Samuel H. Sloan, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. I make this affidavit in support of my petition to be appointed the personal representative of my late mother, Helen Marjorie Sloan, and in opposition to the petition of my brother, Creighton W. Sloan, or any person designated by him, to be appointed as my mother's personal representative.
2. First I will summarize my points. Later I will provide more details.
3. Prior to her death, my mother fought battle royals with my brother for many years. The essence of these arguments was that my mother had money and my brother wanted it. Secondly, but more importantly, my brother hated his mother. I often heard him tell her that he hated her with a "purple passion" and that he wanted to get revenge on her for neglecting him during his childhood. He said that my mother should have quit her job as a medical doctor and stayed at home taking care of him.
4. I stayed out of this. My mother's other relatives never even knew about this. My mother was a very secretive person. She always said that persons outside the family should not know the family business. She did not even tell her four brothers and one sister about the serious problems with Creighton. They lived mostly in Iowa whereas my mother lived in Virginia, so they never knew about it.
5. My mother was tight with her money, so tight that she made her own soap rather than buy it from the store. She was upset about the fact that Creighton was unable to hold a steady job for very long. She complained that she had financed his three master's degrees. Whenever he lost his job, Creighton would want to get back to school to get another degree, and demand that his mother pay for it.
6. When my mother finally resolved in 1984 not to give Creighton any more money, because he was 38 years old and needed to get a job, he started a pattern of kidnapping her, taking her to North Carolina where he was living at the time, and forcing her to hand over control of all her assets to him. During the period while this was going on, I lived first in Central America, then in Pakistan and then in Japan. Except for a one week stopover, I did not return to America from 1982 until late-1985 and knew nothing about this. I was out of the country for three years.
7. My mother succeeded in escaping from Creighton and in regaining control over most of her money. However, Creighton would not stop and kept attacking her. Finally, she resolved to leave the country altogether. She lived in the United Arab Emirates from 1986 until 1990, a country selected because it was very secure against kidnappings. It was during this period from 1986 to 1990 that Creighton started filing numerous lawsuits against her. All of these suits had a common purpose, to take control over all of her money and to force her to return to the United States. Finally, on September 3, 1990, in Bangkok, Thailand, Creighton had my mother kidnapped by a professional kidnapper named Boonchoo Yensabai, who was paid $39,000 for this purpose. Creighton got his uncle, Cassel Jacobson, to put up the money. Apparently, Cassel believed that he would get the money back from the assets he would be able to control upon her return to the United States.
8. My mother was first brought to Maryland, arriving on or about September 5, 1990. However, the Maryland authorities refused to keep my mother locked up, saying that this was against Maryland law. After unsuccessful attempts to keep my mother locked up in a private home, she was brought to South Carolina. According to the testimony of Cassel Jacobson, who testified as to this matter in a hearing in Aiken County Probate Court in March, 1991, South Carolina was selected because it did not have the strong laws protecting the rights of the elderly that Maryland has. In short, South Carolina would allow my mother to be kept locked up against her will, whereas Maryland would not. That is how and why this case comes before this court today.
9. In summary, Creighton is automatically disqualified from acting as my mother's personal representative for at least the following reasons:
10. Creighton still has several lawsuits pending in court in Virginia against his mother and his mother has counter suits pending against Creighton. All these suits are on hold because no judge in Virginia will hear them. This matter has been referred to Fred Hodnett, Assistant Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and his job has been to find a judge willing to take these cases. No Virginia judge has been willing to take them. I spoke to Mr. Hodnett about this again only a few months ago. Indeed, this process has been repeated in South Carolina, where at least three judges disqualified themselves from this case, which is how it came to be heard before the present judge. It is obvious that if Creighton is appointed as the personal representative, he will be in effect suing himself. This cannot be allowed because there is a million dollars involved.
11. Several persons have suggested that a third-party personal representative be appointed. Several persons have been approached to act in this capacity. All have declined. The latest example is that I found an attorney in Laurens named Reid Cox who I am told is an expert in probate matters and would be the best possible person. Mr. Cox recently informed me that he must decline to take this case. The reason he gave is that my former attorney, Patricia Harrison, refuses to discuss the case with him or even to speak to him on the telephone. Since no third-party representative is willing to serve, I am the only choice. I am also not involved in the court cases Creighton filed against his own mother, except that in some cases I am named as a co-defendant along with my mother. My mother and I were always on the same side, never against each other.
