Wikipedia

Sam Sloan

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Samuel Howard Sloan (b. September 7, 1944), also known as M. Ismail Sloan, is an American author, chess player, and former securities trader. While having no formal legal training, he once orally argued and won a case in front of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.[1] In July 2006, he was elected to the Executive Board of the United States Chess Federation.

He has been married five times and has eight children. He now drives a taxicab in New York City and is involved in organizing chess tournaments.

Biographical highlights

Sloan attended the University of California, Berkeley majoring in mathematics. At the time UC Berkeley was a center for student protest during the social unrest of the 1960s. Sloan became the president of the Sexual Freedom League.

After leaving UC Berkeley, Sloan made a living trading stocks on Wall Street. The SEC brought civil actions against Sloan in 1971-1975 alleging he had failed to maintain adequate books and records. In 1975, the SEC revoked Sloan's brokerage license. After years of litigation, Sloan in 1978 prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Sloan argued the case pro se (for himself) even though he was not an attorney. The opposing attorney was Harvey Pitt, who was later Chairman of the SEC from 2001 to 2003. Sloan won before the U.S. Supreme Court 9-0. Sloan is the last non-lawyer to argue before the court.[2]

Sloan has written a book about the dialects of the Khowar-speaking regions of Pakistan. He writes that his first wife was a native of that region and their only child together, a girl, was named Shamema.

In 1986, Sloan fled the USA with Shamema and established a new home in the United Arab Emirates. In 1990, while he was away on business, Shamema was returned to the USA in a manner that was deemed a kidnapping by the UAE. He lost his custody rights to his daughter and, after a visitation incident in 1991, was convicted in 1993 in Virginia of attempting to abduct her. (Lynchburg Circuit - Criminal - CR91003195-00; total of 10 case numbers).

Chess

Sloan is an high-end Class A chess player and chess journalist. He claims to have traveled to nearly 80 countries, primarily attending chess tournaments. Sloan finished second among non-Chinese participants in the World Championship of Chinese chess [1]. Sloan writes that he also competed in Thai (Makrook) and Japanese (Shogi) chess. Sloan is also a longtime frequent poster to Usenet groups such as rec.games.chess.politics.

USCF special election 2006

In July 2006, Sam Sloan was elected to the Executive Board of the United States Chess Federation.[3] He placed second from a field of five candidates vying for two seats on the board that had been vacated by the resignations of former board members Greg Shahade and Timothy Hanke, resulting in a special election. Sloan ran on an outsider platform, stating that two of the five then-incumbents were former USCF employees and that a third had previously also done paid work for the USCF, and saying the board was supposed to be completely independent from the staff. He advocated a major expansion of scholastic chess, stating that the USCF should establish a program to certify school chess teachers. He also criticized the USCF's recent move from New Windsor, New York to Crossville, Tennessee.[4]

As second-place finisher in the special election, Sloan will serve a one-year term on the board (the first-place finisher will serve a three-year term).[5] Sloan's term of service began in August 2006, after the election was certified by the Board of Delegates at the USCF Delegates Meeting. Grandmaster Susan Polgar was highly critical of Sloan's election, accusing Sloan of having recently misrepresented himself as having been Polgar's business manager, and calling for a retraction and apology.[6] She later escalated her opposition to Sloan's being seated on the board, calling (among other things) for the USCF delegates to refuse to certify the election.[7]

Recent activities

Sam Sloan has operated his website since the mid-1990s, posting over 3,000 pages of information and opinion on a wide range of topics, including court transcripts that Sloan has himself transcribed into web pages for the many other cases that he has initiated and attempted to argue pro se.

In an April 30, 2006, email to Michael Badnarik's 2004 Presidential campaign mailing list, an individual claiming to be Sloan announced his intention to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for Governor of New York State.

Books

  • Sex Marchers (with Jefferson Poland, eds., Elysium, Inc. 1968) ISBN 0-923891-13-7
  • Khowar English Dictionary (as Mohammad Ismail Sloan, 1981) (published in Pakistan)
  • Chinese Chess for Beginners (1989) ISBN 0-923891-11-0
  • How to Take over an American Public Company (1992) ISBN 1-881373-01-0
  • The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson (1992) ISBN 4-906574-00-9

References

  1. ^ SEC v. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978)
  2. ^ Building a Better Advocate, Tony Mauro, The American Lawyer, 10-11-2002.
  3. ^ http://beta.uschess.org/frontend/section_111.php
  4. ^ USCF Board Candidates Statements, "Sam Sloan for USCF Executive Board", http://beta.uschess.org/frontend/magazine_124_28.php
  5. ^ http://www.uschess.org/org/govern/SpecialElection2006.php
  6. ^ Susan Polgar, Serious issues with the USCF
  7. ^ http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2006/07/you-can-protect-uscf.html
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