He asked you to leave the apartment.
And he spent his money on drinking.
He ate your food, he wasn't clean in the house.
I don't think I was such a bad tenant.
-What are you talking about? -You violated all of their rules.
-You're right. -You owe them rent.
-You're right. -I'm not sure why they would support you.
You're right. You're absolutely right.
Yeah, I know I'm right.
[announcer] Today on Tribunal Justice...
This case was filed in Morristown, New Jersey.
[Byrd] Your Honor, this is case number 1121 on the calendar
in the matter of Witt versus Martinelli.
Parties have been sworn in, you may be seated.
[Judge DiMango] Thank you, Byrd.
Ms. Witt, you and Mr. Martinelli have been friends for at least 15 years.
You say that in this particular occasion he was down on his luck.
And you said he can move in. You basically had an oral agreement
that he would stay for a year, pay you $500 a month.
You said that he spent his money on smoking cigarettes
and on drinking.
He ate your food, he wasn't clean in the house.
You lent him $82 to buy a cigarette making machine
because you thought it would be cheaper
than going to the store and buying cigarettes,
which now you need a loan, practically, they're so expensive to go out and buy.
You say he paid very little.
He owes the court maximum to you,
which is at least $5,000 in back rent and loans.
But Mr. Martinelli, you have a different story.
You say you paid until you couldn't.
You admit you may owe some back rent,
but you say she's really on a power trip, that's what this is about.
You say you owe nothing.
Just out of curiosity,
why would somebody who's a friend of yours for 15 years
suddenly go on a power trip with you for $5,000?
Just, it's just made up. It's a made-up amount.
Tell me about your agreement with him and what would make you think
that he was gonna be able to pay rent to you.
Mr. Martinelli, when he moved in,
originally agreed to work with my boyfriend doing mason jobs.
And he was very good about paying.
-Was he paying you cash in the rent? -Yes.
-And he was giving you $500? -Yes.
However, he also did pay for cigarettes
and he did buy his alcohol,
even though the house rule was
-no drinking in the house. -Yeah, I noticed that.
Is there a reason why you had a house rule no drinking in the house?
-Yes, my boyfriend is a recovering... -Four years. Four and a half years.
[Judge DiMango] You can step up, sir. Well, that's terrific.
And I can understand you not wanting to have things around
that are tempting.
It's hard to be in recovery.
And it's a long haul.
-You knew that? -Yes.
And yet I saw text messages that you're drunk, you were drinking.
That would've been enough to throw you right out
-on your A-S-S. -[Joseph] You're right.
-You're absolutely correct. -Yeah, I know I'm right.
How could you do that to two people who care about you?
Who gave you a home, gave you a home before,
know you for years,
and you wanna jeopardize the work that he's put in for four and a half years?
So what? So you could drown your sorrows?
[Joseph] They make it sound like I drank all the time.
[Judge DiMango] It doesn't matter. Once.
-Once. -You're right. You're absolutely right.
I mean, that's disgraceful.
I'm going through recovery now, so I understand
the problems that he would have to deal with. So, I do understand.
I think that was very kind of you to let him continue to stay
-despite that. -Joe is a friend.
And I felt bad for this situation. We both did.
We had known him a while and he had lived with us prior.
[Judge DiMango] So when does he move in?
-He moves in... -He moved in in January of 2021.
When did he stop paying?
When he got a part-time job with Home Depot.
-That's when he stopped paying? -Yes.
That makes no sense. You're making money and then you don't pay?
[Joseph] I'm making less money
and pay periods were every two weeks instead of every single week.
So, when you moved in, what job did you have?
Basically construction, I was working with Brian.
Okay, so you're working construction with Brian.
You have that money coming in. You're paying your rent.
Then you get a job with Home Depot.
-Less money? -Yes.
-But you're still working for Brian? -Here and there.
I didn't have much time at that point.
That's why you were turning down the jobs,
-according to you. -Yeah.
-And sometimes they didn't have them. -There were some days...
