Catazaro Declines NYCB Reinstatement; Ramasar to Rejoin

[Quiggin]

1 hour ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

Shades of the Jockey-Club de Paris. That video was never anything but problematic, and yes, it needs to come down. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, sandik said:

Jockey Club, yes.  And an excellent illustration of "male gaze."

Which Degas faithfully recorded. Link from Robert Herbert's Impressionism which treats the movement as documentary footage for a sociological interpretation.

"The lives of Morny and Halevy … are very rewarding for the study of Degas’s own role as a backstage at the opera. The artist’s devotion to the dancers at the opera cannot readily be understood unless we examine the roles of powerful men."

Suite of backstage monotypes begins on page 107 –

https://books.google.com/books?id=p93wb_p4ndgC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=degas+jockey+club&source=bl&ots=GjmyZVbhkI&sig=ACfU3U1Bm3hk0ogs0rmF0k_gUhOEsJ43PQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit1LCu8K_jAhWDBc0KHaFXAckQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=snippet&q=jockey club&f=false

 

[Helene]

1 hour ago, dirac said:

This Winston Nguyen seems to be quite the character. 

I'm sure that unindicted grand larceny has funded quite a bit of the arts, medicine, higher educational institutions, etc. 

[dirac]

52 minutes ago, Helene said:

I'm sure that unindicted grand larceny has funded quite a bit of the arts, medicine, higher educational institutions, etc. 

He was indicted:

Quote

Nguyen, who started working as a health aide in 2009 for the 96-year-old blind man and his 92-year-old wife, lived the high life while siphoning $335,000 from the Upper East Side couple between January 2015 and May 2017, prosecutors said.

 

[tutu]

11 minutes ago, dirac said:

He was indicted:

 

Good lord, this guy... well, he's certainly familiar with the ballet:

Quote

Prosecutors said that Nguyen was an avid lover of the arts and used the stolen funds for regular jaunts to the ballet and Broadway shows.

He once tweeted a picture of himself posing on the New York City Ballet’s red carpet, wearing a tuxedo, and posing with a smiling trio of dancers. He also took his pals on vacations to Florida on the couple’s dime, prosecutors said.

ETA: Nguyen's Instagram page is private, but seems to be "followed" by a number of NYCB dancers. (If you are personally a follower of these dancers on Instagram, you'll see their usernames pop up after the gray words, "Followed by")

Edited July 12, 2019 by tutu

[Kathleen O'Connell]

33 minutes ago, tutu said:

Good lord, this guy... well, he's certainly familiar with the ballet:

It's going to be really interesting if this thing goes to trial and Merson hauls Nguyen out of Rikers to put him on the stand. I suppose Merson could suggest to the jury that it takes a scumbag to know one.

(Per the NYS Unified Court System website, Nguyen's next court appearance is on 7/18/19 for sentencing. He pled guilty to several felonies, but hasn't been sentenced yet.)

 

[Helene]

1 hour ago, dirac said:

He was indicted:

 

There are a lot of donors to the arts, medicine, and higher education.  

 

On another note, if he made donations to NYCB, I hope NYCB reimburses the couple from whom he stole the money for them. 

[Kathleen O'Connell]

4 minutes ago, Helene said:

There are a lot of donors to the arts, medicine, and higher education.  

And more than one has been convicted, not just indicted. The list is long and distinguished.

[Helene]

Once indicted, always invited.. 

[balletforme]

Is it just me or is this entire thing just getting wackier and wackier? 

I am not an lawyer but can someone please tell me why would anyone seek this guy's deposition?  And I read it and it really doesn't have anything very incriminating? It reads like a gossip rag. 

[Kathleen O'Connell]

9 minutes ago, balletforme said:

Is it just me or is this entire thing just getting wackier and wackier? 

I am not an lawyer but can someone please tell me why would anyone seek this guy's deposition?  And I read it and it really doesn't have anything very incriminating? It reads like a gossip rag. 

I am not a lawyer either, but I have been empaneled on more than one jury, and I will tell you that a) with respect to the civil cases, one was wackier than the next and b) with respect to the criminal cases, hardly anyone involved was a model citizen, including in once case, the victim. Some very dodgy folks were up there swearing on bibles and giving testimony. 

