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Jay Leno's co-defendant in car-swindle lawsuit commits suicide
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Dennis Ricca (left) was one of Jay Lenos' co-defendants in a car-swindle lawsuit.
[ Photo of Ricca: Victor Alcom/NY Post | Photo of Leno: AP ]
Manhattan parking garage executive Dennis Ricca killed himself the day after the New York Post reported that he and Jay Leno are being sued by the estate of deceased Macy's heir John Straus for illegally auctioning off two of his rare antique cars, according to Page Six.
Ricca shot himself in the head on Friday. His mourners are saying that the lawsuit is what caused him to do it, the Post says.
Straus, who died in May 2008, had been storing the two cars — 1931 Duesenberg Model J valued at $1.2 million and a 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible valued at $500,000 — in the Windsor Garage on the Upper East Side (where Ricca was one of the execs) for around 50 years and was more than $20,000 behind in storage fees, Ricca claimed. (The estate's lawyers deny that.)
According to the Post, the suit filed on Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court alleges that:
Straus, who was in his 80s and beginning to suffer from dementia, sent in a check for the $22,000 bill, but the garage sent it back to him, saying he now owed $36,000.
Ricca then auctioned off the cars for non-payment of fees.
Jay Leno, who reportedly had been trying to get the Deusenberg for years, bought the $1.2 millon car for $180,000 (see pic below) and Ricca got the Rolls-Royce for the roundest of all numbers: $0.
Even if the auction was technically legal — which is a matter of dispute — it just doesn't seem right. The suit alleges:
Leno was far less concerned with the bona fides of the underlying purported auction and sale, than with achieving his long awaited purchase of this one of a kind Model J."
We have to ask Jay: Was it worth it?
[ Photo: Bitten&Bound ]
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