Lawyer: Claims in suit ‘false and outrageous’

In a statement emailed Monday to The Daily Review, attorney Michael Aloise Jr. said the claims alleged by investment holdings company Capital Management Consultants Inc. in a lawsuit against him filed Jan. 26 are “false and outrageous.”
Capital Management Consultants Inc. filed civil suit in the 16th Judicial District Court alleging Aloise conspired with the company’s former CPA James Scott Tucker and company’s former bookkeeper Karen Duhon to commit theft, embezzlement and fraud.
“I believe it is undignified and unseemly for lawyers to attempt to try their case in public rather than in court where such matters are supposed to be determined,” Aloise said in his statement.
The Guarisco family and their lawyers have attempted to portray Aloise as being Capital Management Consultants Inc.’s counsel, with actual knowledge of the ownership of Capital Management Consultants Inc., Aloise said.
“It was always represented to me that CMCI (Capital Management Consultants Inc.) was owned by Scott Tucker and there was nothing to cause me to believe otherwise,” Aloise said.
The company further alleged that Aloise devised and/or participated in a scheme to steal money, property and/or property rights from Capital Management Consultants and that he benefitted from this, Aloise said.
“In actual fact, the briefest investigation would reveal that the facts alleged in these lawsuits as they relate to me are false and outrageous,” Aloise said.
Aloise has never represented Capital Management Consultants on a regular basis, he said. Aloise’s engagement was and continued to be limited to specific matters, which he was consulted by Capital Management Consultants, he said.
The specific matters he was engaged by the company for were the preparation of two cash deeds on its behalf in 2004, for which he billed $200 for each one, and reimbursement for recordation fees and examination of ownership in Hedgerow Subdivision, for which he billed $1,000 in 2011, Aloise said.
For some of the legal work of which the Guarisco family complains in the suit, Aloise was not acting as a lawyer, but rather simply as a notary public, Aloise said. “Some documents were prepared by Scott Tucker and I was asked only to notarize the signatures,” Aloise said.
Other than on the three occasions over a seven-year period from 2004 through 2011, for which he received the $1,400, Aloise had no recollection of performing any other legal services on behalf of Capital Management Consultants nor receiving any other fee, he said.
“In other words for my legal services the entire amount ever paid to me by CMCI was $1,400,” Aloise said.
Yet, the Guarisco family and Capital Management Consultants “continue to furnish the newspapers with false information designed to implicate me in this awful situation,” Aloise said.
“Although the Guarisco family as well as their lawyers enjoy the right of free speech, it is disgraceful, in my opinion, for any litigant or lawyer to permit the publication of false and misleading statements regarding matters which are damaging to my heretofore unblemished reputation,” Aloise said.
Aloise believes that the suit against him is “frivolous and unwarranted,” he said. “I intend to vigorously defend this action and am confident that I will win,” Aloise said.
Meanwhile, Aloise is continuing his own investigation as to whether he has an actionable claim for defamation against the Guarisco family and/or their lawyers, he said.
Aloise concluded his statement by saying, “I will have no further comment, and intend to permit the civil justice system to cause the truth to emerge and to wholly vindicate me of any alleged wrongdoing.”
Capital Management Consultants spokesman Marwan Mohey-El-Dien was called Monday afternoon and this morning and Aloise’s emailed statement was sent to Mohey-El-Dien Monday afternoon for comment. As of this morning, The Daily Review had received no response from Mohey-El-Dien.