Local
Metro Weekly publisher settles $1 million lawsuit
Agreement reached over debt, fraud allegation; IRS tax liens remain
Metro Weekly — a local gay magazine published by Jansi LLC, which is owned by Randy Shulman — and Post-Newsweek Media, Inc., the company that owns the Washington Post, reached a settlement agreement on April 28 over a lawsuit in which Post-Newsweek alleged that Jansi and Shulman engaged in fraud to avoid paying a Post-Newsweek-owned printing company $85,000 for printing services.
The settlement came six days after a D.C. Superior Court judge presiding over the lawsuit denied a motion for summary judgment by Jansi and Shulman that called for dismissing the fraud charge on grounds that insufficient evidence existed to move forward with the charge.
The settlement agreement also came just over seven months after Judge Ramsey Johnson denied a separate motion by Jansi and Shulman seeking dismissal of the lawsuit.
The terms of the settlement between the two parties could not be found in the court records, indicating the parties chose to keep the terms confidential as is the case with many lawsuits.
Paul S. Thaler, the attorney representing Post-Newsweek, and John W. Karr and William G. McLain, the attorneys representing Jansi and Shulman, did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment on the case and the settlement.
McLain faxed a message to the Blade on May 27 saying Jansi and Shulman would consider responding to a Blade inquiry in writing if such a response was “deemed appropriate” by him but the magazine has a policy of not providing interviews to Blade reporters.
Jansi and Shulman’s attorneys have argued that the lawsuit was without merit, saying the printing debt was incurred by Isosceles Publishing, Inc., the corporation that owned and operated Metro Weekly up until November 2007.
The magazine’s attorneys have argued that a new corporation called Jansi LLC entered into a licensing agreement with Isosceles to publish and operate Metro Weekly beginning in November 2007. They maintain that Jansi, as a separate corporate entity, was not responsible for the debts and liabilities incurred when Metro Weekly was published and operated by Isosceles.
A past due bill of $85,000 from Comprint, a Gaithersburg, Md., company owned by Post-Newsweek, was for printing services incurred by Metro Weekly during the time Isosceles published the magazine, the lawyers have argued.
In its lawsuit filed in July 2010, Post-Newsweek charged Jansi LLC and Shulman, one of Jansi’s two shareholders, with breach of contract, saying they were responsible for the printing debt with Comprint.
The lawsuit also charged Jansi and Shulman with fraud for allegedly entering into the licensing agreement with Isosceles for the alleged purpose of evading debts and liabilities.
“Upon information and belief, Mr. Shulman, Jansi, and Isosceles entered into the 2007 License Agreement with the specific intention to evade Isosceles’ creditors while continuing to publish, and reap revenue from, Metro Weekly,” the lawsuit said. “As a direct result of the defendant’s fraud, plaintiff suffered damages in a sum to be proved at trial but expected to exceed $1,000,000,” the lawsuit said in its request for punitive damages.
‘Nearly $656,000’ in tax liens
In its court brief opposing Jansi and Shulman’s motion to dismiss the fraud charge, Post-Newsweek attorney Thaler cited Shulman’s testimony in a deposition in February in which Shulman acknowledged that he and Isosceles had yet to resolve an outstanding tax obligation with the IRS.
News of Isoceles’ tax liabilities surfaced last year when the Washington Business Journal reported that, “nearly $656,000 in federal and state tax liens have been filed against Isosceles.” Records from the D.C. Recorder of Deeds, which keeps track of tax liens, show that 21 federal, D.C., or unemployment tax liens had been filed against Isosceles Publishing between 1996 and 2010.
Thaler stated in his brief opposing Jansi and Shulman’s motion to dismiss the fraud charge that the tax liens were an indication that the licensing agreement between Isosceles and Jansi was conceived to enable Metro Weekly to evade its debts, a development, he said, that supports Post-Newsweek’s fraud claim.
In Jansi and Shulman’s August 2010 motion for summary judgment seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Karr argued that Post-Newsweek’s breach of contract charge concerning the printing debt was invalid because, among other things, Post-Newsweek had brought the same charge in a separate lawsuit in 2009.
A judge ruled in Post-Newsweek’s favor in the earlier lawsuit and ordered Isosceles to pay the printing debt. Isosceles started making payments for the initial printing debt, which exceeded $100,000, for a while before stopping all payments. That prompted Post-Newsweek to file the second lawsuit last July, Thaler said in court papers.
Karr argued in his dismissal motion that the legal concept of “claim preclusion” or “issue preclusion” prohibits “relitigation in a subsequent proceeding of the same claim between the same parties or their privies.”
