Complaint Review: Gene Tardy - Lakewood Colorado

I want to stay as objective as possible so that those who read this can understand clearly the gravity of the entire situation. I own a dealership called Millennium Autosport. I have had my business for almost 5 years and I have done in excess of $25MM in business a year at its peak. I started a new business outside of the car industry and stepped away from my business for a period of 5-6 months.

During this time I hired what I thought were competent people to run what should have been able to be considered a thriving business. It became apparent there were issues only after we began to bounce checks in the Dealership. I returned immediately to the dealership to fix the issues and found many impropriataries to include theft and fraud by multiple individuals.

I began to sort out the problems and began to uncover other dealers defrauding my dealership. They had sold cars to Millennium with frame damage and another dealer that failed to honor 5 contracts for vehicles. I also, by my own admission uncovered things that my dealership had done that violated both company precedence and regulatory law. I decided that the Auto industry division is set up to help dealers, so I reported complaints to the dealer board as to ask for assistance in sorting out this mess. What happened next is really criminal and clearly points out the conflict and corruption of our state Government and big business.

I was contacted by Eric Hartsough, who is a criminal investigator for the auto industry division, which I might point out is under the Department of Revenue. I filed these complaints in October of 2006. I left numerous messages for nearly everyone at the department of revenue, with no response for nearly two weeks.

When I finally did get a return phone call from Eric Hartsough, he swept my complaints to the side and stated that he had two complaints in his office for other dealerships against Millennium.

I immediately agreed to resolve those issues but pointed out the gravity of the situation with the other complaints. After much debate and a lack of initiative on Eric's part we scheduled a meeting. In the meeting, it turned adversarial as it became an interrogation. Eric, accompanied by another investigator began grilling me on complaints and set out to create justification for why a dealership who owed me nearly $130k would not have to honor the contracts signed. The dealership that is no stranger to fraud and deception is Phil Long Dealerships.

On the other hand, Phil Long claimed through a buy back that I owed them on a seperate complaint for a Maserati. Now the buyers order on this vehicle was fraudulant, and the vehicle had been wrecked while in Phil Longs care and control, and the buyers order was 6 months old and all I was requesting is that they fix the nearly $8k in damage that was done before I purchase it.

So, Eric is interrogating me and shows clear bias towards me, (the small dealer) and I become resentful and I have a sharp tongue by my own admission. Keep in mind, I went to them for help. Now the 5 buyers orders that a General Manager signed are considered part of a 5 for 5 deal, and now I am supposed to buy 5 more vehicles from Phil Long to make the deal complete. State law and more specifically the laws governing contracts by motor vehicle dealers does not allow for the investigator to create bias but merely to determine if in fact the contracts are valid. A contract is a contract as the law states.

The investigators under the direction of Gene Tardy, who is known to be a maverick and known also to be ethically challenged, was trying to justify every case to the benefit of the bigger dealers.

Now over a month into the "investigation" I have no answers and no progress on any front. Phil Long will not give me my vehicles back and they will not pay for them. this has frozen my cash flow, caused my floor plan to back up, and is making me lose about a $100k a month. Keep in mind I have other complaints out there that bring the total owed to Millennium to nearly $180k. I am losing $100k a month and all of my cash flow is being tied up quite purposefully by the evil empire, Phil Long, the third largest employer in Colorado.

I want to point out that Gary Fineman, who is a partner at Phil Long told me that Gene Tardy was a personal friend of mine and he is going to make sure the contracts are nullified. He further told me that by the time the state sorts it out it will take years and we will have put you out of business.

Now I contacted Robert Sexton who is the Director for Auto Industry Division, (AID) after a confrontational call with Gene Tardy. I told him of the fact that I was paralized and needed help. He was gracious and told me he would get it handled immediately. He assigned two investigators to the case and things appeared to be progessing. I had been in constant contact with my floor provider and had kept them abreast of what was transpiring. Promises came and went and still no answers.

I placed hundreds of calls in desperation of getting a resolution and left many, many messages, but nearly three months later paralized, was feeling the enevitable, they had put me out of business. My floor was out of trust and I had payoffs to make and I had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars while the state floundered under the care and control of Gene Tardy.

