[singing operatically in Italian]
[narrator] Now on Tribunal Justice.
You're trying to have a street party to keep culture and tradition alive.
Then this gentleman jumped in and said, "I'm so good at getting sponsors."
What happened to the money that he invested in this?
We have no agreement.
Everything that he says is a lie.
I have to stand here like a fool.
-He's a liar. -I need you to calm down.
[exhales]
To coin an Italian phrase, unless I'm a little stunad,
I couldn't see an agreement here.
[singing] This case is now concluded-- No.
[all laughing]
[theme music playing]
[narrator] Today's case was filed in Los Angeles, California.
Your Honor, this is case number 3029 on the calendar
in the matter of Sticco v. The Los Angeles Italian Festival Inc.
-Thank you, Byrd. -Uh-huh, you're welcome, Judge.
Parties have been sworn in. You may be seated.
Mr. Sticco, you partnered with the Los Angeles Italian Festival
as part of the 2024 festival.
It featured your wife as one of the entertainer singers.
-[Eugene] Correct. -You say you spent more than $31,000.
You say Defendant kept money from ticket sales and vendors
which should have been used to offset your expenditures.
You say that he made a $2,200 unauthorized charge on your credit card,
and he needs to pay you back all this money
since you're in way over what you originally promised.
So you're suing him here for $10,000.
-Correct, Your Honor, just to clarify... -[DiMango] Thank you.
...the credit card charges were not on my credit card.
Oh, they were on the credit card of your CE, uh--
-CFO board advisory member who... -Thank you.
But right now you're standing here on that behalf.
-Correct, I'm on the hook for it. -Okay.
-Mr. Sorice. -Yes.
You say that you've been running this festival since 2017,
and that the past year, you were unable to get a sponsor.
You said you wanted to cancel. He said he would sponsor the entire event.
You never agreed to give him any money, and so you therefore owe him nothing.
This is really just a ploy by him to take over your business.
-Would that be correct as well? -Yeah.
Aside from using the term "sponsor"
because there's no sponsorship, there was no partnership.
-None of it exists. -I'm just giving an opening statement.
-[Joey] Okay. -You obviously don't agree with him.
Clearly, he has something against you.
So let's start with first, how did you and the defendant meet?
So in 2022, we worked with the Fringe Festival in 2022,
and through that he had become introduced with my wife
and the opera company that we have.
And he reached out, and he invited her as a vocalist.
Okay, so let's see the flyer
that was put out for this event featuring your wife.
You're having her named with some top singers.
Correct, and she had appeared in 2023 as well.
[DiMango] You thought she had a great voice, if I recall reading in your papers?
-She's brilliant. -[DiMango] Brilliant.
Go on. So you're now becoming a part of this festival?
Well, it was sometime early, probably around the beginning of 2024
that he had connected,
and what he had conveyed to me was he had a larger dream
of the Italian Festival becoming a bigger brand
than just the one day.
[DiMango] I actually must be a little confused here
because when I looked at these papers, it seemed that you
were the one who was touting wanting to elevate the event itself.
You were concerned that he was trying to minimize its impact on the community.
Did I read that incorrectly, sir?
[stutters] Perhaps. The...
[DiMango] Then I'll read it to you.
-Okay. -Because this is the document you signed.
It says, "I engaged in a new vision for the festival,
from its layout and entertainment, to elevating the event's overall status
and attendee experience.
I was using my connections to bring this festival to another level."
So, you were apparently the one who had that dream.
Did you have the same dream as he did? That's not what I read in the papers.
Uh, we just produce a festival
to celebrate the ancestry.
How big or how small it is matters nothing to us.
We are losing our traditions. We lost Columbus Day out in California recently.
-[DiMango] New York as well. -Regardless of the politics,
-we're trying to keep a tradition alive. -I get it.
I'm coming back to you because I think you both wanted to do something here,
just with a different mindset.
But you're point then is kind of not correct.
So moving along. So now, how are you and he get into an agreement?
Because I read these papers, and unless, you know,
to coin an Italian phrase, unless I'm a little stunad,
I couldn't see an agreement here.
So, I'd like to see from you
where your agreement with him was and what it was for.
So there was no written agreement.
He had asked if I was interested in being involved on the production level,
and I offered to help sponsor the entertainment portion of it,
where we would bring Natalia, the other entertainers...
Because in part, that's why you were there.
You really wanted to promote your wife. That's what this was about.
Because honestly, I can't see in these papers
what you agreed to split, the two of you.
In fact, the only thing I have here, which we put up on the screen.
