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It is so peaceful here, thank you
- Thread starter maureen
- Start date
originally posted by maureen:
It is so peaceful here, thank youJust wanted to say.
Oh, and i drank an 01 CFE VT tonight that was, wait for it, Brad, premoxed!
Glad your ordeal seems to have been resolved. What a nightmare.
As for the Trimbach, now that's odd as this is the first time I've seen anyone complain about premox in one of their VTs.
Well it sure as hell was darker and more flabbby and advanced than the 1990 version i drank a couple of weeks ago.
And who knows if it is resolved. He sure as hell is acting like there is still a problem. And he continues to misconstrue and misrepresent what he is told (just the traits you want in a prosecuting attorney). The store told him the labels were in bad shape on two bottles of corton but the fill and color were great. It never occurred to the store to suggest that meant a provenance issue - they know rob gets his wine at wholesale in the local market. He is such a luddite he probably doesn't know how to shop for wine online. He does however have (or had) very humid storage.
And who knows if it is resolved. He sure as hell is acting like there is still a problem. And he continues to misconstrue and misrepresent what he is told (just the traits you want in a prosecuting attorney). The store told him the labels were in bad shape on two bottles of corton but the fill and color were great. It never occurred to the store to suggest that meant a provenance issue - they know rob gets his wine at wholesale in the local market. He is such a luddite he probably doesn't know how to shop for wine online. He does however have (or had) very humid storage.
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
originally posted by maureen:
Well it sure as hell was darker and more flabbby and advanced than the 1990 version i drank a couple of weeks ago.
And who knows if it is resolved. He sure as hell is acting like there is still a problem. And he continues to misconstrue and misrepresent what he is told (just the traits you want in a prosecuting attorney).
Paranoia doesn't hurt either.
Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
Glad this "worked out" and sorry about your CFE VT.
well, if you read WB you might know that last May or June I posted a listing on the commerce corner for some burg, mostly truchot 2005s and 1999s and jadot 1999s. I indicated they belonged to a friend who needed to raise cash, that he didn't frequent the boards (in fact, he's not much of a computer or internet user at all), and that he'd owned and properly stored the wine since release. GC responded that he wanted the wine, I gave him my friend's phone number, and that was it - or so I thought.
This May, the buyer notifies me by sending a PM thru the WB board that he never got the wine and couldn't reach my friend Rob. I was surprised - although I learned that GC apparently had asked Rob to hold the wine thru the summer, asked Rob to continue to hold it thru the fall, and only started working on shipping in February. I don't see Rob that often but had seen and dined with him a couple of weeks before the message from GC. So I immediately texted Rob the gist of my message from GC - but Rob didn't respond and several phone calls and emails to him went unreturned.
Now, when I saw him earlier this spring, I learned that Rob was in the midst of tremendous personal upheaval - his SO of many years had gotten into criminal trouble and was incarcerated, Rob had had to move out of his home and had put his wine in storage with a friend of his, and he'd moved into the home of another friend, who was in terrible physical and mental condition and Rob was spending all of his time providing and obtaining medical care for his friend, including getting him on Medicare, taking him to doctors, and preparing all his meals. So I told GC the essence of this and also said I was pretty confident Rob still had the wine and intended to send them but probably by the time GC asked for them to be shipped (and I learned from Rob Friday night that he'd called GC many times between October and February seeking authorization for shipment (and payment) but GC either asked for forbearance due to heat or didn't return calls), Rob was separated from the bottles, was in a world of hurt, and couldn't focus on retrieving and shipping the bottles.
