North Carolina State Bar Ethical Standards
Transactions with Persons Other Than Clients
Rule 4.1 Truthfulness in Statements to Others
In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly
make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person.
Comment
Misrepresentation
[1] A lawyer is required to be truthful when dealing with others on a
client's behalf, but generally has no affirmative duty to inform an
opposing party of relevant facts. A misrepresentation can occur if the
lawyer incorporates or affirms a statement of another person that the
lawyer knows is false. Misrepresentations can also occur by partially
true but misleading statements or omissions that are the equivalent of
affirmative false statements. For dishonest conduct that does not
amount to a false statement or for misrepresentations by a lawyer
other than in the course of representing a client, see Rule 8.4.
Statements of Fact
[2] This Rule refers to statements of fact. Whether a particular
statement should be regarded as one of fact can depend on the
circumstances. Under generally accepted conventions in negotiation,
certain types of statements ordinarily are not taken as statements of
material fact. Estimates of price or value placed on the subject of a
transaction and a party's intentions as to an acceptable settlement of
a claim are ordinarily in this category, and so is the existence of an
undisclosed principal except where nondisclosure of the principal
would constitute fraud. Lawyers should be mindful of their obligations
under applicable law to avoid criminal and tortuous misrepresentation.
________________________________________________________________
Violations by Strohm
Leslie Strohm has made a number of false statements in violation of
Rule 4.1 These false statements have adversely affected my
relationship with the University, causing my internet access to be
suspended. The following Emails document this.
________________________________________________________________
Subject: Dispute with Mr. Villarosa
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:40:39 +0000
From: Strohm, Leslie Chambers <strohm@email.unc.edu>
To: Elliot Cramer <cramer@email.unc.edu>
When the University receives a receive a complaint about a possible
violation of these policies, we do an investigation. Pursuant to the
University Policy on the Privacy of Electronic Information
(http://www.unc.edu/campus/policies/elec_info.html), your email files
were reviewed. What we found is that, since 2004, you have regularly
used your "unc" account to set up and manage a PayPal account on
behalf of FOCAS and to solicit monetary gifts from donors and
potential donors to FOCAS.
________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: Dispute with Mr. Villarosa
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 21:29:00 -0500
From: Elliot Cramer <cramer@email.unc.edu>
Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
To: Strohm, Leslie Chambers <strohm@email.unc.edu>
This is not true at all; I did not set up the paypal account and I did
not manage it. In fact, I have had nothing to do with the paypal
account until recently, following the death of Margaret Mauney who did
set it up and manage it on her own account. My association with FOCAS
began in 2004 but, I believe, the paypal account was set up some years
later. The only contact with UNC was that Paypal sent me notices of
contributions to FOCAS and I forwarded these notices to Pat Sanford,
starting in October 5, 2009; I see 25 emails to me and all but five
are since May and are related to the Robeson County animal shelter
which Rep McElraft has been involved with. I believe that this is in
the category of "incidental personal usage by faculty, staff, and
students". In fact, my association with FOCAS is in the nature of
public service since FOCAS is organized under State law as a public
charity, not a business
________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:48:08 -0500
From: Elliot Cramer <cramer@email.unc.edu>
Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
To: Strohm, Leslie Chambers <strohm@email.unc.edu>,
CC: Holden Thorp <holden_thorp@unc.edu>,
I have logged onto the FOCAS paypal account and I see that our first
paypal transaction was on 3/25/2008, not 2004 as you say. I see about
45 contributions since then, an average of about 1.3 per month; 20 of
these were in connection with the Robeson shelter which was a special
case for which we did NOT solicit. We have never mentioned Robeson
County on our website and contributions through our website for
Robeson specifically mentioned that they were for the Robeson County
lawsuit. Thus we solicited an average of about .7 contributions per
month on a non-UNC website. I had no occasion to write Paypal about
ANY of these though I probably received emails from paypal, notifying
me of the contributions.
It is thus incorrect to say that I "have regularly used your "unc"
account to set up and manage a PayPal account on behalf of FOCAS and
to solicit monetary gifts from donors and potential donors to FOCAS."
I did not set it up the account; I did not start managing the account
until the end of December; I see only two emails to Paypal about FOCAS
and I do not believe that I have ever had occasion to write them
before.
________________________________________________________________
From: Strohm, Leslie Chambers
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 4:27 PM
To: Kirby, Brenda W; Davis, Nancy K
Subject: RE: Your help
Thanks. We did look at his emails, with permission from
the Provost. We did not just rely on the allegations of Mr. Villarosa. I will respond to his messages as soon as
I have a chance. I knew that he would take exception to what I
wrote – which is why I wrote only to him and gave him a chance to clear up any
fact statements that he thought were in error. He replied to my email, cc’ing a number of other people.
________________________________________________________________
NOTE EMC: I made the following public records request; There are NO records
substantiating Ms. Strohms's statement that "We did not just rely on
the allegations of Mr. Villarosa."
--
Subject: Public records request
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:04:36 -0400
From: Elliot M. Cramer <elliottcramer@bellsouth.net>
Reply-To: ecramer@alum.mit.edu
To: Strohm, Leslie Chambers <strohm@email.unc.edu>
Pursuant to 132-6, I would like to inspect all documents and emails
related to Joseph Villarosa's complaints against me. Please advise me
when I may come to your office to inspect them
________________________________________________________________
Subject: follow-up documentation (Public Records Requested
4/20/2011)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 21:51:42 +0000
From: Stabile, Regina <regina_stabile@unc.edu>
To: Elliot Cramer (elliottcramer@bellsouth.net)
Dear Dr. Cramer -
Please see the attached pdf, which consists of a letter from me. As
referenced in my letter, we will be sending you a disc via First Class
U.S. Mail (it will be mailed tomorrow morning).
________________________________________________________________
Subject: public records request for ALL documents
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 10:49:38 -0400
From: Elliot M. Cramer <elliottcramer@bellsouth.net>
Reply-To: ecramer@alum.mit.edu
To: Stabile, Regina <regina_stabile@unc.edu>
... What concerns me is that the only documents I received were
emails. Are you saying that there are NO OTHER DOCUMENTS (ie notes,
memos etc) in the University related to Villarosa's complaints against
me. If this is so, except for Ms Strohms's faulty memory, there is
NOTHING to substantiate Ms Strohm's January 17 statement to me that
"you have regularly used your "unc" account to set up and manage a
PayPal account on behalf of FOCAS and to solicit monetary gifts from
donors and potential donors to FOCAS." I know that statement to be
false, as I wrote her on January 17. Furthermore, FOCAS is a
non-profit public charity and University regulations refer to
"commercial or for-profit ventures".
________________________________________________________________
Subject: RE: follow-up documentation (Public Records
Requested 5/17/11)
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 12:44:58 +0000
From: Stabile, Regina <regina_stabile@unc.edu>
To: ecramer@alum.mit.edu <ecramer@alum.mit.edu>
Dear Dr. Cramer -
I note in your message below that you again reference documentation
missing from your previous request. As stated in my letter to you
early Friday afternoon, we provided you with all documentation
responsive to your April 20th request.
________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: follow-up documentation (Public Records Requested 5/20/11
and 5/23/11)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:32:01 -0400
From: Elliot M. Cramer <elliottcramer@bellsouth.net>
Thank you very much; your attached letter confirms (as I believed)
that the University has no documentation to support Ms Strohm's
January 17 statement to me that "you have regularly used your "unc"
account to set up and manage a PayPal account on behalf of FOCAS and
to solicit monetary gifts from donors and potential donors to FOCAS."
________________________________________________________________
Additional false statements were made in her letter to FIRE