[Wat IRAP] Temple leadership put to vote again

Congregants vote for nine new board members of Wat Vipassanaram in Long Beach on Friday. A court challenge to an election a year ago framed a yearlong dispute over leadership of the Cambodian Buddhist temple. More than 400 temple members were expected to vote. (Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer)

01/23/2009
By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - Despite a gloomy forecast, cold weather and rainfall, for the second time in a year about 400 congregants of a Cambodian Buddhist temple showed up to cast ballots in an attempt to find leadership at the embattled temple.

Friday's election, for all nine spots on the temple's board of directors, was ordered by Superior Court Judge Joseph Di Loreto, who has been overseeing a yearlong legal battle between the long-standing board of directors at Wat Vipassanaram and a dissident group of congregants supported by the monks.

Although temple bylaws allow only three members to be elected to the board in any year, Di Loreto said the existing board members had so abrogated their responsibilities that all nine seats should be put up.

The temple was open from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. to give working templegoers time to vote. Ballots were being counted late Friday night and results should be in Sunday's Press-Telegram.

The candidates are Yin Ath, Chhan Aun, Nhror Aun, Bryant Ben, Kosal Chhum, Kea Him, Amphan Keo, Elizabeth Keo, John Kong, Alex Lim, Siu Chheng Lim, Anthony Ly, Chou Ngim Ly, Sonly Muy, Teang Neth, Sovannara Nou, Chhakry Oun, Mum Pel, Teang Pream, Larry Sar, Hack Sok, Darin Sun, Sophal Um, Praseur Vann.

Twenty-four congregants were nominated and placed on the ballot, including monk Aun, in an apparent violation of the temple bylaws. Typically monks, especially in the conservative Theravada school of Buddhism practiced at Wat Vipassanaram, eschew politics and secular matters. Aun was the only monk to accept nomination to the board.

A last-minute appeal by the existing board of directors for an injunction to stop the election failed when the Second District Appellate Court denied the petition.

While the election was being staged on one side of the wat complex, Siphann Tith, executive director of the current board, and his supporters sat on the other.

Tith said he sent a letter to the dissidents saying an election wouldn't be allowed on temple property, but relented when the congregants arrived.

"As long as they don't cause problems," Tith said, he wouldn't contest the staging of the event.

"I'm not going to have a confrontation, there has already been too many," Tith said.

Regardless of Friday's results, the existing board of directors is appealing Di Loreto's authority and rulings. None of the current board members is on the ballot, and Tith says he will not recognize the results.

The dissidents say when Di Loreto approves the election results they will assume control of governance of the temple and its assets, which are currently being handled by a court-appointed receiver.

"It feels good, finally," said board candidate Ly, one of the original leaders of the group contesting the current board of directors. "We'll just follow the judge's orders and everything should be OK."

Ben, another board candidate, was eager for the results to come in Friday afternoon.

"As soon as the judge approves, we're going to take action right away," Ben said.

"We're going to clean up this mess," said Sar.

In January 2008, in similar weather, members of the wat showed up in big numbers to oust the existing board of directors in the first election in more than a decade.

At the time, members of the board asked that the election be postponed until March. They had been in the process of rewriting bylaws since June to conform to California law and said they needed to finish the job to provide a fair and legitimate election.

Members of the existing board accused outsiders of trying to hijack the election and control of the temple assets by orchestrating a large influx of temple members with no real connection to the wat.

No members of the board were listed as candidates in the 2008 election and the board did not recognize the vote.

The two sides have been in court ever since.

The year-long legal struggle for control of Wat Vipassanaram, which owns several properties and had $4 million in assets before the legal wranglings began, has been a tumultuous experience.

Along the way:

• The existing board of directors tried to dissolve the board and reform it as a separate entity.
• The court appointed a receiver because of fears of absconding of temple funds.
• The executive director was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to turn over financial records to the receiver.
• The temple had a brief relationship with a Gnostic church in Orange run by John Ramirez, aka Johnny Rhondo, who was implicated in a Texas insurance fraud scheme in 2002.

As the rain fell, Paline Soth, another dissident, reflected on the parallels between this year's election and last year's.

"If it's raining, a lawsuit will follow," he said with a laugh.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

Cambodian temple leader remains in Long Beach jail on contempt charge

10/24/2008
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - The leader of a Cambodian temple remained jailed indefinitely without bail on a contempt of court charge Friday after continuing to defy a judge's order to turn over financial documents to a court-appointed receiver.

Judge Joseph Di Loreto ordered Siphann Tith to remain in custody, extending a jail term he imposed Monday.

