Many people have been calling me to find out what happened yesterday in Orange County Supreme Court in the case of Sloan vs. Marinello
What happened is that nothing happened.
After my papers had been served on counsel for the USCF, I took them to the courthouse. The clerk told me that the case would be submitted on papers. There would be no oral argument or courtroom testimony.
I saw that my case was the last item on the calendar of Judge Horowitz, so I went back and asked again, just to make sure.
The case will be decided on papers, the clerk said.
I consider this to be a good sign. The attorney for the USCF has apparently been telling the board that the freeze on the bank account will be dissolved on December 10. I do not believe that this is what will happen. If the judge was going to lift the freeze, he would have held a court hearing yesterday.
Also, some have posted that the account was frozen by the court until December 10. That is not what happened. What the judge said was that the account may not be moved out of the bank in Newburgh until further order of the court. That further might come next month or next year. Also, just to explain, the judge did not actually freeze the account. He merely ruled that the money could not be transferred out of the bank in Newburgh. They can move the money from one account to another. It just cannot leave that bank. It certainly cannot go to Crossville or to Chile until the court has ruled. I suspect that it will be a long time before the court has made such a ruling.
After leaving the courthouse, I went to the former USCF building on Route 9W on the pretext of wanting to enroll my baby daughter who was with me in the new daycare center there. The building is now occupied by Home Away from Home Daycare Center. Allison Mann and Melissa Laux are the owners. They have done a fabulous job of fixing up the place. There are entirely new walls, rooms and floors inside. I estimate that they spent at least $300,000 fixing up the place, but they said that the amount was higher. While I was talking to the owners, my baby daughter disappeared into one of the back rooms and started playing with the other children there. She really loved the place. It was very difficult for me to convince my daughter to leave.
I finally got around to telling them the real reason for my visit. I explained to them that I had filed a case against the USCF because I believe that the sale of the building was illegal. They were very concerned about this of course and I gave them a copy of my court pleadings. They are very nice people and they thanked me very much for giving them a copy of the court papers.
I told them that I do not believe that the court will order them to give back the building. Actually, I do not know what the court will do, and I do not believe that anybody else does either.
I asked them whether they had title insurance. They said that they do not know.
I told them that if they do not have title insurance, they had better get it right away.
Sam Sloan