April 24, 2008

Mona Mangan, Executive Director

Ann Toback, Assistant Executive Director

Michael Winship, President
Bob Schneider, Vice President
Gail Lee, Secretary-Treasurer

Council:

John Auerbach
Walter Bernstein
Adam Brooks

Former Officers and Council Members:
Chris Albers
Tom Fontana
Warren Leight
Stephen Schiff
Richard Wesley

WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA EAST

After reading the obscenity published on Friday and signed by you, Winship, and by Verrone, I realized that the time had finally come
for me to go public about our relationship.

It was almost four years ago now that Petrie, Jr. and John McLean blamed
“the east” for my outing of McLean’s “not credible” testimony, as well as
outing the very hearing itself and the NLRB finding against CBS and Writers Guild West.

When, in retaliation, they initiated an affiliation dispute aimed at subsuming your union, you reached out to me.

I believed it was because we shared the same fight, especially against
the embedded corruption in the administration of writing credits.

But I came to understand that wasn’t it at all. Instead, you considered
me a prime resource for information you could use to threaten “the west.”

And that I was the only voice out there you could be certain, if you provided me with some of the facts about so-called foreign levies, would speak out, revealing just enough to terrorize Widdifield, Segall, McLean, and Petrie,Jr. into surrender.

But nothing quite went down according to the war council’s strategic plan.

I remember when I was told you had created a separate war council to defeat the west that it smacked of the faux militarism of Charles Holland, which should have been the point at which I first became wary.

You are now, some years later, locked in a courtroom because you
failed to identify that I had never spoken out without true and evidentiary understanding.

When you alerted me to the hidden administrative fee, on so-called
foreign levies, I had many questions.

And only you, Mangan, could answer the questions I had.

I was told you would not talk to me directly but, instead, would talk to my lawyer so that if you were ever deposed you could truthfully say that you have never spoken to Eric Hughes.

Among what you relayed in your conversation with my lawyer
Steven J. Kaplan were the violations of New York state escheat laws
and the slush funds at all four unions – SAG, WGA, DGA, and AFTRA – subsidized by so-called foreign levies.

And there was that quote of yours, Mangan. At the time Eliot Spitzer
was the Attorney General of New York state with a celebrated reputation
as a crusader against white collar crime.

“Eliot Spitzer would love to get his hands on this case.”

Kaplan is now outside counsel for SAG. And although he has copies of some
of the evidence I subsequently acquired, he appears to have joined the same practice as that of all the lawyers on the payrolls of the entertainment unions – the practice of inventing histories.

And then there was the fraud I had just uncovered in the discovery
on THE LAST SAMURAI writing credit lawsuit.

I was one of the experts enlisted to determine if RED DRAGON
was a remake of MANHUNTER which was written and directed
by Michael Mann.

We found that RED DRAGON is a remake of MANHUNTER, but
Writers Guild West informed Michael Mann, Universal, and
“the east” that we had found that it wasn’t a remake of MANHUNTER.

(Becase the two participating writers on RED DRAGON were
east members, your credits department would be administering
the determination of writing credit.)

When Mann’s lawyer Harold Brown demanded to see the written
procedure for determining if one film is a remake of another,
the west’s general counsel Doreen Braverman, using the same
ploy as in THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT fraud, delayed responding
until the film was about to open.

I discovered that in her letter to Brown, although Braverman writes she is”satisfied” that the rules were followed, the procedure she describes is not the one that was in place when we reached our decision. It is one that was made up and submitted to a new committee during the time between the east’s final determination of the writing credit and the opening of RED DRAGON in theaters.

(I eventually learned that Mann’s original deal guaranteed him
a healthy particpation in the revenue of any remake of his film.

DeLaurentiis had made an offer to Mann to write and direct
RED DRAGON. Mann declined.

When Ted Tally had finished writing a screenplay, DeLaurentiis made
an offer to Mann to direct it. Mann declined.

DeLaurerntiis then turned to his long time friend Robert Hadl.

Hadl told McLean what DeLaurentiis and Universal needed and
McLean got it for them.)

You were outraged, disgusted, and revealed that you knew, as
it was quoted to me, “that the west would make up rules” to get
certain credit decisions.

I was asked to have Mann’s lawyers call you, Mangan.

But the war council grew impatient. And concerned, when
I started tracking Hadl’s footprints around the world.

And then you all did something that reveals your contempt
for writers.

You placed an ad in Variety:

“If you are a member of the Writers Guild of America and
have received a foreign levies check from the Writers Guild
since January, 2001, you may be entitled to additional
compensation.

In order to learn more about compensation as well as
other remedies you may have in connection with your
entitlement to foreign levies, please email:

WGAforeignlevies@yahoo.com”

I heard from several writers that they had e-mailed the address but
had not received a response.

Knowing what you were all up to, I called my contact on
the war council and expressed my anger and disgust,
which led to a response to those who had e-mailed
that there would soon be a response.

