An Open Letter re: Jim C. Perry

[Friday]

Dear Friends,

I wish to offer a serious warning about one of our own.  Part of being anti-government must include taking personal responsibility and policing our own communities. I have avoided using other people's names in this post, out of respect for those with whom I did not consult prior to posting this and who may not agree with my decision to do so.  But many of them are known to you.  I know this post is long, but I encourage you to read through to the end, to have a better understanding of the number of people who have already been hurt and over such a long period of time.  My goal is to prevent Jim from doing further harm in our community.

You are probably personally acquainted with Jim aka JP, and, like myself, have socialized with him at BBQs, conferences and PorcFest.  You may have found him to be pleasant and charming.  Unfortunately, I believe that he is completely untrustworthy.  I'm not just talking about flakiness, either.  I'm talking about repeated acts of irresponsibility, thoughtlessness, lies, and even theft and fraud.

A year ago, when I was running for the Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH), two different people pulled me aside and quietly encouraged me to run *against* Jim for the position of Secretary.  At that point, I knew Jim had a reputation for flakiness.  However, that was all I knew.  I was hesitant to run against someone I considered to be a friend, as well as a fellow Free Stater.  And I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I chose to run for the position of Treasurer instead, as the current Treasurer had been serving for 5 years and had expressed an interest in stepping down.  I won the position of Treasurer, and Jim won the position of Secretary.  Perhaps if those who had warned me had been more explicit, some or all of the following events could have been avoided.  I am now wondering just how many of us have had bad experiences with this young man, and we've all been keeping it quiet, not realizing the extent of it.  Well, sunshine is the best disinfectant, so allow me to shine some light on some of my experiences with Jim over the past two years. While I have also heard rumors of other peoples' negative experiences, I will leave it to them to share, or not, as they wish.

•   Last year I attended almost all of the LPNH's monthly meetings.  Although Jim was serving on the ExComm at the time, and his presence was necessary to form a quorum, I never once saw him at a meeting.  More than once, I observed then-Chair John B. to say that he had just spoken with Jim, who had assured him that he would be at the meeting.  I inwardly observed that John, and his wife (who was also on the ExComm) had therefore made the 2 hours round-trip drive from Grafton to Concord and were unable to conduct any formal party business.  This hindered the ExComm in such ways as being unable to vote to give party funds to candidates running for office.

•   In April 2006, Jim told me that he had been "fired" as an outreach Liaison for the Free State Project.  He didn't say why. This struck me as very odd, seeing as how the FSP was in great need of volunteers, and I was under the impression that Jim was one of the top recruiters of new members for the FSP.  I inquired about this via email to the Board of Directors of the FSP (on which I was serving at the time).  I never received an explanation as to why Jim had been fired; I was simply told that it was within the rights of the Liaison Coordinator to do so.  I was left to assume that the LC was some kind of meanie and that my friend Jim had been wronged.  I now wonder if information was being withheld in a misguided attempt to protect the guilty (although this is just speculation on my part).

•   In Dec 2006, while serving as First 1000 project manager for the FSP, one of my phone bank volunteers told me that he had spoken by phone with an FSP participant in Massachusetts recruited to the FSP by Jim.  This participant had no recollection of having joined the FSP.

•   On Feb. 15, 2007, Jim suggested to the LPNH ExComm via email that we have a gun raffle to raise funds.  We agreed that it sounded like a good idea.  Jim ordered raffle tickets from an MVP member who owns a print shop, and started selling them at the FSP's Liberty Forum conference.  On Feb. 23, in the LPNH hospitality suite at NHLF, he told me, the Chair and a former ExComm member, in the presence of several other people, that he had already sold enough tickets to cover the cost of the guns being raffled off.  Per Jim's original written budget, the cost of the guns was $825. 

•   In April 2007, the person who printed the raffle tickets contacted me and said that the LPNH had never paid her.  Apparently she had given an invoice to Jim, and he never passed it on.  After giving me a replacement invoice, she was paid (late).

