In August 07, The Wine Report owned by Joseph DeValle of Vanquish Acquisitions and Wine & Culinary llc stopped paying his employees in Atlanta, GA. He claimed that he was looking for funding as his Real Estate investments in Florida hit bottom from the economy.
The other C level Exec's included Wine Report Magazine Atlanta President - Gary Kneller, Partner / Investor-Mike Growney and Partner / Investor - Mike Carstons - spelling of names may be off...
We all understood but trusted his word that he had new investors that would be closed in a week or so (this happened in Feb 07, but the money did come through)... We liked what we were doing so we hung in there. Another week went by with the same old storey then a month and so on... We finally could not work any longer with no pay checks it had been over 2 months for no salaries and commissions. Some employees even longer. The final straw was the eviction notice taped to the door when we showed up to work on morning...
Yes, we all found other jobs eventually, but not before he force many of us to suffer financially - evictions, late / past due bills and bounced check / fees all because he kept promising us to be paid - hell, to this day he still says he is getting funding, right!
I do not believe he ever intended to pay us. He turned his email off, his work phone in New York and now his cell phone goes to an automated voice not his as it once was. His cell number is 732-996-6174.
He owes ten's of thousands of dollars to us, and unless we find where he resides now (we think Miami area) we will all be out of this money. Most of us put things on credit cards and borrowed money from friends and family to pay back!
He is a liar, cheat and thieve - as we collected all outstanding billing for him in hopes to be paid and he skipped out on us! What a looser!!!
Funny, I really liked him at one point. The GA Labor Dept told us it is out of their hands since the magazine is technically out of business, we would have to sue him and hope he does not file bankruptcy... And unemployment will not retro-back money that would have helped us all.
Funny, he sent us all our W-2's with the Atlanta address, but mailed from New York... Cowered!!!
If anyone has any information on this guy, please help us. We only had about 8 employees so we where told that we did not have enough people to file a class action against him? I am sure we could give a finders fee if we win and collect!!!
WBB
Atlanta, Georgia
United States Minor Outlying Islands
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