00:04The defendant fraudulently used your banking information and had money withdrawn from your
00:09account for many months in order to make her car payment.
00:12Ms. Arnett says that that was your agreement, that she was helping you out by taking you
00:17place to place, driving you after you had an accident, and your agreement was that in
00:21lieu of compensation, you would make her car payment.
00:24That's your defense.
00:25Is that right?
00:25Yes.
00:26Okay.
00:26So I'm going to start with you, Ms. Arnett.
00:28Okay. When did you meet Mr. Stewart and where?
00:30I met him at my old job, like two years ago.
00:33What was your old job?
00:34I worked at a Mexican food restaurant.
00:36And he was just a customer?
00:37Yes.
00:38Okay. And?
00:39And he would come frequently, like every day. And one day he made a comment that he needed
00:43someone to help him run errands, that he needed someone to help him around his house. And
00:48me and my other co-worker, he offered us and we agreed, we said yes.
00:51And what was he going to pay you for that?
00:53He would pay us like $100 or $60 or $80, both.
00:56And then after my friend stopped working there, it was only me that would help him.
01:00And I would go often on my days off.
01:03Well, tell me exactly what you did and how many times you did it.
01:05He had an office and I would help him organize it. And after that, like he would just find
01:10things for me to help him on.
01:11Give me an example.
01:12Like helping him clean.
01:14Clean his house or his office?
01:15His office.
01:16How big was his office?
01:17It wasn't that big. It was like a pretty small office, but there was a lot, there was
01:21a mess in there.
01:22What kind of an office was it?
01:23It was a small 8x10 office. It had a lot of stuff in there. The primary reason for
01:28me employing Ciamara was to pack up my old girlfriend's stuff. She had it all scattered
01:32in about three different rooms and her and her friend helped pack it up.
01:36So you went to his house?
01:37Mm-hmm.
01:37Okay. Did you have a clean in his house?
01:38Yeah, just his ex-girlfriend's room and like the office and that's it.
01:43Okay. Is the office part of the house?
01:44Yes.
01:45And how long did you do that?
01:46Well, in total, it was like a year.
01:47And did he pay you each time you worked?
01:49Yes.
01:50All right. Now, there came a time, according to you, that you made an arrangement with
01:55Mr. Stewart to make your car payment.
01:57Oh, no. I didn't make the arrangement. He's the one that offered him.
02:00Tell me about it.
02:01Well, I was going on vacation and...
02:03When?
02:04November of 2013. And he offered, like for me helping him and stuff, he offered to call
02:10Toyota and make the payment on my car.
02:12In November of 2013?
02:14Yes.
02:14Yes. And the arrangement was because you were going to be away and you had helped him,
02:19he was going to make your November car payment.
02:21Yeah. And then that was kind of his way of paying me for helping him out, running errands.
02:25Well, what about in December? Did you come back in December?
02:28Did you work for him in December?
02:29Yes.
02:30Is that right?
02:30No, that's not right. In November, I had given her a $100 check toward her car payment.
02:35I never spoke to Toyota directly. I was in a very bad car accident November 24th of 2013.
02:41I was in intensive care until January 6th, 2014. At that point, I was on heavy sedation. I was not
02:48managing my accounts. My brother was taking care of me because I didn't know if I was going to
02:51survive the accident. Well, by the time I got to the bank and I started doing my own banking,
02:56which was in about September of that year, I had noticed a withdrawal for like $700 from Toyota.
03:01I'd never authorized any payments to Toyota. So I then contacted the police. They investigated it.
03:07They said that Toyota was from Ms. Arnett's Toyota because I don't have a Toyota. I've never driven
03:11a Toyota. I thought maybe somebody possibly when I ran into the hospital could have fraudulently
03:15got my information and done it. So what you're saying is that you found that there was $700
03:20in car payments?
03:21From the month of September only. And going back, there was like $300 to $400, $200 payments,
03:27$400 payments. I have the payments right here.
03:29I'd like to take a look at it. So it wasn't a monthly payment of $3. or $3.50.
03:34No, it was a varying amount. And they're underlined each month.
03:41Well, December 24th of 2014, it was for $3.55. So that sounds like a whole car payment.
03:46And that might be...
Comments