action - Jordan, Ammons and
Lovett - are profoundly deaf individuals and during our business dealings the
main modes of our communication were the American Sign Language, English and the
Gestuno, which is the International Sign Language of the Deaf.
7. The main charges of this Verified Complaint against defendants are
as follows:
- Violation of the CISS Constitution Rules;
- Breach of Contract;
- Breach of Trust;
- Discrimination;
- Defamation of Character;
- Conspiracy;
- Invasion of Privacy.
8. On or about February 11, 2001, the Sport Organization of the Deaf in
the Republic of Uzbekistan, which is an affiliate to the CISS and which I am a
member in good standing, nominated my name as a candidate for the CISS Executive
Committee ("CISS EC") member position for the 2001-2005 year term ( see EXHIBIT A ).
9. But, on July 21, 2001, at the 37th CISS Congress held at the Jolly
Midas Hotel 800 via Aurelio Rome, Italy, and in the presence of the delegates
from some 55 nations, Lovett, after the closed-door consultations with his
hand-picked and biased CISS Legal Commission members, abruptly removed my name
as a candidate for the CISS EC member position for the 2001-2005 term. This move
by Lovett was an unconstitutional and undemocratic one.
10. On July 29, 2001, the 37th CISS Congress delegates from 41 nations
signed a petition re: Unconstitutional Expulsion of Mr. Rafael I. Pinkhasov
Pinchas, Delegate of Uzbekistan, as a candidate for the 2001 to 2005 CISS
Executive Committee. This petition was handed to the CISS EC , including to
Lovett and Ammons. The petition cites the four rules of the CISS Constitution,
which Lovett violated regarding my candidacy for the CISS EC member position and
the petition also demands the reversal of the decision made by Lovett and free,
fair and democratic elections, in which Pinchas is allowed to participate as a
candidate ( see EXHIBIT B ).
To date, neither Lovett nor the CISS EC took any action with this petition.
11. In order to better comprehend:
a) plaintiff's and defendants' brief backgrounds;
b) what kind of service plaintiff and defendants provided on
behalf of the CISS and the deaf sports movement, including the
recently-concluded 37th CISS Congress and XIXth Deaflympic
Summer Games at Rome, Italy, and
c) how each defendant treated plaintiff through his/her CISS and
non-CISS work,
it is vitally important and appropriate for this Court to get the "picture" of
each defendant whom I dealt with.
Plaintiff Pinchas
12. I was born in 1955 and raised in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
I was educated not only in Tashkent and Moscow, Russia, but also in Washington,
D.C., USA, where in 1979 I received a B.A. degree in Economics from Gallaudet
University, the world's only liberal arts university of the deaf. In 1981 I
graduated with a M.A. degree in International Affairs from The American
University at Washington, D.C. I also attended the Russian Law School in
America.
Since my teenage years I have held varied positions in the sports world - a
soccer, table tennis and volleyball player, a referee, a coach, a promoter, an
administrator, an interpreter, a translator, a delegate, an historian and a
lecturer. Between the year of 1970 and now, I have authored over 550 articles
and columns related to the sports subject, which have been published in more
than 30 different newspapers, magazines and other publications for the deaf and
the hearing. I also authored the exclusive material on the 20 Greatest Deaf
Athletes of the Century published in the just-released 2000 CISS Year Book. In
addition, I had the honor of representing the three different countries at the
Deaflympic Games in the administrative capacity: USA ( in 1977 at Bucharest,
Romania, and 1979 at Meribel, France, as an advisor and interpreter to the Chief
of Mission ); Russia (in 1993 at Sofia, Bulgaria, as a delegate and interpreter
to the Chief of Mission), and Uzbekistan ( in 2001 at Rome, Italy, as a delegate
and the Chief of Mission). Between 1996 and 2001, I was the Chairman of the CISS
Awards Commission, whose primary task was to organize, manage and supervise the
annual selections of the World Male and Female Athlete of the Year.
The CISS
13. The CISS is a French acronym for Comite International des Sports
des Sourds. It was founded in 1924 at Paris, France. The two main functions of
the CISS are to organize the Deaflympic Summer and Winter Games every four years
as well as holding its Congress on a biannual basis. The last Deaflympic Summer
Games were held July 22- August 1, 2001, at Rome, Italy and they attracted over
3,500 athletes and officials from more than 70 countries vying in 15 different
sports. The next Deaflympic Winter Games will take place February 28-March 9,
2003, at Sundsvall, Sweden. The supreme organ of the CISS is the Congress, while
the CISS EC, composed of a President, a Vice President, a Secretary-General, a
Treasurer and four Members ( two of them representing the regions of Europe and
Asia-Pacific ), is a policy-making body. The CISS also has various Commissions
in different sports, including the Awards Commission. The official language of
the CISS is English. To date, there are 83 member-nations of the CISS. The CISS
is officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee, from which the
CISS also receives some financial assistance.
Defendant Jordan
14. Jordan was born in 1927 in the state of Michigan. The only child in
the family, he is married to a hearing woman who, before her retirement, was a
well-respected Audiology Professor at Gallaudet University. The Jordans are a
childless couple. A graduate of Gallaudet University in 1948, for many years he
was a key and influential leader of the United States Deaf Sports Federation
("USADSF" and formerly known as the AAAD). As a member of the USA delegation to
the IXth Deaflympic Summer Games held at Helsinki, Finland, in 1961, Jordan
became acquianted with the CISS and the international deaf sports movement for
the first time.
Although he never was a sportsman in action, Jordan got worldwide recognition in
1965,when he chaired the organization of the Xth Deaflympic Summer Games staged
at America's capital - Washington, D.C. In 1967 he was elected as a member of
the CISS EC and four years later, i.e., in 1971, he became the CISS President.
15. It was the late Frederick C. Schreiber, the charismatic and
long-time Executive Director of the National Association of the Deaf in USA, who
introduced Jordan to me, when I visited the campus of Gallaudet University on
July 9, 1975. On that time I was preparing to take an entrance exams at the
university, while Jordan was employed there as a mathematics teacher and
director of Talent Search project at the university Admissions and Records
Office.
16. Because Jordan and I had shared one common interest - the CISS and
the international sports affairs - we often met each other at Jordan's
windowless Admissions Office room on the university campus during my spare time
as a full-time undergraduate student between the years of 1975 and 1979. Dubbed
as an unofficial CISS presidential advisor and "think tank", I assisted on a
voluntary basis Jordan in many different and CISS-related matters: research at
the library, translation work, hosting of the foreign sports dignitaries, who
were guests of CISS President at the university campus. I also consulted Jordan
on a number of relevant issues related to the CISS: the controversial membership
of South Africa in the CISS; the earthquake crisis that threatened the staging
of the XIIIth Deaflympic Summer Games at Bucharest, Romania, in 1977; Jordan's
personality clash with the President of the Pan American Sports Organization of
the Deaf Teodoro Manzanedo of Argentina ( the personality conflict between these
two men was one of the key reasons that led to the cancellation of the Second
Pan American Games for the Deaf at Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic in 1979
); the dispute between Jordan and the French organizers of the 1979
DeaflympicWinter Games - Marcel Alie and Armand Pelletier, who were reluctant to
cover the free airfare package for Jordan's trip to these Games, which were held
in Meribel, France; the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which led to the change of
the site of the XIVth Deaflympic Summer Games from Tehran, Iran, to Cologne,
Germany.
17. The first sign of uneasiness between Jordan and myself occurred on
May 5, 1978, when Art Kruger ( "Kruger "), the founding President of the USADSF
and Jordan's lifelong arch-enemy, successfully wooed me, then a 23 year-old
Soviet-born Gallaudet junior student, into his camp by appointing me as his
Secretary/Public Relations Director of the USA Deaflympic Games Committee (
previously known as the USA AAAD/WGD Committee ). Jordan was not very happy when
he learned I agreed to work for Kruger, who was America's most powerful deaf
sports administrator and long-time Chairman of the USA Deaflympic Games
Committee.
18. Another sign of of my gradually deteriorating relationship with
Jordan was when on January 27, 1979, the French Sports Federation of the Deaf
hosted a banquet in honor of the foreign delegates and officials attending the
IXth Deaflympic Winter Games at the mountainous and snowy town of Meribel. There
Jordan, as a newly re- elected CISS President, received many gifts from the
foreign delegations, which made Kruger and his USA Deaflympic Games Committee
Treasurer, James Barrack, to repeatedly remind Jordan that the many gifts he was
receiving from the foreign delegations and the local Games Organizing Committee
now and before were the property of the USADSF, not Jordan's own personal
property. The issue was that Jordan was USADSF's representative to the CISS and
it was the USADSF that financed most of Jordan's overseas trips as the CISS
President. Kruger and Barrack also demanded Jordan to bring all the gifts he
received at Meribel and before to the attention of the delegates of the USADSF
meeting held during the 35th National Basketball Tournament at Houston, Texas,
in 1979. Because I was an innocent bystander and neutral witness of that very
unpleasant encounter between Jordan, Kruger and Barrack at Meribel, a week
later, back on Gallaudet campus, Jordan summoned me to his office room where he
scolded at me for not being supportive on his side.