•   Also in April 2007, the LPNH held a convention at St. Anselm's in Manchester.  We provided a buffet lunch to attendees.  We never received an invoice for this lunch, which cost approximately $1000.  I asked Jim repeatedly for any info, as he was the one who had made the arrangements with St. Anselm's.  He never provided me with an invoice, contact name or phone number.  Finally I dug up an email address on the internet and contacted St. A's myself. They got back to me promptly and said they had mailed the invoice to Jim's home address.  At my request, they sent a replacement invoice to the LPNH and were paid (late).

•   On May 2, 2007, Jim sent out an email to a number of LPNH members, at the Chair's request, announcing an emergency meeting of the LPNH on May 4.  Despite the fact that I had a houseguest from the West Coast at the time, I made arrangements to be at the meeting location in Manchester at the announced time.  At least three other LPNH members drove in from other towns.  When we arrived, we were told by a member who lives in the building where our meetings take place that the meeting was cancelled.  Jim never showed up.  Apparently the Chair cancelled the meeting just hours before its start time, told Jim, and Jim made no effort to notify anyone else.  The Chair later apologized for this mishap; Jim never offered any explanations or apologies.

•   On June 9, 2007, a meeting was scheduled and publicly announced for the Hillsborough County LP, of which Jim is the Chair.  After my experience with the emergency meeting on May 4, I made a point of calling Jim two hours prior to the start time of the meeting, to confirm that it was taking place.  He assured me that it was taking place, that he would be there, and that nine people had RSVP'ed.  I drove to Manchester in pouring rain to find only one other LPNH member in attendance.  Jim never showed, never called me, and never offered me a word of explanation or apology.

•   In July 2007, having never received any money from Jim for raffle ticket sales, and in an email discussing various other points of LPNH business, I asked him to bring the money and the stubs to the upcoming LPNH meeting.  He never responded.  Three days later, he resigned his position as Secretary via email, with no advance notice.  He stated in his letter of resignation that he would hand over his ticket stubs and cash to another member of the ExComm. 

•   Since Jim's resignation on July 5, he has been asked a minimum of 11 times, by at least five different LPNH members, via a combination of emails and phone calls, to hand over the raffle tickets (both sold and unsold) and the cash he collected.  We made numerous efforts to resolve the matter with him privately.  I internally proposed to the rest of the ExComm the possibility of making long-term repayment arrangements with him for the cash, if for whatever reason he didn't have it in his possession at the present time <cough>, if he would only give us the ticket stubs.  I personally offered to meet him at a time and place convenient for him to retrieve the ticket stubs.  I can't speak for others, but for myself, I continually believed that this was all "youthful irresponsibility" on Jim's part.  He ignored all email communications from both myself and the Chair.  He repeatedly made telephone statements to various individuals of "I will give the stubs and cash to so and so in a day or two", but it never happened. 

•   On September 9, out of a desire to avoid defrauding dozens of people who had bought LPNH raffle tickets from Jim but stood no chance of winning a prize, the LPNH ExComm passed a motion to go public with the fact that Jim had never handed over any of his ticket stubs, and to offer replacement tickets or refunds to the purchasers.  We gave Jim a deadline of two weeks to hand over the ticket stubs, and additional time to hand over the cash. The party Chair informed him of this privately.  Jim did not respond.

•   On 9/25/07, after the two week deadline had passed and as I was preparing to send out the public notices about the raffle, another LPNH member chose to make a last-ditch effort to resolve the matter with Jim privately.  He called Jim at 9:00PM on a weeknight and made arrangements to drive to his home in Amherst to retrieve the ticket stubs and cash.  After he made the drive, Jim failed to hand over any cash, although he did hand over some ticket stubs.  Furthermore, Jim said "Too bad you didn't get here sooner, or I could have gone to the bank."  Once again, Jim had been called at 9:00PM, and had said before this person drove to Amherst that Jim had the cash to give him.