Unfortunately, GC posted a complaint on WB and holy hell broke loose. I was unaware of that (I don't actually read wine boards during working hours) until I checked my home email mid-afternoon only to see an email from Cole captioned "eeeck" and alerting me to go on the other bored. About 40 posts by that point - and the very first one after the original complaint apparently was a slam at GC for basically sending over $6k 3000 miles to someone he didn't know and then putting off getting the wine. As you might suspect the posts ranged from "gee, that's too bad, hope it works out" to "you are an idiot" to "Maureen is complicit" to "no, she is not, she did nothing other than make the introduction" to "of course, she's responsible it's her friend" to "well, she must be complicit because in the two hours since GC's post first went up, she has not posted a denial." You know, the usual shit.
over the next few days, I reached out to GC several times to advise of my efforts to speak with Rob, including calling the office manager where I used to work because I know she's the MIL of the person holding the wine (whose last name I couldn't recall) and begging her to ask her daughter to get her husband to call me and just let me know if he actually was holding some of Rob's wine - assuring her I wouldn't ask him to turn any over or even verify that the particular bottles were there. I told GC this and he agreed with that strategy. Also, contacted the few mutual friends Rob and I have and tried to reach him that way - including spending a couple of hours tracking down a former Skadden colleague friendly with Rob who'd moved to CA. But no luck reaching Rob.
Meanwhile, the shitstorm on the wine bored continued. GC alternated between stating his belief that I was nothing more than an innocent intermediary to expressing his belief that because he was finding out stuff about Rob (stuff I didn't know actually) by paying online sources for info, that I must be involved and both of us should be subjected to at least civil and maybe criminal action. Many people I don't know sent me PMs indicating their view that I was being inappropriately slammed and that GC had gone off the deep end. Indeed, one of his friends contacted me and implored me to speak with GC to calm him down. GC ignored or rebuffed all of my offers to speak, however. Other friends posted defenses of me on the board (including VLM, who basically said "Maureen has friends and we are dangerous!")
I had given GC the name of the person Rob was staying with. Once I heard from the son-in-law I told GC that - although I hadn't learned whether there was any wine there yet. GC never asked me for names and phone numbers other than to state on the other bored that I had refused to give him the name of the elderly man Rob was living with. Since I had done so just that morning, I did post a denial.
The calls and emails and texts to Rob continued. I offered more than once to provide duplicate wines from my cellar at no cost to Rob so that he could send GC the wines he'd purchased if necessary. Nothing. GC had posted in May that he planned to come to DC in July to speak to law enforcement about this and indeed last week he started a new thread. This one contained this paragraph - bracketed words mine:
"Finally put wine acquisition energy into filing a lawsuit regarding the Truchot fiasco on Commerce Corner where I have heard nothing for weeks and information is still being withheld. [i answered every question he put to me.] I am naming as defendants in the suit everyone associated with the transaction, possession, or storage of the wine who both (1) knows I paid for the wine [well, I actually only have his word for it but ok] but (2) knows I dont have it and (3) could easily help but won't [I think I was doing everything I could, short of driving an hour into VA to go to this old man's house and barge in, which I refused to do - I had called him twice and begged him to get Rob to call me.].
When I am in DC next week instigate a criminal prosecution but, unlike the lawsuit, only against the seller, and ask police to identify and interview who has the wine. I dont even have that name after all this time. [again, he never actually asked and I wasn't about to volunteer it as I believed it would just put another innocent person in a mess and be counter-productive]"
Then Tuesday I received this message from GC:
"Maureen as a courtesy I am letting you know I am going to the DC area police next week when I am there and I am going to file a lawsuit against you and Rob and the unnamed holder of the wine. Your deposition will be tken to disclose the name and address of the person who might ve holxing the wine. If anyone has disposed of the wine or intends to dispose of the wine or warns someone to dispose of the wine knowing I have paid for it they will join Rob as a criminal defendant for theft along with the civil suit. I You will all be held jointly and severally liable and I intend to attach everyone's salaries and assets until I get my money back from one or more of you. Please let me know the name of your attorney so that I may have the lawsuit served on your attorney rather than have the process server find you unless you would prefer that."
I copied that message into a text to both Rob and the person with whom he is living, begging Rob to let me help end this situation. I also emailed the message to the person holding the wine, making it clear that if I were sued and in discovery were asked for his name, I'd provide it. Something got Rob's attention and Thursday I received a text stating he'd retrieved the wine and was taking it Macarthurs (I'd suggested that months ago as I figured the store would ship it to GC).