19. In the early part of 1981, Kruger, then aged 70, announced that he
would completely retire from his sports administration position. Because Kruger
did a monumentally terrific job in promoting sports among the deaf in the USA
since 1945 and because he was the one who was largely responsible in bringing
the sizable USA teams to the Deaflympic Summer and Winter Games between 1957 and
1981, the general consensus among the deaf American sports community was that it
would be fitting for the CISS to award Kruger its highest honor - the Gold
Medal. However, Jordan was of a very different opinion. Jordan - a lone
dissenter - steadfastly refused to moderate his position re: Kruger in spite of
my repeated arguments, persuasive tactics and advise to him to put his personal
feelings toward Kruger aside - all futile ones.
20. Moreover, it was Jordan, who in person repeatedly vowed to me that
Kruger would never receive such a prestigious honor from his own hands as the
CISS President. I, by maintaning my lifelong philosophy of rationality and
flexibility, openness and fairness, did continue to totally disagree with
Jordan's intransigent stance. There was another huge hurdle: it was Jordan as
the CISS President, who single-handedly ( like the current CISS President Lovett
) and at his own liking and pleasure decided as to whom and when to award the
CISS Medal of Honor.
So, I, by consulting several deaf senior sports leaders, developed a strategy
which worked out well: on April 3, 1981, there was an annual meeting of the
USADSF at Buffalo, New York, and there I, by ignoring the warnings from Jordan
himself, put a motion in front of the delegates to nominate Art Kruger to be the
1981 recipient of the CISS Gold Medal. I also educated the delegates that the
person to make final decision to award such an honor was the CISS President.
Jordan was in attendance at that meeting and he was very irked and extremely
livid as to what I did there. The delegates, after the brief deliberations and
question-answer session, unanimously voted to support my motion re: the
nomination of Kruger for the CISS Gold Medal. Thus, Jordan, by swallowing his
pride and ego, had to follow as to what the USADSF Board of Directors instructed
him to do - on July 22, 1981, at the CISS Congress held at Cologne, Germany, the
foreign delegates in a standing ovation warmly applauded when a smiling and
elated Kruger at last received the CISS Gold Medal from the very hands of an
unsmiling and cold-faced CISS President.
21. The final rift that completely alienated me from Jordan was the
scene of the CISS Congress held at Cologne, on July 22, 1981. On that day, as I
described on the previous paragraph, Jordan already faced an unpleasant and
humiliating duty - he awarded the CISS highest honor to Kruger. In addition, on
that day, there was on the Congress agenda a major event - the selection of the
site of the XVth Deaflympic Summer Games in 1985. There were the three
cities-candidates - Christchurch, New Zealand, Tokyo, Japan, and Los Angeles,
USA - bidding for the rights to stage the 1985 Games. The cities of Tokyo and
Christchurch, in order to arrange the cocktail parties, to present the gifts and
to muster the votes from the Congress delegates, came to Cologne with their
respective sizable delegations, including the Mayor of Christchurch, while the
delegation of Los Angeles was composed of just two persons. One of the
individuals on the Los Angeles delegation was its chief, Herbert Schreiber, a
very close friend and confidant of Jordan.
22. At Cologne Jordan wanted very much to help his friend - Herbert
Schreiber. What he did was the following sophisticated scheme: Jordan quietly
proposed and swiftly accepted the names of the three tellers - an American ( he
was the President of the USADSF on that time ), a South African and a Belgian (
the duties of each teller included to collect the secret ballot voting slips
from the delegates and to do ballot voting count).
In order to enhance the chance of bid winning for the American city, Jordan,
himself an American, did not forget to treat the mini-scule Los Angeles
delegation preferentially - Herbert Schreiber was the last, third speaker to
present his bid case before the Congress delegates' voting start.
The ballot voting tally went out this way:
in the first round, Christchurch was eliminated;
in the second and final round Los Angeles got 37 votes, while Tokyo
received 36 votes;
2 to 7 votes were missing.
Thus, Los Angeles won the bid and was awarded the right to host the 1985 Games.
23. At the Cologne Congress I was an observer as well as a reporter for
the Silent News newspaper and I did some interpreting work for a Soviet
delegate. And I was the one who, during the customary 15 minute Congress coffee
break and before the start of the ballot voting, privately expressed my
reservations to Jordan about the highly- questionable selection of an American
as a teller because an American city - Los Angeles - was vying as a
city-candidate for hosting the 1985 Games. Plus there was an American President
of the CISS who was running the election show. These, in my strong view, were
unethical, unfair and biased acts by the CISS President. Jordan, by acting as if
he was a dictator, completely ignored my advise and he - in a rudely bellicose
manner - told me that since I was not a Congress delegate I must be shut up and
remain quiet at the Congress. Because of my outspokeness on these very sensitive
issues plus my previously successful nomination of Kruger as a CISS Gold Medal
candidate, Jordan, later on, in stages took the harassingly retaliatory steps
personally aimed at me at various times:
a) at the end of July, 1981, he clandestinely removed my name as a member of the
CISS World Records Commission in Athletics, Swimming and Shooting in lieu of the
fact that I did a well-done job on that Commission; this act by Jordan virtually
sent me into the "CISS exile", which lasted till the year of 1995, the last year
of his CISS Presidency.
b) by December of 1981, he destroyed my personal relationship with one female
companion whom he knew since her childhood;
c) between the years of 1981 and 1986, he used the CISS EC meetings to say the
unkind words about me as well as he discredited and defamed my name among the
many deaf sports leaders by publishing inflammatory and unfavorable items about
me in the CISS Bulletin issues re: the so-called Pinchas' refusal to return the
CISS historical archives to its Museum at Rome, Italy;
d) he made every effort to prevent me from being elected as the Vice President
of the USADSF during the election procedure on March 30, 1984, at Louisville,
Kentucky; c) he refused to accept publishing my various articles intended for
the CISS Bulletin.
e) he ordered someone to strip me of my journalist's press pass when I tried to
cover the XIIth Deaflympic Winter Games at Banff, Canada, on March 2,1991; g) he
made sure that my name was not on the list of the candidates to replace him as
the USADSF's representative on the CISS EC in the latter part of 1994.
24. Jordan's term as the CISS President ended in 1995, in which CISS
very gradually - and in a stagnant manner - acquired several new member-nations.
Jordan left his CISS Presidency with the three big holes - the CISS still:
a) was the world's most financially impoverished international sports
organization, b) had no home office of its own and c) had not a single staff
member on its payroll.
In spite of these and Jordan's unethical conduct and uncivilized doings
described in the above paragraphs, Gallaudet University awarded him a honorary
doctorate degree in 1994, while a year later, in 1995 the International Olympic
Committee bestowed upon him an Olympic Order.
Defendant Ammons
25. Born in 1953, Ammons comes from a deaf family - she has deaf
parents and two deaf sisters - each of whom I met at various times. While being
a 12 year-old student at the famed Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick,
Maryland, she had the privilege to witness the Xth Deaflympic Summer Games held
in 1965 at Washington, D.C. In her teenage years Ammons was a good swimmer, but
she, unlike her oldest sister Paula, did not make the USA swimming squad that
went on to compete at the XIth Deaflympic Summer Games at Belgrade, Yugoslavia,
in 1969.
26. Like Jordan and myself, Ammons, who is still a single, attended
Gallaudet University, where she graduated in 1974. It was the Gallaudet campus
that was the scene of our initial meeting at the end of 1976. Bright,
personable, talkative, knowledgeable in sports and in two foreign languages -
Spanish and Italian - that was how I admiringly encountered Ammons at my first
sight. Later on, we became befriended because I often visited the Office of
Foreign Languages ( before known as the Office of Romance Languages ) on the
campus, where Ammons was the only deaf instructor of Spanish. At that office I,
already a multilingualist, also was friends with the other non-deaf staff
members - Carole Frankel, Esther Nelson, John Delaney, Rachel Feit, Catherine
Ingold, Mark Weinberg and Linda Thompson.
27. A popular teacher at Gallaudet and a well-respected personality in
the small deaf lesbian community, Ammons often shared with me her lifelong dream
and desire to get involved in the sports administration area ( by the way,
Ammons's office desk at Gallaudet was situated few yards away from the office
room of Jordan, who by then showed his total indifference and disinterestedness
in attracting Ammons to work for him, including her possible doing of some CISS
clerical work ). Before I was appointed as the USA Deaflympic Games Committee
Secretary/Public Relations Director, there were no women serving in the
top-level spots of the major deaf sports organizations in the country.
