The Fable of the Sports Karate Museum - Gary Lee and the Missing Items of Sam Lonewolf

On May 8th 2022 Samantha Lonewolf was quite agitated, and very rightly so. She had recently asked for Gary Lee to remove any and all references about her father's system being inherited by  Lee  as soon as possible from all social media, web sites, and most importantly his Sports Karate Museum.  His museum has since proven to be a defunct organization with a flacid Go Fund Me seeking donations for a legacy that apparently has no real merit in reality.

Pictured here for reference is a real museum.

From: Samantha Lonewolf <------------@gmail.com>

Date: Sun, May 8, 2022 at 10:48 AM
Subject: Re:
To: Gary Lee <professorgarylee@gmail.com>

Mr. Lee I have informed you several times that you have not done ANYTHING that I have asked you to do. Your social media pages are plastered with your fraudulent claims and that fake certificate that you manufactured. You were given a date to return the items that you took under false pretenses from my father's widow. 

There are literally dozens of more posts, besides the screenshots of the ones sent in attachment, that you made every year without fail the years following my father's death. check attachments. Again you haven't removed not one thing from your social media accounts, not to mention posts in other groups. As you can see in the attachments I have gone back years all the way back to a month after my father passed away. It was only then that you started making your claims regarding my father's system. It is not my place to send you every link or screenshot of you you posted over the course of nine years. That is solely your responsibility. You are the one who is legally culpable to remove those posts. 

I will not repsond to any more of your emails and endure any more lies, spins and attempts to stall.  I have in my previous email stated that there was no need for further contact from you. I will send that statement yet again;  

Since I have not received a tracking number and you continue to lie and stall this is to inform you that:

 

1. I have done everything legally required of me and then some before bringing suit against you. 

2. At this point, whether the items you took are returned or not. I am continuing with my litigation. 

3. There is no need for further communication from you. 

Any further communication will be forwarded to my attorney. 

Yep. I'd say she was rather miffed, wouldn't you?

The Fable of the Sports Karate Museum 

Gary Lee and the Missing Items of Sam Lonewolf

Intentions Aren't Always What They Appear

This obviously wasn't the first time Samantha Lonewolf had asked for the return of her father's items. These included a belt, a gi top, and chops which Lonewolf's widow had reluctantly given to Gary Lee after the funeral of the man she had cared for, lived with and loved for the years they were together. When Sam Lonewolf passed away the only thing he really had to leave his loved ones was the legacy of his system, "First Nation Kenpo." In all honesty these items which Lee claimed would be displayed in his museum should have been left to the family. At no time should anyone have ever approached the widow or family of the deceased to make claims of friendship or association to take such things.

Can you imagine laying your loved one to rest and someone approaches you after the funeral asking for rank certificates, belts, or anything related to the martial career of your loved one? According to the Lonewolf family that is exactly what Gary Lee did. Never in all the years they were married did his widow remember Lee or any of his associates ever being close friends as they had claimed early on in their email exchanges with Samantha. 

The Items Gary Lee Took....Where Did They Go?

Not surprisingly Samantha took Lee and his band of merry men to task on this issue immediately. Poor guy, he didn't know how to answer as you will see from the emails Samantha has asked me to make public.

Mr. Lee I expect ALL the items that you took to be returned and nothing less. It is obvious you had them all along. I am done with your many spins, fabrications and shenanigans. I have seen pictures that you posted online of my father's red belt displayed on a cabinet next to a samurai head in your "man cave" along with posts bragging about how you inherited it in my father's will. Knowing full well that was not ever the case. 

I really find it disturbing that you, a Hawaiian, has such little regard for family (ohana). You obviously have nothing but contempt for family. You certainly had contempt for my family. You victimized my family by your actions over the course of nine years misusing my father's name. You victimized an elderly grieving widow.  You lied to her to get what you wanted. You have lied to me repeatedly.

With that being said, I expect you to mail these items quickly. I expect you to email me a TRACKING NUMBER by the end of the week. You can ship them by way of United States Postal Service rather inexpensively in a matter of days. I do expect to get all of my father's items next week. Getting "lost in the mail" will not be acceptable.  

The only thing that might persuade me from further pursuing litigation and taking further actions is that you return everything to my family. And I do mean return EVERYTHING. The family is very aware of what you took and the items will be verified, don't attempt to pass something off in place of my father's items or attempt to keep a single thing. 

Whew, lads....now that is how you really put someone on the spot. Of course Gary had a response ready to go in short order.

On Wed, May 4, 2022 at 11:26 PM Gary Lee <professorgarylee@gmail.com> wrote:

I told you that when you approached me a few months ago I gave what I had to be thrown away and was lucky enough that didn’t destroy everything , I am working on this . 

