ERNESTO CUESTA
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ P.O. Box 34434, Bethesda, Md. 20827 Home Tel. 301-564-3099 e-mail:
April 19, 2010
Ms. Wendy Masorti
Complaints Manager
American Philatelic Society
100 Match Factory Place
Bellefonte, PA 16823
Dear Ms. Masorti:
I am in receipt of the counter complaint filed by the Cuban Philatelic Society of America, Inc. (CPSA) against me and the 17 supporting Exhibits. In spite of the extensive and rambling nature of their presentation, I am going to respond in detail to all of them because I feel that they constitute a shameful and baseless attempt on their part to discredit my name and reputation that I cannot let go unanswered.
However, before I go into the detailed part of my response, I would like to make some general comments to put my overall detailed response into the proper context and set some very important facts straight. right from the start. I have numbered the paragraphs in Mr. Iglesias' letter of April 8 to you and I'm attaching a copy of that letter with the numbered paragraphs so I can use it to refer to its contents throughout my entire response.
Exhibit #2, "Mr. Ernesto Cuesta's chronological list of unethical violations", was never provided to me by the CPSA until you sent it to me. Therefore, Mr. Iglesias' allegations in paragraph #7 of his letter that I had ample opportunities to argue my case is delusional since I could have hardly argued my case without being presented with the accusations against me! His statement in the same paragraph that I did not ask to have my case reviewed is also incorrect—I clearly demanded in my response to CPSA Board to have my expulsion retracted in no uncertain terms. Moreover, the paragraph is contradictory, he starts by saying that I did not ask to have my case reviewed and later states that I had ample opportunity to argue my case. Then he goes on to cite Article V, Section 2, of the CPSA Bylaws that state that
"a hearing by mail, instead of a hearing in person, may be granted…"—I was granted neither. Finally, let me point out to you that most of the accusations and allegations of unethical violations listed in Exhibit #2, pre-date the granting of the Cruz Planas Award to me for outstanding contributions over many years to the Society and Cuban philately. an award that is dated December 10, 2008 and that was presented to me at ROMPEX 2009 in Denver, Colorado, in May of 2009. The logic in their subsequent actions and statements defies all explanations.
It is evident from reading paragraph #10 of Mr. Iglesias' letter he does not understand that my use of the that contrary to his claim, he has a very poor grasp of the English language. To imply that my figure of speech "Keep it coming—you are only digging your own graves deeper…" implies carries "an implicit threat of violence,” This implication is ludicrous and shows that the real malicious statements are coming from him as evident in the rest of the paragraph. The only threat that I have made against the Society or the members of its Board has been to take them to court for the defamation of my name and character implicit in by their unwarranted, baseless, and illegal expulsion of me from the Society. I am glad that Mr. Iglesias and the CPSA Board have obliged me and kept digging their own graves deeper in their response to the complaint I filed against them with the APS and in their accompanying counter complaint. Not only have they dug their own graves deeper, they have also provided me with the ammunition to shoot them down with a stroke of my pen as I intend to do in the present exposé. And let them run to the FBI with claims of my homicidal intentions. Totally ridiculous!!!
Finally, it appears that Mr. Iglesias did not consult the full CPSA Board of Directors on the content of his response letter or on the intention to file a counter complaint against me with the APS, both signed by him in the name of the CPSA. After receiving your letter with Mr. Iglesias' response and associated documentation, I contacted CPSA Board member Mr. Mark R. Tyx to inquire whether he had been consulted on these communiqués and received a negative response on both counts. I copy Mr. Tyx's response following:
Subject: Re: Response from the CPSA to my complaint with the APS
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:26:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark R Tyx <>
To:
Hello Ernesto,
In brief, here's my response to your 3 questions.
1. As a CPSA Board member, I was not consulted nor contacted about the decision
about the filing of an APS complaint against you.
2. There was no communication about the intention of the CPSA Board to file a cross-
complaint with the APS. This email is the first news I have that the Board has taken
this action.
3. No, the CPSA Board did not provide me with a copy of their collective response to the
the initial APS inquiry. Nor have I seen the original APS letter of inquiry about this
matter either.
In essence, I am a Board member in name only.
Regards,
Mark
Note however that item #33 of Mr. Iglesias' letter indicates that he sent copy to all of the Board members. Mr. Tyx was excluded because he was the only member of the Board that voted against my expulsion from the Society. I don't know whether Mr. Iglesias consulted the rest of the CPSA Board members on these important documents. If he didn't, he is assuming dictatorial powers and is probably in violation of the Society Bylaws.
If he did consult them, it supports my argument that the current Board is incompetent and derelict of their duties in overseeing Society operations as evidenced from the numerous errors in the submitted documents that I will proceed to identify in detail.
In summary, both my expulsion from the CPSA and now the counter complaint that the CPSA has filed against me with the APS, are simply attempts to discredit me, my name, and my reputation because of my vehement opposition and criticism of the way the current Society Officers and Board are conducting Society operations and their undemocratic and illegal distortion of current Society elections Bylaws in order to ensure their continued control of the Society by rigging planned elections in their favor and to the detriment of the Society at large.
In view of the additional evidence of their ill intentions that I will detail in my additional comments to their submission of falsehoods to the APS, I feel that the APS should sanction the CPSA with loss of their affiliation as a chapter of the APS and that with the exclusion of Board member Mr. Mark R. Tyx, who voted against my expulsion from the Society, the remaining current Officers and Board members, all of whom are probably APS members themselves, should be censured and reprimanded by the APS for their participation in the CPSA actions and false accusations against me.