12. Creighton is in default. I filed my initial petition to be appointed as the personal representative in July 2002, more than one year ago. Creighton or his attorney fid not file anything until January 2003 and then only because the Richland County Probate Judge ordered him to file a pleading. Creighton's attorney has stated that Creighton does not really want to be the personal representative.
13. I have experience in these matters. I was appointed as the personal representative of my late father, Leroy B. Sloan, who died on January 19, 1986. There again, Creighton did not want to be the personal representative. I have also worked as a paralegal in New York City. I have taken courses in law, including a bar review course. I have read more than one thousand law books. I argued orally before the United States Supreme Court and won 9-0, the last non-lawyer ever to do so. SEC vs. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978).
14. Creighton's petition before this court is defective in that he is required to provide a schedule and an accounting of my mothers assets and liabilities. I know and can prove that Creighton has taken one million dollars of his mother's money. He is required to reveal where that money is, whether it still exists, or if he has spent it. He has not done any of that.
15. Creighton is required by order of the Lynchburg Circuit Court dated December, 1986 and entered January 2, 1987 to file periodic accountings with Kristin Sawyer, Commissioner of Accounts of the Lynchburg Circuit Court. He filed accountings for the first year or two and then stopped. This is important because my mother has at least $200,000 in frozen assets in bank accounts in Lynchburg, assuming that the money is still there and Creighton has not stolen it.
16. Similarly, Creighton was required to file accountings with the Aiken County Probate Court of his mother's assets in South Carolina. After the bank was appointed in April, 1991, the bank was supposed to file accountings. Although my mother was locked up for 11 years until she died, I can find accountings for only two of those years in the files of the probate court. Those were the years 1998 and 1999. By then, Creighton had already stolen the bulk of his mother's money.
17. Creighton illegally sold his mother's house at 917 Old Trent's Ferry Road in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1994. He sold it for the paltry sum of $75,000 whereas the house was worth at least $150,000 and is now worth well over $300,000. In order to make that sale, he lied to the Virginia court by saying that he had been appointed as the Guardian of the Property of his mother by the Aiken County Probate Court. Creighton had not been appointed. The NCNB Bank, now Bank of America, had been appointed on April 12, 1991. Creighton never notified the bank or served them with legal papers concerning the sale. Obviously, the bank would never have agreed to the sale if they had known about it. If I am appointed the personal representative, I intend to file suit in Virginia to recover possession of the house. This was not an arms length transaction because, before the house was sold, I informed the buyer that the sale of the house would be invalid because Creighton had no legal right to sell the house. I spoke to the Bank of America Trust Department in Columbia recently about this, and they had no idea that the house had even been sold until I told them. In fact, they did not even know that my mother had died until I told them.
18. In addition, Creighton has repeatedly been involved in efforts to kidnap my own children. All of my children have been affected by this, except for my new baby. Three of my children, Shamema, Michael and Jessica, were kidnapped in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates on October 7, 1990. Michael was abandoned by the kidnappers along the way and I eventually got him back. Shamema and Jessica were brought to America. In January, 1991, Jessica was rescued by her mother and taken to California. Knowing that the kidnappers would try again to get Jessica, the mother went into hiding. The Roberts, who were the actual kidnappers, reported Jessica and her mother and got Jessica detained. Finally, after a court battle lasting more than one year, we got Jessica back. However, I did not get my daughter Shamema back until ten years later until she joined the US Marines in 1990. She was subsequently deployed to Kuwait to fight the war. Shamema is now a bomb expert, whose job it is to arm and disarm bombs.
19. I have recently learned that Creighton provided financial support for the kidnappings. He paid for the airplane tickets, which cost $4888. I suspect that he paid for this with his mother's money. I would like to find out.