So it is three months later, promises of resolution, admissions of neglect and "dropping the ball" on the part of the investigators, I wrote a letter to the Governor and CC'd the investigator. I received a call back quite quickly at this point and a call from Eric Hartsough stating that Robert Sexton would like to meet with me. I went to the meeting with my attorney and there was no Robert Sexton, it was Gene Tardy and Eric Hartsough. We went thru the complaints that I had filed and they said, basically that ignorance of frame damage is a legitimate excuse for not buying the vehicles back.

It further found that two of my complaints had merit but again failed to even address the Phil Long issue as Gene wanted to again justify mitigating circumstances as to why the contracts were not valid, ignoring law and regulatory provisions.

Now I do not trust these guys as far as I could spit. I apoligize for the analogy but they had made promise after promise, and delivered nothing. I made one key notation, I recorded calls and interviews. I have documentation to substaintiate my claims. And I have pattern, as Phil Long and the dealer board have done these actions and defrauded consumers on a consistant basis.

Gene Tardy and Eric Hartsough interviewed the former General Manager, who by the way left Phil Long after nearly 5 years of service for unrelated reasons, and attempted to intimidate and get him to change his story about the buyers orders. They went as far as to call my company a "Criminal Enterprise" and stated that I was a ant in the corner and question why as a General Manager he would do business with an ant. He also, questioned the prices he paid for the vehicles and by all accounts had set out to vindicate Phil Long and convince this man that I was a bad person. This took place after I sent the email to the Governor, who by the way forwarded the complaint to the advocacy office.

From here it went from bad to worse. They interrogated friends and others that knew me and went as far as to get my best friend, who was a Police Officer of 7 years fired for misuse of a dealer plate. Yes fired!!! And they took this issue not to my best friend but to the Chief of Police. They scared another new wholesale dealership and suspended without cause their ability to do business because Gene Tardy wanted a copy of the home appraisal and regulation from Douglas County that allows the wholesale dealer to do business from the specified location.

This is the short version and it is not very short... But more concerning is that the regulatory board was not even informed of the complaints. This same regulatory board, which by the way is not a court of law, does not operate under the laws of Colorado and does not have members on the Board that are versed in the area of law, passes out judgements and provisions of guilt with no due process of law.

They are unregulated and operate much like a tribunal, which according to the Constitution is unlawful and has been proven as such. There is not equal representation and there is no factual basis for verdicts. There is not a checks and balance system that controls the corrupt and unlawful nature of the investigators, and therefore, Gene Tardy is free to operate a Gestopo and hand out personal persecutions as he sees fit. And the regulators and elected officials do nothing about it.

The neglect and abuse of power is resounding. It is a fact and anyone can check this, that since the new regime in December of 2005, the Auto Industry Division has gone from a regulatory agency to a agency designed to persecute small dealers. 98% of all fines and suspensions are handed out to independant dealers while they comprise only 46% of the actual complaints.

The Department of Revenue is the regulatory agency that controls the Dealers and the Big Dealers, due to their shear size fund the Department of Revenue. Mary Marvin, who worked for the AID office for over 25 years also believes the agency has lost credibility and is stepping "way outside" its legal boundaries. CIADA President Jon Kronberger and others have been meeting with Legislators to stop the corrupt nature of the board and its investigators within it.

Gene Tardy, who is an attorney by trade, polices the dealer community but fails to follow the law himself, as he failed to file his annual report on a business venture not once but twice, which is a clear violation of Colorado Law, and being an attorney he should be held to a higher standard than you or me because of his understanding if the law. Eric Hartsough was involved with a public company for a period just under three years and served as the VP of Operations. This company was under investigation for Fraud and had multiple suits and violations while he served in operational capacity.

There are good people in the Department of Revenue, and there are good people in our State and local governments, but these individuals are clearly,.... I do not want to call them bad people, yet people with bad intentions.

Anyone that would like to get a copy of the conversations that occurred in this, please feel free to contact me and I will send one to you.

I am a educated and ethical business professional, and if this can happen to me, it can happen to all of us...

Joe

Parker, Colorado
U.S.A.