Ref K - Offer to IHAD-California Projects

[johnkarls]

.
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: I Have A Dream In-Kind Contribution
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, March 24, 2010 8:25 pm
To: abby_rovner@yahoo.com; tmartin@buildingfuturesnow.org; lwessler@buildingfuturesnow.org; wendy@ihadla.org
Cc: pfishbein@kayescholer.com
Attachments: E-mail to Peter Fishbein – 3/22/2010 – Excerpted
Taking “I Have A Dream”® To The Next Level
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abby Rovner – IHAD San Francisco
Taylor Martin – IHAD East Palo Alto
Laurel Morris-Wessler – IHAD East Palo Alto
Wendy Free – IHAD Los Angeles

[Editorial Note: The reason for contacting the Project Coordinators of IHAD-Los Angeles and IHAD-San Francisco is that neither their web sites or the IHAD-National web sites disclosed the identities of their Sponsors. Presumably, the Project Coordinators immediately forwarded this e-mail to their Sponsors. The only reply was an automated response that Laurel Wessler was no longer associated with IHAD, so 2 minutes later at 8:27 pm this e-mail was sent to her replacement at alopez@buildingfuturesnow.org. Nothing further was heard from anyone.]


Dear Abby, Taylor, Laurel and Wendy:

You undoubtedly have never heard of me. However, I was the founder and chief benefactor of IHAD Stamford CT that adopted 200 Dreamers in the early 1990’s and I served as the volunteer treasurer of IHAD-National for 5-6 years during the 1990’s.

In 1997, I retired early as Senior International Tax Partner (Technical) for Ernst & Young International and became an investment banker. The reason for doing so that was communicated to the other 179 IHAD Sponsors and the 2,000 EY partners in the U.S. was to make substantially more money to fund new IHAD or IHAD-style programs.

In 2002, the co-leaders of my group at Kleinwort Benson Ltd. (the second largest British investment bank) left for Barclays Capital Ltd. Barclays Capital Ltd. has admitted in unprivileged communications that when these two individuals joined Barclays Capital, they stole one of my products (I learned that they had done so by virtue of a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal of June 30, 2006).

However, Barclays Capital Ltd. took the position that they didn’t want to pay anything because they knew that I had always given away all of my spare wealth to IHAD and, following my association with IHAD, to UNEP for which I raised funds on a volunteer basis at the request of the United Nations Under-Secretary General for the Environment. Accordingly, Barclays Capital didn’t believe that I had the financial wherewithal to move to London for an extended period of time in order to sue them.

Accordingly, I sued in California state court (San Francisco) the 15 international financial institutions that had acquired my property from Barclays Capital. (The classic example of such a lawsuit is the heirs of holocaust victims whose fine art was stolen by the Nazis suddenly discovering that the art has been acquired by a museum, whereupon they sue the museum for the return of the art or its fair market value.)

Although it is difficult to estimate the value of those 15 deals, the financial statements of Barclays Bank PLC indicate that the deals might have been worth as much as $21 billion. The lawsuits also request treble punitive damages for a reckless failure by the 15 banks to ascertain ownership of the property, for a total potential recovery of $84 billion.

Of the 15 lawsuits, 3 were removed to federal court, 4 are pending in the state appellate court (San Francisco) and the remainder are stayed in the state trial court (San Francisco) pending the decision of the state appellate court.

The decision of the state appellate court (San Francisco) should be favorable because they issued a 1988 decision which appears to be controlling with respect to all of the relevant issues. Appellate briefs have been filed and reply briefs are due shortly.

However, the federal trial court granted a Motion to Dismiss its 3 cases before trial in a decision which was diametrically opposed to the state trial-court decision that is currently pending in the state appellate court. And the federal Ninth Circuit affirmed even though its decision appears to be diametrically opposed to the 1988 decision of the state appellate court.

Accordingly an appeal will be made to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that: (1) both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit’s own opinions require federal courts in circumstances such as ours to follow the decisions of California state courts, (2) the Ninth Circuit’s change to California law will mean that the heirs of holocaust victims will no longer be able to recover fine art stolen by the Nazis, (3) the Ninth Circuit’s attempt to dismiss these cases without publishing an opinion in order to avoid affecting heirs of holocaust victims unconstitutionally denies equal protection of the law to California inner-city children, and (4) the Ninth Circuit unconstitutionally denied due process of law when the original three-judge panel improperly seized control of the petition for re-hearing by the entire court and did not permit it to be considered by the other judges.