20. Shelby Roberts testified in Lynchburg Circuit Court that the kidnappings of Shamema and Jessica cost $40,000. Cassel Jacobson testified in Aiken County Probate Court in 1991 that the kidnapping of Helen Marjorie Sloan cost him $60,000. Of course, they did not use the term "kidnapping", but that is obviously what they were. The reason they testified as to these large amounts, totaling $100,000, is that they wanted to be reimbursed for the costs of kidnapping my mother and my children. In other words, they wanted my mother to pay for her own kidnapping and the kidnappings of her grandchildren. This is one of the reasons why I am demanding an accounting for the missing years, 1991 to 1997. I strongly suspect that Creighton used my mother's money to pay these amounts. Please note that Charles Roberts filed a claim in this court for $31,000. In that claim, he is asking for reimbursement of the money he spent to kidnap my children.
21. In addition to providing money, Creighton had traveled to Virginia to testify against me in child custody cases. Probably, he paid for these trips with his mother's money as well. He has recently been in contact with my two eldest children, Peter and Mary Sloan and it is because of Creighton that a petition was filed in this court in their names contesting the will. My son Peter has recently informed me that they did not understand the situation at that time and now they understand it and want to withdraw their petitions.
22. Very recently, and in fact right now, Creighton is involved in trying to get my daughter Jessica, aged 14, away from me.
23. I am prepared to prove all of this with documentary evidence in court. There are many documents on file in the Aiken County Probate Court concerning the guardianship of my mother. I would like for this court to review those documents, which comprise more than 500 pages. In 1994, my brother had his mother's house sold illegally and obtained a court order requiring that the entire contents of the house be taken to the garbage dump. I fled bankruptcy, claiming the contents of the house, to stop that from happening. By doing this, I was able to recover some important items, but only as much as I could carry in my hands. Everything else was destroyed. Thus, many of the documents on file in the Aiken County Probate Court and in the Lynchburg Circuit Court are the only copies of those documents that still exist.
24. By destroying all the documents in my mother's house, Creighton also destroyed all the evidence of money he had taken from his mother. My mother was a pack rat who never threw away anything. I have inherited this tendency. My mother had a copy of the cancelled check of every check she ever wrote during the years since 1943 that she lived in Virginia. All of that was destroyed by Creighton.
25. Here again, Creighton lied. If you read the transcript of the testimony given by Creighton in the Lynchburg Circuit Court in 1992, you will see that he testified that he and his mother went through the house and there was nothing there that she wanted. This was an outrageous lie. My mother was locked up in South Carolina at the time. There was no way for her to get out. She was never in that house after August 25, 1986, the fateful day when she fled the house to get away from Creighton. Moreover, she would never have agreed to throw away anything, not even one scrap of paper.
26. I can prove that Creighton has taken at least $1.5 million dollars of our mother's money, as follows:
a. The account at Bank of America in Lynchburg, formerly Sovran Bank and later Nations Bank, has $200,000 in frozen funds.
b. Creighton sold his mother's house for $75,000. Of that, $20,000 went to legal fees, $20,000 was for moving and storage expenses, and $5,000 went to the real estate broker. That leaves $30,000. That money has disappeared and the attorney involved is now dead.
c. Starting in January, 1991, Creighton received his mother's pension and social security checks. These checks initially came to a total of $5,000 per month. Due to Cost of living increases, this amount rose to over $6,000 per month. Creighton was required by order of the Aiken County Probate Court dated April, 1991 to turn over these checks to the NCNB Bank, which is now Bank of America. Creighton did not do so. He kept the money. Multiplying this $6,000 per month from January 1991 until the date of my mother's death on May 16, 2002, plus interest at prevailing rates, comes to more than one million dollars.
d. Creighton sold my mother's house illegally. The house is now worth well over $300,000. I was living in that house when Creighton started proceedings to have it sold. I intend to go to live in that house with my eight plus coming children if I can recover possession of it, which will require for me to be appointed as the personal representative.
27. Here are some exhibits. I am not including everything of relevance, because that would be voluminous. I will bring all the documents to court.
28. Exhibit A is the motions and orders of the Lynchburg Circuit Court dated December 1986. What that court did was shockingly wrong and bad. My mother was in the United Arab Emirates at the time. Thus, there was no jurisdiction. She was never notified of the court proceedings, either before or after the case was filed. Note that the court ordered Creighton's attorney to notify my mother of the proceeding. He never did so. From that date to this, we have never received a summons, a pleading, a letter, a telephone call or even a post card from any of the attorneys or the judge or the court in that case. The first my mother knew about this was when her checks started bouncing. She got an old friend of my late father to go down to the Lynchburg courthouse, make copies and mail them to her. That is how we finally obtained these documents.