Defendant is the white, you are the blue.
And he says, "I want to put this in writing.
There is nothing for anything." Nothing, nada, niente.
So how do you then come in here and say
he owes me money pursuant to a contract?
Well, I'm not saying he owes money pursuant to a contract.
-How do you get money from him? -He owes money pursuant
to being an incorporated entity.
And as an incorporated entity, they have a duty of care and a fiscal responsibility
in the scope of the aspect of being a public corporation.
But not just to anybody, to somebody with whom he has an agreement.
-[Eugene] Correct and-- -And I'm looking for the agreement!
So let me hear from you a little bit.
How do you expect him to come in and just pay for this whole thing?
I didn't expect him to come in. I didn't approach him.
-He approached me. -[DiMango] But you said it's okay.
He didn't just start setting up things without your approval.
Of course, I said it's okay predicated on the fact that he understood,
in no uncertain terms, that we had no money.
That we were canceling. That last year, I maxed out all my credit cards.
We've already been over this. I've already explained this to you.
And the reason that that text has the tone that it has
is because he went to Eva to say, "Hey, what's going on with the money?"
Because everything that he says is a lie.
-Everything. -[DiMango] I did--
Including maybe his CIA involvement...
-[DiMango] Oh, my goodness... -...and his taking down regimes,
-and all the other yarns that he spun. -[DiMango] No, no--
-Stop with these conspiracy theories. -It's very difficult for me
to even defend myself
because it lends credence to the words that come out of his mouth.
[DiMango] The problem here, Mr. Sorice, is that
he is asking for you to reimburse him $10,000
because he says you took deposits from vendors
to the tune of about $7,800.
You made a credit card charge for $2,200.
And there is a text message, which actually addresses that,
where you say, "Hey, I don't know where you are,
-so I'm just going to charge this $2,200." -[Joey] Right.
How do you explain that?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
[Levy] Mr. Sorice, you mentioned it
-that the plaintiff's wife was brilliant. -Yes.
-[Levy] Ma'am, step up, please? -Sure.
[Levy] Her voice, brilliant.
[dramatic music playing]
[main theme playing]
[narrator] Investor Eugene Sticco is suing Joey Sorice and Eva Miller
of the L.A. Italian Festival for $10,000,
saying they burned through his money,
then made an unauthorized credit card charge.
But Joey and Eva say they spent the funds properly
and that there was never an agreement with Eugene.
There is a text message, which actually addresses that,
where you say, "Hey. I don't know where you are,
-so I'm just gonna charge this $2,200. -[Joey] Right.
How do you explain that?
Okay, so first of all, the money for the vendors
came in well before he was even involved.
He had nothing to do with the festival until June,
when we did the Fringe Festival, and I broached the subject
that we were going to probably cancel this year because we don't have money.
-[DiMango] What-- So this-- -Then this gentleman jumped in and said--
Just read through the things and said, "Oh, here's the sponsors,
I'm so good at getting sponsors, I'll go get sponsors--
So what did you do with that money? That's all I'm asking.
We paid for the 40 vendors that I had to go find.
We paid for the rent, we paid for the phones, we paid for the--
Did you take it as compensation?
-No, these were expense-- -I think there's a text in here
that clearly says you kept the $7,800
-for compensation. -Well, that's--
That's the extrapolation of the lie.
Because that was a short text that said for the time that I spent
that I-- I wasn't gonna--
All I said was that this is the money that I spent,
uh, that keeps me from my business.
[DiMango] Can we stop because this goes back to you.
In here, replete in these text messages,
"I don't know what I'm supposed to pay. I don't know what he's paying."
When you have a contract that says, "I don't know, I don't know,"
do you know what that means? There was no meeting of the minds.
Judge Levy?
Let's put up 02, please, 'cause this is the text that we're talking about.
And this is, I believe, Mr. Sorice, the rub of Mr. Sticco.
It says, "The vendor money covers the time I work on this event
that takes me away from my business.
I can't make it any plainer." Right?
-[Joey] Right. -[Levy] So what he's saying,
correct me if I'm wrong, sir,
you were, in essence, paying yourself from the vendor monies that were coming in,
and that you shouldn't have been doing that.
-Is that correct? -[Eugene] Correct.
[Levy] And so what he's saying is, "So what?
So what, I can take that money."
We have no agreement. We're not in partnership.
What we're saying is show me a document,
an e-mail, a text message, where he says, "I will not be taking any money."
I don't have that, and it's not inherent as part of being a corporation.