But then Petrie,Jr. walked into a board meeting in the west and
announced that “for his legacy” he wanted to make peace
with the east.

And WGAforeignlevies@yahoo.com disappeared forever from
the face of the internet.

Some time later, I received a phone call from New York. It was a Saturday night, around ten, L.A. time. Would I consider not posting anything about
foreign levies? Mona, I was told, felt it wouldn’t be good right now
strategically. And would I consider talking to Warren Leight about
killing the story being written for the New York Times? Again, there
was a reference to strategy.

I found myself listening to the rage that word provoked in me.
I hadn’t, until that night, acknowledged the rage I felt at you, Leight.
And you, Fontana, and at you, Schneider, Schiff, Brooks, Wesley.

You had all been on my site , had read my expert witness report on
THE LAST SAMURAI credit arbitration. You knew what had happened on RED DRAGON and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. And you didn’t care.

Your imbecilic war council was devoted not to addressing the incessant
harm being done to writers, but to acquiring documentation of those
wrongs for strategic purposes.

And you, Bernstein, you most of all. You don’t know this, but corrected credits or not, the Guild has no interest in an extraordinary opportunity to redress the unconscionable acts of the blacklist, in which it was a key participant. (I am posting, on my site, with this letter, the never revealed
Credits Escape Clause.) But, of course, a priority has always been to draw
as little attention as possible to the monies generated by so-called foreign levies.

Bernard Gordon died not long ago, never receiving a cent of the monies collected from so called foreign levies for the many films with
restored credits that bear his name.

And, Bernstein, they are not small sums. Use your head. All this leverage,
all these years, because the west was stealing pennies?

Writers never being paid. Writers not receiving the credit that belongs to them. Not one of you gives a shit.

After expressing my rage, which clearly indicated that I was not interested
in talking to you, Leight, or addressing your strategic concerns, Mangan,
I was told that I should be careful, that there was concern that McLean would have “some goons” beat me up, or worse.

Now you find yourselves locked in a courtroom you can never
escape because you so comtemptuously refused to understand me
and represent the thousands of writers who have trusted you.

It has been suggested to me that the cowardly piece of writing
you sent out last Friday is a smoke screen, and an attempt to
reignite the unwavering level of belief you had generated during the strike, which you and the west are so desperately in need of now.

I have to come to agree with that.

This just hasn’t worked out the way you expected, has it?

The lawsuit would be settled in the glory days of winning an
“unprecedented” new contract. I would be discredited. It would be
revealed that I made it all up. There had beern no criminal investigation.

Now you’re wondering what’s going on? Those postings on
screenrights.net – why is nobody stopping him? What the hell’s
happening here?

We’re connected in Washington. Nobody is ever going to do anything
about this. It is going to go away.

Well, maybe one of the mistakes you made is you never cleaned up
your act. You never stopped. Not even for a while, just until this
all went away. You just kept it up.

I will be posting in the coming days evidence of the considerable
leverage you have had on the west.

There are embezzled residuals for deceased members of the east,
the checks written out to their heirs, at a current address.

There are so-called foreign levies for legendary and journeyman
member and non-member writer residents of New York, monies
for films made long before there was a union of writers and
monies for films that were made just yesterday.

Anyone who views this evidence will understand the extraordinary
leverage you have always had against the west, and, then, they
will despise you.

Very few are aware, at this point, that it is as just as important to the east as it is to west for this to all go away.

Nobody knows that you officially entered the fray, Mangan, a year ago
on April 21, 2007, when Robert S. Giolito made his first appearance in
court as notice was given that Giolito was joing the defense on behalf
of the DGA.

Just three months before, Giolito was the general counsel of
the DGA. Then he left to head the newly opened office of Spivak, Lipton,
Wantanabe, Spivak, Moss & Orfan here in L.A.

Wantanabe is not only a founding member of that New York law firm, but your ex-husband, and general counsel of Writers Guild East, Mangan.

The court is unaware of the complexity and breadth of the misconduct
of every lawyer on these lawsuits.

While Giolito was general counsel, Jay Roth let a two million dollar
payout from a German rights soiciety escheat into the DGA’s
general fund, disappearing that money forever.

It’s obvious, isn’t it, that Giolito could be called as a witnesss
and it’s apparent that his testimony regarding that disappeared
two million would be prejudicial to his client, the DGA?

And, of course, Wantanabe not only was aware of everything you
revealed to my lawyer in your conversation with him, but used it,
for how many years, as leverage against the west, and never did in
all that time what he was required to do under the law.

When you think about it, not only are these men potential witnesses,
they have real potential as defendants.

To paraphrase that quote of yours, Mangan, Andrew Cuomo is going
to love getting his hands on this case.

Both you and Wantanabe have read all the filings by the DGA
and the WGA. You are both aware of all that is not truthful in
those filings and in every declaration submitted in both federal
and state court.

You have joined the other lawyers in crimes against justice.
That is what perjury is, isn’t it? – a crime against justice.

