Complaint Review: Bella Aida Gardens Aida Dagher Rosemary Acosta-Clark

I am writing to set the record straight in connection with the Ripoff Reports regarding Bella Aida Gardens Reception Hall and me entered by Sandrajoe of Houston, Texas.  

While I fully empathize with Sandrajoes experience and loss, there are serious factual errors in Sandrajoes entries which must be responded to in order to set the record straight. 

First of all, I was only an investor in Bella. As such, I had NO managerial or operational role in the business.  Under US law, a non-US Citizen or non-Permanent Resident investor in a business operating in the US cannot work for the business as either staff or management without first obtaining work authorization from the United States Government.   I have NEVER worked at Bella in any role whatsoever or anywhere else in the United States at ANY time. Moreover, I have legally and physically resided outside of the United States for the entire time that I held an investment in Bella, and only made brief visits from time to time to see family. 

Bella was operated by hired management and staff who had no investment interest in the company.  The managers role was to operate EVERY aspect of the business, including, without limitation, marketing, revenue collection, events management, paying the rent and other bills, and accounting and reporting.   

The mistake I made was in investing a large sum of money, which constituted my entire nest-egg, in Bella and then placing my faith and trust in the likes of Rosemary Acosta-Clark to honestly and efficiently manage and run the business operations.   Due either to Ms. Acosta-Clarks failure to pay the rent, or possibly due to a conspiracy to get the business evicted, as suspected by Bellas bankruptcy lawyer, the business was evicted from the premises. 

Sandrajoe seems to imply that attorney Tom Devine told her that I removed assets from Bellas premises and then fled abroad. By the time things had blown up, the bank account was depleted and I was overseas and could not possibly have removed ANY assets form the business.  Once I arrived in the US after things blew up, I no longer had access to the premises because the eviction had already occurred.   Therefore, if Mr. Devine made this defamatory statement as is implied, he, as an attorney, ought to know better as the statement is clearly defamatory.  As a matter of legal process, I hereby demand that Sandrajoe clearly state in response to this rebuttal, who made the defamatory statement to her, by what medium the statement was made, when it was made, and the names of ALL parties who were present at the time it was made. 

Again, I sympathize with Sandrajoe and that this happened to her during what should have been one of the happiest and most exciting times of her life

 

you may be interested ... Bella Aida Gardens has filed Bankruptcy in Houston.
They filed a chapter 11 in January and then converted to a Chapter 7. The case number is 08-30130. The website for the court is www.uscourts.gov. The attorney for Bella Aida Gardens is Larry A. Vick.

Rosemary Acosta Clark filed bankruptcy for the second time in 2006. Her Chapter 13 Bankruptcy case number is 06-36997. She is represented by The Heston Law Firm.

Judge Marvin Isgur is the judge in both cases.

My fiance Joe and I are getting married January 2008. We booked our reception hall at Bella Aida Garden's which was managed by Rosemary Acosta Clark. Rosemary has actually been convicted of stealing money in the past. This is a headline I found on the ABC 13 website: Charity gala organizer Rosemary Acosta Clark to go to trial for alleged theft of $45,000. 6/01/05 We paid Rosemary $5,000 on the hall within the past 6 months and two weeks ago we found out that the building was shut down due to the fact that Rosemary was not paying for the rent of the space to the landlord so he shut them down.

The court found Rosemary guilty of taking money from the company. We have been contacting the owner's attorney Tom Devine who is no longer representing them and we were informed that we will not get our $5000.00 back along with the other 15 people who had events planned. The owner Aida Dagher has left to Beirut, Bayrut Lebanon and apparently ran off with the merchandise that was in the ballroom which was worth up to $200,000.00 along with everyone's money. Her attorney nor has anyone else heard anything from her since 11/2/07 which gives me the idea that they were all in on the scam.

When Rosemary went to court 11/2/07 she was sentenced 30 days in prison and 10 years probation. Tom Devine spoke with me and told me there is nothing we can do to get the money back; they were not insured so we pretty much lost all our money. We need advice as to what we need to do in order to get our money back if we can actually get it back since she is no longer in the states and unreachable. Sandra & joe houston, Texas
U.S.A.