As corporate officers, they have a fiduciary responsibility
to pay the bills of their corporation before they pay themselves.
-Any standard business practice... -Wait, wait, wait.
-... you're the last one to get paid. -Wait, time out.
Time out. I know I'm not the smartest guy around,
but I've been reading in the news recently how CEOs
of companies are taking hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries
even though their companies and corporations are hemorrhaging money.
So don't try to explain to me or tell me that it's inherently illegal,
unethical, for a CEO to take money in a salary,
even if the company is losing money.
'Cause that's what you're saying, right?
I'm saying it's certainly unethical if it's not illegal,
and it's certainly against the codes and statutes and the intent.
[Levy] Who was respons-- Okay, let's cut to brass tacks.
You put together a projection based upon your review
of all the numbers, the documents, conversations.
What you thought the festival could bring in with your involvement.
You had estimated revenue target between 21,000 and 30,000.
-[Eugene] Correct. -You anticipated up to 3,000 people.
"We have vendors between 60 & 80.
Minimum revenue targets 16,500."
-This is what you gave us. -Correct.
[Levy] So the target summary profit projection was $116,000,
depending upon how many sponsors you got
-and how many were in attendance. -Correct.
And who was in charge of hiring a public relations company
who would get the word out and bring people in
so that they would buy things and pay for their time?
Who was in charge, was that you?
So, over the course, if I can explain--
Over the course of reaching out and trying to get people involved,
I was looking for podcasters, Italian American podcasters,
and this particular one from New York responded back.
He also, turns out, ran a PR firm,
and he thought of it as an opportunity to sort of expand his reach
-and portfolio and all of that. -I get all that.
-And so-- -I know, yeah, and it was a dud.
-Correct. -And this was despite your text to him
on September 4th, that you, sir, you deal with other organizations
that use PR people and sponsorships, and that you're able to get them.
-And for whatever reason, it was a dud. -Correct.
Now, with respect to your claim, sir, for $2,200
in reimbursement for an unauthorized charge.
Let's put up Number 9, please?
"The Los Angeles Italian Festival $2,200."
-Correct? -[Eugene] Correct.
What standing do you have to make a demand
for the reimbursement of someone else's credit card?
Because I'm held responsible for it by him.
[Levy] Ha. But he would have to bring a lawsuit against the defendant here
to get reimbursed, he can't send you in in his stead. Make sense?
I don't think the intent was to send me in in his stead,
it was overall part of all of the charges that were made,
that he allowed me to make
in order to make sure that the festival took place.
Before I passed the case to Judge Acker, there's one thing that I want to bring up,
and that is, Mr. Sorice, you mentioned it,
-that the plaintiff's wife was brilliant. -Yes.
-Ma'am, step up, please. -Sure.
[Levy] Her voice, brilliant?
Well, she's a brilliant person, but her voice in particular...
-[Levy] Now we do have a video... -[Joey] ...is world-class.
...and I would like to play that. Roll it!
[singing opera in Italian]
Now, Ms. Sticco, someone once said, and I don't remember who it was,
that if you spend 10,000 hours doing anything,
you can become an expert in whatever it is that you spent that time on.
I could spend 10,000 hours practicing opera,
and I would never sound as good as you.
-That was beautiful. -Thank you very much,
I appreciate, Your Honor.
[dramatic music plays]
[narrator] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
This is my life's work.
-Where was he five years ago? -Sir, here's what we're gonna do.
She will ask you a question
-and you'll address her-- -Yeah, I'm standing here
on this guy's little puppet string.
We have no agreement.
[dramatic music plays]
[theme music plays]
[narrator] Investor Eugene Sticco says Joey Sorice and Eva Miller
scammed him out of money and made unauthorized charges on a credit card.
He's suing for $10,000.
Joey and Eva said they never agreed on anything with Eugene,
and that he's guilty of wasting his own money.
Now, you wanted a platform for your wife and her exquisite voice.
You want to stage Rigoletto!
You're trying to have a street party to keep culture and tradition alive.
That's what it is. You just didn't have the same event in mind.
So then I go back to you, Mr. Sticco.
I note that you say that as you started to work with him,
that you quickly recognized that his business style
was "erratic and scatterbrained."
And then you said he pocketed all of the money
from ticket pre-sales and vendor deposits.
So, what evidence do you have that he wasn't entitled to that money?
There was revenue that came in,
that the intent of that revenue coming in was to produce the festival.