28. In the spring of 1978, by spotting Ammons' abundant educational
background ( she also has a doctorate degree in Spanish ) and her future sports
leadership potential, including her being as a future deaf female sports
leader-role model, and in order to diversify the deaf sports administration
world by opening its door to women, I launched an all-around strategy - to get
Ammons into the sports administration. After many days and weeks of my skillful
and clandestine lobbying, left and right, the old-fashioned Kruger gave in and
embraced to my idea. Kruger instructed me to personally bring Ammons by my car
to his often-inaccessible-for-the-deaf public Richmond, Virginia-residence for
an in-person interview. And there Kruger made the big decision - he invited
Ammons to be his Spanish-language translator when Kruger was preparing to serve
another high- ranking position as the President of the COPANDES - the Pan
American Sports Organization of the Deaf. In the third week of May, 1978, Kruger
dispatched Ammons and me to Cali, Colombia, to attend the ODESCA - Central
American Deaf Sports Organization - meeting as the USA delegates. Then, later
on, Kruger, again at my urging, appointed Ammons to be his assistant on the USA
Deaflympic Games Committee. Thus, Ammons was the first woman to make her
"foothold" in then-all-the men-only-American deaf sports administration
hierarchy.
29. By gradually gaining more experience in the sports leadership and
before Kruger's death in the spring of 1992, Ammons was predictably positioned
to be the first woman ever to be chosen as the Chairperson of the USA Deaflympic
Games Committee. She also led the USA delegations to the XIIth Deaflympic Winter
Games at Banff, Canada, in 1991, and the XVIIth Deaflympic Summer Games at
Sofia,Bulgaria, in 1993. In the latter part of 1994 she was nominated to replace
Jordan as the USADSF's representative on the CISS EC. Since 1995, Ammons has
occuppied positions in the CISS: 1st Vice President ( between 1995 and 1997 );
Secretary General since 1997 and the Editor of the CISS Bulletin since 1995.
30. By fortune, Ammons, like Jordan, is a very privileged sports
administration official because, like Jordan and unlike the many former and
present CISS EC members, she does not have a problem with English - the official
language of the CISS, which is Ammons' and Jordan's primary language at their
births. In addition, like Jordan during his campus employment years, Ammons has
the convenience and the benefit of utilizing the campus facilities of Gallaudet
University at her own free will: she performs her non-
Gallaudet-business-related, sports administration activity at her campus office
premises by using the free-of-charge services such as typing, xeroxing, phone,
fax, postage mailing as well as the internet-linked computer.
Defendant Lovett
31. Born in 1943 at Melbourne, Australia, to the Polish immigrant
parents, who escaped and survived the Holocaust, Lovett studied at both the
Victorian School for the Deaf and the Brighton Grammar School, a private hearing
school. He has two hearing sons and a deaf spouse, Jill Marr, who also was a
good swimmer and who competed for Great Britain at the Xth Deaflympic Summer
Games in 1965. In his youth Lovett played various sports, including badminton
and for many years he was the most dedicated and influential leader of the
Australian Deaf Sports Federation.
32. For the first time I met Lovett was in 1977 at the 24th CISS
Congress in Bucharest, Romania, where he was a delegate for his country. A
fascinating story teller and humorist, well-knowledgeable in international
sports affairs - both deaf and hearing, it had been my delight to be in his
constant company when I travelled to attend every CISS Congress since1977,
except in 1989 and 1990. He also did a tremendous work by being the one who
pioneered the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Games for the Deaf in 1984.
33. Because of Lovett's vast knowledge of sports and his ability to
communicate in English - his mother tongue, he was a natural choice for the CISS
EC entry in 1981. From that year to the year of 1995, Lovett was the second most
powerful face in the CISS leadership.
34. Lovett, in February, 1995, achieved his long-awaited and coveted
wish: he became the CISS President. By knowing very well of my inimical personal
relationship with Jordan, Lovett, upon assuming the top CISS spot, still managed
to invite me back into the CISS sphere - mainly because of his encouragement and
my old connections with Ammons, I agreed to begin to contribute my
free-of-charge exclusive materials and columns for the CISS Bulletin.
35. In the summer of 1996, Lovett, en route to the Deaf Sports
Leadership Seminar in Mexico, made a stopover in New York, where he was warmly
greeted by my family members at my residence. When Lovett stayed at my home the
most happiest persons were my three little daughters, to each of whom Lovett
presented lovely kangaroo dolls and who, in return, fondly called Lovett as
their "new deaf Aussie uncle". Lovett also visited my 91st floor World Trade
Center skyscraper investment company office in New York City, where we discussed
my idea of establishing the now-popular annual Awards - the selections of the
World Male and Female Athlete of the Year. At that skycraper office, Lovett also
was floating with the proposal to appoint me as his CISS Presidential Chief
Advisor ( by the way, this proposal was never materialized because, as Lovett
privately confided to me on July 25, 1997 at Copenhagen, Denmark, of the stiff
opposition of the two persons - Knud Sondergaard, Jordan's long-time subordinate
and former CISS Secretary General and Jordan himself ).
36. The next encounter between Lovett and me on the American soil took
place in April 10, 1999, at Gallaudet University, where Lovett, at the beautiful
and festive luncheon arranged by the Gallaudet University Alumni Association,
was the recipient of the prestigious Edward Miner Gallaudet Award for his
outstanding contributions to the international service ( see EXHIBIT C ). There
Lovett, after receiving the Award, gave a brief speech to the packed audience -
the luncheon attendees. Among the many words he uttered on his impromptu speech
and which he used via his well-rehearsed American Sign Language and which was
videotaped, Lovett said the following " There are the four people who play the
most important roles in my life - Rafael Pinchas, Jerald Jordan, Donalda Ammons,
and my wife, Jill" . He also said, " I am on the CISS because of Jerry Jordan;
before I became the CISS President I worked under Jordan for 14 years as his
Vice President; Jerald Jordan is my mentor and teacher; if I do a bad job or if
I do anything wrong for the CISS, do blame him, Jerry Jordan".
37. At the 35th CISS Congress held in Copenhagen, Denmark,in 1997,
there were held "elections" for the four administrative positions of the CISS EC
( I put the word "election" in quotations because, in fact, there were no real
elections there for these three positions since for each position of President,
Vice President and Secretary General there were just one candidate) - Lovett was
"elected" as the CISS President, while Renzo Corti of Italy as the Vice
President and Ammons as the Secretary General. But there was no candidate
running for the Treasury position. Because my Uzbekistani delegation arrived to
Copenhagen very late, i.e., two days after the end of the Congress, and I, by
lacking proper documentation, was not able to submit my name as a candidate for
the vacant CISS Treasurer position.. Thus, such a position was left open till
December 1, 1997.
38. On October 20, 1997, per Lovett's encouragement ( see EXHIBIT D ),
the Sport Organization of the Deaf in Uzbekistan formally nominated my name as a
candidate for the CISS Treasury position ( see EXHIBIT E ).
39. On December 1, 1997, Lovett announced to the world that there were
the two official candidates for the vacant CISS Treasury position - Ole Artmann
of Denmark and myself and that the CISS EC, decided to offer the job to Ole
Artmann ( see EXHIBIT F ).
40. A very historic event occurred back in my native homeland on
September 1, 1991 as Uzbekistan, one of the 15 former republics of the
now-defunct Soviet Union, at last, gained its independence. As a result, there
were many big changes happening on that new and independent nation. There were
also the two big changes related to my life: the re-established contact between
me and my old deaf comrades, schoolmates and relatives in Tashkent as well as my
nostalgia and renewed desire to help my homeland. By utilizing my advise,
expertise and assistance in preparing the necessary documents and by submitting
these to the CISS, in 1997 Uzbekistan was finally accepted as a full-fledged
member of the CISS family.
41. Since 1997, when Uzbekistan was officially recognized by the CISS,
I have been shuttling between Uzbekistan and New York. Additionally, like in New
York, I have a residence property in Tashkent and I reside there whenever I
visit my homeland and do business there. In 1999 I was honored to be the first
ever Uzbekistani delegate at the 36th CISS Congress held at Davos, Switzerland.
A year later, in November of 2000, I was the one who organized the first ever
participation of the 30-member Uzbekistani delegation at the VIth Asia-Pacific
Games for the Deaf held at Taipei, Taiwan. There I also was one of the two
delegates of that country at the Asia-Pacific Deaf Sports Confederaion Congress.
At the urging of many foreign delegates participating at that Congress, I
accepted the nomination to be a candidate for the Asia-Pacific Deaf Sports
Confederation Executive Committee ( by the way, later on, for some reason, I
single-handedly withdrew my name from this election considerations ).
42. This past July as its Chief of Mission, I headed the 45-member
delegation of Uzbekistan to the XIXth Deaflympic Summer Games at Rome as well as
I was chosen to be one of the two delegates at the 37th CISS Congress. At that
three-day Congress proceedings, which also included the one-day Workshop
Seminar, I took, as usual, a very active and visible role.
