Dark Knights

Chess and scandal aren't exactly strangers, so I wasn't astonished to read of trouble in the United States Chess Federation(Disclosure: I'm a life member and have been for decades).

Dylan Loeb McClain, writing in The New York Times reports:

A lawsuit filed in federal court last week accuses two officers of the nation’s leading chess organization of posting inflammatory remarks on the Internet under false names in order to win election to the group’s board.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, says that Susan Polgar and Paul Truong, who are married and who were elected to the board of the United States Chess Federation in July, posted thousands of remarks, many obscene or defamatory, over the last two years on two public Internet bulletin boards.

Polgar is a former Women's World Champion - though not nearly as strong a player as younger sister Judit, and Truong also a strong player.

The accuser's case apparently rests on the fact that the defamatory messages were traced to an IP address used by Polgar and Truong. He has some legal history, including prison time:

In 1992, he was convicted of attempted kidnapping in a case involving his daughter, Shamema, who was living with guardians. Mr. Sloan spent 18 months in a Virginia prison.

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