To this point in time, I have been handling all of the 15 cases myself even though I am not admitted to practice law in California and even though, since joining Kleinwort Benson Ltd. in London in 1997, I am not even admitted to practice law in New York. This is permitted if you are representing yourself, even though I made clear in all of the lawsuits that any recoveries are pledged to IHAD or IHAD-style programs and alleged that when Barclays Capital Ltd. stole my property, they knew full well that they were effectively stealing from American inner-city children.

The alternative would have been to donate all of my rights to an IHAD or IHAD-style foundation. But that would have meant having to hire an attorney admitted to practice law in California to at least serve as counsel of record (even if I did all the research and legal-document drafting, the California attorney would have to review and sign all legal documents and attend all proceedings whether in court or involving taking depositions, etc.). This is because a legal entity such as a foundation is not permitted to represent itself as I am permitted to do as a human being.

In addition, although I know literally hundreds of California attorneys, none of them are in a position to sue banks because their firms represent the banks. As a practical matter, a California attorney who would be in a position to sue banks could only come from one of three sources: (1) public prosecutors (U.S. attorneys and District Attorneys) who have no aspirations to ever associate with a firm that represents banks, (2) class-action firms that regularly sue corporations, and (3) environmental law firms that regularly sue corporations. Unfortunately, I do not know any California attorneys in any of those three categories.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court as a practical matter does not accept appeals from individuals representing themselves. (Indeed, the Supreme Court does not accept Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) briefs from anyone who is not an attorney admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.)

Nevertheless, I will make the appeals if there is no other alternative.

On Monday morning, I called Peter Fishbein who has served as General Counsel of IHAD-National since the early 1990’s and has recently become the Co-Chair of the IHAD-National Board to inquire whether Peter, who is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, might be willing to handle the appeals on a pro bono basis. I anticipated that Peter would decline on the basis that his firm (Kay Scholer LLP) represents banks. Accordingly, I was surprised when Peter declined on the grounds that he does not get involved in such matters anymore – without clarifying whether he meant that he no longer handles appeals to the Supreme Court or whether he no longer does pro bono work. Indeed, Peter was 9 years ahead of me at Harvard Law School so he must be approximately 77 years of age and eminently entitled to limit his time spent on such matters for whatever reason.

However, Peter did confirm that there would be no objection from IHAD-National if a local IHAD foundation found an attorney (1) who is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, (2) who does not have a conflict of interest in suing banks, and (3) who is willing on a pro bono basis to be the attorney of record for the appeals (I would still be willing to do all the research and draft all of the legal papers, but the counsel of record would have to review and sign the papers – and if the Supreme Court accepts the appeal, to make the oral argument before the Court). In that case, all rights to the three lawsuits would be assigned to the local IHAD program as a contribution in kind. Peter, of course, confirmed that IHAD-National has no objection to contributions that are made in property (such as lawsuit rights or, for that matter, other forms of property such as corporate stock) as well as cash.

Attached is my e-mail to Peter of last Monday confirming the two preceding paragraphs.

I would also be delighted to contribute all of my rights to the other 12 lawsuits to an IHAD or IHAD-style program.

However, as previously explained, a California attorney would then have to serve as counsel of record and it may be difficult to find one who would not have a conflict of interest in suing banks and who would be willing to serve on a pro bono basis.

In addition, I would like any recoveries from these 12 lawsuits, since any recoveries would probably be very substantial, to fund IHAD-style programs as described in the second attachment to this e-mail (which was an attachment to Monday’s e-mail to Peter Fishbein which is itself the first attachment to this e-mail).

The proposal in the second attachment was made by me to the Obama Administration last spring when they were trying to decide how to spend the $5 billion of new discretionary funds appropriated for the U.S. Department of Education. My suggestion was not accepted. Accordingly, for the reasons outlined in the proposal, I would like to dedicate any substantial recoveries from the other 12 lawsuits to implementing the proposal.

You might notice that my Monday e-mail to Peter Fishbein had mentioned that the proposal could easily fit within IHAD guidelines. The schools described in the proposal could easily admit inner-city children by first grade, the proposal already describes how the tutoring/mentoring families for each inner-city child would be obtained and, though not mentioned, the program could provide the college-scholarship guarantee.

If you have any comments or questions, please reply by e-mail (although I have resided in San Francisco since 9/11, I travel quite a bit and time is short).

If you are able to find an attorney who is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, who does not have a conflict of interest in suing banks, and who is willing to handle the three appeals on a pro bono basis, I would be delighted to provide whatever information or documents that s/he might desire.

As you can probably appreciate, time is short (the deadline for appealing to the Supreme Court is June 15), so I will begin next week to contact other people and organizations who/that might be in a position to help. However, that is not a deadline from your viewpoint because it is entirely possible that nothing at all may materialize and I may have to handle these appeals myself.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

John S. Karls

[johnkarls]

.