43. At the Congress floor podium every day I spoke out on a number of
important and touchy issues. One of the hotly-debated issue at the Congress was
the ongoing suspensions of the nations - Turkey and Norway. The CISS EC led by
Lovett and Ammons, by following the CISS Constitution rule ( both of these
countries violated rules in the Constitution ), wanted to ban these two nations
from participating at the Rome Games as well as to strip of the voting
privileges of the Turkish and Norwegian delegates at the Congress. Since Lovett
and Ammons, in my own view, incompetently and indifferently handled the
Turkish-Norwegian question before the start of the Congress and by recognizing,
among the other things, the valuable historical contribution of these two
nations to the CISS movement before, I made a rationally impassionated plea to
the Congress delegates to allow these two nations to take part at the Games and
the Congress. A compromise deal at the Congress, to much cheers and relief of
the Turkish and Norwegian delegates, was reached - the athletes would be allowed
to compete for the medal events, while the delegates would have an observer
status, without the right to vote at the Congress. When a deal was reached , the
elated Turkish delegate - who, later on, would become an "elected" CISS EC
member - personally approached and thanked me.
44. Again, as in 1997, there was a communist-style, one candidate
"election" for the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary General and
Treasurer, in which Lovett, Renzo Corti, Ammons and Ole Artmann were "elected"
at the Rome Congress, respectively. There was supposed to be held a real
election for the two positions in the EC member's category as there were six
candidates, including myself. But the "just-re-elected President" Lovett, who
also began to behave as if he was the just newly-acquired proprietor of the
CISS, did the unthinkable and the unbelievable, which became the core and the
crux of this ongoing lawsuit.
45. Of the six candidates for the CISS EC member position - the two
withdrew ( Renzo Corti of Italy and Isabelle Malaurie of France ). Thus, the
four - an Indonesian, a Turkish, the incumbent Czech, Voitech Volejnik, and
myself - were left. Somehow, for an unclear reason, Lovett, who presided at the
floor podium, removed the name of an Indonesian from the election running. So,
as a result, the three names were left for the two vacant positions in the CISS
EC member category. Before the planned election, I was the only one of the six
candidates to distribute to the Congress delegates my one-page VOTE FOR RAFAEL
I. PINKHASOV PINCHAS FOR CISS EC-MEMBER campaign leaflet ( see EXHIBIT G ).
Everything was set ready for the distribution of the ballot voting slips to the
delegates by the three appointed tellers from the USA, Canada and the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. And, most importantly, the entire proceedings of the Congress were
videotaped by the local Games Organizing Committee.
All of a sudden, ( as I began to quickly sense that it was in advance a
well-planned plot by Lovett and Ammons against me ),a delegate of Australia -
David Peters - came up and went to the floor podium.There David Peters raised
the issue of the so-called candidate Pinchas' possession of the four different
foreign passports. To my much shock and disgust, Lovett, while Ammons - "my
another true friend" - nervously watched and remained mum, did nothing to dump
the false, concocted and provocative representation irresponsibly made by his
own compatriot, David Peters, at the Congress floor podium.
Additionally, to my much amazement and disbelief, Lovett, who called me as "one
of the four persons to play important role in his life " on April 10, 1999,
publicly uttered the unfavorable and unfriendly things about me in front of the
Congress, which was tantamount to the fact that Lovett wanted me to completely
get out of the election considerations. However, a number of the delegates spoke
out at the floor podium by pleading Lovett, among the other things, to let the
Congress delegates to decide the Pinchas matter, not Lovett alone. But, Lovett
suppressively ignored this plea and decided to go his own way - he ordered to
take a 15-minute coffee break, in which he convened a special meeting of his
CISS Legal Commission at a separately closed-door location. That Commission
consisted of the four members - Lovett, Ammons, Jordan and Rebecca Adam, a young
Sydney, Australia lawyer, and a Lovett loyalist. What was discussed on that
meeting is still unknown, but one thing was certain that the four
Lovett-hand-picked Commission members were the staunchly anti-Pinchas
co-conspirators.
46. After the end of the cofee break, the delegates returned to their
table chairs and there Lovett made a vaguely worded statement by hastily
announcing that " Pinchas, a New York, America, resident, is ineligible to run
for the election and that the two remaining candidates - a Czech and a Turkish -
are automatically elected to the CISS EC member positions for the next four
years" ( what was shocking and astonishing was that Lovett, with the consent and
blessings of his anti-Pinchas CISS Legal Commission members, purposefully and
intentionally committed major violations in the CISS Constitution, Rules 8.1.1.1
and 8.2: a Turkish delegate was "elected" as a new CISS EC member in spite of
the fact that early at the Congress it was voted that that the two nations,
including Turkey, would be limited to an observer status; thus, from the legal
point of view, a Turkish representative was not supposed to run for any CISS EC
position as long as his National Sports Assoociation was not in the full
compliance of the CISS Constitution ).
47. When the announcement to exclude me from the election running was
made, I got up and directly went to confront Lovett in front of the floor
podium. During our face-to-face showdown in the eyes of all the Congress
delegates from some 55 nations and guests, including Liisa Kauppinen, the
President of the 123 member-nations World Federation of the Deaf from Finland, I
told Lovett that I protested his decision and that I requested him to provide
the valid reason of my election removal in a written letter form. An angry and
insecure Lovett retorted back by creating the obnoxiously and scaringly
intimidating atmosphere at the Congress room and by uttering the following words
that were pointed directly at me, "Get out of this room", "You are threatening
me", "You are thrown out of this room". Deeply offended and emotionally
chagrined, painfully deceived and wholly betrayed by Lovett's entirely
well-planned act, I, by still maintaining my cool composure and strong will,
went back to my table chair.
48. Immediately after I sat down on my chair, a horrible incident
occurred at the already-tense room - Sean Kelly, a delegate from Ireland and my
friend and supporter, abruptly collapsed from his table and chair to the floor
and suffered a heart attack. Everybody at the room was in a high state of panic
and confusion. The Congress , by not finishing its work, closed down. And for
the first time in the 77 year-old CISS Congress history - there was a human loss
on its very premises: Sean Kelly died.
49. In spite of the Kelly death, the CISS, led by Lovett and Ammons,
went on to attend a celebratory event - the President's Night Banquet - on the
same day of July 21,2001 in the evening. On that event, I performed my duties as
the Chairman of the Awards Commission, in which, by acting as if nothing
happened between me and Lovett earlier in the day, I, with my usual tact and
diplomacy, along with Lovett participated in the Awards show presentation. The
second and last function as the Awards Commission Chairman I performed at Rome
was on July 25,2001 at the poolside of the Stadio del Nuoto, where Lovett, Renzo
Corti and I presented the trophies to Terence Parkin, a swimming sensation from
the Republic of South Africa and the 2000 CISS-Widex World Male Athlete of the
Year Award winner.
50. Although I was widely credited with the concept of organizing the
annual Selections of the World Male and Female Athlete of the Year, I have just
received the the unpleasant news: Lovett dismissed me as the CISS Awards
Commission Chairman.
51. It is my position that Lovett, in concert with Ammons, committed
such an irresponsible and vengeful act for the two reasons: I did not heed his
call when Lovett, by treating me like a child , wrote in his April 18,2001,
e-mail letter to me, in which he mentioned the following sentence, " I am not
very comfortable with your ( CISS EC ) candidature" ( see EXHIBIT H ), and the
July 29,2001 petition letter signed by 41 nations, which enraged Lovett a great
deal.
52. In retrospect, the annual Awards is a success story. Not only it
gave the worldwide recognition to the best and deserving deaf elite athletes,
who won the Awards between 1996 and 2000, but it also everywhere upgraded the
image and the prestige of a deaf athlete in general and the deaf sports movement
in particular. For instance, the previous Award winners, upon winning the
coveted Award trophies, got the recognition from the mass media, the government
and even from the royal palace.
Let me cite the three randomly-selected cases:
a) in 1997, Dawn Birley, a taekwondo star from Canada and Gallaudet University
student, after winning the 1996 World Female Athlete of the Year Award title,
received wide exposure in the TV and media, including in the Washington Post
newspaper, the ears and the eyes of the White House;
b) in 1999, an outstanding nordic skier, Tone Myrvoll of Norway, the 1998 World
Female Athlete of the Year Award winner, got a splendid treatment from the King
of Norway, who awarded to her his royal medal of honor. Myrvoll also received a
lucrative cash stipendium from her own country's National Olympic Committee;
c) in 2000, it was Viktor Yuzhaninov, a nordic skiing standout from Russia and
the 1999 World Male Athlete of theYear Award top vote getter, who got the
attention of his own government. Yuzhaninov, by a special decree of the
President of Russian Federation, was the first deaf athlete from his big nation
ever to receive the highest Kremlin honor - the Medal of Friendship.