29. Also, the court order contains many false statements. It refers to a power of attorney. There is no such document. I have been to the clerks office of the Lynchburg Circuit Court. No power of attorney is or has ever been recorded with that court nor is one to be found in the case file.
30. The order also refers to "medical evidence". There is no such evidence. I have checked the court file, and no such documents exist.
31. Most importantly, this order freezes my mothers trust account and plus gives control to Creighton of her other accounts. Creighton immediately took all the money and closed the accounts. We have no idea what happened to that money. Creighton has never accounted for it.
32. At that time, the trust account had about $85,000. It had since grown to $200,000. The money is still frozen to this day. My mother was never able to obtain a hearing on this matter or to get the account unfrozen because no judge would hear the case. Note that Creighton could have unfrozen the account at any time, because he was the plaintiff.
33. Exhibit B is a letter dated 28 February 1987, from a attorney Gary R. Feulner, an attorney with a prominent law firm, who interviewed my mother and took her out to dinner for a private conversation. I was not along. The letter makes it obvious that my mother was perfectly competent and capable. In contract, none of the lawyers in Lynchburg nor the judge ever met or saw my mother in their entire lives, except for one lawyer, Leighton Houck, who had been the patrol leader in my Boy Scout Troop when I was a child.
34. The suit filed in Lynchburg Circuit Court was collusive. The attorney for Creighton and the Bank agreed to the freeze on my mother's bank account before the suit was filed. There is a letter in the files of the Lynchburg Circuit court showing that the lawyers conferenced a meeting with the judge one week BEFORE they filed the case. There were two other judges sitting in the Lynchburg Circuit Court. One judge, Judge Sweeny, knew my mother for years and knew that my mother was an extremely competent and capable person. He would never have agreed to freeze my mother's bank account without a proper hearing. The attorneys instead selected a judge who knew nothing about my mother, probably the only judge in the Lynchburg Area who had never met her. All the other judges knew my mother for one important reason: My mother, a psychiatrist, was in charge of mental health services for the Lynchburg Area and she was the person who made the decisions as to which prisoners went to prison and which went to mental hospital or to out-patient care.
35. Exhibit C is a report from Duke University Medical Center. I include this because Creighton had often alleged that his mother was diagnosed by Duke as having Alzheimer's Disease. However, the results of the testing showed exactly the opposite of that. Reporting the results of tests given on April 24, 1984, it says: "On the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Revised, Dr. Sloan showed an excellent performance for a 74 year old woman. Her verbal IQ of 117, performance IQ of 124 full scale IQ of 122 is fairly consistent with her attained educational and occupational status."
36. On August 2, 1984, my mother was tested again. This time her test scores were higher than they had been four months earlier. The report states: "Dr. Sloan scored 2 errors of 10 on the SPMSQ and was correct 28 of 30 on the Folstein. During her initial evaluation on April 12, 1984 Dr. Sloan had 3 errors on the SPMSQ and scored 25 correct of 30 on the Folstein. She appeared more at ease than during the previous." This shows that my mother was learning the tests. This was clearly a contra-indication of Alzheimer's Disease. It was the last report. The report concludes that there "continues to be no evidence" of Alzheimer's Disease and that "test results continue to be in the normal range". After that, Creighton, seeing that he was getting nowhere in his efforts to have his mother declared incompetent, stopped taking her to Duke.
35. Exhibit D is the lawsuit Creighton filed on April 16, 1992 in the Lynchburg Circuit Court to sell his mother's house. In the complaint Creighton alleges that he has the right to sell the house by virtue of an order of the Aiken County Probate Court dated January 16, 1991. This was not true, because the order was no longer in effect. It had been superceded by an order dated April 12, 1991 appointing the bank as my mother's guardian. Also, note paragraph five of that complaint which alleged that my mother has income of $4,000 per month but expenses of only $2,000 per month.
