Kyle McCarty
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Cal Poly has filed a motion in bankruptcy court, seeking to cover the name of a convicted felon on its stadium scoreboard.
Albert Moriarty, who pled no contest in early August to seven felony charges in relation to what prosecutors called a $22 million Ponzi scheme, paid $625,000 to Cal Poly to buy the scoreboard and have the name of his business, “Moriarty Enterprises,” appear on it.
Now, Cal Poly is seeking to have that name removed from the scoreboard before the football team’s first home game on Sept. 20. The bankruptcy hearing is scheduled for Sept. 19.
Moriarty’s assets are now in the hands of a bankruptcy trustee, as Moriarty filed for bankruptcy protection. Cal Poly must now deal with this trustee, Michael P. Klein, over the future of the scoreboard.
The original agreement entered into, between Cal Poly and Moriarty, said that Moriarty’s name had to appear on the board and a legal way to remove it was not established.
The motion Cal Poly submitted lays out a number of reasons it feels it should be able to cover the name.
Cal Poly says that Moriarty acted in bad faith when he used funds from his illegal activities to pay for the sign.
“…causing ‘Moriarty Enterprises’ to be associated with criminal activity deprives Cal Poly of the expectation to be publicly associated with a credible and legitimate company,” the motion reads.
The motion also states that covering the sign will not do any damage to the estate or creditors, or the debtor, Moriarty himself, who “cannot reasonably expect the business to continue under that name, if at all.”
Finally, the motion says Cal Poly’s reputation is suffering by being associated with Moriarty’s fraudulent business.
“Moriarty Enterprises is painful to many people, and Cal Poly wants, at a minimum to cover or remove the name,” it reads.
The motion notes that keeping the name on the sign damages Cal Poly, while removing it does no damage to the value of the estate to the trustee.
The trustee has asked Cal Poly to repay the $625,000, in order to give some of the money back to Moriarty’s creditors. Cal Poly has not done so.
Cal Poly and the trustee were engaged in settlement negotiations. In its motion, Cal Poly says that the trustee stopped responding to its attempts to negotiate a settlement and instead went to the press to try to portray Cal Poly as the one that was unwilling to negotiate.
Celina Oseguera contributed to this article.