Your correspondence of March 31, 1997 mailbox:/X%7C/Netscape/Mail/Inbox?id=vO ... 18617740c@%5B204.189.63.237%5D&number= 1
Subject: Your correspondence of March 31, 1997
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 97 23:01:14 -0700
From: ogle@linex.com (Chris Ogle)
To: sterling@café. ch
Dear Sterling
April 21, 1997
Arica Institute is in receipt of the letter you e-mailed March 31. Thank you for your attention to these matters. We are concerned with the "glasnost" you refer to. The Board of Directors sees clearly that a failure in that regard easily leads to the sort of speculation that you point up. The Board has resolved to take all stops necessary to elucidate Institute operations, and to ensure that we define and comply with all accounting, legal and generalized sensibility concerns.
The Board appreciates the business and legal background that you have stated and demonstrate. And we, therefore, feel that the points you make regarding operations are worthy of concern and attention to their meaning. We anticipate that this undertaking will be somewhat costly and not be finished this week, however, we commit to moving ahead with deliberate speed and goals.
In the meantime, to offer our perspective on some general points, it is true that the Arica material is not producing a net financial. gain, Arica is a non-profit and profit is not the objective. And development expense in advance of related income is reasonable and ordinary.
Oscar in conjunction with Arica and its membership and students has been consistently adding to Arica Institute's product base of intellectual property. This property is quite valuable as wholly original, innovative works', in an educational format, with an inherently broad appeal and applicability. Its return on investment ratio was never the ultimate and immediate point, as would be typical for profit corporations.
This is not to say Arica Institute is not financially responsible, it recognizes that budgets must be realistic and funded, and it has very limited resources. The annual gross income of Arica Institute is a small number, for any business. A very large percent of income is from direct contributions from supporters. I don't know how you can suggest anyone is being "swindled," and I think it is reckless and self-serving for you propose that. Sarah Ichazo is a non-salaried vice-president of Arica Institute. Oscar Ichazo is paid by Arica Institute, in an amount that Arica Institute, its membership, its students, and contributors have de-facto deemed to be reasonable. Mr. Ichazo's work product has been impressively voluminous and of impeccable quality. Arica Institute appropriately reports all payments to individuals.
The hypothetical year you have constructed greatly overstates Arica Institute payments to Oscar Ichazo, for any year in my knowledge. As for the other sources of income you suggest there: I am not informed regarding the details of projects that Oscar undertakes separately from the Institute, however, he has developed successful training programs and the figures you presume may be possible, at the absolute outside limit. I don't begrudge Oscar a success and the MS1 training was a major undertaking, still, I doubt the returns were as high as you imagine. A presentation like MS1 hardly represents an average year and you have taken your "hypothetical" to the maximum imaginable.
There would be no "contributions to Oscar via Arica Hawaii." Arica Hawaii is a branch of Arica Institute and would not make "contributions" to Oscar. Private contributions to Oscar are something that I have no general knowledge about, and such contributions would not be processed through Arica Institute.
Payments to Oscar are certainly not the whole story. Arica Institute has significant fixed overhead and daily operations costs, ongoing course of business expense, inventory replenishment, payroll, payroll taxes, health insurance and all of the hundreds of miscellaneous expenses that any business produces. Arica maintains mailing lists, and transcript files, it performs correspondences and responds to recommendations and concerns, as in the case here. These expenses and more all come out of an inadequate income in relation to the amount of work that is undertaken and accomplished.
As some immediate comfort Arica does retain an independent accountant who prepares and certifies the books continuously, Arica is also audited regularly. What we have not done, and are now resolved to do is double check all our procedures and records. The Arica finance committee has, in fact, begun the necessary steps to centralize all financial information. In this process we will get a clear picture of Institute investment and Ichazo investment, which has been considerable and outside of our budget. All of this needs to be clarified. We see that it is important now to pull our resources together as best we can in an effort to wrestle with the formidable types of operations issues you fairly raise. The Board of Directors has resolved to pro-actively address all of the above mentioned, accounting, legal, sensibility and glasnost, operations issues you have guided us to. Thank you for the independent eye and the benefit of your background and experience.
Very Sincerely Yours,
The Arica Institute Board of Directors by Christopher M. Ogle ===================================
[Note: Here is my reply to the above. 15jun1997]
Sterling Doughty
CH-800I-ZH
e-mail: sterling@cafe-ch
t/f. + 41-1-261.57.41
15 june 1997
Chris Ogle, Arica Board of Directors, Interested Parties:
Dear Chris:
With reference to your letter of 21 April 1997, I would like to make several comments.
1) Thank you for the generally reasonable tone and the fact that the letter was later posted on the Aripri. [Note: At the time this was the Arica community e-mail conversation site.] Since then hate mail has almost ceased although I have heard that on the "behind the back" circuit some pretty nasty judgements on me did continue. Frankly such vicious and unwarranted, as they were based on hearsay and almost complete lack of knowledge about the veracity of my allegations or the reality of my level of consciousness made me quite sick. I was forced to take defensive measures which I am not at liberty to disclose at this time.