35. Exhibit E is the transcript of the 1992 hearing in that case where Creighton testified that his mother's house should be sold. I was not notified of this hearing. I discovered this transcript recently in the files of the Lynchburg Circuit Court. In this transcript , Creighton lies many times. He says that he is the court appointed guardian of my mother and presents an order dated January 16, 1991. However, this order was not valid. It had been superceded by an order dated April 12, 1991 appointing the NCNB Bank as the Guardian. Thus, Creighton's testimony in 1992 was false. Creighton also claimed to have a power of attorney, This was another falsehood as it had been revoked and was not valid in any case.
36. Repeating what I said earlier, if I am appointed the personal representative, I intend to go to court in Virginia to recover possession of the house. In the alternative, Creighton should be charged the value of the house as having received that as his part of the inheritance, which might mean that Creighton would get nothing or very little, since he sold the house illegally, in violation of court order.
37. Exhibit F is a counter suit filed by my mother, dated November 20, 1989 . In this suit, my mother alleges that Creighton was embezzling her money. Please note that my mother's verified petition was notarized by Harry A. Nunnemacher, Vice Consul of the United States of America, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 37. Exhibit G is a certificate of appointment showing that the on April 12, 1991 the Bank of America was appointed as the Conservator of my mother and that "all monies, income, principle, interest and dividends" were to be delivered to the bank. Creighton did not comply with this order of the court. He kept the money.
38. Exhibit H is a letter from Reid Cox, a well known Laurens attorney, declining to appear in this case. Previously, Mr. Cox had stated that he saw no problem with appearing as the personal representative of my mother. Now, it seems that he does see a problem.
39. Exhibit I is an internal memorandum of the State Department from the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand dated August 1990. It concerns the fact that my mother was sick and in the Bangkok General Hospital and her medical bills could not be paid because Creighton had frozen her bank accounts and was refusing to release any money to pay her hospital bills. Eventually, the money did arrive to pay the bill. Creighton found out about this and just before my mother was about to check out of the hospital he had the kidnappers move in and kidnap her out of her hospital room. Three of my children, Shamema, Michael and Jessica were with my mother when she was kidnapped and are witnesses to this, but I had stepped out, which they knew because they had been following me for days before the kidnapping.
40. Exhibit I was obtained by an opposing attorney for Charles Roberts. There must be many dozens of similar State Department documents because over a period of four years from 1986 to 1990 Creighton repeatedly contacted US embassies around the world trying to have my mother kidnapped. As a result, my mother was interviewed every few months by the US Embassy staff on whether she wanted to remain overseas of return to the USA. These memorandums could be obtained by subpoena and they will provide further evidence that my mother every time she was asked stated that she wanted noting to do with Creighton and did not wish to return to America.
42. Exhibit J consists of communications between my mother and the bank and the courts in February 1987. They show that my mother repeatedly stated that Creighton had embezzled her money. Both the bank and the courts ignored these letters. The reply by Massie Ware says that he will forward her bank statements to her provided that Creighton agrees. Of course, Creighton never agreed. Also, the Massie Ware letter implies that the court order required this. This was not true. Nothing in the order of the Lynchburg Circuit Court said anything about the bank not providing my mother with her monthly bank statements.
43. The exhibits I am presenting herewith are only a small portion of the total exhibits I intend to bring with me to the hearing. In summary, these exhibits prove that Creighton is an entirely unsuitable person to be appointed as the personal representative his mother, did everything he could to get revenge on her, stole her money and had her kidnapped and locked up for 12 years until she died. He has never had even one good thing to say about his mother and always speaks badly about her. In contrast, I have always stood at my mothers side. I admired and respected her, especially for her great contributions to society during her more than 40 years as a practicing medical doctor. I wrote my mother's obituary which was published in newspapers around the country. However, the Richmond Times Dispatch refused to publish her obituary, even though my mother was the Acting Director of the Memorial Child Guidance Clinic in Richmond for ten years from 1943 to 1953. They declined to publish her obituary even on a paid basis because they were afraid of being sued by Creighton. If I am appointed as the personal representative of my mother, I intend to force by legal means that newspaper to publish her obituary.
44. During 16 years from 1986 to 2002 neither me nor my mother ever received a letter, a post card, a telephone call, or a legal notice of any kind about the largely ex-party proceedings which brought about a freeze on all of her assets, her kidnapping and her unlawful imprisonment for 12 years until her death.