Garret , my Son was given Sam’s Black Belt Personally by him before he passed and  he refuses to give it up , I Asked  , you may call him 

As I said we had a deep relationship with your Dad 

His Number is ----------, Garett Lee

The White Uniform was given to Randy McFarland , the Man who wrote the letter on Investigations page you sent me  , I felt he would wear it honor of your Dad , for he was a good student  , I am sorry we parted ways  , he is a good man  he has your Dad’s White Unform

His number ------------

The materials that was left in that green duffle bag or suitcase, we will work on getting back 

I am only doing this because I cared for Sam , I have done nothing  Wrong 

Samantha wasted no time in responding:

No! You dont TELL me anything! I have no more use for more lies. You took those items under false pretenses from my father's widow. You keep one thing and I will pursue this. The next email I should get is The tracking number.

Smantha Lonewolf

So allow me to pause here and lay out that originally Gary Lee claimed to Lonewolf's widow these items would be placed in his museum in memoriam to Sam Lonewolf and his contributions to the world of martial arts and I suppose Sports Karate, right?

But somehow they wound up in a green duffle bag or suitcase....and claimed that Sam also gave his son, Garrett the belt which belonged to Sam? But....that's not what the Lonewolf family said nor did Gary in any of the correspondence leading up to here (and just because I didn't publish it doesn't mean I don't have it stored away in case I need to.)

It kind of amazes me. You run a museum but one of your biggest draws is the inheritance of this system and for some reason all the proof to validate it is in a suitcase or duffel bag? Can you imagine walking into this fabled museum and seeing....a suitcase?

"And if you will all look to the right you'll see the famous suitcase inside of which Sam Lonewolf kept everything regarding his system of Kenpo and it was always close at hand in order to ensure legitimacy. Yes, I inherited that suitcase from Sam himself. Souvenir certificates are available as you exit the museum through the dining room!"

However prior to these emails I would like to present an even bigger puzzle. The following emails, dated May 1st and 2nd, 2022. In them Lee makes a different spin in order to I believe toss Samantha and her family off of his trail with regards to these items. And he did it in what I could only describe as callous and uncaring.

Look really close here.....

Following that up on May 2nd, 2022:

So I need to stop here and ask these questions.

Gary Lee was so close to Sam Lonewolf that he felt he could ask for things which should have went to his kids, more specifically his grandson who trains in Judo at this time? 

They were such good friends that he scuttled his memory into a suitcase?

Or, they were so close in fact that all the items were burned?

Or were they in fact destroyed so no one could have them?

Rather, a better question is, does someone else still have them?

How you show your love and admiration for those no longer with us.

Well, Samantha had had enough. She left a final demand to Gary Lee on the matter at hand.

How Does This End?

So for the past many weeks I have been covering this story I always envisioned some kind of end to the story. I honestly felt that with the right pressure Gary Lee would finally give in and send back to the Lonewolf family all the items which rightly belong to them. He had no definitive lineage to this family nor did he ever have a link to Sam Lonewolf. 

But this is not my story. No, the story belongs to that of the one person who stood up and demanded answers from the man who it seems has been proven to have wrongfully attempted to steal the legacy of her father. 

In a 2020 Article Gary Lee claimed again to be the inheritor of Lonewolf's system. 

You can read the rebuttal here.

In the above emails you can see Gary Lee has backpedaled on his claims, to include what he would also tell "Kaiso" Bret Goron in 2020. Apparently Lee had no issue with putting others in danger of litigation with regards to his statement in said article about him being the inheritor of Lonewolf.

Samantha's Statement to the Public

After all his apologies to both Samantha Lonewolf and myself via email, Gary Lee finally admitted he had inherited nothing. 

Multiple emails are in my possession between Samantha and Gary which he states his claim to inheritance lay in "learning some techniques" from Sam Lonewolf. 

Additionally the dates of these events changes.

In an email received May 24th, 2022 Samantha released to me a statement.

................

I am sending you this email regarding the latest findings and those who have spoke up about receiving rank from Gary Lee with my father's name on their certificates. 

Let me start with both Gary Lee and Don Miskel. Mr. Lee claimed that my father's system was left to him in a will. This is a lie. My father left no will. Also Mr. Lee is not and never has been listed as one of my father's black belts. Mr. Lee displays a 10th Dan certificate supposedly from my father dated in 2006. This certificate was fabricated by Mr. Lee himself via a photoshopped program. Below are the ceritifcates he claimed my father gave him. Neither certificate are the ones my fathered issued. Apparently Mr. Lee can not read the chops or he would realize the glaring mistake he made in fabricating the certificates. 

