_________________________________________________
Samuel H. Sloan,
Petitioner
For a Judgment Pursuant to CPLR Article 78
Respondent
_________________________________________________
Samuel H. Sloan, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. This is in reply to the affirmation of Kristine D. Holden dated May 10, 2002 in the "Affirmation in Opposition to Petitioner's Motion for Contempt".
2. The affirmation of Kristine D. Holden contains about 200-300 pages of documents. I have not been able to go through them in detail, but it appears that the bulk of it consists of files downloaded from my website and from elsewhere on the Internet. The affirmation states that the TLC does not have any actual documents in support of its claims. The TLC demands that I produce the documents that it says that it must have to proceed with the processing of my license application. However, as the TLC points out in paragraph 19: "on April 2, 2002, petitioner wrote to TLC stating '[n]o such documents exist, or if they did exist I would have no idea or the facilities or the means to obtain them.' "
3. It should be perfectly obvious that any time I receive documents relevant to this case, I post them on my website. The TLC says that it wants documents which are not on my web site. Therefore, it must realize that I do not have any such documents, because if I had them I would have posted them to my website already.
4. The affirmation of Kristine D. Holden includes several letters that the TLC has written to Virginia, including one letter written last week after I filed this Order to Show Cause. However, the affirmation does not include replies that the TLC received. This means that the TLC has not received replies or, if it has received them, has not notified the court and me of this.
5. The crux of the TLC's contention is that it has unlimited time to consider a licensing application. I filed my application for a HACK license on April 30, 2001, which is more than one year ago. The TLC has had 13 months to investigate me. So far, its investigations have produced zero. The TLC contends that there is no limit on the amount of time is can take to investigate. The claim of the TLC is that it can take years or even decades to decide whether or not to issue to me a taxi drivers license. I disagree. I do not believe that that is a correct statement of the law. Chapter 8 of the TLC Rules sets forth various time limits within which it must hear and decide cases. The TLC contends that since it has never scheduled or conducted a hearing on this matter, there is no limit to how long it can take on a case. Such an interpretation cannot be allowed.
6. The bulk of the documents annexed to the Affirmation in Opposition concern a child custody proceeding. I more than freely admit that I have eight children and I have been involved in many child custody cases. However, it has never been held that involvement in a child custody case can constitute grounds for denial of a license.
7. Moreover, the particular child case involved my daughter Shamema. The mother of Shamema was named Honzagool. Honzagool was from Chitral, Pakistan and was of Afghan origin. Honzagool returned to her native Pakistan in August 1982, which was 20 years ago, and never returned. There have often been newspaper and other reports about what ever happened to Honzagool, especially in the press of Pakistan but suffice it to say that nobody knows where she is. What is apparent however is that Honzagool is connected with a Pakistan anti-American group known as the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is affiliated with the Taliban. Meanwhile, our daughter, Shamema, who is now an adult, has joined the US Marines and is in Yuma, Arizona preparing to invade Afghanistan.
8. Virginia has never had jurisdiction over the case of my daughter, Shamema. Attached hereto as Exhibit A is an order of Judge Anthony Mercorella of the Bronx Supreme Court dated June, 1982 awarding custody of Shamema to Honzagool with visitation to me. Sloan vs. Awadallah, Bronx Supreme Court, Index Number 17815/1981. That case resulted in substantial newspaper and television publicity, including front page articles in the New York Daily News and the New York Post for March 26, 1982. There have been altogether more than one hundred newspaper articles about this case. This order was subsequently modified by Judge Lorraine Backal of the Bronx Supreme Court and custody was awarded to me. A copy of that order is annexed hereto as Exhibit B. Exhibit C is the birth certificate of Shamema showing that Shamema was born in Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City on October 15, 1981. The case also came before the Supreme Court of New York County in Roberts v. Sloan, Index No. 20991/1986.
9. From this it is clear that the Supreme Court of New York always had jurisdiction over the custody of Shamema and that the Family Court of Virginia never had jurisdiction.
10. I have been trying to obtain documents from Virginia concerning this matter for more than a decade. I have also tried to obtain documents from the FBI and the State Department about this case. Every document I have obtained is already on my website. So far, the TLC has been unsuccessful in obtaining any documents other than what it got from me on my website.
11. In reading the papers submitted by the TLC yesterday, the judge of this court made the comment: "This would never happen in New York, that's for sure." I do not know to what this court was referring, but I am sure that the court is correct, that none of this could never happen in New York. Charles and Shelby Roberts have freely admitted in court and elsewhere that they paid $40,000 to have my daughter, who was eight years old at the time, kidnapped in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and brought to Virginia. Had they brought the child to New York, they would have been arrested immediately and the child would have been returned to me. However, instead they took the child to Virginia, where they have been shielded from criminal prosecution by the local authorities there.
12. I doubt that anyone in Virginia is going to want to admit to a court of New York State that they violated the Uniform Child Custody Act by considering the custody of a New York Child that had been kidnapped by non-relatives and taken to Virginia.
13. I am not afraid of this investigation that the TLC says that it is conducting. To the contrary, I welcome it. I have been trying to get the State Department and the FBI to investigate it for years. I would be most gratified if this court would order an investigation. However, meanwhile I have to work to support my family, which means that I need my taxi driver's licenses.
14. Even medical doctors, lawyers and other professionals are allowed to work while an investigation is going on. However, the TLC, in Operation Refusal and elsewhere, have yanked the license of taxi drivers without any notice and opportunity for a hearing. This is obviously a violation of the constitutional rights of the taxi drivers. Here, the TLC has refuses to issue license number 5081212 and has summarily suspended again license number 5093363 for the third time plus it has refused to renew license number 496476.
15. I have been fingerprinted several times by the TLC. Every applicant for a TLC license is required to submit to fingerprinting. The TLC has run fingerprint checks on me and has come up with nothing.
16. Accordingly, all three of my licenses should be reinstated or issued.
17. The TLC claims that this court does not have jurisdiction of the personally named defendants. However all of those defendants are or were employees of the City of New York, including Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Corporation Counsel, which was served, was the authorized agent for service of process for these defendants. Therefore, this court does have jurisdiction over them.
Respectfully Submitted,
Samuel H. Sloan
Sworn to before me this 14th
Day of May, 2002
______________________
NOTARY PUBLIC