In order to justify the selections' picks annually, as the Commission Chairman,
I performed an uneasy and complex task: careful monitoring of the sporting
activities of every potential nominee for the Award throughout the year ( in the
last five years there were over 125 different nominees from more than 40 various
nations ) via the internet and other publications. This non-compensatory
monitoring job I did with much prudency, perseverance and expertise every day
for the last five years. For that job, which also included preparation of the
nomination material package, compliance of the nomination form submission
deadline, fact verification on each nominee's background, collection of each
nominee's photos, announcing the names of the Award winners in a timely manner,
supervision of the nine-member international Selections panel, etc., I always
received high marks from everyone, including from Lovett and Ammons themselves.
The two also were in awe when I smoothly organized, managed and supervised
another unique and uneasy project - the selections of the Deaflympic Games
Athlete of the Century and the Deaf Olympian of the Century in 2000 and 2001.
For all the nice things I did, suddenly I got a disrespectful, insulting and
harsh treatment directly from Lovett and Ammons: in spite of the fact that I
performed a well-done job on the two CISS-related functions, they, unlike in
1997 and 1999, refused to cover my accomodation expenses at Rome. Then, at the
end of August, 2001, Lovett and Ammons found a way to unceremoniously and
ungratefully dump me from the position of the Chairman of the CISS Awards
Commission. And they did so for a sole reason: because I refused behave like
their "a yes-man" and their puppet.
53. By denying me the opportunity to run for a CISS EC elective
position, the following acts were committed:
VIOLATION OF THE CISS CONSTITUTION RULES
Number A. Rule 10.4.2 ( All members of the Executive Committee
must be a deaf person fluent in international signs ).
Lovett's position: During the Pinchas election debate matter, he treated me as
an alien person or persona-non-grata to the CISS and the deaf sports movement at
the Congress floor premises; therefore, in his view, I was an unfit candidate
for the CISS EC position.
Fact: I am a very profoundly deaf person and wholly fluent in international signs.
Argument: Everyone in the deaf sports world knows of my profound deafness
handicap as well as my fluency in the international sign language.
Number B. Rule 10.4.3 ( The Executive Committee shall
consist of persons who are members of the National
Association of their country of residence admitted to
Full Membership by virtue of this Constitution ).
Lovett's position: Provided the vaguely worded statement like "Pinchas, a New
York, America, resident". In addition, in order to "legitimize" his above
statement, he got a well-planned "supporting act" from an Australian CISS
Congress delegate, David Peters - the only one delegate - to raise the issue of
the four foreign passports Pinchas possessed.
Facts: I own home residences in Uzbekistan and USA, therefore, I am a dual
resident. Whenever necessary, as a free human being and by having my
prerogative, I consider my residence in Uzbekistan as my primary one with the
mailing address with my name on it. I was born, reared and educated there. My
familial roots are in Uzbekistan. I have the two citizenships and the two
foreign passports. Since the National Sports Association of Uzbekistan nominated
me for the position, I was viewed as a resident of Uzbekistan and Uzbekistan's
candidate for the CISS EC position. In 1997, the CISS had no problem, when I was
nominated for the CISS Treasury position with the support received from the same
National Sports Association of Uzbekistan, in which I was automatically viewed
as a resident of Uzbekistan.
Arguments:
Number One - There was no problem for the CISS ( and for Jordan, when he began
serving on the CISS EC in 1967 ) with Dragoljub Vukotic who had his mixed
residence/citizenship status ( Vukotic had the two homes at Trieste, Italy, and
Belgrade, Yugoslavia ), while he was serving as the CISS EC member ( between
1953 and 1965 ) and the CISS Vice President ( between 1967 and 1973). By the
way, Vukotic also was the President of the World Federation of the Deaf
between1955 and 1983;
Number Two - There was no problem for the CISS ( and for both Jordan and Lovett,
who served as the CISS President and First Vice President, respectively, and
Ammons, who was a USA delegate in 1985 ) with Wai-on-Light, a Honk Kong citizen
with his residence at Los Angeles, USA, who was a CISS EC member candidate
during the elections held at the 28th CISS Congress in Los Angeles, USA, in
1985.By the way, by obtaining the insufficient number of votes,Wai-on-Light lost
the election ).
Number Three - There was no problem for the CISS ( and for both Jordan and
Lovett, who still served as the CISS President and First Vice President,
respectively, and Ammons, who was a USA delegate in 1993) with Ted Staroyiannis
with his Greece/USA residence/citizenship status when he ran as a candidate for
the CISS EC member position at the 33rd CISS Congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, in
1993. By the way, by collecting the inadequate number of votes, Staroyiannis
lost the election.
Number Four - There was no problem for the CISS ( and for the troika of Jordan,
Lovett and Ammons in the years of 1991-2001), when they chose the three persons
with their respective dual residence/citizenship status for the CISS Technical
Director positions in Ice Hockey ( David Stewart of Canada/USA ), Athletics (
Emmanuil Slutsky of Israel/Russia ) and Wrestling ( Ilya Cherches of
Russia/Ukraine ).
Number Five - In the non-deaf and hearing sports world a) there are many members
of the International Olympic Committee ( briefly known as the IOC ) who are in
possession of the mixed residence/citizenship status ( for example, Jean Claude
Killy of France/Switz- erland, Alexander Popov of Russia/Australia, Vladimir
Smirnov of Kazakhstan/ Sweden, Sergei Bubka of Ukraine/Monaco, Alex Gilady of
Israel/USA and Olaf Koss of Norway/Canada ); b) there are also a number of the
high-ranking officials in the various International Sports Federations who are
the dual residents/citizens ( for instance, the President of the International
Ice Hockey Federation Rene Fasel of Switzerland/Spain and the Secretary General
of the International Basketball Federation Borislav Stankovic of
Yugoslavia/Germany).
Argument Number Six - In an unrelated matter, but for this Court to get an idea
as to what kind of people attended the past Deaflympic Summer Games in 1993,1997
and 2001; there was a number of athletes, delegates,and officials - deaf and
hearing - who had the mixed residence/citizenship status and they represented
the country of their own choice with the approval of their National Sports
Association - a member of the CISS.
Argument Number Seven - There was no problem for Lovett and Ammons when I was
nominated for the CISS Treasury position in October 20, 1997, as was described
above. But there was problem for both Lovett and Ammons in 2001 when they were
opposing my candidacy for the CISS EC. Thus, Lovett and Ammons took an
ironically double-standard approach with me: on the one side, in 1997 they did
not oppose my being nominated for the high-ranking CISS EC position - the
Treasurer, while, on the other side, in 2001, they were vehemently against my
nomination for the low-ranking position of the CISS EC member. Moreover, there
were no problems for the CISS, Lovett and Ammons who did nothing to prevent me
for my being as an Uzbekistani delegate at the 1999 and 2001 CISS Congresses as
well as Uzbekistan's Chief of Mission at the just-ended XIX Deaflympic Summer
Games at Rome, Italy.
Number C Rule 10.4.4. ( Only one member per National Associ-
ation shall be elected to the Executive Committee).
Lovett's position: Tried to mesmerize the many non-English-speaking Congress
delegates by giving the impression that " Pinchas was as if both a USA citizen
and a member of the USA-based National Sports Association." This way, Lovett
created the false impression that there might be as if the two CISS EC members
from the USA ( Ammons and myself ) which would be in violation of the above
rule.
Fact: Although I am a USA citizen, I was not a member of the National Sports
Association in the USA. By July 21, 2001, I was and am still a member of the
National Sports Association of Uzbekistan.
Argument: Lovett showed his total disrespect and ignorance for the National
Sports Association of Uzbekistan, when its President Mukim Karimov,wrote a long
letter to Chou Tung, the President of the Asia-Pacific Deaf Sports Confederation
and CISS EC member, on July 4, 2001. That letter was copied and sent to Lovett
on July 4, 2001 as well. On that letter re: the issue of the Pinchas CISS EC
candidacy, Karimov wrote the following ( here are the excerpts ):
"We receive the info that some people at the CISS are unhappy that our
organization nominated our nation's native and proud son, Mr. Pinchas,
as a candidate for the CISS EC membership".
"We would like to advise you that the nomination of Mr. Pinchas for
this position is a purely internal matter. Therefore, in the interests
of free democratic and fair election contest, you and the CISS people,
if any, can not tell or influence us to tell Mr. Pinchas not to run for
the position!" "I want also to tell you that Mr. Pinchas owns property
residences in the USA and Uzbekistan as well as he has the dual
citizenship status ( are you aware of the fact that there are many IOC
members who have the dual citizenships and residences? ). In addition,
unlike the deaf sports leaders, Mr. Pinchas is a financially
self-sufficient individual as some of our organization's activities are
financed from his own pocket." "Mr. Pinchas is not only a
highly-revered member of our deaf community, but he is also deeply and
widely respected among the many top governmental and National Olympic
Committee officials in our country ( for example, recently, Mr. Pinchas
received a gold medal from our National Minister of Sports )."
