Pittsfield Licensing Board Again Suspects Forgery at Used Car Dealership
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Licensing Board is suspecting a local car dealership of forging documents for the second time in two years.
The owner and employee are saying its a matter of identity theft and have hired an attorney.
On Monday, the board voted to continue a hearing for D&K Affordable Motors to April 25 after it was notified that an employee attempted to register another dealership under the same license.
During this time, the board has requested banking documents and criminal records from the two involved parties: manager Kaitlyn Rathbun and her employee and partner Devon Fitts.
Fitts and Rathbun attribute the situation to identity theft.
D&K Affordable Motors has a Class 2 license with the number 297 for its premises at 48 Dalton Ave. issued in 2020. As it appears, Fitts submitted the same license to AuctionACCESS — an online credentialing system for dealers — for Young's Auto Sales at 111 W Housatonic St., which is a vacant lot.
It was brought to the board to determine if the license for D&K Affordable Motors should be revoked.
In 2020, the dealership had its license suspended for a week for having too many vehicles on the premises and suspicion of forged documentation. The paperwork submitted to the board earlier that year contained the signature of the prior owner of the property Louis Costi when the owner was actually Messias Jordao.
Pittsfield Police Sgt. Marc Maddalena did an investigation on the current incident and presented his findings to the board.
"I was contacted by the Licensing Board through the city of Pittsfield to investigate the possible fraudulent license that was provided to AuctionACCESS via the internet. They were attempting to register a used car dealership through AuctionACCESS under the name of Young's Auto Sales, but they were attempting to use the licensing number coincided with D&K," he explained.
"So it was a different business but with the same license number as D&K, as part of the audit, AuctionACCESS, as part of their procedures, anytime they get something that comes in requesting permission, they attempt to contact the licensing board within that county, city or town to verify that it's a valid dealership and that they've gone to the proper process.
"When they contacted the city of Pittsfield, they were informed that that dealership didn't exist and that the license number attached to that dealership existed under a different name, being D&K Affordable."
In mid-December, Maddalena went to D&K to inform the two of the forged document. He asked if they had any issues with identity problems or could explain why it could have occurred and Fitts reported having his wallet stolen a couple of weeks prior, which was before the attempted registration on AuctionACCESS.
Fitts had not reported the incident to the Police Department but the next day, Rathbun came to the department and filed a report for the stolen items — including a wallet — on his behalf.
She also indicated that she wanted to file a complaint that her license had been altered based on the correspondence with Maddalena the previous day and place it on record.
"She did not have any paperwork or supporting documentation indicating that Mr. Fitts' information had been stolen such as, had there been maybe some use of a credit card or something like that but she did come in to report it," Maddalena added.
The sergeant was confused as to why a person would alter the car dealer's license. He later found that Rathbun and Fitts had both received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and that D&K was having financial difficulty based on conversations with two creditors.
He reported that both Rathbun and Fitts applied for and received federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that were disbursed through Greylock Federal Credit Union. Maddalena's report and online records indicate that Rathbun received $16,250 in February 2021 and Fitts $19,700 in April 2021.
Fitts' PPP loans were for being the sole proprietor of a dealership at 111 W Housatonic St., the same address of the business that attempted to register with D&K's valid license.
This has been submitted to the Attorney General's Office for further investigation.
Maddalena also spoke to two of the dealership's creditors, Kinetic Advantage and NextGear Capital, and based on the conversations, reported that D&K has defaulted with both companies, had cars repossessed, and has outstanding balances that the companies plan to litigate for.
Rathbun reportedly told Kinetic that she will not pay the amount that is owed to them.
In February, Maddalena returned to D&K to speak to Fitts about the PPP loan and he reported having personal property including identity papers stolen out of a locker at Affordable Safe Storage located on Fourth Street one year prior.
Fitts said he did not report the incident to the Police Department but did report it to the company.
Maddalena is under the impression that obtaining a new license under a new dealership would allow them to have a clean history so they are able to visit auction sites to purchase vehicles after having financial difficulties.
He added that in 24 years on the job he has not seen identity theft used to open a car dealership, as it is usually for cashing checks and opening accounts.
"When you put everything together it doesn't appear to be factual," Maddalena said.
The license holder's attorney William Martin interrupted the testimony and said it seemed like a trial with a lot of hearsay. For the record, he stated that it needs to be more nuanced in his opinion.
"The answer to your question about motive is: the motive to make a false license is to apply for false PPP loan because you have to have a business to get to PPP loan," Martin said.
"And so there's a lot of other things going on. I was hired on Thursday, I read this police report and I thought to myself, 'those are some really bad facts,' that I thought to myself, 'it's missing one unbelievably important fact,' which I spoke with the sergeant about before this interview, which is where did the money actually go? We don't know the answer to that question."
Martin has contacted Greylock Federal in an attempt to locate the loan that was disbursed through it and does not have an answer yet. He did report having statements from Fitts' banking accounts during the time that funds were supposedly disbursed and there is no deposit for the $19,700.
He found that Rathbun's deposit of $16,250 did show up in her account.
"It's interesting to know, and I think many of us were sort of frantically doing these PPP loans and wondering after the federal government doled out all of this money without much of a thought, what was going to happen on the backend? Well, now we know what's going to happen on the backend," Martin said.
"Keep in mind that most of these loans were granted, I won't say anonymously, but very much electronically during much in a rush not like the regular volume where you got a notarized document so when Mr. Fitts says his identity was stolen, I don't think it's fair to presume that that isn't true, I think we need to dig down that and determine whether that's true or not."
In regards to the forged license, he said it would be very easy for a thief to convert the license into a PDF and change it electronically.
Martin also defended Rathbun's financial standing.
"Her business is still in good standing with the auction company, she has vehement disputes with the two floor planners, she considers them to be shark lenders who charge exorbitant prices and add on unacceptable fees so she can't conduct business and make money using your services and she has an adverse relationship with them," he said.
"Back to my argument about hearsay, we have not seen a district court collection from either of these companies, we have not seen a collection letter and neither one of these companies, we have nothing from either one of these companies that says that they have an outstanding debt that they're in the process of pursuing, she will tell you that she has substantial defenses if they try."
Saying the accusations are serious criminal charges, Martin advocated for the board to provide time for Rathbun and Fitts to collect evidence.
He added that the two already have a valid account to trade with AuctionACCESS and that there would be no reason to attempt to make a second account.
Tags: license board,
