MANDO’S, from page 1 Plaintiff waits in parking lot
If you hire a consultant to help incorporate your business, be careful whom you hire.
Gabby Romero of Mando’s Furniture in Compton hired Jano and Robert Cunningham to get the business incorporated. Now, she claims the Cunninghams are scam artists.
In January, Romero paid I-CORP Solutions, the Cunninghams’ Santa Monica-based business, to “help secure a business loan and become a corporation.”
I-CORP assured the furniture retailer everything was in order and to send a fee of $3,000. But several months later, Mando’s was still unincorporated and I-CORP had stopped returning its phone calls.
So Mando’s took I-CORP to court Aug. 23 and won a $3,000 judgment. When I-CORP still didn’t pay up, the frustrated furniture shop owner sought a “judgment debtor examination,” in which the defendants are forced to disclose their assets under oath.
Jano Cunningham told the court I-CORP had gone out of business and couldn’t repay Mando’s.
But Romero tells a different story. It ends with a husband who, failing to show up in court, was outside in the parking lot. It starts as a routine business arrangement.
“They said they were just waiting for the paperwork, that we had been accepted,” said Romero. “But after we sent in the money, they told us we were not eligible for the loan because the owner was not a U.S. citizen.”
Romero said she quickly realized she wasn’t dealing with straight players. She demanded her cash be returned. But the Cunninghams told Romero it was Mando’s fault the loan didn’t go through, and refused to refund the fee.
Then they stopped returning calls.
So Romero took the enterprising couple to court and won a $3,000 judgment. But, as is often the case, they found collecting it was another matter.
So last week they brought the Cunninghams to court for the “judgment debtor’s examination” in search of their assets.
Jano Cunningham told the court I-CORP Solutions had gone out of business and had no assets. But Romero didn’t buy it.
“When we were going to exchange information about her assets, she started giving us the sob story about how they’d gone out of business, how they didn’t have any assets and how Robert (Cunningham) had been in and out of the hospital with a kidney problem,” said Romero. “I didn’t believe it.”
Romero said she had been to I-CORP’s place of business and even spoken to a receptionist that assured her I-CORP was still up and running. But Commissioner Donna Groman, the judge in the case, said that because Cunningham had sworn under oath that she had no assets, there was little else the court could do.
Romero then asked why Robert Cunningham, who was also subpoenaed for the hearing, had not appeared.
After Cunningham explained that her husband was “very, very sick,” Commissioner Groman noticed a disturbing pattern. Apparently, Cunningham had missed a previous hearing for the same reason.
So the commissioner rescheduled the debtor’s examination for Dec. 3, and told Cunningham that a bench warrant would be issued for her husband’s arrest if he didn’t show up.
It gets more interesting.
On her way out of court, Romero said she ran into Robert Cunningham, waiting for his wife in the parking lot.
“He was out there,” she said. “I wanted to go back to tell the judge, but I knew he’d be gone” by the time any action could be taken.
Romero is now looking for ways to prove the Cunninghams aren’t penniless before the Dec. 3 hearing. And she’s hoping that other people won’t fall for what she believes to be a blatant business scam.
Robert Cunningham returned a phone call shortly before this newspaper went to press. He said Mando’s hired him to put together a business plan, but later decided not to pay him for his services.
“The deal fell apart because the (owner of Mando’s) didn’t have the right documentation,” said Cunningham.
Cunningham, who said I-CORP is “dead, folded, over,” said he might be willing to return some of Mando’s fee, but not all of it. He did not know if his wife had filed an appeal to the August ruling and said he was not aware he was expected in court.
“I’ve never had to deal with this before,” said Cunningham. “I thought my wife could take care of it.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 21, 2002. Read the original PDF.