Since August, Tith has faced a contempt complaint for his failure to produce financial information about the temple, its $4 million in assets and more than $400,000 in cash and deposits that are unaccounted for.

Tith appeared in Di Loreto's court Friday in a jail-issued blue jumpsuit and shackled.

As he had done Monday, Tith said he did not possess the documents nor had the authority to divulge them. Tith said only the temple's council of elders could approve release of the documents. He refused to name any other members of the mysterious group, although he did admit he was one of the elders.

Tith and his supporters, many who went to court Friday to show report for the embattled temple leader, have been embroiled in a conflict that dates back to January when a dissident group supported by temple monks, staged an election for a new board of directors for the nonprofit agency that runs the temple.

In a disputed election, a new board of directors was elected in January.

The existing board invalidated the results, claiming the election was not in keeping with bylaws and was fraudulent.

While the sides worked on the process for a new election, Di Loreto ordered financial control of the temple be given to receiver David Pasternak.

The temple's existing board of directors dissolved the temple organization and divested all assets to the new organization called Wat Khmer Vipassanaram.

A central figure in that process, John Ramirez, is also facing a contempt of court complaint. He appeared in court Friday and engaged in about two hours of circuitous testimony in which he claimed not to possess any financial records of the temple nor know the identity of its elders.

Ramirez, also known as Johnny Rhondo, is the leader, and only member, of the Church of the Revelation based in a post office box in Orange. He is assisting the new organization in its attempt to become a religious nonprofit as a charter member of his church.

Ramirez was ordered by the court to return Nov. 17 with certain bank documents he does possess. Tith will return to court Monday where he will again be asked to produce the required financial records.

Judge holds president of Long Beach Buddhist temple in contempt

Head monk Khoeun Pang lights candles for evening prayers. Observers in the Cambodian community say the conflict is part of a larger factionalism, including disputes over the designation of Cambodia Town in central Long Beach. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Siphann Tith, 44, was remanded to custody and held on $50,000 bail after refusing to turn over the temple's financial records. Factions of Cambodian temple have been wrangling over ownership.

October 21, 2008
By Joe Mozingo
Los Angeles Times

The president of Long Beach's oldest Cambodian Buddhist temple was held in contempt of court Monday and taken into custody after he refused a court order to turn over financial documents in a rancorous fight about who rightly runs the temple.

Siphann Tith, 44, ignored repeated demands by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Di Loreto to hand over the temple's assets to a court-appointed receiver while the judge presided over a dispute between two factions of the Cambodian community vying for control of the venerable institution.

The contention erupted in December, when monks and lay people demanded an election of the temple's board of directors, as required by bylaws that had been ignored for years. Tith agreed to an election, but the effort got bogged down in further controversy over who could cast votes. The monks' faction went forward with an election in January, voted in a whole new board and locked the old board out.

The fight has sharpened divisions in the nation's largest Cambodian community. Both sides claim the others are interlopers in Wat Khmer Vipassanaram, the temple founded by survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide in 1985.

The matter landed in court in February, and after an agreement by both sides, Di Loreto appointed the receiver.

But when the receiver asked Tith for the temple's books, Tith said he didn't have them anymore. He said the board dissolved the temple's nonprofit, the Khmer Buddhist Assn., and transferred all the assets to a new organization -- an offshoot of a one-man church run by Johnny Rhondo, a business consultant in Orange County.

Tith argued in court filings that the dissolution of the 23-year-old nonprofit was inspired by Gautama Siddartha, the Buddha himself -- "who gave all his wealth, property and even clothing, before he began the life that ultimately led him to become Buddha." Tith claimed that death was the only way to Nirvana, and so the nonprofit had to die for its spirit to get there.

Di Loreto did not buy it. "Wasn't the real reason you did that was to subvert the settlement agreement you reached with the defendants in this case?" he asked Tith earlier this month.

Di Loreto remanded him to custody and set bail at $50,000, but later revoked bail.

Tith Siphann taken into custody for contempt

President of LB Buddhist temple held in contempt

10/21/2008
The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES—The president of a Cambodian Buddhist temple in Long Beach has been held in contempt of court and taken into custody for refusing to turn over financial documents in a fierce legal battle over who controls the temple.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Di Loreto had repeatedly demanded that 44-year-old Siphann Tith turn over the temple's assets to a court-appointed receiver.

Tith says he no longer has the temple's books, and that the board has dissolved the nonprofit that ran it.

The judge didn't accept the argument and on Monday declared Tith in contempt.

Two factions of the Long Beach Cambodian community have been fighting over the temple. A group of monks elected its own board in January after Tith had agreed to an election but a dispute arose over who would be able to vote.