Good day, everyone. I have never had an online presence, aside from one for the VW, but recent events have forced me to get over my stubborness regarding social media and, well.... here we go. I don't know how many will read this or follow this series of postings, but I'll take my chances. Over 27 years of teaching and coaching, I've had contact with over 4,000 students and players, so I'm thinking some of you may find this interesting. I was a teacher for 27 years. When I retired two years ago, my wife and I wanted to move into our own house in the mountains. We took many steps in order to get our dream accomplished. Along the way, however, we ran into some rather unscrupulous business operators that have since forced our hand. Because as a teacher you really never "stop" teaching, I'm going to educate everyone on some terminology ahead of our lawsuit. We have filed a lawsuit to re-coup the $121,000 stolen from us during the process of our build by Juan Rizzi- Ognotz Home Design/Evergreen Flooring and Tile. Our court dates are June 25-June 27. I will continue posting with information as to which court will be hosting this trial on my Facebook page and other venues. After teaching government/economics, we spent a LOT of time on the court systems, learning the differences between civil and criminal cases, etc. I would like to invite as many of you as possible to attend these court proceedings. I'm assuming that a large population of you are possibly lawyers, business owners, government employees, and the like, but hopefully still remember some of the things you learned "...way back when."
The information I'm going to post over the next several weeks is not made-up, nor is it speculative. A lot of you out there may have run into general contractors who have done similar things to you as what was done to us, but, as I've heard from a LOT of people, these contractors know that if they merely continue to use the legal system, they have deeper pockets than most people and will merely just spend you into submission. We filed our lawsuit not only for the purpose of regaining the money stolen from us, but to attempt to show others that these shady business practices will not be ignored. I encourage you to post on the backside of what I've written here to let the community know some stories of incidents similar to ours- especially if they involve your dealing with Juan Rizzi.
Juan Rizzi currently has 7 judgements against him (public record), and in addition to OUR lawsuit, a FEDERAL lawsuit filed in Colorado District Court. You can find the case number and information on pacer.uscourts.gov- and I must admit, it makes for some interesting reading. You have a pay a bit for each page (I think 10 cents), but trust me- the exhibits (pictures) alone are worth every penny.
I'm NOT telling you NOT to do business with Juan Rizzi, but I can give some advice if you make that decision- each piece we'll go into later with mini-lessons on legal definitions and stuff I've learned in the 3+ years of doing business with Mr. Rizzi.
1. DO NOT PAY HIM IN CASH
2. DO NOT PAY FOR ANY WORK NOT COMPLETED
3. GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING
4. RECORD EVERY CONVERSATION
5. SAVE EVERY TEXT/EMAIL AND PRINT THEM OUT
6. DO NOT BELIEVE HIM WHEN HE TELLS YOU THAT HE'S DONE "MANY OF THESE BEFORE" - I'll post a hilarious line he wrote to the district court in response to that pending lawsuit later on...
Luckily, we saved ALL correspondence with Mr. Rizzi, and during the trial these documents will come into play. We have enough credible witnesses that our confidence is high. Our biggest mistake was not doing enough homework ahead of time to find out about his shady business practices. I can guarantee he'll respond to this posting, and trust me, we'll make sure to print out his response(s) because we have enough documentation to refute everything.
As I've said before, even though I'm retired as a teacher, I really am never NOT teaching, and this is what we used to call a "teachable moment." read more