In 1945 (In re Michael, 326 U.S., 224, 227), the Supreme Court
noted: “All perjured relevant testimony is at war with justice,
since it may produce a judgment not resting on truth…”

You have all acted as if this is a credit arbitration at the Guild.

Writers in the east have told me how your credits department
openly talks about the west “making up rules” in credit arbitrations.

Since we last had contact, that harm to writers has not only
continued but is out of control now.

Since you are all culpable in that harm because, since at least 1995,
when you ignored the corrupted arbitration on THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, which involved participating writers who were members of the east,
choosing instead to use what you knew as leverage, I want you all
to know some of what your continuing silence has wrought.

The production executive safeguards have been rendered meaningless.

If a production executive intends to claim credit on literary material
written by a writer who is not a production executive, now, instead of
having to inform, in writing, both the Guild and the writer, at the start
of writing, the intent to claim that they wrote as a team, a production
executive can claim at the time of the credit arbitration that he/she
was unaware of the rules and the productioin executive will be given
a pass and his/her name will be put on the literary material,
as happened, for example, in the NANKING arbitration.

The unauthorized ever-morphing participating writer investigation procedure, despite the Guild’s assurances to a federal court that the
procedure would be presented to the membership for approval,
continues to be unauthorized and now allows a studio, on the grounds
that a project “has gone in a different direction” to inform the Guild that
not all the writers who were contracted to write on the project will be
listed on the notice of tentative writing credit.

The Guild then calls the writers, as happened, for example, on
SPEED RACER, which should have been an automatic arbitration
under the production executive rules, and asks each writer who
has written on the project if he/she would make a credit claim, adding
that the studio, their employer, believes there shouldn’t be an arbitration and that none of the other writers are causing a problem.

But I waste your time. You don’t need leverage against the west
right now.

But know this, on NANKING, to give Ted Leonsis, co-chairman emeritus
of AOL, what he wanted, which deprived a writer of sole credit for
literary material that writer had written alone, the Guild’s documents
on the decisions of both a pre-arbitration panel and a policy review board
contradict every claim Leonsis has made in the New York Times, the
Washington Post, the internet, his blog, well, everywhere.

One of the production executives who received writing credit on the film told me that the Guild was in daily contact with Leonsis’s “team of
lawyers” during this time.

To invoke “unusal cirmcumstances,” the Guild invented a history
of the development of the project that necessarily had to eliminate the
existence of Leonsis.

Where it really gets dicey is that the targeted writer, who did receive a credit, has refused to sign the assignment of rights, and has a copyright on the literary material.

The Guild stood by, well, more accurately, was right there as Leonsis
made deals with distributors and eventually HBO, hiding that the film
has a legally flawed chain of title. And all this during the strike.

If that writer should seek justice in a real courtroom, I will offer that certainly some of you, for the sake of continued solidarity, would
willingly give testimony on the west’s long-standing and well-established
policy of “making up rules” in credit arbitrations.

Yeah, we are all in this together.

The writers whose names were posted on your website last Friday,
those writers with whom we all have dreams in common, are human beings.

It is a given that they are asking themselves what kind of people
would do something like this.

I am writing this so that they will have an answer to that question.

These writers have established careers writing daytime drama.

You are party to an illegal enterprise which accesses monies
due these writers from amendments to foreign copyright laws.

And you have been indfferent to whether any of them receive any of it.

And now you try to do even greater harm to them.

This is not how human beings claiming a moral victory celebrate.

In June of 2005, Winship, you wrote a piece published on
Common Dreams News Center attacking Corporation for Public
Broadcasting Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson for paying an
outside consultant to monitor the political leanings of the guests
appearing on the PBS program “NOW with Bill Moyers,” on
which you had been employed.

From BLACKLIST ISN’T NEW TO CPB’S TOMLINSON:

I see Tomlinson as more the officious, ambitious
Colonel Cathcart in Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22,”
the one who keeps lists of “Black Eyes” and “Feathers
in My Cap” and resents the novel’s hero Yossarian
because there are too many “sss” sounds in his name –
like “subversive,” “seditious,” “socailist” and “suspicious.”

“You’re either for us or against us,” Cathcart exclaims. “there’s
no two ways about it.” Sounds familiar – like the president or
Tomlinson’s pal Karl Rove impugning the patriotism of liberals
post-9-11 – a characterization especially resented by virtually all
of us who live near Ground Zero.

Have you received a note from Moyers appaulding your listing of names,
Winship?

Of all the crimes not punishable under the law, the most heinous
is hypocrisy.

When Writers United was born, and you, Auerbach, silenced your
strategic postings on so-called foreign levies, each of you allowed
to continue the defrauding of the Joseph Heller estate of the monies that are due Heller under the Berne Convention as co-author of the
motion picture CATCH 22.

Each of you, in my experience, is a hypocrite, a liar, and a cheat.

Very sincerely,
Eric Hughes