NEW: Yet Another Lawsuit Clouds Bernie Moreno’s Record
February 20, 2024
The Daily Beast: “The fundamental content of the case and key pieces of evidence provided by the plaintiff complicate the feel-good story about Moreno’s rise that has featured so prominently in his biography.”
Columbus, OH – New reporting from the Daily Beast finds that yet another lawsuit is clouding Bernie Moreno’s record. It’s the latest in a series of revelations that complicate the image Moreno tries to present to voters and follows revelations that he was sued by his employees for refusing to pay them the overtime they earned, destroyed evidence and was sanctioned by a judge, and then repeatedly lied when faced with questions.
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Daily Beast: This GOP Senate Hopeful’s Self-Made Story Has a Darker Side
Sam Brodey
February 20, 2024
- Bernie Moreno has leaned on his personal story…But there’s been something missing from that story: Moreno’s falling-out with his longtime friend and business associate, Gabriel Despres, a man he once credited as central to his success.
- The core allegation from Despres was that Moreno scuttled an agreement entitling him to 10 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of any of his dealerships in exchange for Despres giving up a large share of his annual salary for Moreno to use as capital to expand the business.
- Despres claimed he was pushed out by Moreno before the sale of any dealerships, not because of his performance but because his old friend did not want to pay him.
- While Despres could not put an exact number on the amount of money he believes he lost as a result, his attorneys estimated it was in the millions.
- “This case is about what turned out to be Moreno’s greed and duplicity towards the person who was most there for him from the beginning and who was instrumental to his own success,” Despres’ attorneys wrote in their initial complaint.
- Between 2015 and 2017, three lawsuits were filed against Moreno by employees at his Cleveland-area dealerships which alleged race, gender, and age discrimination, the Associated Press reported last month. A female employee with children, for instance, alleged that Moreno told her to “put your kids in fucking daycare” after she asked about flexibility in her work schedule. According to the AP, all three lawsuits were settled out of court.
- In 2017, Moreno was sued by two former employees at his Massachusetts dealership who claimed that he failed to pay them overtime wages, under a state law that mandates employers must compensate their workers for extra hours worked even if their pay structures are commission-based.
- In 2020, while the case was ongoing, Moreno destroyed overtime pay records, earning a sanction from the Massachusetts judge who instructed jurors to assume the evidence was damaging to Moreno. Ultimately, he lost the case and was ordered to pay over $416,000 to the former employees. In the months before launching his 2024 Senate bid, Moreno settled more than a dozen similar lawsuits out of court, according to Business Insider.
- In 2012, as their relationship deteriorated, according to the lawsuit, Moreno sent Despres an email offering him two choices. One was to accept a worse pay structure with “a warm embrace, get your head out of your ass, straighten out your financial affairs once and for all, and we move forward.”
- Whatever the legal merits of the specific case, or what Despres could have done differently, his lawsuit made clear that if [Depres] regretted anything, it was trusting Moreno to treat him fairly.
- “As Mr. Despres much later realized but did not recognize at the time,” his suit read, “Moreno was the kind of friend and business partner who willingly made promises of great rewards during the good times, but who disappeared when times were not so good.”
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