I and the rest of the LPNH ExComm received an email the same night from someone who was told by Jim that he gave the tickets and the cash to the person who drove to Jim's home in Amherst.  Since this directly conflicted with what I had been told by the person who drove to Jim's house, I asked the email writer for verification.  When I questioned this person, they revealed that they, personally, and others that they know, have also had experiences with Jim "withholding owed funds" (direct quote).  If forced to choose between Jim's word and the other LPNH member, they would go with the other person.

The LPNH will honor our obligations to our friends and supporters who bought raffle tickets.  We have purchased a raffle permit, will buy the guns from Riley's as Jim arranged, and will award them to two ticket buyers.  But the only one who raised any funds via this venture was Jim C. Perry.

While I don't intend to press legal charges, I do want to let as many people know about this as possible, so that they can see what kind of man he really is, and keep that in mind when considering whether to do business with him or entrust him with a position of responsibility within their organization.  I received a bulk email from him within the last two months indicating that he has opened some sort of online business; I assume that means he takes payment in advance for goods sold online.  I have also heard that he has formed some sort of organization to support Ron Paul's Presidential campaign.  I don't know whether or not he is soliciting funds in the name of this organization.  It is my hope that no more of my friends and comrades waste their time or lose their money to Jim. 

In Liberty,
Sandy P. aka Friday
LPNH Treasurer

[picaro]

There was an email soliciting donations to buy ad time during the Superbowl and NFC/AFC championships for Ron Paul.  Not sure if it was this guy... but it seemed sketchy.  Unfortunately, I deleted it. :/

[Friday]

I can't even sleep.     All the wasted time, and the pilfered donations, is bad enough...but to then attempt to lay the blame on someone else....   

[Pat K]

Sad that it had to come to this.

I know it cost you to write this Sandy,
but sometimes people leave you no choice.

[KBCraig]

Ditto what Pat said. Bravo to you, Sandy. Not for making JP's business public, but for staying quiet about it for so long.

But at least the money went to a good cause. 

[Kat Kanning]

We gave JP money for flags he was selling.  He never gave us flags or money back, despite me asking for them.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Thanks for letting us know this, Sandy.

[Russell Kanning]

sorry for not warning you guys enough .... JP has not paid rent to 2 people we know and took money for a campaign that he never finished and didn't pay people back ...
I thought everyone knew ... and I had him on ignore on this forum and in person.
I guess next time I see him I will ask him for money so I can give it back to you guys.

[Kat Kanning]

I think shunning is much better than legal action.

[Rochelle]

Wow...just...wow.

I think shunning is much better than legal action.

Yea, sometime's there's nothing quite like a good ol' fashioned shunning.

Other times there's nothing like a good ol' fashioned tarring and feathering...

[dawn]

Friday,
I applaud you for taking the time (which must have been substantial) and energy to post a very well documented account of events as you know them and for not mentioning names when you didn't have permission. While it is unfortunate that this situation is much more than flakiness (as I had often thought as well), it is better for people to know the facts so that they will not get burned in the future.

Thanks,
Dawn

[FTL_Ian]

He sounds like an agent provocateur to me.

Ostracize!   

[Bald Eagle]

The Talented Mr Ripley

[J’raxis 270145]

Wow, what an asshole. On the one hand, this guy sounds like a typical irresponsible prick. On the paranoid hand, this sounds like some sort of intentional attempt at disruption of the movement. The raffle fraud and then running for office as a freestater and just dropping out sounds like someone is trying to make us all look bad as publicly as possible.

Stealing is wrong. How very very sad for him that he could steal from an organization that is really trying to make a difference in the world....how empty he must feel inside to be so callous.

We should all go get the money from him together.

Sounds like a good idea. We should try to get some of our open carriers to help out, perhaps.

I think shunning is much better than legal action.

Looks like he took off from the forum here on 2007-09-07. If y'all want to shun him on the forum, single click:
http://newhampshireunderground.com/forum/index.php?action=ignore;u=102

[srqrebel]

He sounds like an agent provocateur to me.

Ostracize!   

Precisely.