I alerted GC via email but never heard back. I confirmed with the store on Friday that the wine had been delivered. Rob indicated that he'd left GC a message. The store did an inventory and noted that two bottles of 1999 Jadot Pougets had funky labels (Rob has very damp storage and tattered, moldy labels on bottles from his cellar were common) but had great fills and color. Rob had been unable to locate two bottles of 1999 Jadot Clos Vougeot so he substituted two bottles of 1999 Jadot Bonnes Mares and one bottle of 1999 Jadot Clos St Denis - all better and more valuable than the CV.
When I got home Friday evening around 7, I sent a private message to each of the people who'd written me to express support and let them know that Rob had responded and delivered the bottles to the store. I also expressed an interest in seeing if GC would post about getting his wine. One person immediately responded and suggested I should post but I said let's give GC a chance to get home from work (he's in CA) and get online. But this person had already (all of this in about 10 minutes!) alerted the moderator of the board that a resolution had been reached and the moderator reopened the locked threat from two months ago and indicated a resolution had been reached.
Meanwhile, I went out to dinner with a very embarrassed and apologetic Rob - and we drank Truchot!
When I got home, I learned another shitstorm had erupted on the other board. GC responded to the moderator's announcement with this post (again my coments in brackets):
"Todd I personally don't care, but you will want to re-lock it. The resolution process was very unpleasant [really? complete surrender and bonus wine is unpleasant?], and to me the final resolution was personally disappointing in what I had to do last week to prepare [well, pal, if you are a litigator surely you've experienced preparing for trial only to have a settlement knock the wind out of your sails - not too often litigators getting complete victory complain about that though] and what I and others were about to do in California and in the DC area where I will be this coming week to get people to act, and the stress and anxiety it caused me (this from someone who has prosecuted many life sentence cases and taken maybe seventy other cases to jury trial and raised four boys entirely by myself since 2005)
If this thread stays open, I will respond in detail and at length to any "facts" posted that are inaccurate, or any opinions based on a misunderstanding of the facts. Which is certain to happen."
others wanted details and asked and GC erupted. All he would say is:
"Here is my version.
I should get my wine in October. It is being held by a reputable third party whom the seller chose to give the wine to this week. The third party has no idea why they were chosen. [chosen by me because someone has to ship the bottles and as a practical matter it needs to be a retailer licensed to do so] The third party tells me there are label symptoms indicating provenance issues [bullshit - manager sent me the email he sent GC and it says labels on two corton messed up, "excellent fill and color" - the writer of that email never would've thought of provenance issues as he knows Rob buys only upon release and from local wholesalers and retailers]. My personal opinion that the fact that the seller did this, when he did it, makes me feel much worse about the people involved than I had all year. I'm not going to explain why. [hello, why? because you threatened his friends and he woke up - wasn't that the purpose of the threats?] Guess and chastise away. Todd re-opened the thread assuming the resolution was amicable so we can all talk about it. Very bad idea. And it's still open.
I am not being reticent because of emotion. I am not upset (edited to add: I guess I am, I feel really sad about people right now). Lawyers reading this already have an idea why I am stopping here. I think I did a really good job and am still doing a really good job [oy, the delusions this guy suffers] and it benefits everyone involved."
He later claimed Rob "dumped the wine" after hours - er, no, he delivered the wine into the store during business hours. Ok, I'll quit correcting his fevered misrepresentations. I never posted anything there. The person who had requested the thread be reopened really got GC in a tizzy when he suggested GC didn't actually have the wine yet - true - because a third party was holding them. That cracked me up.
GC is in DC on en route (guess he bought nonrefundable tickets) - before he signed off he posted one last paranoid rant:
"Anyone who TRIES to pick up that wine from that store is committing a felony, even if they are unsuccessful and the store calls me. Even if they brought the wine there or at one point owned it. And I won't be asking this board fo advice on how to resolve it without the police.
A felony. Just for trying."