Edited July 12, 2019 by Kathleen O'Connell

[sandik]

2 hours ago, Quiggin said:

 

Which Degas faithfully recorded. Link from Robert Herbert's Impressionism which treats the movement as documentary footage for a sociological interpretation.

"The lives of Morny and Halevy … are very rewarding for the study of Degas’s own role as a backstage at the opera. The artist’s devotion to the dancers at the opera cannot readily be understood unless we examine the roles of powerful men."

Suite of backstage monotypes begins on page 107 –

https://books.google.com/books?id=p93wb_p4ndgC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=degas+jockey+club&source=bl&ots=GjmyZVbhkI&sig=ACfU3U1Bm3hk0ogs0rmF0k_gUhOEsJ43PQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit1LCu8K_jAhWDBc0KHaFXAckQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=snippet&q=jockey club&f=false

 

Thanks for the link -- I've read a chunk about this period, but hadn't seen this.

[sandik]

25 minutes ago, Kathleen O'Connell said:

And more than one has been convicted, not just indicted. The list is long and distinguished.

Colleague of mine who worked in arts administration in Miami in the 1980s-90s said that they were awash in drug money looking to be laundered.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

30 minutes ago, Helene said:

There are a lot of donors to the arts, medicine, and higher education.  

On another note, if he made donations to NYCB, I hope NYCB reimburses the couple from whom he stole the money for them. 

Yes, they should pull out the checkbook pronto. 

Just now, sandik said:

Colleague of mine who worked in arts administration in Miami in the 1980s-90s said that they were awash in drug money looking to be laundered.

Philanthropy is useful for reputation laundering, too. We don't even need to name names at this point. 

[tutu]

7 hours ago, balletforme said:

Is it just me or is this entire thing just getting wackier and wackier? 

I am not an lawyer but can someone please tell me why would anyone seek this guy's deposition?  And I read it and it really doesn't have anything very incriminating? It reads like a gossip rag. 

Not a lawyer, but it looks like the current stage of this case is a motion to dismiss under CPLR 3211(a)(7), "a staple of defense counsel's practice," in which the court must "take the allegations of the complaint as true and provide plaintiff the benefit of every possible inference." (EBC I, Inc. v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., 5 N.Y.3d 11, 19 (2005)). So even somebody who would look totally unreliable to a jury might be enough to get past the prediscovery motion to dismiss the claim. 

Also, for clarity, an affidavit is not the same thing as a deposition. 

As a matter of pure speculation, I'd guess that lawyers would use him because he was available and willing to make his statement on relatively short notice. (Nguyen also seems to have some interest in the legal system independent of his larceny case.)

Edited July 13, 2019 by tutu
more attempts to fix formatting

[dirac]

26 minutes ago, balletforme said:

Is it just me or is this entire thing just getting wackier and wackier? 

I am not an lawyer but can someone please tell me why would anyone seek this guy's deposition?  And I read it and it really doesn't have anything very incriminating? It reads like a gossip rag. 

I am a bit surprised Waterbury's lawyer could not do better than this. "Man convicted of stealing old folks blind and living high on the proceeds provides company gossip," is maybe not a great look. I get that he was with Waterbury and Finlay at the gala, but - sheesh. Of course, if he weren't a thief and a liar he wouldn't have been there in the first place, so I suppose the point is moot.....

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Merson's theory of the case may be that the various defendants' association with Nguyen demonstrates that it was just degenerates all the way down.

[On Pointe]

This Nguyen  affidavit is really bizarre.  Pearl-clutching from an indicted thief and embezzler,  over private affairs that are none of his business.  He really undermines Waterbury's suit.  Evidently everybody in the vicinity of Lincoln Center knew Finlay's reputation as a lothario,  and his penchant for soliciting and sharing naughty photos.  Everybody except Waterbury,  a consenting adult who willingly engaged in an affair with him.  It reminds me of the punchline of the song The Old Lady and the Snake - "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in." 

Nguyen seems to be one of those social butterflies who just can't pass up the chance to involve himself in a juicy story.

[aurora]

1 hour ago, On Pointe said:

This Nguyen  affidavit is really bizarre.  Pearl-clutching from an indicted thief and embezzler,  over private affairs that are none of his business.  He really undermines Waterbury's suit.  Evidently everybody in the vicinity of Lincoln Center knew Finlay's reputation as a lothario,  and his penchant for soliciting and sharing naughty photos.  Everybody except Waterbury,  a consenting adult who willingly engaged in an affair with him.  It reminds me of the punchline of the song The Old Lady and the Snake - "You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in." 