He also argued that Post-Newsweek failed to provide in its lawsuit the required “elements” indicating that fraud might have taken place to a sufficient degree that a fraud claim could move forward to trial.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Ramsey Johnson rejected those assertions, stating in a Sept. 13, 2010 ruling denying the motion for dismissal of the lawsuit that he was “satisfied that the Plaintiff’s complaint for fraud has been sufficiently pled.”
In its separate motion filed Feb. 23, 2011 seeking dismissal of the fraud charge, Karr reiterated his claim that Post-Newsweek failed to provide sufficient grounds for proving fraud. Karr cited the testimony of Post-Newsweek official Garland Christmas in a deposition in which Christmas stated he was not familiar with the specific details of the lawsuit’s allegation that Metro Weekly and Shulman engaged in fraud through the licensing agreement between Isosceles and Jansi.
Karr argued in his brief that Christmas, the Post-Newsweek official in charge of debt collection for the company, also could not provide information to support Post-Newsweek’s claim that it suffered damages exceeding $1 million due to the non-payment of the printing debt or the licensing deal between Isosceles and Jansi.
In his opposition motion for Post-Newsweek, Thaler said the latest lawsuit was aimed at “asking the court to pierce the corporate veil and find that defendants Randy Shulman and Jansi LLC are the functional ‘alter egos’ of Isosceles and should therefore be held liable for the debt owed to Plaintiff.”
Business funds for personal use
In his opposition motion, Thaler added, “Mr. Shulman further indicated [in a deposition] that the licensing arrangement was the ‘only way’ Metro Weekly could continue to be published in light of the tax lien against Isosceles…Shulman and his business partners frequently commingled funds between Jansi and Isosceles. Shulman has also withdrawn funds from Isosceles and Jansi for personal use.”
Shulman was asked during depositions about various charges made to a company ATM card. “If you go down the purchases apparently using the ATM card you’ll see not just the Pet Smart and Martin’s Wine but a series of purchases at Safeway, RiteAid, Target and Subway as well as something called 14k Restaurant, Starbucks. Is it your testimony that all of these were for Jansi or mistakes by you as you’ve indicated you sometimes do,” a Post-Newsweek lawyer asked.
“Some could be mistakes I would think that – I know for a fact the 14K would be a business – that would be a business – that was probably for coffee for a business meeting,” Shulman replied.
In response to questions about purchases with the Jansi card made at other places, such as the Virginia Market convenience store near his home, Shulman said:
“ … I’m looking this over and I’m looking at the cluster of time and it’s very likely at this time that, aside from the thing that I was – quite honestly, I probably had absolutely no money in my own personal account. I was actually utilizing Jansi funds that were there at the time to help support me.”
“So you used the ATM for Jansi,” the lawyer replied.
“I did use the ATM for Jansi to make my purchases during that period.”
In his April 22 ruling denying Jansi and Shulman’s summary judgment motion to dismiss the fraud charge, Judge Johnson stated, “The court has already concluded that Plaintiff’s fraud claim was sufficiently pled when it denied Defendants’ Motion for Failure to State a Claim on Sept. 13, 2010. With regard to the instant motion, the Court does not find that the issue of fraud, at least in this case, lends itself to summary judgment.”
District of Columbia
Faith programming remains key part of Creating Change Conference
‘Faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces’
The National LGBTQ Task Force kicked off the 38th annual Creating Change conference in D.C. this week. This year, as with years past, faith and interfaith programming remains a key part of the conference’s mission and practice.
For some, the presence of faith work at an LGBTQ+ conference may seem antithetical, and Creating Change does not deny the history of harm caused by religious institutions. “We have to be clear that faith work is not an easy pill to swallow in LGBTQ spaces, and they’re no qualms about saying that we acknowledge the pain, trauma, and violence that’s been purported in the name of religion,” Tahil Sharma, Faith Work Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said.
In fact, several panels at the conference openly discuss acknowledging, healing from, and resisting religious harm as well as religious nationalism, including one scheduled today titled “Defending Democracy Through Religious Activism: A panel of experts on effective strategies for faith and multi-faith organizing” that features local queer faith activists like Ebony C. Peace, Rob Keithan, and Eric Eldritch who are also involved in the annual DC Pride Interfaith Service.
Another session will hold space for survivors of religious violence, creating “a drop-in space for loving on each other in healing ways, held by Rev. Alba Onofrio and Teo Drake.”
But Sharma and others who organized the Creating Change Conference explained that “a state of antipathy” towards religious communities, especially those that align with queer liberation and solidarity, is counterproductive and denies the rich history of queer religious activism. “It’s time for us to make a call for an approach to LGBTQ+ liberation that uses interfaith literacy as a tool rather than as a weapon against us,” Sharma explained.