Not only are Mr. Lee's 10th dan certificates that are pictured above fake it wasn't until after my father passed that he started claiming he was a tenth dan and posting these certifcates. In 2012 he was claiming to be a 9th dan in Okinawan Karate. 

It has been proven that this and all other certificates he possesses are not valid, are fake, 

are forgeries and cannot be questioned.

Despite claiming they were so close to my father neither Mr. Lee and Don Miskel had a relationship with my father at all. Yet these two "men" decided that someone should go to my father's home days after his funeral and see what they could get from my father's grieving widow. Mr. Lee, under the pretense of being my father's "close friend" asked for specific items; his gi, his belt and strangely his chops and stamps to put in his museum. This was all to be done to honor my father. His gi and belt were to supposedly be displayed in Mr. Lee's "Karate museum", at least this is the story that he told my father's widow. However, my father's items sit in Gary Lee's home not a museum like he had claimed. Mr. Lee even admitted in an email that my father's stuff was in a garage in a green suit case. 

Mr. Lee wanted my fathers chops and stamps along with his uniform and belts. I have to question why he asked for my father's personal chops and stamps? Well, it became quite clear as I have seen multiple certificates online and some that were sent to me. It appears Gary Lee and others fabricated certificates using my fathers name, his chops and stamps and fabricated certificates to attempt to establish and show a history, a fake history mind you, with my father. Neither of these men actually ever trained with or under my father. Mr Lee, it seems, had even gone out of his way, online in 2020, to try and discredit one of my father's long time Black belts Barron Shepherd. He disparaged Mr. Shepherd to bolster himself as the inheritor of my father's system. http://www.join-usama.com/blog/pot-meet-kettle  Mr. Lee has never represented my father or his system and is in no way a part of my father's lineage. Nor is he a spokesperson for my father, the family or my father's system. He certainly didn't "inherit" my father's system. The fact that he doesn't even know who my father's black belts are speaks volumes. 

The very fact that Gary Lee isn't named on my father's list of black belts is enough to disqualify ALL his claims and statements regarding my father and his system, as well as ANY person Gary Lee has promoted using my father's name. It appears that he has awarded certificates with my father's forged or photocopied signature on them promoting people in my father's system years after he passed away. How can my father's signature be on anything after he has passed away. Below are two certificates dated in 2021 and 2017, along with a photo copy of a blank certificate.  

Pictured above are two fake certificates provided to the author as well as a copy of 

one mass-produced by Lee himself.

Now, imagine my family and my father's black belts surprise when we were presented with a copy of a blank certificate. A certificate created by Gary Lee after my father passed away with my father's forged or copied signature on it. The certificate above on far right is not and never was my father's. This is one that is obviously very cheaply done off someone's personal computer. Why the need for a blank certificate that has my father's forged or photo copied signature on it? 

A photoshopped in or forged signature of my father's along with his chop stamps adorn a rank certificate years after he passed? My father did not sign this certificate or stamp it in 2017. What kind of warped morbid practice is this? You don't normally find the names of a sensei's former instructor on their rank certificates. The former instructor who has passed away didn't promote them, the living current one did. The recipients that received the above certificates are NOT and never were students of my father's, He is the student of the one that was teaching him. I hold no ill will against the recipients. The recipients were led to believe that Mr. Lee "inherited" my father's system by falsehoods perpetuated by Mr. Lee himself. 

As for Mr. Lee's so called inheritance claims. I don't think there is any misunderstanding as to what the word inheritance means and implies. From the very moment Mr. Lee got his hands on certain items belonging to my father under the pretense that those items would be displayed in a museum, Mr. Lee decided to put a spin on things. He claimed he inherited things like my father's gi, his red belt, a black belt, his chops along with my father's system in his will. My father left no will. When threatened with litigation Mr. Lee began to try and spin what he actually meant by "inheritance". His said that what he meant was that he was just passing along a few techniques that he had learned from my father at a seminar. I don't think this would be the way ANYONE would reasonably define or interpret the word "inherit" to mean. How would one come to a conclusion that simply learning a technique or two would somehow make them the one that the system was left too? 

Mr Lee's story has changed literally from email to email. He was asked simply to return my father's stuff to the family. However in his last email he said that instead of returning everything that he was going to have it all destroyed. Burned. Basically since he couldn't have it no one would, especially My father's family, in other words his children or grand children. Is this the behavior of a man who claimed to be such a good friend of my father's? Is this the behavior of a man who supposedly holds up martial values? Mr. Lee honors my father by destroying his things just so the Lonewolf family cant have them? Speaks volumes of the true nature of his character. 

