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Tribunal Justice - Season 3 - Episode 08: Italian-Flavored Bad Behavior
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00:04now on tribunal justice you're trying to have a street party to keep culture and tradition alive
00:09and then this gentleman jumped in and said i'm so good at getting sponsors what happened to the
00:14money that he invested in this we have no agreement everything that he says is a lie
00:19i have to stand here like a fool he's a liar i need you to calm down
00:26to coin an italian phrase unless i'm a little stunard
00:30i couldn't see an agreement here this case is now concluding
00:57today's case was filed in los angeles california your honor this is case number 3029 on the
01:04calendar matter of sticko versus the los angeles italian festival incorporated thank you uh-huh
01:11you're welcome judge parties have been sworn in you may be seated mr sticko you partnered with the
01:17los angeles italian festival as part of the 2024 festival it featured your wife as one of the
01:25entertainer singers correct you say you spent more than 31 000 you say defendant kept money from ticket
01:33sales and vendors which should have been used to offset your expenditures you say that he made a
01:392200 unauthorized charge on your credit card and he needs to pay you back all this money since you're in
01:46way over what you originally promised so you're suing him here for ten thousand dollars correct
01:51your honor there's just to clarify the credit card chargers were not on my credit card oh they
01:57were on the credit card of your ce uh ceo a board advisory member who but right now you're standing
02:03here on on that correct i'm on the hook for it mr starice yes you say that you've been running
02:08this
02:08festival since 2017 and that the past year you were unable to get a sponsor you said you wanted to
02:15cancel he said he would sponsor the entire event you never agreed to give him any money and so you
02:21therefore owe him nothing this is really just a ploy by him to take over your business would that be
02:25correct as well yeah the aside from using the term sponsor because there's no sponsorship there was no
02:31partnership none of it i'm just giving an opening statement you obviously don't agree with him
02:37clearly he has something against you so let's start with first how did you and the defendant meet
02:43so in 2022 we'd worked with the fringe festival in 2022 and through that he had become introduced
02:52with my wife and the opera company that we uh we have and he reached out and he invited her
02:58as a
02:59vocalist okay so let's see the flyer that was put out for this event featuring your wife you're having
03:04her named with some top singers correct and she had appeared in 2023 as well you thought she had a
03:09great voice if i recall reading in your papers correct brilliant brilliant go on so you're now
03:14becoming a part of this festival well it was sometime early probably around the beginning of 2024
03:19that he had connected and what he had conveyed to me was he had a larger dream of the italian
03:26festival
03:27becoming a bigger brand than just the one day i actually must be a little confused here because when
03:34i looked at these papers it seemed that you were the one who was touting wanting to elevate the event
03:40itself you were concerned that he was trying to minimize its impact on the community did i read that
03:47incorrectly sir perhaps and then i'll read it to you because this is the document that you sign
03:54it says i engaged in a new vision for the festival from its layout and entertainment to elevating the
04:01events overall status and attendee experience i was using my connections to bring this festival to
04:07another level so you were apparently the one who had that dream i mean did you have the same dream
04:13as he
04:13did because that's not what i read in the papers uh we we just produce a festival to celebrate the
04:19ancestry how big or how small it is matters nothing to us we are losing our traditions we lost columbus
04:27day
04:27out in california recently new york as well regardless of the politics we're trying to keep a tradition
04:33alive i get it i'm coming back to you because i think you both wanted to do something here it's
04:38just with a different mindset but you're at point then it's kind of not correct so moving along so
04:44now how are you and he get into an agreement because i read these papers and unless you know to
04:51coin an
04:52italian phrase unless i'm a little stu nod i couldn't see an agreement here so i'd like to see
04:57from you where your agreement with him was and what it was for so there was no there was no
05:03written
05:03agreement he had asked if i was interested in being involved on the production level and i offered