"Additionally, Mr. Pinchas' past professional background - positive or
negative one - has nothing to do with sports or his ongoing CISS EC
candidacy aspirations." "Therefore, our organization sincerely hopes
that politics, personal grudge and blackmail among certain members
against Mr. Pinchas will have no place in Mr. Pinchas' current pursuit
for the CISS EC position."
By reading the above eloquently-written letter, Lovett committed an
abusive act as the CISS President by interfering into the internal affairs on an
independent National Sports Association of Uzbekistan. Namely, Lovett completely
neglected and disrespected Karimov's words, when he wrote to say that "the
nomination of Mr. Pinchas is a purely internal matter".
NUMBER D Rule 15 Dispute Resolution ( If any dispute arises
con- cerning the construction of this Constitution or
any matter arising from it or any disciplinary
matters, then such a dispute will solely and
exclusively be resolved by the Congress. The decision
of the Congress will be final and
binding on the parties and it is agreed that neither
party will institute or maintain proceedings in any
court or tribunal beyond the Congress ).
Lovett's position: Completely ignored and disregarded this Rule when the Pinchas
CISS EC candidacy matter was brought up.
Fact: The Congress delegates, including the delegation of Uzbekistan, asked
Lovett to let the Congress decide the Pinchas matter itself, not Lovett
alone.Lovett also ignored the petition signed by the delegates from 41 nations
and delivered to Lovett and entire CISS EC members on July 29,2001.
Argument: In the past the many controversial issues - one of them, the recent
Turkish- Norwegian CISS membership suspension - were decided by the Congress
delegates. Another instance was on March 7, 1999, when a petition - to overrule
the CISS EC decision to increase the Games athlete/official participation fee to
$50.00 from $15.00 - was accepted, debated and voted at the Congress, in which,
afterward, the $50.00 fee proposal became a moot. Thus, the CISS Legal
Commission members, including Lovett, Ammons and Jordan ( all these three
persons, by the way, lack the proper legal education and professional legal
training), are not the "owners" or "proprietors" of the CISS, but it is the
Congress and its delegates who own the CISS.
54. Besides the Violation of the CISS Constitution Rules, here are the
six different main charges against Lovett, Ammons and Jordan on this Verified
Complaint -
BREACH OF CONTRACT by:
Lovett: When I became the official Chairman of the CISS Awards
Commission in 1997, Lovett and I made a good-faith agreement that anything
related to the activities of my Awards Commission ( i.e.,the annual Selections
of the World Male and Female Athlete of the Year and the once-a-lifetime
Selections of the Deaflympic Games Athlete of the Century and the Deaf Olympian
of the Century ) Lovett was obliged to consult me first and in advance. But
Lovett did not keep that agreement. What Lovett did was these:
a) the trophies for the 1999 and 2000 World Male and Female Athlete of the Year
Award winners were purchased by Ammons ( not by Renzo Corti as was previously
agreed );
b) Lovett went ahead, without my advance knowledge and agreement, with
the preparation and the publication of the diplomas ( some of them printed
erroneously ) intended for the finalists of the Deaflympic Games Athlete of the
Century and the Deaf Olympian of the Century;
c) in the new and just-released 2000 CISS Year Book ( pages 39 through 51 ),
Lovett without my advance knowledge, permission and consent, under my name's
authorship, untruthfully and vaguely wrote to say that "the top ten deaf
athletes were judged by a panel of 15 members drawn from the current CISS EC and
a selection of former and present national deaf sports leaders." In addition,
Lovett, aided by Ammons,did not treat me in my capacity as the CISS Awards
Commission Chairman accordingly: he refused to cover the accomodations during my
stay at Rome as well as removing my name as the Awards Commission Chairman
without providing a validly justified reason.
Ammons: In my role as a writer, Ammons and I had a basic agreement that
anything related to my writing work and its publishing, she would consult me in
advance. But that was not honored by Ammons and she, thus, committed a breach of
agreement or contract:
a) Between 1995 and 2001 I contributed my various stories to the CISS Bulletin,
in which Ammons was its Editor. Ammons , without my knowledge, advance
consultation and prior fact verification, published a number of my stories in
the Bulletin, which were cut or altered by her and which were flooded with
errors and misfacts ( for example, Ammons, by lacking, as it was discovered
later on, the basic journalistic ingredients as an effective and professionally
knowledgeable Editor), published the last issue of the CISS Bulletin in the old
20th Century ( Number 199, November 2000 ) with nearly 40 errors, omissions,
inaccuracies and misfacts printed elsewhere on its pages, while in the first
issue of the CISS Bulletin in the new 21st Century ( Number 200, April 2001 )
there were nearly 13 errors and inaccuracies plus the very belatedly published
and disastrously prepared statistical results of the November 1-8, 2000, VIth
Asia-Pacific Games for the Deaf ). When I repeatedly advised Lovett of Ammons'
editorial shortcomings - by an e-mail, facsimile and in person, he, by trying to
conceal Ammons' ineptness in the area of journalistic editing and by not wanting
to embarass her, the only doctorate degree holder on the CISS EC, did nothing,
including by not letting the other non-English-speaking CISS EC members to know
about these.
b) For the still unknown reason, I , a leading CISS Bulletin contributing writer
and a key authority on the history of the Deaflympic Games, was not included as
part of the 2001 CISS Media Team to cover the XIXth Deaflympic Summer Games at
Rome.
Jordan: He broke the two promises made to me in 1979, when I was
appointed as one of the three members of the CISS World Records Commission in
Athletics, Swimming and Shooting. The promises were a) that before elevating or
removing me from the CISS-appointed position he would consult me first; b) he
advised me that as a CISS Commission officer I would receive the the customary
free-of-charge meals and lodgings during the 1981 Games at Koln, Germany. What
Jordan did was that on July 27, 1981, he secretly dumped my name as the
Commission Member ( I found about this action several weeks later via the mail )
and he decided to refuse to provide the free meals and lodgings for me
immediately after he learned that my motion to nominate Kruger for the CISS Gold
Medal was a successful one.
BREACH OF TRUST by:
Lovett: By cosmetically posing as my "genuine and trusted deaf friend"
and to my much dismay and infuriation, Lovett disclosed the contents of my May
28, 2000 six-page personal and confidential letter, which was addressed to him
only, to the outsiders, i.e., to a number of the CISS EC and non-CISS EC members
( see EXHIBIT I ). He did so without my advance knowledge, permission and
consent.
Although he acknowledged the receipt of that six-page confidential letter, in
which I posed to him more that 30 questions, Lovett never was in a position to
provide his rebuttal reply to me, i.e., before the start of the Rome Congress.
Lovett also committed a strategic trick on me: on April 18, 2001, he sent to me
his one-page e-mail letter, in which he warned me that " at the Congress, some
foreign delegates (note the word "delegates" in plural ) will raise the
Securities Exchange Commission ( "SEC" ) court case against me". In my whole
heart, per Lovett's warning via that April 18,2001, e-mail message, I believed (
in case Lovett wanted to act against me ) that at the Rome Congress my SEC case
matter would be brought up, but, instead, at the Congress, Lovett and his
accomplice, David Peters, raised very different matters against me - the issues
of my residence and my possession of the four foreign passports. On that day's
e-mail letter, Lovett also lied to me when he said that "none of the them ( the
CISS EC members ) were supportive of my candidature" for the CISS EC. For the
record, among the 8 CISS EC members, who were at Rome, Italy, I met and
interviewed the two: on July 20, 2001, I had a conversation with Chou Tung, the
CISS EC member from Taiwan, and he repeatedly advised me that he never was
against my candidature. Five days later, on July 25, 2001, Rudolf Gast, the
outgoing CISS EC member from Germany, also expressed the similar views as Chou
Tung - by his proficiently used international sign language, Gast assured me
that he never was opposed to my CISS EC candidacy.
Ammons: As the CISS Secretary General , Ammons committed the two
unethical acts by abusing her international position and by breaking the
confidentiality rule: a) she released my name as a CISS EC candidate to the
outsiders, including to Jordan, immediately after a faxed message from the
Uzbekistani National Sport Association arrived to the CISS Home Office in Silver
Spring, Maryland, on or about February 11, 2001; b) on February 23, 2001, the
President of the Russian Deaf Sport Union, Valery Rukhledev of Moscow, Russia,
visited the CISS Home Office and there Ammons, among the other things,
questioned Rukhledev as to why Nikolai Klimov , the failed 1997 CISS EC member
candidate from Russia, did not re-submit his candidacy for this year's CISS EC
member election considerations as the deadline for the CISS EC candidacy
submission was February 15, 2001. Ammons' idea was to have as many candidates in
the 2001 CISS EC member category so I would have a lesser chance to get elected
on it.
DISCRIMINATION: Because I came from the remote and Moslem-dominated
nation of Uzbekistan and because I derive from a very culturally and
linguistically different background, Lovett, Ammons and Jordan, who often love
to tell everyone that they are the lifelong fighters and advocates for the equal
and just rights of every deaf person in the world, made every effort to prevent
me to get "a foothold" to the top CISS establishment.
