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I need advice, guy stole from me claims he paid now I'm going to small claims

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NYUE

Guest
What is the name of your state? New York , Incident in New Jersey

Here is the Story. I am an 18 yr old freelance photographer. This guy asked me last minute to shoot a wedding sometime in october. I have signed no contracts or any official employee papers. I told him beforehand that I was only going to give him the pictures upon recieving a payment based on an industry standard of about $100/hr and I would give him a limited copyright relase letting him use my images only once for submission to the client. This guy asked me to photograph a wedding before where he already got the images so I told him the only way he was going to get the images is if he paid me first. After some weeks of avoiding me and the clients, he got deperate because the clients were going to sue him for witholding their product. He got desperate and set me up. twodays before I met him, he called my mother and asked for my address saying he wanted to send me something, what he did with the info is call the police and say that I threatened him over the phone when I did no such thing. He lured me into meeting him near his house at a restaurant. He waited till it closed to exchange the CDs with pictures for the money. I was holding on to the CDs when he handed me some money, It was $500 instead of the $1500 we have agreed upon. I told him this wasnt the amount and he proceeded to physically push and grab the CDs and the money out of my hands and run away home. I chased after him demanding my property back. He started pushing him and we had a physical confrontation. at that point he got away again and I called the police. After the police came, they didnt seem towant to deal with this and said it was a judicial matter. I asked them to at least go to his house and talk to him. They went to his house and talked to him then asked me to come in a few minutes later, he had shown the police a forged receipt with my signature on it saying that he had already paied me $750. Due to storage problems on my computer I have only half-resolution pictures in my posession and he has the originals. The electronic imprint info on the pictures that he has displays my name, camera model, phone number, camera serial number and date of picture creation on it. I immediately the next day filed a suit in small claims court. The groom from the job in question called me a few days ago asking if i could sell him the pictures, I told him only the theif had the original quality images on him and told him if he makes contact with him to Demand only that from him and nothing manipulated or downsized. I also went to the police department and explained the situation with the police officers and they rectified the situation and filed a police report with theft being the crime, I am picking up the court stuff on Friday. I have never signed any papers with him or any contracts, I was never an employee of his, the copyright is mine. I have asked him numerous times to give me a T101 cash form (is that the ocrrect one?) because I was afraid he'd write like i made a trillion dollars from him and I would pay taxes, because I found out he had somehow gotten my social security number. As i've said before I will also file criminal suit against him. He has bragged many times how he was an illegal imigrant and how he can avoid taxes and immigration by not leaving the country and having all the buisness stuff in his wife's name. Any advice for me? Thank you all very much. I am now out of money and images, and he had called the client already and the client asked for the original 6 cds that he stole from me and he said to him that they would only get 1 cd and that was the only one. Can I still subpenoa the CDs for my small claims or criminal suit? any help would be appreciated, I have no money for a lawyer, since im just a student and neither do my parents.
 


JETX

Senior Member
You are very probably going to get a 'fun' lesson in life. Do NOT provide any services to anyone without a written or enforcable contract and do NOT deliver the 'merchandise' until payment is made (and you count the money).

"Can I still subpenoa the CDs for my small claims or criminal suit?"
*** You can file a lawsuit in small claims court and, if your state allows pre-trial discovery, could subpoena the CD's as a part of the process.
 
N

NYUE

Guest
I understand that. I really did learn my lesson, trust me, ignoring my basic instincts is not something I'll do again, but what sort of legal ground do I have? any other advice?
 

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