Hope the guy doesn't show up at my office and make a scene - or my home (well, my home is under renovation) or learn where I'm living.
Offline GC?
This May, the buyer notifies me by sending a PM thru the WB board that he never got the wine and couldn't reach my friend Rob. I was surprised - although I learned that GC apparently had asked Rob to hold the wine thru the summer, asked Rob to continue to hold it thru the fall, and only started working on shipping in February. I don't see Rob that often but had seen and dined with him a couple of weeks before the message from GC. So I immediately texted Rob the gist of my message from GC - but Rob didn't respond and several phone calls and emails to him went unreturned.
Now, when I saw him earlier this spring, I learned that Rob was in the midst of tremendous personal upheaval - his SO of many years had gotten into criminal trouble and was incarcerated, Rob had had to move out of his home and had put his wine in storage with a friend of his, and he'd moved into the home of another friend, who was in terrible physical and mental condition and Rob was spending all of his time providing and obtaining medical care for his friend, including getting him on Medicare, taking him to doctors, and preparing all his meals. So I told GC the essence of this and also said I was pretty confident Rob still had the wine and intended to send them but probably by the time GC asked for them to be shipped (and I learned from Rob Friday night that he'd called GC many times between October and February seeking authorization for shipment (and payment) but GC either asked for forbearance due to heat or didn't return calls), Rob was separated from the bottles, was in a world of hurt, and couldn't focus on retrieving and shipping the bottles.
Unfortunately, GC posted a complaint on WB and holy hell broke loose. I was unaware of that (I don't actually read wine boards during working hours) until I checked my home email mid-afternoon only to see an email from Cole captioned "eeeck" and alerting me to go on the other bored. About 40 posts by that point - and the very first one after the original complaint apparently was a slam at GC for basically sending over $6k 3000 miles to someone he didn't know and then putting off getting the wine. As you might suspect the posts ranged from "gee, that's too bad, hope it works out" to "you are an idiot" to "Maureen is complicit" to "no, she is not, she did nothing other than make the introduction" to "of course, she's responsible it's her friend" to "well, she must be complicit because in the two hours since GC's post first went up, she has not posted a denial." You know, the usual shit.
over the next few days, I reached out to GC several times to advise of my efforts to speak with Rob, including calling the office manager where I used to work because I know she's the MIL of the person holding the wine (whose last name I couldn't recall) and begging her to ask her daughter to get her husband to call me and just let me know if he actually was holding some of Rob's wine - assuring her I wouldn't ask him to turn any over or even verify that the particular bottles were there. I told GC this and he agreed with that strategy. Also, contacted the few mutual friends Rob and I have and tried to reach him that way - including spending a couple of hours tracking down a former Skadden colleague friendly with Rob who'd moved to CA. But no luck reaching Rob.
Meanwhile, the shitstorm on the wine bored continued. GC alternated between stating his belief that I was nothing more than an innocent intermediary to expressing his belief that because he was finding out stuff about Rob (stuff I didn't know actually) by paying online sources for info, that I must be involved and both of us should be subjected to at least civil and maybe criminal action. Many people I don't know sent me PMs indicating their view that I was being inappropriately slammed and that GC had gone off the deep end. Indeed, one of his friends contacted me and implored me to speak with GC to calm him down. GC ignored or rebuffed all of my offers to speak, however. Other friends posted defenses of me on the board (including VLM, who basically said "Maureen has friends and we are dangerous!")
I had given GC the name of the person Rob was staying with. Once I heard from the son-in-law I told GC that - although I hadn't learned whether there was any wine there yet. GC never asked me for names and phone numbers other than to state on the other bored that I had refused to give him the name of the elderly man Rob was living with. Since I had done so just that morning, I did post a denial.