05:11to help sponsor the entertainment portion of it where we would bring natalia the other entertainer because
05:19in part that's why you were there you really wanted to promote your wife that's what this was about
05:24because honestly i can't see in these papers what you agreed to split the two of you in fact the
05:31only
05:32thing i have here which we put up on the screen defendant is the white you are the blue and
05:37he says i want to
05:38put this in writing there is nothing for anything nothing nada niente so how do you then come in here
05:45and say he owes me money pursuant to a contract well i'm not saying he owes money pursuant to a
05:52contract
05:52i'm saying he owes money pursuant to be an incorporated entity and as an incorporated entity
05:57they have a duty of care and a fiscal responsibility in the scope of the aspect of being a public
06:03uh
06:03corporation but not just to anybody to somebody with whom he has an agreement correct and i'm looking
06:08for the agreement so let me hear from you a little bit how do you expect him to come in
06:13and just pay for
06:14this whole thing i didn't expect him to come in i didn't approach him he approached me but you said
06:20it's okay i mean he didn't just start setting up things without your approval i of course i said it's
06:25okay predicated on the fact that he understood in no uncertain terms that we had no money that we were
06:31canceling that last year i maxed out all my credit cards we've already been over this i've already
06:37explained this to you and the reason that that text has the tone that it has is because he went
06:42to
06:42eva to say hey what's going on with the money because everything that he says is a lie everything
06:49including maybe his cia involvement and his taking down regimes and all the other
06:56yarns that he spun stop with these conspiracy theories it's very difficult for me to even defend myself
07:02because it lends credence to the words that come out of his mouth the problem here mr cerise is that
07:08he is asking for you to reimburse him ten thousand dollars because he says that you took deposits
07:14from vendors to the tune of about seventy eight hundred dollars you made a credit card charge for
07:19twenty two hundred dollars and there is a text message which actually addresses that where you say
07:24hey i don't know where you are so i'm just going to charge this twenty two hundred dollars right how
07:29do
07:29you explain that coming up on tribunal justice mr cerise you mentioned it that the plaintiff's wife
07:37was brilliant yeah ma'am step up please her voice brilliant
07:48investor eugene sticko is suing joey cerise and ava miller of the la italian festival for ten thousand
07:54dollars saying they burned through his money then made an unauthorized credit card charge but joey
07:59and ava say they spent the funds properly and that there was never an agreement with eugene
08:04and there is a text message which actually addresses that where you say hey i don't know where you are
08:09so i'm just going to charge this twenty two hundred dollars right how do you explain that okay so first
08:13of all the money for the vendors uh came in well before he was even involved he had nothing to
08:19do
08:19with the festival until june when we did the fringe festival and i broached the subject that we were
08:26going to probably cancel this year because we don't have okay so what so and then this gentleman jumped in
08:31and said just read through the things and said oh here's the sponsors oh i i'm so good at getting
08:36sponsors i'll go get so what did you do with that money that's all i'm asking you is 40 vendors
08:42that i
08:42had to go find we pay for the rent we pay for the phones did you take it as compensation
08:47no i think
08:49there's a text in here that clearly says you kept the seventy eight hundred dollars right for compensation
08:54that's that's the extraplication of the lie because that was a short text that said uh that the for the
09:02time that i spend that i wasn't good all i said was that this is the the money that i
09:08spend uh that
09:09keeps me from my business can we stop because this goes back to you in here replete in these text
09:15messages i don't know what i'm supposed to pay i don't know what he's paying when you have a contract
09:19that says i don't know i don't know you know what that means there was no meeting of the minds
09:24judge
09:25levy let's put up o2 please because this is the text that we're talking about and this is i believe
09:31mr cerise the rub of mr stico it says the vendor money covers the time i work on this event
09:37that takes
09:38me away from my business i can't make it any plainer right so what he's saying correct me if i'm
09:44wrong
09:44sir you were in essence paying yourself from the vendor monies that were coming in and that you
