Lawsuit creates problems for local chess tournament
Adam Young
Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: News
Though a $20 million identity-theft lawsuit involving Texas Tech, two Tech employees and the United States Chess Federation has not officially been served to the university, its accusations are blamed for $10,000 in lost sponsorship.
A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York names the university and faculty members Susan Polgar, a managing director in the Office of the Provost, and Paul Truong, a unit associate director in the Office of the Provost, as defendants of the suit, according to court documents provided by Tech's Office of General Counsel and Sam Sloan, the plaintiff in the suit and an independent book publisher who resides in the Bronx, N.Y.
According to documents provided by Tech, Sloan accuses Truong of posting obscene comments under Sloan's name on multiple Internet forums, including the USCF blog, while using Tech computers.
Victor Mellinger, senior associate general counsel at Tech, said the university had not officially been served with the lawsuit as of Tuesday and did know how the university obtained the court documents.
Though Sloan did not return phone calls Tuesday, on Oct. 4 he said he has proof that many of the 3,000 comments made using his name between June 2005 and September 2007 were made from IP addresses owned by Tech.
However, Jim Brink, vice provost at Tech, said he and officials with the university's Information Technology department do not believe Sloan's accusations are valid.
"We change our IP addresses frequently, and so these evidently all came from the same IP address," he said. "You don't even know, when you send something, what IP address there is because we're constantly changing them."
Mellinger said federal law would protect the university from liability if the comments were posted from Tech computers.
Sloan said the actions he believes Polgar and Truong committed damaged his reputation because they were made during the time frame of USCF board-member elections in July.
A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York names the university and faculty members Susan Polgar, a managing director in the Office of the Provost, and Paul Truong, a unit associate director in the Office of the Provost, as defendants of the suit, according to court documents provided by Tech's Office of General Counsel and Sam Sloan, the plaintiff in the suit and an independent book publisher who resides in the Bronx, N.Y.
According to documents provided by Tech, Sloan accuses Truong of posting obscene comments under Sloan's name on multiple Internet forums, including the USCF blog, while using Tech computers.
Victor Mellinger, senior associate general counsel at Tech, said the university had not officially been served with the lawsuit as of Tuesday and did know how the university obtained the court documents.
Though Sloan did not return phone calls Tuesday, on Oct. 4 he said he has proof that many of the 3,000 comments made using his name between June 2005 and September 2007 were made from IP addresses owned by Tech.
However, Jim Brink, vice provost at Tech, said he and officials with the university's Information Technology department do not believe Sloan's accusations are valid.
"We change our IP addresses frequently, and so these evidently all came from the same IP address," he said. "You don't even know, when you send something, what IP address there is because we're constantly changing them."
Mellinger said federal law would protect the university from liability if the comments were posted from Tech computers.
Sloan said the actions he believes Polgar and Truong committed damaged his reputation because they were made during the time frame of USCF board-member elections in July.
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