Bernie Moreno Caught Ripping Off Ohio Business, “Refus[ing] To Pay” What He Owed AGAIN

Bernie Moreno Caught Ripping Off Ohio Business, "Refus[ing] To Pay" What He Owed AGAIN

September 20, 2024

Mother Jones: Bernie Moreno Owed a Contractor $300K-Then Ignored Legal Rulings to Promptly Pay Up

Columbus, OH - New reporting today revealed Bernie Moreno "refused to pay" an Ohio contractor over $300,000 and "forc[ed] the construction firm to file a legal claim" to make Moreno pay them what they were owed. This is "just the latest example of past legal disputes involving Moreno" and follows reports that Moreno refused to pay his employees what they were owed multipletimes and even "shredded company documents that he and his lawyers 'were required to preserve' and 'knew or should have known [were] relevant' to get out of paying them.

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Mother Jones: Bernie Moreno Owed a Contractor $300K-Then Ignored Legal Rulings to Promptly Pay Up
Abby Vesoulis
September 20, 2024

• Before Bernie Moreno was the 2024 Ohio Republican candidate for Senate, he was the owner of numerous luxury car dealerships… in December 2007, Moreno hired the firm Welty Building Company (WBC) "for the design and construction of a Porsche dealership and a Mercedes-Benz dealership" in the Cleveland area, according to a 2014 court document.

• But legal documents obtained from Cuyahoga County's clerk of courts show Moreno's company M1 Motors failed to promptly pay Welty hundreds of thousands of dollars upon completion of the work.After an arbitrator declared in July 2014 that Moreno's company owed WBC $313,058, Moreno still didn't pay, forcing the construction firm to file a legal claim in September 2014 seeking a court to confirm the arbitrator's decision.

• As a result, the court scheduled a conference meeting to discuss. Even after that meeting was scheduled, WBC had to file a "Motion to Enforce" before Moreno finally fulfilled his financial obligations…

• This saga, not previously reported, is just the latest example of past legal disputes involving Moreno.A litany of cases from Moreno's pre-politics days of building a car dealership empire-lawsuits claiming racial, gender, and age discrimination, as well as wage withholding-have clouded Moreno's attempt to portray himself as a self-made entrepreneur…

• This is at least the second example from Moreno's past in which he did not promptly comply with official legal renderings: Amid proceedings over a case in which he was ultimately found liable for withholding overtime wages from his employees in Massachusetts, Moreno shredded company documents that he and his lawyers "were required to preserve" and "knew or should have known [were] relevant."

• A Moreno campaign spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

• "Despite the arbitration award itself and numerous requests from Welty's counsel seeking payment, Ml refused to pay Welty," a November 7 motion said.

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