09:50shouldn't have been doing that is that correct correct and so what he's saying is so what so what
09:57i can take that money we have no agreement we're not in partnership what we're saying is show me a
10:03document an email a text message where he says i will not be taking any money i don't have that
10:09and
10:09it's not inherent it's not inherent as part of being a corporation as corporate officers they have a
10:14fiduciary responsibility to pay the bills of their corporation before they pay themselves
10:19any standard business practice wait a minute wait wait wait time out time out time out i know i'm not
10:26the smartest guy around but i've been reading in the news recently how ceos of companies are taking
10:33hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries even though their companies and corporations are
10:40hemorrhaging money so don't try to explain to me or tell me that it's inherently illegal unethical
10:46for a ceo to take money in a salary even if the company is losing money because that's what you're
10:52saying right i'm saying it's certainly unethical if it's not illegal and it's certainly it's certainly
10:57against the codes and statutes i got the intent who was responsible okay let's cut to brass tacks
11:01you put together a projection based upon your review of all the numbers the documents conversations
11:08what you thought the festival could bring in with your involvement you had estimated revenue target
11:14between 21 000 and 30 000 correct you anticipated up to 3 000 people we have vendors between 60 and
11:2180
11:21minimum revenue target 16 500 this is what you gave us correct so the target summary profit projection
11:29was 116 000 depending upon how many sponsors you got and how many were in attendance correct and who was
11:37in charge of hiring a public relations company who would get the word out and bring people in so that
11:43they would buy things and pay for their time who was in charge was that you so over the course
11:48if i can
11:49explain over the course of reaching out and trying to get people involved i was looking for podcasters
11:55italian american podcasters and this particular one from new york responded back he also turns out
12:02ran a pr firm and he thought of it as an opportunity to sort of expand his reach and portfolio
12:09and i get
12:09all that and so yeah and it was a dud correct and this was despite your text to him on
12:15september 4th
12:16but you sir you deal with other organizations that use pr people and sponsorships and you're able to get
12:22them and for whatever reason it was a dud correct now with respect to your claim sir for 2200 dollars
12:31in reimbursement for an unauthorized charge let's put up number nine please the los angeles italian
12:38festival 2200 correct correct what standing do you have to make a demand for the reimbursement of
12:45someone else's credit card because i'm held responsible for it by him but he would have to
12:51bring a lawsuit against the defendant here to get reimbursed he can't send you in in his stead
12:55makes sense the intent was to send me in as his stead it was overall part of all of the
13:01charges
13:02that were made that he allowed me to make in order to make sure that the festival took place before
13:08i
13:08pass the case to judge acker there's one thing that i want to bring up and that is mr cerise
13:13you
13:13mentioned it that the plaintiff's wife was brilliant yes ma'am step up please her voice brilliant well
13:21she's a brilliant person but her voice now now we do have well yes we do have a video and
13:27i would like
13:27to play that roll it now mystico someone once said and i don't remember who it was that if you
13:53spend
13:53ten thousand hours doing anything you could become an expert in whatever it is that you spent that
13:59time on i could spend ten thousand hours practicing opera and i would never sound as good as you
14:04that was beautiful thank you very much appreciate your honor coming up on tribunal justice this is my
14:11life's work where was he five years ago here's what we're gonna do she will ask you a question and
14:17you'll address her yeah i'm standing here on this guy's little puppet string we have no agreement
14:27investor eugene sticko says joey cerise and ava miller scammed him out of money and made
14:32unauthorized charges on a credit card he's suing for ten thousand dollars joey and ava said they never
14:39agreed on anything with eugene and that he's guilty of wasting his own money now you wanted a platform
14:45for your wife and her exquisite voice you know you want to stage regoletto you're trying to have a
14:51street party to keep culture and traditional life that's what it is you just didn't have the same
14:56event in mind so then i go back to you mr stico i note that you say that as you
15:02started to work with
15:02him that you quickly recognized that his business style was erratic and scatterbrained and then you
