AAA tactics show contempt for justice and Armenian Americans

Published: Friday March 25, 2011

Two months ago a federal court ruled in the dispute over the Armenian Genocide museum and memorial in Washington. But instead of allowing -- and encouraging -- the project to move forward, the Armenian Assembly of America, the losing party, has sought to delay and undermine the progress of the museum as well as the administration of justice, all the while showing contempt for the court, for the judge personally, and for the aspirations of the Armenian-American community.

The bulk of the property on which the Genocide museum and memorial is to be built was donated conditionally by Gerard L. Cafesjian and the Cafesjian Family Foundation (CFF). To encourage the project to move promptly, CFF and AAA had agreed in 2003 to a key provision: if the project were not completed by December 31, 2010, the property would revert to the Cafesjian Family Foundation.

The leaders of the Armenian Assembly of America went to federal court and made a range of allegations against Mr. Cafesjian and his associates in an effort to invalidate this provision.

After three years of legal clashes and a 12-day trial held in November 2010, a respected federal judge dismissed all of the allegations against the Cafesjian parties and ordered that title to the properties be transferred to the Cafesjian Family Foundation.

Meanwhile, the board of CFF has decided that, working with the Armenian-American community as a whole, it will use the properties to proceed with a Genocide memorial and museum.

The leaders of the Armenian Assembly have to date failed to comply with the court order.

CFF and AAA met in court on February 24 to discuss the implementation of the January 26 court order. CFF called for an immediate transfer of properties so that the project to build the museum and memorial could proceed without further delay.

CFF also agreed to a separate discussion of other outstanding issues, such as compensation of CFF's attorney fees as mandated by the judge and other less urgent matters that the court ruled on initially.

But according to their filing with the court, AAA representatives saw "no urgency" to hand over the property, arguing that implementation of the court order could cause them harm.  AAA refused to hand a set of keys to CFF, at one point even claiming that they didn't have a set of keys of their own.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly urged the parties to proceed without delay and set out schedules for the parties to move on implementation of the court order within a week.

After additional requests for more time made by AAA lawyers, AAA and CFF representatives met on March 11 in New York. At that meeting, AAA once again refused to transfer the titles or the keys to the properties.

Two days earlier, in an abrupt shift of their legal strategy, AAA filed a Motion for a New Trial, citing the fact that Judge Kollar-Kotelly, her husband and Gerard Cafesjian shared interest in fine glass art. In its filing AAA lawyers claimed that such shared interest could have somehow biased the court.

In their public statement of March 17, AAA insinuated further that Judge Kollar-Kotelly may have also been biased in favor of Mr. Cafesjian since she was appointed by President Bill Clinton who was in turn reportedly a close friend of Mr. Cafesjian's former business colleague.

In their filing to the court, CFF lawyers dismissed the claims as without merit and irrelevant.

AAA representatives "have not produced any evidence of bias on the part of the Court in this case, other than their complaint that they would have preferred a different outcome in the January 26, 2011 Memorandum Opinion," lead CFF attorney John B. Williams said in the March 21 filing with the court.

The ludicrous conspiracy theory concocted by AAA representatives is merely a last ditch effort to delay the administration of justice. Having failed to prove baseless allegations against Mr. Cafesjian, they now attempt the same strategy against the judge.  AAA's tactics also delay the building of the Armenian Genocide museum and memorial.

Moreover, as CFF learned on March 18, AAA has in violation of court instruction and its own promises moved collections and artifacts gathered for the purpose of the future museum from the G Street property to an undisclosed location.  Apparently, AAA leaders' promises to the court are as unreliable as their testimony.

In their filings, CFF lawyers have argued that the court should dismiss AAA's motion for a new trial as both substantially baseless and procedurally flawed and for AAA to be held in contempt of court for moving the collections and artifacts.

AAA's latest actions continue a pattern of behavior that has included:

-       delaying the project's progress from the time of its launch by blocking plans prepared and presented by Mr. Cafesjian, without offering alternatives;

-       excluding Mr. Cafesjian from a project to which he was the main sponsor, efforts that included "cover up" of questionable editing of meeting minutes;

-       launching a number of public and legal claims seeking to disparage Mr. Cafesjian and CFF, all of which were proven baseless in court;

-       as determined by the judge, providing not credible testimony during the trial held last November; and

-       misinterpreting the January 26 court ruling in its press releases.

Taken together this behavior represents contempt not just for Mr. Cafesjian and the Cafesjian Family Foundation, but the American justice system and the aspirations of the Armenian American community to see a museum dedicated to the Armenian Genocide built in Washington.