⚖️ Legal Update XV: Activity in Borer vs. the Club Lawsuit

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⚖️ Legal Update XV: Activity in Borer vs. the Club Lawsuit
January 16, 2021

This update focuses on activity over the last six days in the Small Claims lawsuit by former member Steven Borer against the Club, a suit intended to obtain the outstanding refund of the $1,700 Membership Fee due when Steven withdrew from the Club over two years ago. There was also activity in the Club’s other lawsuit where they are suing former Treasurer Carl L. Kennedy, II to obtain records the Club alleges Kennedy has and must turn over to them. We have “mirrored” both sets of case files from the public docket onto our Litigation case pages (Borer v. the Club, and Club v. Kennedy).

Steven Borer v. Pompano Senior Squadron Flying Club, Inc

On Monday, January 11, 2021, a few minutes after 10:00 AM, a “2-Hour Trial/Evidentiary Hearing” began. This hearing was scheduled on December 4, 2020 based upon a filing from Club attorney Edward Holodak. In attendance at the hearing, held via Zoom, were the parties, a couple of witnesses, the Club’s attorney, a couple of Club officers, and a handful of observers. As of this writing, we are unaware of any decision(s) by the Judge in the case, but it seems like a decision is probably imminent. We will not opine on the nature of the pending decision, but will report our thoughts on the conduct of the hearing itself and the events that followed because we believe these are facts independent of any decision by the Judge.

In this newsletter, we observe that the Club’s attorney continues to play unnecessary games with the trial process. We examine and substantiate the post-hearing claims made by Borer that the Club’s attorney made willful misrepresentation of facts to the Judge. We document the fallacy in the Club’s claims that they could not provide the bank records that Borer sought because the Club did not have them (they’ve had the records since at least October 2020). We discuss the relevance of a May 8, 2020 E-Mail from Attorney Wendy Hausmann that Steven Borer attached to his “Response to Defendant’s Trial Memorandum” he filed on January 12, 2021. We also express our confusion about the Club’s decision to attach an 8-page print of our November 25, 2020 newsletter to a post-trial filing by the Club, without any stated rationale as to relevance or even mention in the “cover letter” in their filing. Finally, we expose and explore one of the most glaring misstatements of fact from Club President Greg Gilhooly when he testified under oath that none of the amendments to the Operational Rules in 2020 had any relevance to the case.

Selective Sequestration and Fancy Lawyer Tricks:
In his filing on December 30, 2020, Steven Borer identified Michael Borer (Steven’s father) and Carl Kennedy (former Club Treasurer) as their intended witnesses. On January 4, 2021, Edward Holodak, the Club’s lawyer, identified Greg Gilhooly (Club President) and, surprisingly, Wendy Hausmann (Carl Kennedy’s lawyer friend) as their witnesses. The trial began by the Judge granting Mr. Holodak’s request to “invoke of the rule.” [Read More...]
Willful Misrepresentation by an Officer of the Court (the Club’s Attorney, Edward F. Holodak, Esq.)
Then there was more Club lawyer technicality and concealment fireworks during the trial, this time involving the Club’s refusal to provide records as requested. What follows is an excerpt from the trial transcript where Mr. Holodak falsely and repeatedly asserted that the Club did not have the records that Steven Borer had asked the Club to produce at trial. Mr. Holodak also went one step further, falsely and repeatedly asserting that the Club had subpoenaed these records from their own bank. [Read More...]
The Club Already Had the Bank Records
When Mr. Holodak made the false claim that the Club had subpoenaed records from the bank but had not yet received them, he also knowingly concealed the truth of the matter: The Club already had the bank records. Both Mr. Holodak and Mr. Gilhooly knew they had the records when they represented otherwise to the Judge. [Read More...]
The May 8, 2020 E-Mail from Attorney Wendy Hausmann:
In Steven Borer’s January 12, 2021, Memorandum in response to the Club’s “Trial Memorandum,” Borer cited a May 8, 2020, email from attorney Wendy Hausmann to Club attorney Edward Holodak which Borer said reflected “the falsity of Defendant’s testimony at trial through its President” (that there were minutes reflecting a Board vote to “abandon its commitment” to refund former members). [Read More...]
The Club’s inclusion of a .INFO web page page
For reasons not known, when Edward Holodak filed the May 4, 2020 minutes that he and the Club President had claimed demonstrated the Board’s intent to retroactively deny refunds to former members like Steven Borer, Mr. Holodak also attached an 8-page printout of our November 25, 2020 newsletter in which we provided a detailed report of the November 11, 2020 Club membership meeting. It is difficult to imagine the legal strategy of producing that document, unsolicited, to the Judge, particularly because there was no mention of it in the “cover sheet” which said only that “Defendant... hereby files this Notice of Filing Requested Board Meeting Minutes.” [Read More...]
Gilhooly’s claim during trial that the changes to the Ops Rules were not relevant to the case
Our recollection is that the Judge asked Greg Gilhooly if the Operational Rules had been modified in 2020. Mr. Gilhooly said that there were some revisions but immediately claimed that he could not remember any specific revisions. He also claimed that the revisions to the Operational Rules in 2020 were not relevant to the issues in the case. If the transcript reflects this as his testimony, this is a huge problem for the credibility of the Club because it is so demonstrably false. It boggles the mind why Mr. Gilhooly would ever perjure himself that way. [Read More...]

Conclusion

We believe that each of the issues described above, taken individually, but certainly in total, indicate the Club is unrestrained when it comes to dishonest conduct. We showed that the Club:

likes to play legal games with the process and witnesses;
falsely represented to the Judge that the Club’s Board minutes reflect intent to retroactively take refundable Membership Fees;
falsely represented to the Judge that the Club does not have copies of checks and bank records;
falsely represented that the Club subpoenaed records from their own bank;
failed to disclose that they entertained a motion to cancel refunding Membership Fees of former members, but did not pass that motion;
inexplicably placed in the record a rather incriminating newsletter we sent in November;
falsely claimed that none of the three revisions to the Operational Rules in 2020 had any relevance to this case.

Going forward, members simply must consider this overwhelming and persistent practice of dishonesty when listening to current Club officials. Members should demand proof for all statements the current Club officials make with respect to any aspect of Club operations. Finally, members should step up in the pending Board elections to give members a real choice to challenge this kind of so-called “leadership.” Failure to object at meetings and in campaigns will be interpreted as consent for the current officials to continue down the dark road they are on.

We will continue to update the litigation pages on this web site as we learn more, but please continue to let us hear from you at newsletter-feedback@pompanobeachflyingclub.info. Below are some quick links to the main areas of our web site.

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