45. I have prudently avoided saying much about this case until a judge was selected, especially considering the fact that all of the judges of Virginia have disqualified themselves from this case and three judges of South Carolina have disqualified themselves or have been disqualified from this case. Since I now believe that you are the judge who is going finally to hear this case, I would like to tell you what this case is all about.
46. What this case is all about is that starting in 1984 my brother Creighton instituted or attempted to institute multiple litigation against his own mother. This started in full blast in April 1984 when Creighton tried to have litigation instituted against her to have her declared incompetent in North Carolina, even though our mother was then working as a staff doctor in the Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia and was the director of the Geriatric Unit of that hospital. My mother was a medical doctor and child psychiatrist with a long and distinguished career and considerable savings. Ironically, my brother was claiming in North Carolina that our mother had Alzheimer's Disease, whereas at the same time my mother was a practicing medical doctor specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.
47. My brother's efforts to have his mother declared incompetent in North Carolina while she was still working as a doctor in Virginia was brought to an end when Dr. Garman Brown in Charlotte, a specialist to whom this matter was referred by Duke University Medical Center, determined that there was nothing wrong with my mother and she did not have that or any other disease.
48. Undaunted, Creighton persisted. He continues to claim that Duke University Medical Center determined that she had that disease, even though the doctor to whom this matter was ultimately referred by Duke made exactly the opposite finding. You will note that Creighton will never make any mention of the name of Dr. Garman Brown or any of the findings of that doctor in his presentations about this case. Instead, he keeps referring to the initial notes of Duke which were based entirely on his own statements and the statements of his wife, Gloria, before any testing was done.
49. I was out of the country for three years from 1982 until August 1985, primarily in Central America and Japan, and had no idea of the struggle that was going on between my mother and my brother. I first started to become aware of the situation in November, 1985 when my mother told me on the telephone, "I'll get out of this jail somehow."
50. Those were her exact words. She did in fact subsequently escape and she told me that she had twice been kidnapped by Creighton in Virginia and taken to North Carolina but had been able to escape those two times.
51. On August 25, 1986, a date which becomes very important later, my mother and I left Virginia and went to New York to, among other things, attend a scheduled child custody hearing for the custody of my two eldest children, Peter and Mary, which was to be held in New York Supreme Court on September 3, 1986. We took with us my daughter Shamema, aged 4, whose mother, Honzagool of Chitral, Pakistan had gone back to her native country on August 28, 1982 and had never been seen or heard from since. (She still has not been heard from to this day.) Unbeknownst to us, in our absence, Creighton had instigated Charles and Shelby Roberts, Christian Religious Fundamentalists who have no relationship with me, my child or the mother of my child, to file a baseless child custody suit for the custody of my daughter, Shamema. This suit was filed on August 27, 1986 in our absence from the state by attorney Frank G. Davidson III.
52. When my mother and I came to court on September 3, 1986 for the hearing, my ex-wife Anda was represented by attorney Walter G. Anderocci, the same attorney who recently filed a petition in the South Carolina courts. This attorney claimed that my mother and I had kidnapped Shamema by bringing her from Virginia to New York, even though Shamema was born in New York City and I had legal custody of her in New York. Mr. Anderocci, who said that he was representing both Creighton and Anda, somehow convinced the judge, who was Judge Kristin Booth Glen, to call the police and have me and my mother arrested. The custody hearing was cancelled and Judge Glen disqualified herself from any further involvement in this case. The New York City Police took me and my mother to the local First Precinct Police Station on Elizabeth Street in Chinatown. We were held by the police there for about two hours. Finally, however, the police realized that there was no warrant for our arrest in Virginia and no legal grounds to hold us, so we were released. It was still in the early afternoon, so my mother and I went back to the courtroom of Judge Kristin Booth Glen hoping to get the custody hearing re-instated, but Judge Glen had already gone for the day.
53. It was this incident which convinced my mother to flee the country. She had already been kidnapped by Creighton twice, but had escaped. Creighton had now shown a willingness and ability to reach into a courtroom in New York State and have my mother detained there. My mother felt that she was left with no alternative but to leave the United States altogether.
54. I am a chess coach and trainer and I was at this time the trainer and manager for the two younger of the three Polgar Sisters. The Eldest sister, Zsuzsa, subsequently became Woman's World Chess Champion, and the youngest sister, Judit, who was then only 10 years old is now the number ten rated chess player in the world, either male or female. I had arranged for the sisters to play for the World Chess Championship Under-16 in Rio Gallegos in Southern Argentina. Since these plans had already been made my mother decided to accompany me and my daughter to the chess tournament in Argentina.