Mr. Lee though trying to spin things has walked back a lot of his claims and statements regarding my father. He changed his story about showing up at my father's home days after his funeral at the behest of Don Miskel. Mr. Lee then claimed that my father wanted him to have those things and that was why he showed up. He wrote that he had nothing but good intentions then admitted to being wrong about Mr. Shepherd even apologizing for it. Lastly he ended his email confessing that he had in actuality inherited nothing from my father. Still trying to save some face by still claiming to be good friends he apologized for his actions showing up at my father's house in the first place. An apology filled with lies and more spin in an attempt to dodge possible litigation. 

As for Mr. Miskel, he is also not on my father's list of black belts. Like Gary Lee, this alone omits any claims he has regarding my father, his history or lineage. Also like Gary Lee Mr. Miskel certainly is not a spokesperson or representative of my father's system. Neither man was at any time entitled to my father's system. In an email to me Mr. Miskel did in fact claim to have known and met my father. When I challenged Mr. Miskel on this he admitted that he did not know my father or did he meet him like he had originally claimed in his first email to me. My father's widow had never even heard of Mr. Miskel yet supposedly according to Mr. Miskel, he and my father were good friends. In one breath Mr. Miskel claims to have signed off on Gary Lee's tenth dan certificate. In the next breath Mr. Miskel claimed that he did not use my father's name on any certificate and that my father's certificates are only displayed privately in his home. Mr. Miskel is no one to sign off on or promote anyone in my father's system.

Pictured above is a certificate for "Peter Lee" signed off on 

by Dr. Donald Miskel who also claimed a relationship with Lonewolf.

Above is an email from Samantha to Donald Miskel calling him out for his claim 

to have a relationship with her father.

I have seen certificates online like the one above, with my dad's recreated signature on them and co signed by Mr. Miskel along with other signatures signing off on the recipient's rank. Neither Miskel, the recipient or the instructors who signed off on it are on my Father's list of black belts or his appointed council or leadership. This certificate like the others is fraudulent. 

There should be no misunderstanding here, ranks issued in my father's system from Mr. Lee or Mr. Miskel are indeed fraudulent. There is absolutely no truth to their claims to my father's methods, fighting system or lineage not even REMOTELY. These two "men" sought to take advantage of my father, his family and ultimately their own students. The intention here was to interject themselves into a lineage they had no involvement in and no right to,  just so they could swindle more money out of their own students and followers no less. They didn't only victimize my father's widow and care giver and our family, they also victimized their own students by selling rank to them under false pretenses. At no time was Mr. Lee ever considered a black belt under Sam Lonewolf nor was Mr. Miskel. I have been made aware that they have apparently charged money for these "recreated" certificates. I have been told they have charged 100s of dollars for these rank certificates.  They have gotten away with their elaborate ruse for over 9 years now. Since money has seemingly been exchanged for these fabricated certificates, I tend to think they have broken some laws, defrauded the public and students and have quite possibly opened themselves up to various forms of litigation which I am currently pursuing. 

My father spent several years appointing a council and various leadership roles within his system, as well as setting up who he wanted to carry on his system (only 2 people were to inherit his system) and how he wanted it to be run. All involved were notified by a series of emails that laid out his very wishes. Neither Lee or Miskel's names pop up anywhere nor any person they have used to sign off on their recreated certificates that display my father's name. My father left his system to two people, myself and one other. In light of the actions of those forging my father's name, falsely claiming lineage to him and selling certificates with his name on them, everything regarding my father's system will be handled by one person. He will be the only one who can issue rank in my father's system. Like me, he was appointed by my father and now the family has seen fit to leave it solely in his hands. The decision to leave my father's system in the hands of his trusted friend and black belt has also been approved by the elders who were part of the leadership of my father's system. As I have stated before my father has a list of his ACTUAL blackbelts and that list is written in stone and will not be changed or amended unless otherwise approved by the one person whose hands the system now lies in. 

Stopping Here....For Now.

In ending this for the moment I want to stop and give to my readers this. If you, or someone you know has a certificate with Sam Lonewolf's name upon it I would suggest questioning that certificate. Lonewolf passed away in 2013 and had not been active in the martial arts for some years due to deteriorating health conditions which he eventually passed away from.

With that said those out there who are flaunting these, be warned. Gary Lee has finally admitted, quote, "I have inherited nothing," by his own admission to Samantha Lonewolf. Anyone with a certificate from Gary Lee, or those that do not match, in this particular system should demand a refund.