Nevertheless, they don't look like your mother and father to me.
I'm not sure why they would support you.
-You're right. -So,
now you're making less money. And what do you do?
Do you give them anything? What do you give them?
I was giving them the money every $250, every two weeks that I could.
And then there were some times that did lapse.
[Judge DiMango] So you say here that you know.
You recognize that you owe them some money?
-I recognize... -What do you think you owe them?
About $2,500 to $2,800.
I'm gonna go with $2,800,
that's what you're saying.
I think it's more, but I'm gonna with that's what you admit to.
That's for some rent. The loans, I did pay back.
I see a couple papers in here about sneakers and stuff like that,
which I paid that back.
The cigarette machine was paid back. The only thing that I...
Did he pay you back for those things?
He paid for the sneakers and, truly, I took the money back
because he owed the rent at the end of the month...
[Judge DiMango] I don't get that. You owe a total amount of money.
You don't just say here's $100, this goes to this.
She's got $100, you owe her $600, you owe her $500 more.
You're not disputing
that you would owe her $82 for your cigarette machine, would you?
Yes, but I gave her the money back.
Like you said, whatever it went to, it went.
Right. So when you say I'm right
and then you continue to refute what I'm saying,
you can't possibly believe I'm right.
Because I said you owe her $82 for the cigarette machine.
Because when the cigarette machine came in,
and I gave her the $82, cash...
Then she must've said, "Okay, you owe me $9,000 in rent,
so let me put it towards rent." Who are you to say what it's for?
That's why I'm saying...
-Do you get this? -Yes.
But the breakdowns are wrong.
At one point she asked you to leave the apartment because it was so filthy.
You weren't even cleaning up.
He wasn't supposed to smoke in the house.
-He did. He lied to me about that. -Are you both trying to quit smoking too?
-[Donna] No, we don't smoke. -[laughter]
I agree with you. I wouldn't want smoking in my house.
You violated all of their rules.
You owe them rent. You were turning down jobs.
Do you consider yourself a good friend of theirs?
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice...
So the fact that you don't have evidence
so that you can show yourself and show us what it is,
-is only on you. -You're right.
So explain to me what right you have to tell the only person
who was willing to help you out when you were down on your luck,
with no place else to go,
that she lied and fabricated because that $5,000 is so important.
How do you do that with a straight face?
[announcer] Donna Witt is suing her former friend, Joseph Martinelli Jr.,
for living expenses and unpaid loans.
Joseph says Donna was disrespectful
and is asking for an outrageous amount of money.
Do you consider yourself a good friend of theirs?
-I did. -If you had a good friend,
is that how you'd want them to be treating you?
The way you treated them?
No, but also, there was text messages after the fact,
when I was about to start making payments, that was total disrespectfully.
How would they have any respect for you by then?
-How would they? -I guess not.
How would these two people, who put themselves out,
jeopardized their own health and safety,
stinking up a house with smoke,
not paying,
not cleaning up after yourself,
leaving things around...
How would you expect them to have respect for you?
Let me ask you, when you hear something like that,
-could you have respect for you? -No.
-I'm assuming that you're in a program? -Yes.
-Are you in a 12-step program? -I'm an IOP.
-What is that? -Intense outpatient.
They asked you to get your things out.
Two months later, there's a text here in June.
Please take your things out. You've got a bunch of junk in the garage.
Bunch of things, golf clubs, whatever.
And two months later, she says, "I told you two months ago
I needed the space." And you could've gotten your things out.
This is when I was still living there. I had to find a place to put it all.
But they are not your keepers, you know.
This is the problem I have with people.
It's like, "What was I supposed to do?"
You're supposed to be... How old are you?
[Joseph] Forty-five.
You're responsible for yourself at that age, sir.
It's very sad what happened here
and how you let your life deteriorate,
but I hope that in one of the steps you get to where you apologize,
you apologize to them.
-Judge Levy. -Thank you. Mr. Martinelli,
how many times was it that you stayed...
-I did stay with them once prior. -Okay.