55. I was the official coach and trainer for the Polgar sisters and I had arranged for Pan American World Airways to sponsor their trip, so my airplane fare and expenses for the trip were paid for by Pan Am. However, my mother had to pay her own way. After the tournament was over in Argentina and my mother went to pay her hotel bill, it was discovered that my brother had cancelled all of his mother's credit cards. Her credit cards had been good when she checked into the hotel but when time came to check out they were no longer valid. My mother called Sovran Bank in Lynchburg where she had her accounts and was informed by them that Creighton had cancelled all her credit cards and had ordered a freeze on all her bank accounts.
56. After that, numerous telephone calls were exchanged between my mother and the bank. I honestly do not remember exactly what happened, but somehow my mother got her hotel bill paid and we caught a flight to Buenos Aires.
57. From Buenos Aires there were more calls. One call which later turned out to be especially significant was that I tried to call my lawyer in Amherst, Steve Martin. Martin happened to be out, but his law partner, Troy Nicks, took the call. I told Mr. Nicks that my mother and I were about to catch a flight back to America. Mr. Nicks told me that I would be crazy come back. He said that plans had already been made involving Judge Janow in Amherst that I would be arrested in Amherst, my daughter Shamema would be given over to Charles and Shelby Roberts, my bail would be set so high that even my mother would not be able to bail me out of jail and all of my mother's bank accounts would be frozen so that she would not be able to bail me out anyway.
58. I did not believe any of this and dismissed it as nonsense. It did concern me but I believed that it could never happen. However, it turned out that almost exactly what Mr. Nicks said was going to happen did eventually happen, the major difference being that it did not happen in 1986 but happened four years later in 1990.
59. On the Pan Am flight back from Argentina to Miami, there was a stop-over in Rio D'Janiero. While thinking about it on this flight, my mother and I decided that it would be too dangerous to return to America at this point in time. Therefore, at the airport in Rio D'Janiero, my mother told the Pan Am crew that she was ill and could not continue the flight. The airplane left without us. Four years later I found out from the testimony of Officer Dennis D'Raviere of the Lynchburg Police Department that Creighton had arranged for the police to be waiting for us when we got off the airplane in Miami and both me and my mother were going to be arrested.
60. The reason Creighton had been able to do this is that while we were in Argentina, Creighton had gotten Sovran Bank to give him complete information on my mother's bank account transactions and credit card purchases. He thereby had been able to find out exactly what flight we were going to be on and when we were going to arrive. It was only because we aborted the flight the way we did by getting of at a non-scheduled stop in Rio that the police thought we were going to arrive on a flight that we were not actually on.
61. We finally realized that we dare not return to America, so we started on a long Odyssey. Along the way, Creighton found that my mother was in Paris, France, so he tried to have her arrested and detained there. My mother decided that the only safe place was behind the Iron Curtain, so we went to Hungary. Then, the World Chess Olympiad was about to be held in Dubai, so we went there. After only one week in Dubai, Hugh Myers, an American chess official at the World Chess Olympiad, said to me, "Sloan, You are a wanted man." It turned out that Creighton had called the American Embassy in Dubai and accused me of kidnapping his mother. The truth was the opposite. My mother was desperately trying to get away from Creighton.
62. We decided to stop running and make a stand in Dubai. For the next four years my mother remained in the United Arab Emirates. Almost every month, she was interviewed by a US Consular Officer from the US Embassy. The reason for this was that Creighton was constantly claiming that his mother had been kidnapped and was being held against her will. I traveled to America twice during this period and while I was in the US members of the US Embassy staff came to the residence of my mother and tried to convince her to return to America. My mother refused to go and said she wanted nothing to do with Creighton. On one occasion, the US Consul General, Robert Murphy, took my mother by the arm and tried to lead her out the door. My mother, a physically strong and powerful woman, punched Mr. Murphy, thereby discouraging him from any further attempts forcibly to remove her.