15:10said he pocketed all of the money from ticket pre-sales and vendor deposits so what evidence
15:16do you have that he wasn't entitled to that money there was revenue that came in that the intent of
15:23that revenue coming in was to produce the festival and even that last week when he sent the text message
15:31saying you know oh there's zero and i kept it as compensation then i was put in the position of
15:36everything that i've put into this is either a hundred percent loss and he goes around bad
15:42mouthing me saying oh he pulled out on me last minute or i go through with it and try to
15:47recover
15:48what i can on the day of the festival and recover what we were what i never anticipated was that
15:54that
15:54money that came in from the sponsor fees from the vendors that that wouldn't go towards things like
16:01permits and infrastructure and all the rest of it well he did mention that there were going to be
16:05costs for permits and the like but what you haven't proven to me sir is that he wasn't entitled to
16:11some compensation how long have you been doing this festival or two years and what's your day job
16:17i paint the street numbers on the curbs in los angeles i'm the only licensed curb painter in the city
16:22maybe you painted my curbs oh i'm sure i have painted them all if you lose don't remember where
16:28i live uh but on a serious note do you compensate yourself i uh none all of that went for
16:36website
16:37rent so you understand the plain reading of that text is that you compensated yourself yeah it was some
16:44amount of labor yeah okay let's back up we have no agreement there's nothing between us
16:52nothing exists between us so you're asking me quite that's why i have to stand here like a fool
16:58and try to defend myself against well i'm going to stop you right now because you don't seem like a
17:03fool
17:04you made some representation to him that money was going to be used in one way and instead you used
17:11it
17:11which is not true never happened okay we had no agreement no business agreement sir this is my life
17:18this is my life's work i've done this for 20 straight mr series where was he 10 years ago
17:25where was he five years here's what we're going to do she will ask you a question and you'll address
17:31her great thank you okay and remember where you are i know exactly where i am you sure yeah i'm
17:36standing here okay like a fool on this guy's little puppet string he's a liar no can i can i
17:42finish my
17:43examination sir i need you to calm down please you're here as a defendant in a lawsuit
17:47so i'm going to move back to the plaintiff yes because it's his case to prove yes and so what
17:53evidence do you have that he ever made any material misrepresentation to you about the use of funds
17:58that you directed to him for his use the evidence of the misrepresentation is the fact that all of the
18:04money that he collected did not go towards no that is not evident i can't prove a negative well
18:10exactly you can't prove the original intention for where those monies were supposed to be directed
18:15and if you can't prove that then you can't prove that he did anything wrong i'd like to hear from
18:21mistico you have been very patient what did you want to say so i had just one thing to say
18:26if it
18:26helps so before los angeles we were on business in phoenix it was literally the week before the los
18:33festival there is suddenly a text from joey saying that there hasn't been any money put towards
18:40infrastructure i assume it's tents and places for vendors and my husband asked can you help out with
18:47that right and the only literally money i have is my son's tuition fund for high school and i said
18:54okay
18:54i'll have but i need just some guarantee that i'm going to get it back i'm just going to cut
18:58to the chase
18:59what happened to the money what happened to the money that he invested in this i don't know what
19:04he spent it on i do know he flew people in from did he ever he flew people in from
19:08boston he flew
19:10people in from new york and he's presenting me with a bill now what hasn't been said is i gave
19:15him the
19:15entire door we did 1400 and he had the entire door fine you know let's say he did i gave
19:23him the door
19:24i said i'm agreeing with you eva i want you i just i need you okay i need you uh
19:31are you aware of any
19:33monies that went directly from the plaintiff's hands to your your husband's hands or did he pay
19:38these vendors on his own no he was paying uh we were sending him the uh invoices to be paid
19:45like
19:46you know from the different did you ever write him a check no you never wrote him a check no
19:51did you
19:51ever write her a check no ma'am okay i have nothing further i have a few things first of
19:55all just to