And even that last week when he sent the text message
saying, you know, "Oh, there's zero, and I kept it as compensation,"
then I was put in the position of everything that I've put into this,
is either 100% loss,
and he goes around bad-mouthing me saying, "Oh, he pulled out on me last minute,"
or I go through with it and try to recover what I can
on the day of the festival, and recover what we earn.
What I never anticipated was that money that came in from the sponsor fees,
from the vendors, that that wouldn't go towards things like
permits and infrastructure and all the rest of it.
[Acker] He did mention that there were gonna be costs
for permits and the like, but what you haven't proven to me, sir,
is that he wasn't entitled to some compensation.
How long have you been doing this festival, the two of you?
-Seven years. -And what's your day job?
I paint the street numbers on the curbs in Los Angeles.
I'm the only licensed curb-painter in the city.
Maybe you painted my curbs!
Oh, I'm sure I have, I've painted them all.
If you lose, don't remember where I live.
Uh, but on a serious note,
-do you compensate yourself? -I-- Uh, none.
All of that went for website,
-rent... -But you understand
the plain reading of that text is that you compensated yourself...
-Yeah, it was-- -...for some amount of labor.
[Joey] Yeah, I-- Okay.
Let's back up. We have no agreement.
There's nothing between us.
-Nothing exists between us. -[Acker] Okay, yeah--
So you're asking me ques-- That's why I have to stand here like a fool
-and try to defend myself against lies. -[Acker] I'm going to stop you
right now because you don't seem like a fool.
You made some representation to him
that money was going to be used in one way,
and instead you used it another way.
-Which is not true, never happened. -[Acker] Okay.
-Okay. -We had no agreement, business agreement.
Sir, this is my life!
This is my life's work.
-I've done this for 20 straight years. -Mr. Sorice.
-Here's what we're going to do. -Where was he 10 years ago?
-Where was he 5 years ago? -Sir, here's what we're going to do.
She will ask you a question, and you will address her.
-Great. Thank you. -Okay.
-Yeah, fine. -Remember where you are.
-I know exactly where I am. -You're sure?
-Yeah, I'm standing here like a fool... -Okay.
...on this guy's little puppet string.
He's a liar.
Can I finish my examination, sir? I need you to calm down.
You're here as a defendant in a lawsuit.
-So, I'm gonna move back to the plaintiff. -[Eugene] Yes.
-Because it's his case to prove. -[Eugene] Yes.
And, so what evidence do you have
that he ever made any material misrepresentation to you
about the use of funds that you directed to him for his use?
The evidence of the misrepresentation is the fact that all of the money
that he collected did not go towards--
-No, that is not evidence. -I can't prove a negative.
[Acker] Well, exactly, you can't prove the original intention
for where those monies were supposed to be directed.
And if you can't prove that, then you can't prove that he did anything wrong.
I'd like to hear from Ms. Sticco. You have been very patient.
-What did you want to say? -I just have one thing to say if it helps.
So before Los Angeles, we were on business in Phoenix.
It was literally the week before the Los Angeles festival.
Very suddenly a text from Joey
saying that there hasn't been any money put towards infrastructure.
-I assume it's tents, places for vendors. -Sure.
And my husband asked, can you help out with that, right?
And the only literally money I have is my son's tuition fund for high school.
And I said, okay, I'll help, but I need just some guarantee
that I'm gonna get it back.
[Acker] I'm just gonna cut to the chase.
What happened to the money that he invested in this?
I don't know what he spent it on.
I do know he flew people in from Italy--
-[Acker] Did he ever--? -He flew people in from Boston.
He flew people in from New York, and he's presenting me with a bill.
Now, what hasn't been said is I gave him the entire door.
We did 1400.
-And he had the entire door. -[Acker] Fine.
-Let's say you did. -Fine?
I gave him the door.
[Acker] I said I'm agreeing with you.
Eva, I want you-- I need you.
-Okay. -[laughs] I need you.
Are you aware of any monies
that went directly from the plaintiff's hands to your or your husband's hands?
Or did he pay these vendors on his own?
No, he was paying-- We were sending him the, uh,
invoices to be paid, like, you know from the different...
Did you ever write him a check?
-No. -You never wrote him a check?
-No, ma'am. -Did you ever write her a check?
-No, ma'am. -Okay.
-I've nothing further. -I have a few things.
First of all, just to be clear here,
those ticket sales at the door.
There was a good chance based on your history with this
that there would have been well over a thousand people,
but apparently, you know, L.A. being a big Dodger town,
there was a Dodger game going on the same day,
and that caused people to choose between the Italians and the Dodgers.
They went with the Dodgers.
So that kind of was an impediment to the ticket sales at the door.