As an aspiring CISS EC member candidate, my record spoke for itself: since the
age of 13, I invested over 33 years of my comprehensive service to the deaf
sports movement; I was probably the only one candidate with such an unparalleled
and unmatched record compared with the other candidates. Because I had a real
record of results in the areas of sports, journalism, multilingualism, history,
administration, Lovett, aided by Ammons and Jordan and by neglecting of the
much-needed qualified man power gap for the CISS administration, still very
discriminatedly and prejudicedly chose to degradably undermine me and my
credentials by dumping me as "an ineligible candidate" at Rome. Lovett , Ammons
and Jordan had also biasedly determined that the CISS should be led and
controlled by the persons whose primary language at birth is English. In
addition, in the views of Lovett, Ammons and Jordan, my first name of Rafael is
a Spanish-sounding one, while my Russian-sounding surname is Pinkhasov Pinchas -
both of these names have unappealingly-sounding and hard to spell or pronounce
names to this troika. Thus, they discriminatedly decided that the executive
position in the CISS is not a right and appropriate place for me, a native of
Uzbekistan and a deaf person whose mother tongue is not English.
DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER by:
Lovett: He was one of the two individuals to disseminate the negatively
reported Securities Exchange Commission case about me which is placed on the
worldwide internet system. By discrediting my name, Lovett also coached his
long-time friend, David Peters, to bring up the groundless issue against me - my
so-called using of 4 foreign passports - at the Congress floor podium on July
21, 2001. In my private conversation with David Peters ( date: July 28, 2001,
location: the Stadio del Nuoto, Rome, Italy; approximate time: 5.30 p.m., Rome
time,and the witnesses were Dean Barton-Smith of Melbourne, Australia, Yuri
Maksimenko and Vasily Sandugej of Kiev, Ukraine ), he quietly revealed to me
that it was Lovett who told him that I owned 4 foreign passports - a slanderous
charge - and that it was Lovett who pushed him - a lone delegate - to speak out
unfavorably about me at the Congress on July 21,2001.
Ammons: Like Lovett, she was covertly and overtly engaged in distributing
the negative SEC case about me to a certain number of individuals in 2000 and 2001.
Jordan: He has a long history of attacking and polluting my name. When
he was the CISS President, he used the door-closed CISS EC meetings between 1981
and 1986, as a forum to utter the negative things about me among the CISS EC
members. I have a number of the CISS EC - former and present - members who told
me of Jordan's defamingly personal attacks at me and who will be prepared to
testify against Jordan. Under Jordan's direction, the CISS Bulletin published
the negative and libelous things about me on its various issues between the
years of 1982 and 1986 ( the CISS Bulletin issues - Number 113, July 1982, page
11; Number 117, April 1983, page 19; Number 123, July 1984, page 17; Number 129,
September 1985, page 21 and page 24; Number133, August 1986, page 3; ).
CONSPIRACY
There were the six persons who were engaged in an act of consipracy against me.
They are Jordan, Lovett, Ammons, David Peters, Rebecca Adam and Tiffany
Granfors. The latter is an administrative assistant to Ammons at the CISS Home
Office in Silver Spring, Maryland. Although the three - Peters, Adam and
Granfors - are not named as the defendants on this Verified Complaint, it will
be my intention to bring these three persons as the witnesses at the trial .
Without any question, Jordan is the prime architect of my schism with Lovett and
Ammons. He was the one to make sure that I, in any way whatsoever, did not get
"a foothold" on the CISS EC. When,on April 10, 1999, Jordan learned that it was
I who successfully nominated Lovett to be the recipient of the prestigious
Edward Miner Gallaudet Award, it shook him to pieces.In lieu of this, it was
Lovett who openly told me of Jordan's continued loathing of me on that day (
date: April 10, 1999, time: about 9.30 a.m., location: the Gallaudet University
Kellogg Conference Center Hotel ). After the Award reception, Lovett was
supposed to be a guest at my residence ( as we agreed in advance, at Davos,
Switzerland, on March 13, 1999 ), but he changed his plans because he was
pressured by Jordan to spend more time with him or to visit his residence,
instead. In spite of this, the sharp-tongued and sophisticatedly sly Jordan, by
fearing of my gradually strengthening rapprochement with Lovett, enhanced his
energy and time in finding a solution to distance Lovett from me as soon as
possible. In addition, in spite of the continued personal animosity betwen
Jordan and me, Lovett , two times in 1997 and 1999, still urged me to work side
by side with Jordan for the benefit of the CISS. Naturally, I, an easily
forgiving man, agreed by putting my personal differences aside ( to justify this
I welcomed Jordan to serve on my Awards Screening Commission and I was also
prepared along with Jordan ( and Ammons ) to act as the co-presenter of the
Preservation of the CISS History paper at the 2000 Deaf History International
Conference at Washington, D.C. ). But, it was the snobbish, naughty and arrogant
Jordan who still could not forget the past. On the other hand, during my several
trips to Washington, D.C., between 1997 and 2000, Ammons, who, as I was
suspecting, was already engaged in her "double-faced game" between me and
Jordan, often told me that it was Jordan who had always been feeling uneasy,
uncomfortably and insecure of working under me. For example, it was Ammons
(also, Lovett) who informed me that Jordan felt "uncomfortable" to be a member
of my supervised World Male and Female Athlete of the Year Screening Commission.
Ammons also two times ( in 1997 and 1999 ) confided to me that it was Jordan who
was very unhappy and jealous of my continued and large-scale material write-up
contributions for her CISS Bulletin issues. Partly because Jordan learned from
Ammons that my name was submitted as the 2001 CISS EC candidate, he, with his
still prejudicedly anti-Pinchas sentiment, repeatedly refused to serve as one of
the 15 members on the-once-a-lifetime Deaflympic Games Athlete of the Century
and the Deaf Olympian of the Century Selections Commission, in which I was the
one who presided over. In spite all of the above, the more experienced and
shrewd retiree Jordan prevailed over me: by residing in the same state area of
Maryland as Ammons and by spending more time with her than I did with Ammons,
Jordan was at last masterfully successful in making Ammons to distance from me.
Thus, this was how the secretive and constantly-unsmiling Jordan accomplished
his coveted goal: all the three persons - Jordan, Lovett and Ammons - at last,
got solidly united as the co-conspirators against me. July, 21, 2001, was the
dark day in the CISS history in which Jordan very pleasingly witnessed the scene
at the CISS Congress floor premises - the final friendship break-up betwen
Lovett and Ammons, on the one side, and me, on the other side.
INVASION OF PRIVACY
Lovett was one of the three defendants on this suit who visited and stayed at my
home residence in 1996. While a visit by Lovett to my family residence was a
strictly private matter, Lovett irresponsibly and unethically shared such a
private visit and the doings and goings inside of my family life, including my
professional work as a stockbroker and the legal problems I had with the
brokerage industry officials, with the outsiders: Jordan, Ammons and Rudolf
Gast.
By supporting my all of the above-mentioned charges, it will be my
intention that additional evidence - the documentary one and by live witness
appearance - will be presented during the trial.
55. In order to educate this Court that these 3 defendants not only had
a problem - a personal crusade against me, but they also had problems related to
their work and attitude as the CISS officers with the others, including the
organizers of the just- ended XIXth Deaflympic Summer Games at Rome.
56. Let me cite the ten-randomly selected subjects with the following
facts:
Number One - When, on May 17, 2001, the International Olympic Committee
agreed to grant the CISS its official permission to rename its previously used
Deaf World Games to the eye-catching Deaflympic Games, the entire deaf sports
community reacted on this big and long-awaited news with much pomp and fanfare.
Thus, the new millennium and century was supposed to be the beginning of a
golden era of the deaf sports with its first major international multi-faceted
event - the XIXth Deaflympic Summer Games at Rome. But, very sadly and
regretfully, this was not the case at Rome recently.
Number Two - By failing to utilize their diplomacy and charm, intellect
and integrity, and by failing to comprehend and appreciate the mentality, the
rich culture and the traditions of the Italian people, Lovett and Ammons (
naturally, backed up by Jordan on their constant side at Rome) in their
capacities as the chief supervisors of the Games, were unable to establish
business rapport and rapprochement with the officials of the Sports Federation
of the Deaf in Italy ( known as the FISS ) and the Games Organizing Committee (
known as the COL ). Briefly, Lovett and Ammons failed to learn, to think and to
negotiate like the Italians. For instance, the constant quarrel and disagreement
by Lovett and Ammons, on the one side, and the FISS and the COL, on the other
side, were one of the prime reasons as to why the Games did not go out well. And
whenever there was problem - a major or minor one - related to the Games
organization, Lovett and Ammons irresponsibly and immaturely placed the blame on
the FISS and/or on the COL and/or on Renzo Corti, the FISS President and CISS
Vice President, personally - thus, making each of them as the three principal
Games "scapegoats".