When I was actually, I was living at my father's helping them out
and I had to get out, so.
I was working with Brian at the time, so the offer was on the table to move in.
[Judge Levy] Do you have other family besides your father
-in the New Jersey area? -Yeah.
So you have a lot of family?
Would it be fair to say that, notwithstanding the fact
that you have all this other family,
that when things were getting rough,
the one person that you can go to to help you out
and put a roof over your head,
and put food in the fridge,
and to provide you with gas money,
-was the plaintiff? -Yes.
And she didn't do it just once, she did it a couple of times for you.
That's why I don't think that I was such a bad tenant.
-She's just saying that. -The point I'm trying to make
is that you have blood relatives
that you chose not to stay with when things were rough.
And instead, you stayed in a, otherwise,
a complete stranger's home. A friend.
But no one who has an obligation to you.
No one who's related to you by blood or marriage.
And you lived in her home, and she was making certain requests.
And either you agreed with them or you disagreed with them.
But that you knew there was a rent payment to be made.
And you did not make, consistently, those rent payments.
-Right? -Yes.
You claim in your papers,
as well as you have here today,
that you believe her figures,
the plaintiff's figures, were made up.
"They just don't add up," is what you say.
Show me your ledger
that you claim accurately represents the moneys that you paid
and what you think you owe here.
You're absolutely right, I don't have that.
There was never a receipt given for any cash I exchanged.
I'm not asking about a receipt.
-Don't put words in my mouth. -I didn't keep a ledger.
So, the ledger that was provided by the plaintiff today,
-and you've seen that, right? -I just saw it, yes.
This is what you said, you do not agree with the tally of what's owed.
And you think that her numbers are fabricated.
Yes.
But yet the text messages that the plaintiff provided,
which meant that you had them too,
whether you chose to look at them or not, I'm not interested in.
These are the text messages that you sent to her
when she sent to you this ledger.
"I don't have a leg to stand on.
I'm not arguing with you.
I understand that was on the spreadsheet.
Like I said, it's fine.
Give me a total. It is what it is."
-And I never received a total. -What are you talking about? You got...
Listen, Mr. Martinelli,
you got the very same spreadsheet with the very same totals
in those text messages.
Whether or not you were drinking at the time and you don't remember,
or whatever the reasons are, you can't sit there and under oath say
that you have an independent recollection of never getting them.
I've never gotten that spreadsheet on text message.
Okay. On this one. Fine.
-That's why I asked for a total. -Okay.
So, looking at this right now, the ones that were provided,
are you able to testify to a reasonable degree of certainty
which figures are fabricated?
Most of the rent.
That's what adds up.
Everything on the bottom I know I owe her.
Everything on the bottom. The sneakers?
She put down that you paid her for that.
That's not even included.
If she was looking to really screw you over,
she'd have indicated that you didn't pay for the sneakers.
You didn't pay for the sneakers. You didn't pay for portions of gas.
You didn't pay for the cigarette paraphernalia.
She would've indicated that you didn't pay her
for the rent payments that she identifies you having paid
in the right-hand column.
She didn't. She puts all that down.
-You have no way to tell us now... -I don't have proof.
Exactly. So, if you have no proof, you know you have no proof,
you know, by the way, that nothing that she did
prevented you from making a ledger.
-Right? -No.
So the fact that you don't have evidence
so that you can show yourself and show us what it is,
-is only on you. -You're right.
Right. So explain to me what right you have to tell the only person
who was willing to help you out when you were down on your luck,
with no place else to go,
that she lied and fabricated because that $5,000 is so important.
How do you do that with a straight face?
Because I can sit there and tell her I owe her money
and I accept that I owe her money. I just don't agree that it's $5,800.
[Judge Levy] Okay, you not agreeing that it's $5,800
is different than saying she lied about it and she fabricated it.
What I wanna know from you is what is your basis of knowledge
in saying that she, this good woman who helped you out
when no one in your family would,
lied and fabricated in order to extract from you
money that you claim she's not entitled to.