-Excuse me? -Killed us.
[DiMango] Kills us, ah, I could see that.
Um, the other thing is, what is that?
[Joey] We were supposed to do a fundraiser.
We were supposed to start it the day of the event
and run it through the holiday.
So these coins, they're stunning,
and they sat in those boxes
because that guy stopped communicating with me
the day after the festival.
The big shot from Boston.
-There's big problems, can I see one? -Look at them!
-Can you please bring one over? -You create these beautiful things,
and then you leave them in the trash.
-There's a lot that went wrong here. -[Joey] It's disgusting.
These are beautiful. I have one of these from my Italian American organization.
-These are nice. -[Joey] Really?
Unless there's anything else, really, we're going to retire to deliberate.
I will return this to you despite my better judg--
[laughing]
-Thank you all. -We're gonna retire to deliberate.
-Thank you, Judge. -Court now stands in recess.
This case will be recalled. Parties are excused.
[dramatic music playing]
[main theme playing]
I mean, for personal reasons, I really would love to see
something like this succeed out in California.
We have a lot of Italian-American events in New York,
and I think they're terrific. But I think what happened here,
these two gentlemen had different goals in mind, really.
The plaintiff was really hoping to put his wife out there.
She sang Italian beautifully.
And, yeah, I could see him wanting to promote her.
But he really needed to have
either oral or written, preferably, with the defendant,
about who was going to pay for what,
what monies were going to be attributable to different things.
I mean, I went through every one of these receipts that he submitted
that they paid out over $31,000.
But in any event, he certainly didn't prevail
not for lack of effort, not for lack of work,
not for putting it into it, but for lack of an agreement
that would be enforceable in a court of law.
And to your point, you got to have an agreement. Period.
And what we saw out there from Mr. Sorice,
quite frankly, does not surprise me.
When you spend your whole life nurturing your good reputation,
especially in a small-knit community in the Italian-American club,
or putting on these type of festivals, and to have someone come in
and to accuse you of thievery, which is what the plaintiff was doing.
Yeah, you're going to be a little upset. I completely understand that.
Better not to do it in a courtroom.
Most certainly better not to do it in front of Byrd. [chuckles]
And did you see his wife? I mean, the poor woman.
And it was-- I looked-- -[laughing]
I looked at Cassandra, and I go, you know, I--
It's like my wife and I when we go out and I get a little--
A little going, and she's always, like, "It's okay, Adam, it's okay, Adam."
Yeah, no agreement, uh, no standing.
Plaintiff's case needs to be dismissed.
I had a lot of empathy for the defendant
because I'm with you, I mean, of course, his tirade wasn't appropriate
in this forum, but if somebody accuses you of mishandling funds,
and this has been his life's work, you are going to react like that.
So I didn't take too much exception to that.
I think you could teach this case in contracts in law school.
They were not on the same page.
They may never have been on the same page. It wasn't clear who was entitled to what
or what these funds were supposed to be used for.
You know, sometimes things just don't work out.
It doesn't mean that legal liability necessarily attaches.
Okay, so we're unanimous in dismissing.
I think so.
[dramatic music plays]
Court is back in session. Parties are reminded you're still under oath.
-Thank you, Byrd. -Mm-hm.
Not on the same page. You two aren't even in the same book.
I mean, you really did not hash this out.
For two guys that love to talk.
And so, sir, you laid out a lot of money.
You put out $31,000. I saw it. I saw every receipt.
But you had no agreement with this defendant
one way or another, to either repay you
or not take money from the till or what was coming in.
But we do have a unanimous verdict, and we've all felt the same way
about the lack of contractual agreement here.
We're going to dismiss your complaint. It's unanimous.
You're not going to get any money here, in this forum, from us.
But we do want to end with one thing. I would love Natasha, if you can,
to sing the first couple of lines
-of the Italian national anthem. -Sure.
[singing in Italian]
Thank you very, very much.
And to be totally honest, I didn't understand a word you said.
[laughing] Thank you very much, that's the verdict of our court.
[singing] This case is now concluded-- No!
[all laughing]
This case is concluded, parties are excused,
-you may step out. -That was very good.
Talks a big game, he overpromises, he underdelivers.
Yeah, he had some delusional game in mind.
It didn't take long to figure out he was sort of an unreliable business partner.
Everything that he said was a lie.
I just never expected he was a thief.
All of our traditions are going away 'cause of guys like that
who are looking for the big payoff.
[narrator] Did someone break an agreement? Let Tribunal Justice decide your case.
Find us on social media.
[main theme playing]