Number Three - As a result, the state of chaos, disorder, turmoil and
confusion reigned throughout the entire Games days: a ) many teams and athletes
were unable to prepare accordingly for the competition because they had no
chance, upon their arrival to Rome, to attend the necessary training sessions at
various sports facilities; b) many delegation members from different countries
were starving and thirsty as it took 4-5 hours of wait for them in order to
enter the 100,000-seat Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremony activities on
the humid day of July 22 ( 85% of the stadium seats were empty on that day ); c)
because of the miscommunication and transportation foul-up many teams and
athletes were not able to arrive to their respective competition sites on time;
d) to much dismay of the many, including the ticket holders, who paid $130.00
for a combo ticket package even though there were the others who paid less (
about $65.00 ) for the same combo ticket package, the competition schedule in
wrestling at Ostia was changed without prior notice; as a result, many
spectators were not able to witness the final matches in greco-roman wrestling.
Number Four - An excited wrestler from Cuba won its country first ever
medal in the sport. But his excitement became a disappointment at the medal
pedestal ceremony: when he received his bronze medal he spotted no flag of his
own and proud country raising on the top ( this was the second incident in a row
under the Lovett-Ammons administration as in 1999, during the Deaflympic Winter
Games at Davos, Switzerland, a Lithiuanian 30 km nordic skier, Ramunas Svedas -
a silver medalist, experienced such an unpleasant fate: during the medal
ceremony his country's flag was not raised, instead, it was a CISS flag that was
hoisted in his honor ).
Number Five - The CISS Treasurer was unable to fulfill his duties in a
timely manner because as of July 24, already the sixth day of the Games
competition, nearly 38 nations failed to pay their CISS annual membership dues
and/or the 2001 Games participation fees on time, which were blatant violations
of the CISS Constitution ( see EXHIBIT J ). However, in spite of these
violations, many countries, excluding Kazakhstan, were allowed to compete for
the medal events at the Games.
Number Six - The most inept and double-standard case Lovett and Ammons
handled was with the very unfortunate 14-member delegation of Kazakhstan. The
Kazakh team members, which, after a long and hard fought battle, received the
sizable financial support from its government, were very upset, helpless and
embarassingly dreadful to go back home empty-handed. This was because Lovett and
Ammons took a hardline and uncompromising stance on these delegation members:
since they submitted the necessary participation forms very late the Kazakhs
were entirely barred from competing at the Games. Ironically, Lovett and Ammons
let this delegation to march at the Opening Ceremony festivities on July 22. And
very sadly, one high-profile and already very depressed Kazakh athlete - Maxim
Rozhkov - was denied the chance to defend his 1997 Deaflympic Games triple jump
title at Rome.
Number Seven - Ammons created an uproar at the Games when she, with
Lovett's full consent, hand-picked her former roommate, Miss Vicki White to be as
a CISS Technical Director in Athletics. The issue was that Vicki White is not a
deaf person, she is a hearing person and the appointment of her to the position
was a flagrant violation of the basic deaf sports law: only the deaf person must
be elected or appointed to a responsible management position in the deaf
sports-controlled organization like the CISS.
Number Eight - The most controversial issue of the Games was the
stripping of the three gold medals of Osmel Sejas Rodriquez, an Italian runner
in the 100, 200 and 400 meters and the home crowd favorite. The problem - in my
view, a solvable one - arose because both Lovett and Ammons, with the advice of
their inexperienced novice and non-deaf CISS Technical Director in Athletics,
Vicki White, handled the Rodriquez matter in a very incompetent and blunderous,
unprofessional and belated manner.
Number Nine - The main prizes of the Games - the gold, silver and
bronze medals - were not awarded to the athletes in various sports on time,
while the diplomas for the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 place finishers were not ready, so
many athletes who finished in these places went back home diplomaless.
Number Ten - Here are the three items that were related to the
activities of the prematurely ended CISS Congress at Rome:
a) Of the 16 sports that were supposed to be on the official program of the Rome
Games, one sports - indoor football - was prominently missing. Lovett and
Ammons, for still an unknown reason, failed to implement the decision of the
1995 CISS Congress - to include indoor football as a medal event at the
Deaflympic Summer Games in 2001;
b) Much of the time at the Congress was spent and wasted on Lovett's and Ammons'
unrealistically fantasying project - the staging of World Championships in
different sports and in different countries between 2002 and 2011 ( I was the
one, who, among the other things, had reservations about this project because of
the CISS leadership's continued lack of qualified man power and because in the
last six years there were constant cancellations of the World Championships, for
example: bowling ( in 1995 USA was supposed to be a host ), handball ( 1998,
Iceland ), football and cycling ( Spain, 2000 ), alpine skiing (Slovenia, 2000 )
and cross country running ( Algeria, 2001 );
c) During the Congress work one CISS EC member - Voitech Volejnik - was absent
most of the time because Lovett and Ammons ordered him to sit down on the table
outside and do the registration-type work. This was the second time in a row
that Voitech Volejnik,who won his 1997 CISS Executive member position, unlike
Lovett and Ammons, in a legitimate and hard-fought election battle, was engaged
in a low-level, non-CISS EC member-related function - in 1999, at Davos,
Switzerland, per Lovett's order, Volejnik performed a security guard-type work (
duties included keeping the media and the spectators away as far as possible
from the Medal Award Ceremony spot ) during evening hours of the Medal Award
Ceremonies at the cold outdoor premises.
And, finally, while Lovett and Ammons were very tied up with their
everyday and perpetual backlog work, another defendant Jordan was busy, too. He,
the former CISS President, in order to qualify and secure for his much-sought
lavish and free-of-charge meal/lodging treatment at the five-star Jolly Midas
Hotel in Rome, for the two weeks, gladly agreed to perform the menially-clerical
errands for Lovett and Ammons: typing, xeroxing, handing out the audiogram
testing and CISS Techical Director Meeting paper notices to the concerned
officials.
Thus, the Rome Games went into the CISS history as one of the most
disorganized and mismanaged Games primarily because both Lovett and Ammons (
both of them were the first ever tandem of the CISS officials to receive the
wages of $13,500.00 and $17,250.00 from the CISS Treasury in 2000, respectively
), surrounded by their "top-rated and genial" advisor Jordan, were unable to
cope with their ever- increasing duties as the chief Games supervisors as well
as the"elected" and "re-elected" CISS President and Secretary General,
respectively.
57. Finally, I got the information that Lovett, Ammons and Jordan are
now working on a new and racist motion for the CISS Constitution - to ban the
dual citizen/resident nominee/s from running for a CISS EC office in the future.
Such a motion is obviously aimed at me and it is expected to be brought to the
attention of the next 38th CISS Congress delegates to be held in 2003 at
Sundsvall, Sweden.
58. Because of the acts mentioned on Paragraphs 9,10, 18, 23, 45, 46,
47, 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54, defendants committed massive improperties against
plaintiff. In order to prepare and submitt this Verified Complaint, I have been
compelled to expend a great deal of my time, my money and my energy to carry on
my case as well as to present this Verified Complaint.
59. As a result of the foregoing, I have been damaged as follows:
-loss of reputation
-loss of health
-loss of normal livelihood.
60. I also seek judgment for the reasonable attorney's fees, the costs
of utilizing the services of sign language interpreters, notetakers, witnesses,
mail, phone, travel, library research and visits for information to the court
offices. Additionally, my family and I suffered severe emotional trauma and
distress caused by defendants' wrongful and irresponsible acts.
61. Because of the foregoing facts, I request an award of the total
damage, including punitive, be assessed against defendants individually, jointly
and severally in the amount of $2,500,000.00.
62. I also seek the Court for the imposition of whatever other civil
stanctions may be deemed proper and appropriate to levy against each defendant.
63. I, as a plaintiff, respectfully request a trial to be held in this
Court to present my case. I will be attended by a sign language interpreter, a
notetaker and numerous individuals who will act as my witnesses.
Dated: September 14, 2001
New York, New York, USA
------------------------------
Rafael I. Pinkhasov Pinchas
Plaintiff and Pro Se
76-54 168 Street
Hillcrest New York 11366 USA
fax 718 380 0449
and
6 Dadashev Kuchasi
Tashkent 700015
The Republic of Uzbekistan
To: Jerald M. Jordan
Defendant
The CISS Home Office
350 Thayer Avenue Suite 350
Silver Spring Maryland 20878 USA
and
826 Locust Drive
West River Maryland 20878 USA
Donalda K. Ammons
Defendant
The CISS Home Office
350 Thayer Avenue Suite 350
Silver Spring Maryland 20878 USA
and
11617 Orchard Grove Road
North Potomac Maryland 20878 USA
John M. Lovett
Defendant
The CISS Home Office
350 Thayer Avenue Suite 350
Silver Spring Maryland 20878 USA
and
5/42 Wright Street
McKinnon Victoria 3204 AUSTRALIA
Sworn to before me
on this 14th day of September, 2001
/s/ Denise M. Rosenblatt
---------------------------
Notary Public
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