The calls and emails and texts to Rob continued. I offered more than once to provide duplicate wines from my cellar at no cost to Rob so that he could send GC the wines he'd purchased if necessary. Nothing. GC had posted in May that he planned to come to DC in July to speak to law enforcement about this and indeed last week he started a new thread. This one contained this paragraph - bracketed words mine:
"Finally put wine acquisition energy into filing a lawsuit regarding the Truchot fiasco on Commerce Corner where I have heard nothing for weeks and information is still being withheld. [i answered every question he put to me.] I am naming as defendants in the suit everyone associated with the transaction, possession, or storage of the wine who both (1) knows I paid for the wine [well, I actually only have his word for it but ok] but (2) knows I dont have it and (3) could easily help but won't [I think I was doing everything I could, short of driving an hour into VA to go to this old man's house and barge in, which I refused to do - I had called him twice and begged him to get Rob to call me.].
When I am in DC next week instigate a criminal prosecution but, unlike the lawsuit, only against the seller, and ask police to identify and interview who has the wine. I dont even have that name after all this time. [again, he never actually asked and I wasn't about to volunteer it as I believed it would just put another innocent person in a mess and be counter-productive]"
Then Tuesday I received this message from GC:
"Maureen as a courtesy I am letting you know I am going to the DC area police next week when I am there and I am going to file a lawsuit against you and Rob and the unnamed holder of the wine. Your deposition will be tken to disclose the name and address of the person who might ve holxing the wine. If anyone has disposed of the wine or intends to dispose of the wine or warns someone to dispose of the wine knowing I have paid for it they will join Rob as a criminal defendant for theft along with the civil suit. I You will all be held jointly and severally liable and I intend to attach everyone's salaries and assets until I get my money back from one or more of you. Please let me know the name of your attorney so that I may have the lawsuit served on your attorney rather than have the process server find you unless you would prefer that."
I copied that message into a text to both Rob and the person with whom he is living, begging Rob to let me help end this situation. I also emailed the message to the person holding the wine, making it clear that if I were sued and in discovery were asked for his name, I'd provide it. Something got Rob's attention and Thursday I received a text stating he'd retrieved the wine and was taking it Macarthurs (I'd suggested that months ago as I figured the store would ship it to GC).
I alerted GC via email but never heard back. I confirmed with the store on Friday that the wine had been delivered. Rob indicated that he'd left GC a message. The store did an inventory and noted that two bottles of 1999 Jadot Pougets had funky labels (Rob has very damp storage and tattered, moldy labels on bottles from his cellar were common) but had great fills and color. Rob had been unable to locate two bottles of 1999 Jadot Clos Vougeot so he substituted two bottles of 1999 Jadot Bonnes Mares and one bottle of 1999 Jadot Clos St Denis - all better and more valuable than the CV.
When I got home Friday evening around 7, I sent a private message to each of the people who'd written me to express support and let them know that Rob had responded and delivered the bottles to the store. I also expressed an interest in seeing if GC would post about getting his wine. One person immediately responded and suggested I should post but I said let's give GC a chance to get home from work (he's in CA) and get online. But this person had already (all of this in about 10 minutes!) alerted the moderator of the board that a resolution had been reached and the moderator reopened the locked threat from two months ago and indicated a resolution had been reached.
Meanwhile, I went out to dinner with a very embarrassed and apologetic Rob - and we drank Truchot!
When I got home, I learned another shitstorm had erupted on the other board. GC responded to the moderator's announcement with this post (again my coments in brackets):
"Todd I personally don't care, but you will want to re-lock it. The resolution process was very unpleasant [really? complete surrender and bonus wine is unpleasant?], and to me the final resolution was personally disappointing in what I had to do last week to prepare [well, pal, if you are a litigator surely you've experienced preparing for trial only to have a settlement knock the wind out of your sails - not too often litigators getting complete victory complain about that though] and what I and others were about to do in California and in the DC area where I will be this coming week to get people to act, and the stress and anxiety it caused me (this from someone who has prosecuted many life sentence cases and taken maybe seventy other cases to jury trial and raised four boys entirely by myself since 2005)
If this thread stays open, I will respond in detail and at length to any "facts" posted that are inaccurate, or any opinions based on a misunderstanding of the facts. Which is certain to happen."
others wanted details and asked and GC erupted. All he would say is:
"Here is my version.