Nguyen seems to be one of those social butterflies who just can't pass up the chance to involve himself in a juicy story.

An affair? Neither of them were married. It is called a relationship.

 

[Rock]

I'm not sure the word affair has anything to do with marriage. Also, relationship usually implies something more serious, and more trusting, than what we're talking about here.

 

definition of affair

1aaffairs plural : commercial, professional, public, or personal business handles the company's public affairs an expert in foreign affairs

b: MATTER, CONCERN How I choose to live is my affair, not yours.

2: a procedure, action, or occasion only vaguely specified also : an object or collection of objects only vaguely specified Their house was a 2-story affair. 

3or less commonly affaire

a: a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration : LIAISON sense 2bhad an affair with a coworker

b: a matter occasioning public anxiety, controversy, or scandal : CASE the Watergate affair of the early 1970s

[yukionna4869]

6 hours ago, Rock said:

Also, relationship usually implies something more serious, and more trusting, than what we're talking about here.

 

I think both Finlay and Waterbury had characterized themselves as having been in a relationship with each other. I think they lasted about a year or so.

[tutu]

44 minutes ago, yukionna4869 said:

I think both Finlay and Waterbury had characterized themselves as having been in a relationship with each other. I think they lasted about a year or so.

Waterbury’s affidavit states that it was two years.

On a separate note, there are now filed exhibits that directly screenshot this forum, so be careful about what you post, friends.

(If either of the above links doesn’t work, you can get to them via NYSCEF, using the login as a guest option and the case number 158220/2018.)

[nanushka]

7 hours ago, Rock said:

I'm not sure the word affair has anything to do with marriage. Also, relationship usually implies something more serious, and more trusting, than what we're talking about here.

It's true that affair doesn't necessarily connote an extramarital relationship, though that is one of the things it often does connote. So I wouldn't say the word doesn't have anything to do with marriage.

Interestingly, when one follows the link to "LIAISON Sense 2b" in your definition, it says, "An illicit sexual relationship."

According to Waterbury, she and Finlay were dating for nearly two years; he is commonly referred to in media reports as her "ex-boyfriend"; and she certainly seems to have trusted him. Whether that trust was justified is another matter, but calling their relationship an affair seems diminishing.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

1 hour ago, tutu said:

On a separate note, there are now filed exhibits that directly screenshot this forum, so be careful about what you post, friends.

Fantastic. My name appears on top of a post that's not mine. 

[aurora]

On 7/12/2019 at 10:16 PM, Rock said:

I'm not sure the word affair has anything to do with marriage. Also, relationship usually implies something more serious, and more trusting, than what we're talking about here.

definition of affair

1aaffairs plural : commercial, professional, public, or personal business handles the company's public affairsan expert in foreign affairs

b: MATTER, CONCERNHow I choose to live is my affair, not yours.

2: a procedure, action, or occasion only vaguely specifiedalso : an object or collection of objects only vaguely specified Their house was a 2-story affair. 

3or less commonly affaire

a: a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration : LIAISONsense 2bhad an affair with a coworker

b: a matter occasioning public anxiety, controversy, or scandal : CASEthe Watergate affair of the early 1970s

 

As commonly used, affair implies something illicit.

They dated for over a year. That is a relationship. I can't believe anyone would actually argue otherwise.

 

[On Pointe]

2 hours ago, tutu said:

Waterbury’s affidavit states that it was two years.

On a separate note, there are now filed exhibits that directly screenshot this forum, so be careful about what you post, friends.

(If either of the above links doesn’t work, you can get to them via NYSCEF, using the login as a guest option and the case number 158220/2018.)

I don't understand why we should be careful.  Are we in any jeopardy for expressing an opinion?

 Considering that Waterbury was never employed by NYCB,  it's hard to see what company culture has to do with her case.  NYCB does not owe her a duty of care.

Would it have made a difference if I had referred to Finlay and Waterbury as having a "love affair" as opposed to "affair"?  To my mind,  the terms affair and relationship are interchangeable,  but obviously others have a different opinion.  I didn't use the term to denigrate their situation.