2) I HAVE MENTIONED A NUMBER OF TIMES IN MY VARIOUS CORRESPONDANCE THAT ARICA STILL HAS POSSESSION OF A NUMBER OF MY COLOR SLIDES, SLIDES WHICH ARE ESSENTIAL FOR A BOOK I AM WRITING ON BIG SUR AND FOR AN ARTICLE I AM PREPARING FOR A MAJOR PUBLICATION ON ARICA, OSCAR,, ET AL. ARICA HAS NEVER RESPONDED TO MY REQUESTS ALTHOUGH I KNOW MY SLIDES WERE USED FOR THEATER PRESENTATIONS AMONG OTHER USES AND THAT SEVERAL WERE USED IN THE SLIDE SHOW AT HAWAII I. PERMISSION FOR SUCH USE WAS NEVER OBTAINED AND I WANT MY SLIDES BACK. FOR ARICA, WHICH THREATENS LAWSUITS AT THE DROP OF A GON, TO TREAT ME IN SUCH A WAY IS SIMPLY UNCONSCIONABLE. RESPOND PLEASE.
3) It is now the 15th day of June 1997. In your letter you said "...the undertaking ... will not be finished this week. Nearly two months have passed and I have not heard another word from you. What gives'.?
4) In my reference to Sarah Ichazo's position, which to me amounts to a prima facie conflict of interest question. I would like to cite one example of proof of my thesis which apparently was overlooked by your accountants and which you are obliged, in your fiduciary position, to point out to them.
In 1990 I sent a cheek to Oscar Ichazo Companv for $517.50. It was a Bank of America, Capitola, California check, #111 I believe (I can't find the relevant file at the moment, but I have conclusive documentation.) I intended to take a further Arica training and wanted to ask Oscar which would be appropriate. After Hawaii I. I had no desire to further associate myself and my energy with Arica. I requested, through Sidener. that my money be returned. After an exchange of rather brisk letters, I did eventually (after several months) get my money. However. the refund check was drawn on the Arica Hawaii account, and signed by Sarah Ichazo. An honest error? Impossible. Arica was not selling those trainings (although it did advertise them in various Aricans, raising another accounting question). An isolated incident? Perhaps, but my contention is that Oscar and Sarah. with either the active or passive support of a Board scared to say no, treated and treat Arica as their own personal property and freely intemixed OIC and AI and AIHI and Sequoia accounts and were planning the same with Velocity. In a worst case scenario, it might be considered a RICO offense. Any comment?
5) I have still not received any recent copies of Arica financial reports or an explanation of its relationship to Velocity Trainings Inc. [Sausalito, California] which I recently noticed (while publishing the ss file) still has active fax numbers. [Note: Still true in March 1999, even though the California Secretary of State has no record of the corporation's existence. See the Corporate Velocity page.]
[Note: "the ss file" refers to a letter to me by Steve Stroud, a member of the Arica Chile 10month group, enttled "what ho brudder", in which Mr Stroud made some rather unusually, but apparently not unusual,"negative" comments about the Ichazos and Aricans. Partially as a defensive measure, I faxed a copy of the original e-mail to three elements of the Arica entity on 10apr97. This letter has resurfaced in recent times. It is not in this version of the site, metaton 3.0 ]
Nor has any clarification on the Sequoia Press problem, phone bills and other expenses paid for by Arica been forthcoming Failure to send the financial reports is of course a violation of NY State and IRS regulations, as you are aware.
6) In the interests of transparency and the truth, I am appending two other documents. a recent update on my personal life with a commentary on Oscar's teaching and sources and an earlier document. The Message, which also has material you are sure to find of interest, particularly as they relate to the "impeccability" of material Oscar has supplied to Arica. You are welcome to share them as you choose. [Note: The two documents referred to in the above paragraph are not included in metaton 3.0 ]
I look forward to receiving a timely response to this letter.
Sterling
===================================
[Note: Here is the September 1997 Arica reply. Notice the subtle differences between what Ogle promised on 21 April 1997 and what was delivered. The IRS returns were practically worthless. Ogle had by then resigned, I heard he was forced to do so for writing a business letter of the sort that would be normal for an ethical organisation making the claims Arica has and still is. This kind of intimidation would seem to me to violate Mr Ogle's First Amendment rights.]
[letter undated: sent approximately 10sep1997]
Sterling Doughty
Zinggenstr 15
CH 8953 Dietikon
Switzerland
Dear Sterling
Your request for financial information was recently discussed again by the Board of Directors. Arica Institute is required to make such information available to anyone, and we are glad to do so. However, since you are in Europe and can't easily come to the offices to review the data, the Board decided to provide you with a copy of the information by mail. Enclosed are the Internal Revenue Service forms 990 and attached schedule A for the years 1993/4, 1994/5, 1995/6.
We hope this finds you well.
Toham Kum Rah
Bobbi Dunderdale
[Note: It took nearly five months for this feeble brush-off to be drafted.]
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