63. Throughout these four years from 1986 to 1990, my mother constantly wrote letters, made telephone calls, filed affidavits in court and contacted everybody she could think of asking for help in dealing with Creighton's attempts to have her kidnapped and brought back to America. Creighton meanwhile was contacting everybody demanding that she be brought back. For example, Creighton contacted South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond who was so moved by Creighton's story that he contacted the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi, only to be told that they were very familiar with the case and my mother was not willing to return to America.
64. In the course of all this, the case of my mother became the highest profile case in the US Embassy there. Every new consular officer assigned to Abu Dhabi was briefed on my mother's case by whomever proceeded him.
65. What brought this to an end was that in 1990 my mother and I decided to take a trip to Hong Kong with a brief stop-over in Bangkok. In Bangkok, my mother decided to go see the Crocodile Farm, which has 4,000 crocodiles, plus tigers, elephants and other exotic animals. The next day, my mother got sick and had to be hospitalized at the Bangkok General Hospital for more than one month. Creighton found out about this, came to Thailand and hired a professional kidnapped named Boonchoo Yensabai to kidnap my mother and bring her to America. Creighton also wanted my children kidnapped as well. After hiring Boonchoo, Creighton went back to America so as not to be in Thailand when the kidnapping took place. My mother was kidnapped in Bangkok on September 3, 1990, drugged so heavily that she could not resist, and flown to America.
66. My mother was first brought to Silver Spring, Maryland and placed in a nursing home. However, my mother tried to escape. After that, the nursing home said that by law they could not hold my mother against her will. My mother was then transferred to another nursing home. Again, my mother tried to escape. The second nursing home also stated that under Maryland Law, my mother could not be held against her will.
67. Since my brother had already tried without success to have his own mother detained in Virginia and North Carolina, he decided to try another state: South Carolina. Apparently, South Carolina does not have the strong laws to protect the rights of the elderly that Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina have, and so South Carolina was decided upon as the place to hold my mother. My mother was brought from Maryland to South Carolina, a place where she had never been before, and was locked up and held prisoner in South Carolina for twelve years until she died on May 16, 2002 at the age of 92.
68. These are the circumstances which bring this case before this court.
For all of the reasons set forth above, the Petition by Samuel H. Sloan for appointment as the personal representative of Helen Marjorie Sloan should be granted and the petition of Creighton W. Sloan for said appointment should be denied.
__________________________
Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to before me this 2nd
Day of October 2003
______________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC
VERIFICATION
Samuel H. Sloan, being duly sworn, deposes and states that I have read the foregoing affidavit and know everything contained therein to be true, except those matters stated on information and belief, and those I believe to be true.
__________________________
Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to before me this 2nd
Day of October 2003
______________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC
Exhibit A
Motions and orders of the Lynchburg Circuit Court dated December 1986.
Exhibit B
Letter dated 28 February 1987, from a attorney Gary R. Feulner
Exhibit C
Reports from Duke University Medical Center
Exhibit D
Lawsuit Creighton filed on April 16, 1992 in the Lynchburg Circuit Court
Exhibit E
Transcript of the 1992 hearing in that case where Creighton testified that his mother's house should be sold.
Exhibit F
Counter suit filed by my mother, dated November 20, 1989
Exhibit G
Certificate of appointment showing that the on April 12, 1991 the Bank of America was appointed as the Conservator
Exhibit H
Letter from Reid Cox, a well known Laurens attorney, declining to appear in this case
Exhibit I
Internal memorandum of the State Department from the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand dated August 1990
Exhibit J
Communications between my mother and the bank and the courts in February 1987.
Samuel H. Sloan, being duly sworn, deposes and says that on October 2, 2003 he mailed the within affidavit in support of his petition to be appointed as the personal representative of his mother, Helen Marjorie Sloan, to all counsel at the following addresses:
Catherine H. Kennedy
Attorney for Creighton Sloan
Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, LLP
1330 Lady Street
PO Box 11070
Columbia, South Carolina 29201
Creighton W. Sloan
102 Indian Creek Trail
Aiken, South Carolina 29803
Patricia L. Harrison
611 Holly Street
Columbia, South Carolina 29205
W. Reid Cox
107 E. Laurens Street
P. O. Box 286
Laurens, South Carolina 29360
__________________________ Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to before me this 2nd
Day of October 2003
______________________________
NOTARY PUBLIC
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