For me to say it's fabricated is if I believe it's $2,800
and it's $5,800, that's fabricated.
What are you basing your statement that it's 28 and not 58?
There's no paper trail of that, so.
[Judge Levy] Thank you. I have nothing further.
[Judge Acker] What are you basing it on?
I'm basing it on what I know I paid
and what I didn't pay in the months that I didn't.
I just didn't write it down on paper.
Okay. So what months didn't you pay?
[Joseph] I didn't pay the last three months.
-I don't know the... -You don't know the exact...
You're just pulling this stuff out of your you-know-what.
-We're in court. -It's, it's five,
five months, I believe it is.
-It's five months' rent and then... -I feel like I'm at an auction.
It's five months. It's 12. Can I get 12 months?
I got two months. I got four, I got four months.
That's what you're doing. This is court.
[dramatic music plays]
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice...
Joe, were you drinking?
No, that was during the day.
-Well, that didn't matter. -Were you drinking?
I wasn't, no.
-Joe drank a lot. -I mean, come on.
That's just rude. You know what? She's mad at you.
[dramatic music plays]
You got mad at him because, I mean,
some of the text messages are, "How can you come here and get drunk
and take a shower and not clean the bathroom?"
I was, like, yeah, how could you do that?
Why don't you just clean the bathroom?
She's mad, not just because of the money.
I think she feels disrespected.
-Am I right? -Absolutely.
Somebody comes to your house, they take your money,
because you care about them,
and then they don't clean up after themselves?
She felt disrespected too.
I understand we've got a video where you discuss this.
Let's take a look at the video, and then you can tell us
-what we're seeing. -Yes.
[scraping noises on video]
C'mon, Lenny, alright? What's wrong with you?
Ya know, I'm not taking this ____.
-[Judge Acker] What's happening here? -Filling ice.
Joe is in my kitchen getting ice,
and my dog had gotten into the garbage.
My dog is diabetic
and should not be eating garbage, especially.
But I come home, and I discover garbage all over the floor.
I said to Joe, "Did you know when he had gotten into the garbage?"
He goes, "I didn't see a thing."
The camera in the kitchen proved otherwise.
Joe not only saw when he had gotten into the garbage,
but looked at it, stepped over it,
got himself some ice,
said, "Come on, Lenny, what's wrong with you?"
And then said to himself, out loud, "I'm not picking this up."
-Joe. -...and walked out again.
Joe, were you drinking?
No, that was during the day. That was early.
-[Donna] That didn't matter. -Were you drinking?
No, I wasn't.
-[Donna] Joe drank a lot. -I mean, come on, that's just rude.
Now, as a good standup human being in the world,
he should have been cleaning up after himself, as he didn't do.
He should have been giving you money.
He should have been saying to you, sir--
and by the way, congratulations on your recovery.
-Thank you. -He should have been saying,
"Where can we go work? Let's go find some work, man!
I'm there for you."
That's what good, standup, grownup adults do.
That's different from having a legal obligation
to do something or to pay some money.
So when I see you doing things like buying him a cigarette machine
so he can roll his own cigarettes...
-You get where I'm going with this. -I do get where you're going with it.
It's not him who's got to prove it, it's you who has to prove it.
-So... -I understand.
There is verbal agreement as well.
I mean, that is what we have here.
I do have it in texting.
As much as he's saying that it isn't there, it is here.
[Judge Acker] And you did send him the spreadsheet.
Right, he has had the spreadsheet.
And you acknowledged it.
And Brian has been witness to it
because there was an incident on the deck one night
where I gave him a copy of this with the total.
And he did look at me and he said,
"I'm gonna be dead before I pay this off to you."
If you give him some money hoping that he's gonna do the right thing...
I don't know that you have a contract.
If you give him some money
only conditioned on him paying you back,
then that becomes legally enforceable.
Mr. Martinelli, and I congratulate you too on your attempts to become sober.
I mean, I know people who've gone through it. It's tough.
-Part of it is accepting responsibility. -Of course.
