| What can I do?
I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I am going to post it here in hopes that someone can help me or in hopes that I am pointed in the right direction.
I am currently having a problem with a guy that I have known for over the past year and it gets worse by the month. In August of 2008, I began the process of starting a Semi Professional Football team for the town that I live in (Jamestown, NY). In September of 2008, I finally got the team under way, and we started practicing. We started practices on September 15th, 2008 at 5:00 PM EST. We consistently had 6 to 8 people practicing at a time. I stopped the practices at the end of September because we constantly only had 6 to 8 people at practice. At the end of October, practices resumed and I met a guy named Joe Scapelitte, and he told me if I name the team after his company (Zap Onsite Computing, Inc.), he would pay the league fees. About a week later, I brought him on as the Head Coach and Director of Player Operations. Unfortunately, that’s the worst mistake I have ever made in my life. Not only that, but I did not know that Joe had a horrible reputation in this town for scheming people and ripping them off just to make money. At the end of December of 2008, Joe brought a guy to the team as the Defensive Coordinator (Coach Carter). With-in the same week, I began working at Joe’s company as a computer technician. In January of 2009, Joe asked me if I minded if I was the President, he was the Vice President, and if Coach Carter was the Head Coach. Not knowing what Joe was up to, I said ok. Our first dispute was over the costs of the uniforms. Joe wanted players to acquire a sponsor for the player’s uniforms or pay for the uniforms their selves. I had no problem with that. The problem I had was with the costs and what the costs were for. Joe wanted every player to have $500 for their equipment. The equipment consisted of a helmet, facemask, shoulder pads, home jersey, away jersey and game pants. If a player had their helmet, facemask and shoulder pads, he wanted the players to pay or have a sponsor for $250 for their home jersey, away jersey and game pants. My argument was that it would not cost that much for equipment, especially if we were looking at the same source to purchase the equipment. A helmet and face mask cost $150, shoulder pads cost $75, game pants cost $50 and the jerseys costs$80. So where did the other $145 per player go? If the players only had to pay for their uniforms, where did the other $120 per player go? The second dispute that we had was about the way Joe acted in front of women. He continuously made perverted and sexual remarks to women, and/or in front of women. It got so bad the Head Cheer Leading Coach quit. I asked Joe to stop a few times, but he refused to do so. The third dispute I had with him was the way he addressed the players that were a different race than his own. He constantly made racial remarks to anyone who was a different race than him. At that point, I think he got tired of the fact that someone who is half his age was standing up to him, and was correcting him on his behavior, not to mention the fact that I was the President, I am a different race than he is, and I am in my mid 20s, and he was the Vice President, is Italian and is in his mid 50s. On a Monday, I went to work, and Joe asked me to come into his office. He told me that because business was slow, he needed to lay me off and my last day would be the following Thursday. On the Monday after that Thursday, he sent me an email asking me to step down from being President because of “minor” mistakes that I made. I told him that I was going to think about it and get back to him. On Wednesday I got to practice and Joe had everyone huddled up and was talking to them. I strongly believe he was telling them stuff to brain wash them into allowing him to go to the next step in his scheme. When I got to the group, he asked the team whether or not they would respect me if I continued to be the President. Everyone said that I should step down and Joe should run the team. After that, I refused to step down. On the following Monday, I sent Joe an email indicating that I would not step down because he had no right to ask me to, and it was not fair. In that email, I called him out on his mistakes, and boy did his sparks fly. He called me and told me that it is f***ed up that I would say something like that to him and hung up. Then, he sent me an email indicating that the team needed to decide whether he would run the team, or if I would run the team. Between that day and Wednesday, I received phone calls from several players telling me that I had their vote and that they would get rid of Joe. On Wednesday, I got to practice and everyone was still saying that Joe was wrong. I was talking to the Head Coach, the Head Coach’s Wife and another coach, and they all said that this should be done through administration, and the players should not be obligated to vote. I walked over to Joe and asked him to come over to us, and he said “No, go f*** yourself!” and I said ok and left. A few minutes later, practice started and we had to give our cases. Joe’s case was some story about a father, son and a garden and how the kid did not know how to raise the garden right and did not want to do anything with the garden. At the end of the story, the kid poured gasoline on the garden, the garden caught on fire and the kid ruined it. Supposably, that story was referring to me. My case was about how he is just using the team to make money and I reminded the team of his major mistakes. Only a few people voted and somehow, Joe won. Shortly after the voting, I began practicing and Joe screamed at me and demanded that I get off the field. A few other players were pleading with him to let me practice, but he said that I “challenged his administration” and needed to leave. I left and went to a friend’s house until practice was over. After practice ended, my friends were home and told me that I may have lost my argument, but I also succeeded because the team was going to watch the Joe very carefully. On the next week, I was at practice and I overheard a player saying that he paid $135 for his helmet through Joe, but Joe wanted him to pay an additional $180 for the helmet. I immediately said, “See, I told you so”. In May, I was kicked off the team for something that was my fault. In July, I began the process of starting a second team named the Chautauqua County Wildcats. I adopted policies, registered the name with the IRS, and started a domain and website. In early October, I found out from Yahoo! that I owned the name of the Jamestown Chiefs. After I found that out, I called my county clerk to see if that name was registered in my county. She searched as far back as 1997, and nothing was registered in the name of the Jamestown Chiefs. Then, I remembered that Joe stated to the press that the team went from a Sole Proprietership to a 501(c)(3) charitable/non-profit organization. That is currently in the news papers and I believe it is in 2 different ones. However, I searched the New York State Division of Corporations database, and there was no record of the Jamestown Chiefs. Then, I called the New York State Division of Corporations and asked them if there was a record of the Jamestown Chiefs, and there never was. Then I went to the county clerk and filed a business certificate under the name of the Jamestown Chiefs as a Sole Proprietership. After that was done, I gathered a packet of information and sent it to Joe via USPS Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation and demanded that he step down or change the name of his organization. Since then, he has refused to do so. Then, I learned that he filed a business certificate under a very similar name 2 days after I did. I spoke to someone a few days ago who is familiar with this kind of stuff, and he said that because of the type of business this is, and because it’s with-in the same county, I can challenge his filing to have it discontinued. I have also talked to several people who have coached, played, or worked under him and now they refuse to do so, and they have requested to coach, play, or work under me. At this time, it is at the point where I am going to lose my mind. I was made aware yesterday that he has a link on his website that directs to my website. I demanded that he removed that link as soon as possible and gave him until 2:30 PM today to do it. Joe has not removed it and continues to be defiant.
I would also like to point out that months before he filed for a business certificate, he claimed that the Jamestown Chiefs owed him over $18,000 for expenses that he paid. He also accepted sponsorship dollars in the name of the Jamestown Chiefs between January and June, well before a business certificate was filed. He was also sued for $70,000 in May, and he lost that case and he has not paid that yet either.
So what can I do about this in a legal sense? Could I sue him and get him to pay for pain and suffering? Could I sue him for the expenses that I paid for? What all can I do about this? Is their potential jail time here? |
11-03-2009, 04:08 PM
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