19:56be clear here this ticket sales at the door there was a good chance based on your history with this
20:01that there would have been well over a thousand people but apparently you know la being a big
20:06dodger town there was a dodger game going on the same day and that caused people to choose between
20:13the italians and the dodges they went with the dodges so that kind of was an impediment to the ticket
20:20sales at the door excuse me killed us yes i could see that um the other thing is what is
20:27that
20:28we were supposed to do a fundraiser we were supposed to start at the day of the event and run
20:33it through
20:33the holiday so these coins they're stunning and they sat in those boxes because that guy started
20:40stopped communicating with me the day after the festival the big shot from boston there's big
20:45problems can i see one of those look at this can you please bring one you create these beautiful
20:49things and then you leave them in the trash there's a lot that went wrong here oh these are beautiful
20:53i have one of these from my italian american organization these are nice really unless there's
20:58anything else really we're going to retire you to deliberate i will return this to you despite my
21:06thank you all thank you we're going to thank you all thank you judge court now stands in recess
21:21for personal reasons i really would love to see something like this succeed out in california we
21:27have a lot of italian american events in new york and i think they're terrific but i think what
21:31happened here these two gentlemen had different goals in mind really the plaintiff was really hoping
21:37to put his wife out there she sang italian beautifully and yeah i could see him wanting
21:41to promote her but he really needed to have either oral or written preferably agreement with the
21:47defendant about who was going to pay for what what monies were going to be attributable to different
21:52things i mean i went through every one of these receipts that he submitted that they paid out over
21:58thirty one thousand dollars but in any event he certainly didn't prevail for not for lack of effort not for
22:04lack of work not for putting it into it but for lack of an agreement that would be enforceable in
22:08a
22:08court of law and to your point you gotta have an agreement period and what we saw out there from
22:15mr cerise quite frankly does not surprise me when you spend your whole life nurturing your good
22:21reputation especially in a small knit community in the italian american club or putting on these type of
22:28festivals and to have someone come in and to accuse you of thievery which is what the plaintiff was doing
22:34yeah you're gonna be a little upset i completely understand that better not to do it in a courtroom
22:39most certainly better not to do in front of bird and did you see his wife i mean poor woman
22:45and it was
22:46i looked i looked at cassandra and i go you know i i it's like my wife and i when
22:51we go out and i get
22:52and i get a little a little going and she's always like it's okay adam it's okay adam yeah no
22:57agreement
22:58no standing plaintiff's case needs to be dismissed i had a lot of empathy for the defendant because
23:03i'm with you i mean of course his tirade wasn't appropriate in this forum but if somebody accuses
23:10you of mishandling funds and this has been his life's work you are going to react like that so i
23:16didn't take too much exception to that i think you could teach this case in contracts in law school
23:20they were not on the same page they may never have been on the same page it wasn't clear who
23:25was
23:25entitled to what or what these funds were supposed to be used for you know sometimes things just don't
23:30work out it doesn't mean that legal liability necessarily attaches okay so we're unanimous and
23:35dismissing i think so
23:40court is back in session parties are reminded you're still under oath thank you bird not on the same page
23:46you two aren't even in the same book i mean you really did not hash this out for two guys
23:52that
23:52love to talk and so sir you laid out a lot of money you put out thirty one thousand dollars
23:57i saw it i
23:58saw every receipt but you had no agreement with this defendant one way or another to either repay you
24:05or not take money from the till or what was coming in but we do have a unanimous verdict and
24:11we've all
24:12felt the same way about the lack of contractual agreement here we're going to dismiss your complaint
24:18it's unanimous you're not going to get any money here in this form from us but we do want to
24:23end with
24:23one thing i would love natasha if you can to sing the first couple of lines of the italian national
24:29anthem
24:29sure
24:38oh
24:40oh
24:44oh
24:45oh
24:45oh
24:48oh
24:49oh
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