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Guild Missing More than Money

Yet another lawyer for Wayne Gertmenian claims that the checks the former Jockeys’ Guild president cashed the day he was fired were for money owed to him, reports Liz Mullen in the Sports Business Journal: “It was back pay and it was owed to him under his contract,” said attorney Mark Werksman. Guild lawyer Barry Broad alleges that not only did Gertmenian cash the checks without permission, but that he ran off with Guild memorabilia, including Bill Shoemaker’s boots and a bust of Eddie Arcaro. “We would like our money back,” Broad said. “We would also like Willie Shoemaker’s boots and Eddie Arcaro’s head back.”
The ongoing scandal is recapped in a lengthy LA Times article today. There’s not much new information (I’m assuming anyone landing on this site has a passing knowledge of the story), except for this bit:

Pepperdine, where Gertmenian, 66, is a longtime economics professor, is investigating questions about his resume. In an October hearing, U.S. representatives ridiculed his claim that he worked on U.S.-Soviet relations for the National Security Council during the Nixon and Ford administrations, while another organization told The Times that Gertmenian’s claim that he had served on its board of directors was false.

Looking for the link to Gertmenian’s resume (here), I came across this article from the Thoroughbred Times in 2001, when Gertmenian was brought into the Guild, which makes several familiar points about the fired president and his consulting company, Matrix Capital Associates:

Matrix is run out of Gertmenian’s Monrovia, California, home, Gaston said…. Matrix associates will not answer questions about its operation, Gaston said, and the company has been forced to put a “lockdown on the media” and others in the Thoroughbred industry because Gertmenian and Matrix employees and their families have been harassed….

Gertmenian’s resume on the Pepperdine Web site states that he held governmental positions during the Watergate era. In the 1975 Congressional Directory, he was listed as a special assistant to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in ’74. President Richard M. Nixon’s former HUD Secretary, James T. Lynn, said that he did not remember Gertmenian. Nor did HUD Deputy Secretary James Mitchell or Northwestern University professor Donald Haider, a former White House fellow who worked closely with Lynn and Mitchell….

Gertmenian’s resume states that he functioned as chief detente negotiator in Moscow for the head of the National Security Council and as an emissary to Tehran for the secretary of commerce, but those duties could not be confirmed. John Stempel, Ph.D., director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy at the University of Kentucky, spent 24 years in the United States Foreign Service focusing on political and economic affairs in Africa, India, and Iran. From July 1975 through the summer of 1979, three months after the Iranian revolution, Stempel served in Tehran as the deputy chief of the political section for the State Department and was acting political consul.

Stempel said that most of the files for the U.S. Iranian embassy had been sealed and that seeking information that might be contained in those files would be “pretty hard.” He said, however, that if Gertmenian had been in Tehran during the years he served there he would have known him. “I can guarantee you he never showed up in Tehran as an emissary of anybody,” Stempel said….

Gertmenian’s statement that he serves on the board of directors of AmRus Life Insurance Co., a firm that is not listed with the California Department of Insurance, also could not be verified.

I am flabbergasted. How did this man manage to assume the Guild’s presidency and operate without much oversight for the past four years with this much stinking about his background from the start? Should there have been questions about Guild operations long before the October congressional hearings forced the matter?

Posted in Jockeys' Insurance on December 13, 2005

“Increasing Fiscal Neglect”

The Jockeys’ Guild released results of an internal investigation into the Guild’s financial condition on Thursday, and the news, as might be expected, was ugly: According to interim president Darrell Haire, nearly $2.1 million was inappropriately spent by former management, most of the Guild accounts were depleted by November 15 (when then president Wayne Gertmenian and most of the Guild’s management was fired), and a number of unpaid bills have been piling up for the past six months:

“The investigation reveals an apparent pattern of increasing fiscal neglect extending for at least the past 18 months,” said Haire. “While at this time it cannot be determined with certainty exactly where the money went, it is generally believed that the money was inappropriately used to fund the organization’s daily operations and for paying health insurance claims.”

The Guild expects to file a lawsuit against Gertmenian in an effort to recoup some of the losses; the FBI and local police are also investigating. Gertmenian’s attorney, Mitchell Egers, said “his client did nothing irresponsible.”

Posted in Jockeys' Insurance on December 9, 2005

Guild Meets With Track Execs

The Jockeys’ Guild met with racetrack executives in a five hour meeting at Churchill Downs on Thursday. “It was an opportunity to sit down with the new guild leadership and representatives and to get together face-to-face and talk about some things,” said Churchill spokesman John Asher. No further details of the meeting were released. Another is planned for sometime in January 2006.
The Guild almost moved offices this week, in an effort to cut any remaining ties to fired president Wayne Gertmenian’s consulting company, Matrix Capital Associates. “Among the many self-serving things that Dr. Gertmenian did is negotiate an agreement that the Jockeys’ Guild would not only rent the space they occupied, but rent a separate space that Matrix occupied,” said Guild attorney Barry Broad. Rent on the old offices were $4,000 per month. The new offices are $1,706 plus utilities.
The recent shakeup at the Guild has left a lot of questions: How will the organization rebuild? What’s next for the Guild? Ask interim president Darrell Haire.

Posted in Jockeys' Insurance on December 2, 2005

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