Recognizing a local queer faith icon
Along with the panels, fighting religious nationalism and fostering communion with aligned faith activists and communities is at heart of this year’s faith work. As Sharma shared, “the person that we’re honoring this year for the faith award is Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, and Dr. Betancourt is an amazing leader and someone who really stands out in representing UUs but also representing herself unapologetically.”
Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Dr. Betancourt has more than 20 years of experience working as a public minister, seminary professor, scholar, and environment ethicist, and public theologian. Her activism is rooted in her lived identities as a queer, multiracial, AfroLatine first-generation daughter of immigrants from Chile and Panama, and has been a critical voice in advancing the United Universalism towards anti-racist and pluralistic faith work.
Creating a faith-based gathering space
Sharma also said that faith fosters a unique space and practice to encounter grief and joy. For this reason, Sharma wants to “create a space for folks to engage in curiosity, to engage in spiritual fulfillment and grounding but also I think with the times that we’re in to lean into some space to mourn, some space to find hope.” The Many Paths Gathering Space serves this purpose, where visitors can stop for spiritual practice, speak with a Spiritual Care Team member, or just take a sensory break from the bustle of the conference.
This also means uplifting and foregrounding queer religious ephemera with an ofrenda to honor those who have passed, a display of nonbinary Korean American photographer Salgu Wissmath’s exhibition Divine Identity, and the Shower of Stoles, a collection of about 1,500 liturgical stoles and other sacred regalia representing the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith.
The Shower of Stoles
The collection was first started in 1995 by Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl who received eighty stoles that accompanied them and lent them solace as they set aside their ordinations from the Presbyterian Church. The whole collection was first displayed at the 1996 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in New Mexico. The stoles, according to the Task Force, “quickly became a powerful symbol of the huge loss to the church of gifted leadership.”
Each stole represents the story of a queer person who is active in the life and leadership of their faith community, often sent in by the people themselves but sometimes by a loved one in their honor. About one third of all the stoles are donated anonymously, and over three-quarters of the stoles donated by clergy and full-time church professionals are contributed anonymously.
The collection shows “not just the deep harm that has been caused that does not allow people to meet their vocation when they’re faith leaders, but it also speaks to how there have been queer and trans people in our [faith] communities since the beginning of our traditions, and they continue to serve in forms of leadership,” Sharma explained.
Explicit interfaith work
Along with creating a sacred space for attendees, hosting workshops focused on faith-based action, and recognizing DC’s rich queer religious history, Creating Change is also hosting explicitly faith services, like a Buddhist Meditation, Catholic Mass, Shabbat service, Jummah Prayer Service, and an ecumenical Christian service on Sunday. Creating Change is also welcoming events at the heart of queer religious affirmation, including a Name/Gender/Pronoun/Identity Blessing Ritual and a reading and discussion around queer bibles stories with Rev. Sex (aka Rev. Alba Onofrio).
But along with specific faith-based programs, Sharma explained, “we’re looking to build on something that I helped to introduce, which was the separation of the interfaith ceremony that’s happening this year which is a vigil versus the ecumenical Christian service which is now the only thing that takes place on Sunday morning.”
This includes an Interfaith Empowerment Service this evening and an Interfaith Institute tomorrow, along with “Sing In the Revolution,” an event where folks are invited “to actually engage in the joy and rhythm of resolution and what that looks like,” Sharma said. One of the key activators behind this work is Rev. Eric Eldritch, an ordained Pagan clergy person with Circle Sanctuary and a member of the Pride Interfaith Service planning committee.
Affirming that queer faith work is part of liberation
The goal for this year, Sharma noted, alongside holding space and discussions about faith-based practice and liberation and intentional interfaith work–is to move from thinking about why faith matters in queer liberation spaces to “how is interfaith work the tool for how we’re engaging in our understanding of de-escalation work, digital strategies, navigating a deeper visioning that we need for a better world that requires us to think that we’re not alone in the struggle for mutual abundance and liberation,” Sharma explained.
It may surprise people to learn that faith work has intentionally been part of the National LGBTQ+ Task Force since its beginning in the 1980s. “We can really credit that to some of the former leadership like Urvashi Vaid who actually had a sense of understanding of what role faith plays in the work of liberation and justice,” Sharma said.
“For being someone who wasn’t necessarily religious, she certainly did have a clear understanding of the relationship between those folks who are allies, those folks who stand against us, and then those folks who sit in between–those folks who profess to be of religious and spiritual background and also are unapologetically LGBTQ+,” he continued.
