Interior Decorator Faces 14 Charges of Theft, Bad Checks
Many of the homeowners who did business with Florliza (Flory) Navarrette recall being impressed by the Chino Hills interior decorator’s persuasive personality and sense of style.
Navarrette solicited business among residents of newly built up-scale housing tracts in boom areas such as Diamond Bar, Walnut, San Dimas, Chino Hills and Orange County. Walking through barren new homes, Navarrette projected images of the fashionable furniture and draperies she would have custom-made at a price no one could beat.
50% Deposits
Many took her up on her offers, signing contracts and plunking down 50% deposits on decorating work that ran into thousands of dollars. Some of those customers now believe they were taken.
More than 60 have filed suit against Navarrette, alleging that she performed only part of the work, or--in many cases--no work at all. Many said they have given up hope of getting their money back after Navarrette and her firm, Your Design Company Inc., filed for protection under Chapter 7 of U.S. bankruptcy laws last month.
Navarrette pleaded not guilty last week in Pomona Superior Court to 10 counts of grand theft and four counts of passing bad checks. If convicted, she faces a prison sentence of eight to nine years, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Burns. Fraud detectives in San Bernardino and Orange counties say they are preparing evidence to present to the district attorneys there.
Antonio J. Bestard, Navarrette’s attorney, would not comment on the charges against the decorator.
“She wants to try the case,” he said. “She says she’s not guilty.”
Disgruntled customers tell similar stories of their experiences with the decorator.
Eugenie Liou of Diamond Bar, said she paid Navarrette a $1,350 deposit on $2,450 worth of draperies in May, 1988.
“She just never put the draperies in,” Liou said. “We called her and she said there were some material problems and she gave us another (installation) date. She kept postponing until we cancelled the whole deal.”
Small Claims Rulings
Liou received a small claims judgment for her deposit in Pomona Municipal Court last October. “She has not paid us,” Liou said. “She says she’s going to pay off $400 in three months.”
Other customers, such as Joyce Riley of Chino Hills, have already been paid judgments by Navarrette, after what they describe as arduous legal battles. But even those who have gotten their money back said they won’t be fully satisfied until they see Navarrette sentenced to prison.
“The only way to keep her out of business is for her to be locked up,” Riley said.
Riley, who gave Navarrette a $1,250 down payment last June for draperies she said were never installed, has helped organize a network of former customers who are angry with the decorator.
Customer Network
Using court records and word-of-mouth referrals, Riley and other customers have compiled a list of 130 Navarrette customers, who they said are owed more than $500,000. Newsletters are sent out regularly to those on the list, apprising them of Navarrette’s legal situation and instructing them on how to file civil suits and criminal complaints against her.
“Be aware: Ignoring your rights to file civil and criminal charges is condoning the crime,” read one newsletter.
Bestard subpoenaed Riley last week to turn over all the material she has collected. Burns said in court Thursday that Navarrette may be planning to sue Riley for maliciously causing criminal charges to be filed and suggested that Bestard was seeking information for use in that suit.
“I don’t know where he got that idea,” Bestard said later of Burns’ statement. “I’m not a civil lawyer . . . . There’s always the possibility of that when someone’s such a vigilante as Joyce Riley.”
Hearing on June 14
Bestard said he is only representing Navarrette in her criminal case and that he needs Riley’s information to prepare a defense. Pomona Superior Court Judge James H. Piatt deferred a decision on the subpoena until Navarrette’s pretrial hearing on June 14.
In an interview, Bestard said Riley is “not accurately presenting the facts.” Of the $56,785 involved in the 14 criminal charges, Bestard said, $1,650--including the money owed Riley--has been repaid.
After the arraignment, Riley said she was not worried about the prospect of a lawsuit against her and denied having a vendetta against Navarrette.
“It wasn’t just me going after Flory,” she said. “It’s a lot of people standing up and being counted.”
Informal Soliciting
Most customers came into contact with Navarrette after receiving advertising flyers at their new homes or when she canvassed their affluent neighborhoods soliciting business. Some customers were referred by Navarrette’s husband, Nick, after he did grouting work for the new homeowners.
” . . . Nick would get in the house to go in and seal the floors, then he would tell the people, ‘My wife’s an interior decorator,’ ” said Evelyn Fournier of Whittier, a decorator who worked for the Navarrettes earlier this year. “He told me they don’t even go to houses that are (worth) less than $350,000.”
Roger Velasco, who lives in a gated community, Sorrento Hills in Fullerton, said he was approached in this way.
“He did a good job, so we had her give us an estimate,” Velasco said. “She gave us a bargain price. We ordered wood blinds, draperies, furniture for the living room and the family room. She told me that she did a volume business and could eliminate middle-man costs.”
Velasco said he paid Navarrette a $3,250 deposit in June for the work, which was to cost $7,500. After Navarrette missed a series of deadlines, Velasco said he hired an attorney in November and threatened legal action. Velasco said the draperies were installed in early December and he received some of the furniture two weeks later, after giving Navarrette an additional $2,000 check.
Leather Couch
Among the furniture delivered, Velasco said, was an expensive leather couch. “The couch was dirty,” he said. “It was a second-hand couch. It was only reupholstered.” Velasco said he stopped payment on the check and asked Navarrette to take back the couch, but she has not done so.
Some customers said they were initially pleased with Navarrette’s work. After being satisfied with draperies installed by Your Design Company in 1987, Kim Le of Diamond Bar paid Navarrette $2,500 for additional draperies and furniture in April, 1988. None of this work was done, she said.
“I kept calling, and she’d say, ‘Next week, next week,’ for almost a year,” Le said. “She was very nice. If I’d listened to my husband, I would have gotten money back a long time ago. I told him she was very nice, so I would give her another chance. I gave her many chances.”
The first two of the 10 grand theft charges against Navarrette resulted from her alleged failure to fulfill two large contracts. Dr. Amado Mandani and his wife, Eva, of San Dimas, filed a police report with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s fraud detectives after paying $31,000 for furniture they said was never delivered. Samuel Villanueva of Laguna Niguel filed a similar report, saying he was owed $18,000.
Navarrette was arrested in December on those two charges and released on $2,500 bail. In the months that followed, she paid off some of the customers who had judgments against her, but the prosecutor said he believes she did so with deposits paid to her by new customers.
“She’s tried to satisfy their claims by taking money from other people and just moving the money around in kind of a variation on a Ponzi scheme,” Burns said.
Bestard declined to comment on Burns’ statement. “I agree that is the district attorney’s position. I’m not the judge of facts.”
Decorator’s Help
Fournier said she began working for Navarrette in January, unaware the woman had been arrested on suspicion of grand theft.
“They told me they had a small cash flow problem, but if I was willing to work with them, they could turn the business around,” she said. “I bought products on my credit based on the belief that I would be paid when they were installed . . . One day I just realized I had been had.”
Fournier, who now owes $8,000 for material she bought for Navarrette, said the decorator contracted for work she had no chance of performing.
“They didn’t have the employees,” Fournier said. “When I went to work for her she had one lady in a work room.”
San Bernardino Sheriff’s Detective Bart Gray said his ongoing investigation of Navarrette’s business in Chino Hills also indicates the decorator often made no effort to do the work she promised customers.
No Furniture Orders
“I’ve made contact with the furniture company they were supposed to be dealing with,” Gray said. “They never received any money or any orders for furniture that these people had already paid for.”