I am prepared to provide full disclosure of all of my communications with Society Officers, Board of Directors, individual members, and membership at large in support of all of my statements upon request. Please do not hesitate to ask me to provide additional clarification of any statements on my part that are not clear or require additional corroboration.
Sincerely,
Ernesto Cuesta
Attachments:
Copy of Mr. Iglesias' letter of 8 April 2010 to the APS with paragraphs numbered.
Detailed Response to Each Paragraph in Mr. Iglesias' Letter of 8 April 2010 to the APS
Copy of Exhibits 1 to 17 attached to Mr. Iglesias' letter of 8 April 2010 with my comments
· Pay special attention to my comments on Exhibit 2
Detailed Response to Each Paragraph in Mr. Iglesias' Letter of 8 April 2010 to the APS
NOTA – Hacen falta los parafos de Fernando
1. I have already addressed the contradiction in the granting of the Cruz Planas Award to me in May of 2009 vis-à-vis the listing of alleged violations pre-dating it.
2. This is just a diversionary tactic to divert attention from the real issue which is the original complaint I filed against the CPSA with the APS.
3. A bunch of bunk. Contrary to the statement that I have made "thinly veiled accusations", all of the statements in my messages have been quite explicit, direct to the point, and supported by facts. The characterization of "thinly veiled accusations" more aptly applies to the CPSA accusations as amply demonstrated in the documentation presented herein. The entries in my "black list" are all supported by facts that I can prove and I would welcome anyone to initiate litigation against me regarding them. The lawyer that Mr. Iglesias copied on his letter of 8 April 2010 to the APS should have advised him on the frivolousness of any attempt to sue the CPSA based on my "black list".
4. The 17 November 2009 meeting of the Society at which the motion to expel me from the Society was presented and approved by the members present was a local Miami meeting of the Society that was not representative of the Society at large and whose purpose was not previously announced beyond that group.
5. Talk about "thinly veiled accusations"—the information posted in my FILACUBA Website criticizing the CPSA operations was clearly identified as being my opinions and was password protected so that only CPSA members could view it. It seems to me that the CPSA Board has a rather peculiar definition of the word "fraudulent" that is far from the intended definition of the word as used in Section 2 of Article V, of the Society's Bylaws. The listing of violations referenced in Exhibit 2, were not made available to me to challenge in advance of my expulsion or even thereafter—I learned about them in the form of Exhibit 2 of the counter complaint filed by the CPSA against me with the APS. See my detailed comments on each paragraph of Exhibit 2 following.
6. I received the letter of expulsion from the CPSA "out of the blue sky" without prior warning after being a member continuously since the foundation of the Society in 1971 and member of the Board of Directors from 1977 to 2006 when I was intentionally left out of the elections ballot for Directors of the Society due to my rising complaints about Society operations to the rest of the Board. No listing of violations was provided nor any recourse for a defense or an appeal. This letter is in clear violation of Section 2, Article V, of the Society Bylaws.
7. I have already responded to this paragraph in my cover letter.
8. More "thinly veiled accusations" on the part of the CPSA Board. I challenge the CPSA Board to list any specific "derogatory" comments, "unethical conduct", or "lack of proper decorum" in any of my communications to the Society or any of its members. This paragraph is full of ill-intentioned innuendos that are not backed by facts.
9. Privacy rights? Whose privacy rights? Why should I keep private the fact that I have filed a complaint against the Society with the APS? How about my more basic rights of freedom of speech and the right to defend myself against trumped up accusations? Give me a break!
10. I have already responded to this paragraph in my cover letter.
11. Correction, I do not own my own server—I rent space with an Internet service provider and have hosted the CPSA Website since 1998 at no charge to the CPSA. Again, if this "struggle has been in the making for several years", why did the Society present me with the Cruz Planas Award in May of 2009? The two facts are grossly contradictory.
12. Correct, as requested at the stated meeting, I removed the sections that were objectionable to the Society's Officers and Board from the CPSA Website and created a password protected section in my personal FILACUBA Website that was only accessible to CPSA members where I posted my criticisms of the Society in full exercise of my freedom of speech rights. Again, Mr. Iglesias labels my criticisms as "ethical improprieties" in a continuing attempt to tarnish my reputation. I challenge Mr. Iglesias to specifically identify the "ethical improprieties" in my postings. On the contrary, all of my critiques were accompanied by specific recommendations for improvements in Society operations.
13. There is no "fantasy" about my recommendations for modifications to the Society Bylaws. They took great thought and effort to prepare and were presented to the Society Board for consideration in the mid to late 1990s. Those recommendations were completely disregarded at the time by the Society Board without careful consideration or discussion among the membership. I had kept them posted in the Society Website in the hope that at some point they would be revisited and serve to update the current archaic Society Bylaws dating to the formation of the Society as a local Miami club at a time when the Internet was not even a fantasy in anyone's mind. There was also nothing "destructive" about my critiques of the Society financial reports or election process; on the contrary, both primarily consisted of recommendations for their improvement. Again, all of these interchanges of opinion had been taking place long before the Society Board of Directors voted to honor me with the Cruz Planas Award. It was only when I started to vehemently oppose the hijacking of the current elections that the Board decided to get rid of me and started concocting all sorts of fabricated allegations to justify their actions against me. Fortunately, they have botched it and done a rather poor job at it.
14. Addressed below in #19. Again, the paragraph is full of innuendos about unsubstantiated financial improprieties and ill intentions on my part in the administration of the Society's Website.