This year’s faith programming builds on this rich history, thinking about “a way to kind of open doors, to not just invite people in but our people to go out into the general scene of the conference” to share how faith-based work is a tool, rather than a hindrance, to queer liberation work.
Virginia
McPike prevails in ‘firehouse’ Dem primary for Va. House of Delegates
Gay Alexandria Council member expected to win 5th District seat
Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the clearcut winner in a hastily called Jan. 20 “firehouse” Democratic primary for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.
McPike, who was one of two gay candidates running in the four-candidate primary, received 1,279 votes or 60.5 percent, far ahead of gay public school teacher Gregory Darrall, a political newcomer who received 60 votes or 3 percent.
Former Alexandria City School Board member Eileen Cassidy Rivera came in second place with 508 votes or 24 percent and Northern Virginia criminal law defense attorney Chris Leibig finished in third place with 265 votes or 12.5 percent.
Each of the candidates expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues.
With less than a week’s notice, Democratic Party officials in Alexandria called the primary to select a Democratic nominee to run in the Feb. 10 special election to fill the 5th District House of Delegates seat being vacated by state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria).
Bennett-Parker won the Democratic nomination for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who is resigning from his seat to take a position in the administration of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who took office on Jan. 17.
Bennett-Parker won the nomination for Ebbin’s state Senate seat in yet another firehouse primary on Jan. 13 in which she defeated three other candidates, including gay former state Del. Mark Levine.
McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, first won election to the Alexandria City Council in 2021. He has served for 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He told the Washington Blade he will continue as chief of staff until next month, when he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.
He received the endorsement of Ebbin, U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), and the LGBTQ Victory Fund in his race for the 5th District Va. House seat. Being an overwhelmingly Democratic district, virtually all political observers expect McPike to win the Feb. 10 special election.
He will be running against Republican nominee Mason Butler, a local business executive who emerged as the only GOP candidate running for the delegate seat.
“Thank you to the voters of Alexandria for choosing me as the Democratic nominee in the House of Delegates District 5,” McPike said in a statement released shortly after the vote count was completed. “It is an incredible honor to have the opportunity to fight for our community and its values in Richmond,” he said.
“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” he stated.
He praised Ebbin for his longstanding support for the LGBTQ community in the Virginia Legislature and added, “If elected to the House of Delegates in the Feb. 10 general election, I will continue to fight to protect the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ Virginians from my new position in Richmond.”
Gay candidate Darrall’s campaign website said he is a “proud progressive, lifelong educator, and labor leader running to put people first.” It says he is a political newcomer “with more than 20 years in the classroom” as a teacher who played a key role in the successful unionization of Fairfax Public Schools.
“He is a proud member and staunch supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community,” his website statement said.
District of Columbia
Sold-out crowd turns out for 10th annual Caps Pride night
Gay Men’s Chorus soloist sings National Anthem, draws cheers
A sold-out crowd of 18,347 turned out on Jan. 17 for the 10th annual Pride Night at the Washington Capitals hockey game held at D.C.’s Capital One Arena.
Although LGBTQ Capitals fans were disappointed that the Capitals lost the game to the visiting Florida Panthers, they were treated to a night of celebration with Pride-related videos showing supportive Capitals players and fans projected on the arena’s giant video screen throughout the game.
The game began when Dana Nearing, a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, sang the National Anthem, drawing applause from all attendees.
The event also served as a fundraiser for the LGBTQ groups Wanda Alston Foundation, which provides housing services to homeless LGBTQ youth, and You Can Play, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing LGBTQ inclusion in sports.
“Amid the queer community’s growing love affair with hockey, I’m incredibly honored and proud to see our hometown Capitals continue to celebrate queer joy in such a visible and meaningful way,” said Alston Foundation Executive Director Cesar Toledo.
Capitals spokesperson Nick Grossman said a fundraising raffle held during the game raised $14,760 for You Can Play. He said a fundraising auction for the Alston Foundation organized by the Capitals and its related Monumental Sports and Entertainment Foundation would continue until Thursday, Jan. 22
A statement on the Capitals website says among the items being sold in the auction were autographed Capitals player hockey sticks with rainbow-colored Pride tape wrapped around them, which Capitals players used in their pre-game practice on the ice.
Although several hundred people turned out for a pre-game Pride “block party” at the District E restaurant and bar located next to the Capital One Arena, it couldn’t immediately be determined how many Pride night special tickets for the game were sold.
“While we don’t disclose specific figures related to special ticket offers, we were proud to host our 10th Pride night and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community,” Capitals spokesperson Grossman told the Washington Blade.
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