Sam Sloan

For the 19th-century architect, see [[:Samuel Sloan]].

Samuel Howard Sloan (b. September 7, 1944 in Richmond, Virginia), is an American chess journalist, publisher, and frequent Usenet poster. While having no formal legal training, he once orally argued and won a case in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Early life and education

Born in Richmond, in 1955 his family later moved to Lynchburg, Virginia. Both of his parents were State-licensed professionals and both highly skilled government employees. Sloan studied chess from an early age. Sloan attended the University of California, Berkeley majoring in mathematics, but he did not earn a degree.

While attending Berkeley, a center for student protest during the social unrest of the 1960s, Sloan became the 1966-67 president of the Sexual Freedom League. His book Sex Marchers, co-authored with SFL founder Jefferson Poland, called for sexual emancipation.

Career

After leaving Berkeley, Sloan worked for two years for the Wall Street Investment Banking firm of Hayden, Stone & Co. in the over-the-counter trading department. In 1970, he established Samuel H. Sloan & Co., a registered broker-dealer primarily trading over-the-counter stocks and bonds. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought civil actions against Sloan & Co. in 1971-1975 alleging he had failed to maintain adequate books and records. In 1975, the SEC revoked Sloan's broker-dealer registration. After years of litigation, Sloan in 1978 prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Sloan argued the case pro se 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. Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion stated that "During this series of suspensions respondent Sloan, who owned 13 shares of CJL stock and had engaged in substantial purchases and short sales of shares of that stock, filed a petition in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit challenging the orders on a variety of grounds. On October 15, 1975, the court dismissed as frivolous all respondent's claims, except his allegation that the "tacking" of 10-day summary suspension orders for an indefinite period was an abuse of the agency's authority and a deprivation of due process." The Supreme Court agreed.

Sloan has written an extensive lexicon of Khowar, a language spoken in Chitral, Pakistan. Sloan had a minor role in a commercially-produced film, that later became a video game, Mahjong Hōrōki Classic. Sloan drove a taxicab in New York City for several years. He is now primarily a publisher of books and DVDs about chess, go and other subjects.

Sloan is a chess journalist and author. He has claimed that when he was playing for U.C. Berkeley in the late 1960s, he was for a time, playing at master strength, but he was never officially rated as such in the United States. He claims to have traveled to nearly 80 countries, primarily attending chess tournaments. He has claimed to have "won the World Championship of Chinese Chess in Beijing, China, in 1988." He is rated an FM (equivalent to FIDE Master) by the World Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) Association. Sloan has competed in tournaments in Thai (Makrook) and Japanese (Shogi) chess. Sloan is a longtime and frequent cross-poster to Usenet groups.

Activities since 2005

From 2002 to 2006, Sloan was active in the Libertarian Party of New York attempting to influence its policy agenda and candidate nominations. 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. In 2006 Sloan was elected as an officer to the Manhattan Libertarian Party County Committee as Director of Media Relations. He was not re-elected to that position in 2007. He was a delegate to the 2008 Libertarian National Convention. On May 25, 2008 in Denver, Colorado, Sloan was nominated to the National Committee of the Libertarian Party and made a speech addressing the Libertarian National Convention.

In July 2006, Sloan was elected to the Executive Board of the USCF. He advocated a major expansion of scholastic chess, stating that the USCF should establish a program to certify school chess teachers. He criticized the USCF's recent move from New Windsor, New York to Crossville, Tennessee. As second-place finisher (out of five) in the special election, Sloan was elected to a one-year term on the board (the first-place finisher received a three-year term). Sloan's term of service began in August 2006. In 2007, Sloan ran for reelection to the USCF Executive Board, but was unsuccessful, finishing a distant ninth out of ten candidates. On October 2, 2007, Sloan filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking to overturn the results of the 2007 USCF, and alleging that more than 2,000 obscene "Fake Sam Sloan" newsgroup postings prior to the election had been made by a rival candidate, Paul Truong. On August 28, 2008, US District Judge Denny Chin dismissed the suit with prejudice pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), 12(b)(2) and 12(b)(6).

On 3 April 2008, posts appeared on USENET, apparently placed by Mr. Sloan, claiming that some of his websites had been closed down by law enforcement in Amherst County, Virginia, apparently because Sloan listed the home addresses of parties involved in his long-running but moot child custody dispute involving his daughter. The USENET posting mentions County investigator Christopher Smith. During that same time, Smith was conducting a broad campaign against Internet crime in the State.

Private life

Sloan has been married three times and has eight children by five women. Sloan's second wife was a native of Khowar and together they had a daughter born in New York State on October 15, 1981. Sloan and the mother soon separated and Sloan fled New York for Virgina with that same daughter, soon leaving the daughter in the care of a Virginia couple, while the mother soon returned to Khowar. Sloan was soon locked into a now-moot child custody struggle with that Virginia couple over that same daugther which lasted many years. On September 5, 1991, Sloan attempted to flee the USA with that same daughter and he was arrested. Sloan was convicted of attempted abduction of that same daughter for which he spent over two years in State prison.

Sloan converted to Islam and thus also is known as Haji Mohammed Ismail Sloan

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) ISBN 0-923891-15-3
• 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 1-881373-02-9
• The Farm Book by Thomas Jefferson with light notes and annotations by Sam Sloan ISBN 0-923891-80-3
• Mafia Moll: The Judith Exner Story, The Life of the Mistress of John F. Kennedy (2008) ISBN 0923891900

Court cases

Sloan is a litigious private citizen. Among his cases that petitioned or reached the federal level are:

• Sloan vs. Nixon, 60 FRD 228 (1973)
• Sloan vs. Virginia, No. 95-8909