Actor sues isle club
over attack
Cle Sloan was beaten with fists, bottles
and a metal pole, the lawsuit alleges
A Los Angeles-based actor and director alleges in a lawsuit filed yesterday that he was the victim of an unprovoked, racially motivated attack in the Zanzabar Night Club on Oct. 19, 2002.
Cle Sloan alleges in the suit that 10 people attacked him in a restroom in the club at 2255 Kuhio Ave. in the Waikiki Trade Center, beating him with fists, feet, liquor bottles and a metal stanchion, and left him lying unconscious in a pool of blood.
Sloan suffered a concussion, disfigurement, a detached retina, 10 lost teeth and permanently impaired vision, according to the suit.
Defendants are Mysticworks LLC, doing business as Zanzabar Night Club; managing partners James Boersema of Honolulu and Charles Mitchell of Maui; club security director Raymond Ho of Honolulu; and unnamed assailants.
Boersema, who is a partner in the public relations firm of Starr Seigle Communications and on active duty with the Army Reserve, said yesterday that he had not been served with the suit and could not comment on it. Other defendants could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Sloan alleges that he was in the nightclub with friends from about 11 p.m. Oct. 18, 2002, until 3:30 or 3:45 a.m. Oct. 19, when the club began asking patrons to leave in preparation for its 4 a.m. closing, the suit says.
Sloan's lawsuit says that as he was leaving the club, he asked to use a restroom and was directed to a restroom near the club's VIP Lounge. Sloan at first accidentally started to enter the women's restroom, which had its door propped open. A woman shouted a racial slur, and he left the entry immediately and proceeded to the men's restroom, according to the lawsuit.
In the men's restroom, Sloan alleges he was attacked by as many as 10 people, including the woman who had shouted at him. The group beat him and taunted him with racial epithets, according to the suit.
The nightclub and its partners and employees failed to identify Sloan's attackers, call the police or hold the perpetrators until police arrived, the suit says. They also failed to render aid to Sloan, preserve the crime scene for police investigation or preserve evidence, including a security video, it alleges.
A Honolulu Police Department report on the incident indicates an officer responded to a call regarding an assault at the nightclub at 3:30 a.m. Oct. 19, 2002, said police spokeswoman Jean Motoyama. The victim of the assault refused to make a statement and refused to be transported by an ambulance, police reported.
Sloan's Honolulu attorney, Michael Livingston, said his client was not available for comment yesterday.
Livingston described Sloan as a talented actor, director and music producer who recently worked as an actor in a film on the East Coast and who is producing and directing a documentary on gang warfare in Los Angeles for HBO.