And there are clearly some things
that happened between the two of you, personally,
that have resulted in your trying to disclaim responsibility.
I took note of when you said she was being disrespectful.
In what way do you claim her alleged disrespect,
however you define that, absolves you of any duty to pay her back?
Just being compared to a certain other gentleman
that nobody else likes in this courtroom, and I was compared to that.
You just got mad.
-You're right. -You got mad at her.
And because you got mad at her,
because she was coming at you a little hard,
you got your back up and said I'm not gonna pay.
I don't have anything further.
[Judge DiMango] We're gonna retire to deliberate. Thank you both.
[Byrd] Court now stands in recess. Parties are excused.
I wanna distinguish between the loans that she made him
for personal items, like the trip and the cigarette rolling machine
and the sneakers and all, versus the rent.
Because I feel the same way.
If you have somebody living with you
and they're not paying their rent obligation,
why would you loan them money
with an expectation of repayment
when they can't even repay you the rent?
In fact, she's taking the money and putting it more towards the rent
than towards the repayment of these items.
So by the time she made those loans,
she did not have a reasonable expectation for repayment.
So if we look at her living expenses,
and I believe her with her spreadsheet that he owes $5,520.
Even if we took off the $350 that she said he owes her in loans,
that brings us to $5,170.
She's still at her $5,000 mark.
We can live with ourselves legally as professionals
the we feel confident that the loans were not gonna be repaid back.
And she still gets what she wants in the end.
And it kind of teaches a lesson as well.
So, I'm good with the $5,000.
And not necessarily including in that the loans.
[Judge Acker] I will say this,
his concessions helped convince me, you know.
He said, "I was gonna pay her back for the trip and the cigarette machine."
-$5,000. -[Judge DiMango] Either way?
$5,000 either way.
-I agree. -Either way. Yeah, I do too.
The only thing I will say is that,
and it's so important when you have oral agreements,
they come into court
and you see text messages in which the defendant will say,
"We don't have a written contract, so good luck in court."
Which is why emails and text messages and other writings are so important.
And so too, in this case,
he was asking to borrow $20 for gas and this and that,
and he was promising at that time when he made those requests
to pay it back on Monday.
"I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
-That's what was going on. -That's my line.
He wasn't paying the rent that he was supposed to,
but he was also asking to borrow money and to pay it back.
-Right. -The $5,000 is fair,
and it's supported by the evidence.
Absolutely. We're unanimous. Very good.
[dramatic music plays]
Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded you're still under oath.
[Judge DiMango] Thank you, Byrd.
Well, sir, it is what it is, you said. Well, we're gonna tell you what it is.
This is what it is. You owe her $5,000.
She kept a tally of it.
She marked down each day you paid
whether or not you thought the money should go to loans
or what you thought she should apply it to--
a new hairstyle, her car, whatever.
She used it the way she needed it.
You owed it. She has proof of it.
You have zippo.
You just weren't a good house guest.
I gotta be really honest with you,
you were a terrible house guest.
So you gotta, you know,
pick up on some of your house cleaning and living skills.
And you and your boyfriend were extremely generous
in taking him in and being a good friend
and wanting to see him move along.
And all of us wanted to make sure, when we looked at this evidence,
we were pretty clear that you were entitled to what you asked for
because we didn't want you to lose out on a penny.
-Thank you. -And you didn't.
You got $5,000. Go on a trip someplace warm.
Verdict in your favor, unanimously, $5,000.
Thanks so much.
[Byrd] This case is concluded. Parties are excused. You may step out.
I don't agree with the total, but, listen, it is what it is.
I-I said that on record, so I guess I have to go with it.
I'm just really happy that this is over and, and done with,
and to, to my favor.
I was just always put in the middle and I'd be the bad one,
so that's just the way it is.
I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
Yeah, I still talk to her boyfriend, so.
If he needs a mason, I'll be there for him.
I've been friends with Joe for about 20, 25 years.
And he's always been a lazy guy, but he's always a good friend.
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