I should get my wine in October. It is being held by a reputable third party whom the seller chose to give the wine to this week. The third party has no idea why they were chosen. [chosen by me because someone has to ship the bottles and as a practical matter it needs to be a retailer licensed to do so] The third party tells me there are label symptoms indicating provenance issues [bullshit - manager sent me the email he sent GC and it says labels on two corton messed up, "excellent fill and color" - the writer of that email never would've thought of provenance issues as he knows Rob buys only upon release and from local wholesalers and retailers]. My personal opinion that the fact that the seller did this, when he did it, makes me feel much worse about the people involved than I had all year. I'm not going to explain why. [hello, why? because you threatened his friends and he woke up - wasn't that the purpose of the threats?] Guess and chastise away. Todd re-opened the thread assuming the resolution was amicable so we can all talk about it. Very bad idea. And it's still open.
I am not being reticent because of emotion. I am not upset (edited to add: I guess I am, I feel really sad about people right now). Lawyers reading this already have an idea why I am stopping here. I think I did a really good job and am still doing a really good job [oy, the delusions this guy suffers] and it benefits everyone involved."
He later claimed Rob "dumped the wine" after hours - er, no, he delivered the wine into the store during business hours. Ok, I'll quit correcting his fevered misrepresentations. I never posted anything there. The person who had requested the thread be reopened really got GC in a tizzy when he suggested GC didn't actually have the wine yet - true - because a third party was holding them. That cracked me up.
GC is in DC on en route (guess he bought nonrefundable tickets) - before he signed off he posted one last paranoid rant:
"Anyone who TRIES to pick up that wine from that store is committing a felony, even if they are unsuccessful and the store calls me. Even if they brought the wine there or at one point owned it. And I won't be asking this board fo advice on how to resolve it without the police.
A felony. Just for trying."
Hope the guy doesn't show up at my office and make a scene - or my home (well, my home is under renovation) or learn where I'm living.
Offline GC?
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
What a nightmare, I'm sorry you had to go through this!
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Sheesh. Bad circumstance, schmucky reaction. I'm so sorry you are tangled-up in this mess, Maureen.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Holy moly, what a knuckle-dragger.
"If all you have is a litigator, everything looks like..."
"If all you have is a litigator, everything looks like..."
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
I followed that post from the beginning. It started out weird and has become bizzare. It's hard to believe he's an attorney, given his failure to protect himself at the beginning of the transaction. The posters who pointed this out were shouted down.
His sudden Disillusionment with his fellow humans due to this incident I find disturbing, after all the murders and other crimes he's prosecuted suddenly he thinks people suck because he's out a few thousand?
Maureen you've been bending over backwards for this schmuck and I hope this mess is over with.
His sudden Disillusionment with his fellow humans due to this incident I find disturbing, after all the murders and other crimes he's prosecuted suddenly he thinks people suck because he's out a few thousand?
Maureen you've been bending over backwards for this schmuck and I hope this mess is over with.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I never opened that thread on WB. Now I'm glad I didn't. Sorry for your troubles Maureen. No good deed goes unpunished.
Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
Just for the record, my subject line in my message to Maureen was "Eeek".
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
So sorry you had to go through all this.
JSchwartze
JSchwartze
"...this from someone who has prosecuted many life sentence cases and taken maybe seventy other cases to jury trial and raised four boys entirely by myself since 2005"
What went wrong? Shouldn't the ladies have been lining up for this charming fellow?
What went wrong? Shouldn't the ladies have been lining up for this charming fellow?
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
Just for the record, my subject line in my message to Maureen was "Eeek".
Yes indeed the spelling error is all mine.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Another perplexity of Life. Maybe Chris can explain it to us?originally posted by JSchwartze:
So Tired of Being Alone"...this from someone who has prosecuted many life sentence cases and taken maybe seventy other cases to jury trial and raised four boys entirely by myself since 2005"
What went wrong? Shouldn't the ladies have been lining up for this charming fellow?