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It offered to raise money for her daughter, she says, but she got only $20 of thousands raised. Ex-club officials say they did nothing wrong.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000
PORT RICHEY -- They hung fliers. They held carwashes. They carried posterboards with the little girl's face. And when they described how badly 6-year-old Brittany Micklo was hurt, their collection buckets filled.
Hit by a truck outside Fox Hollow Elementary School in November 1998, the first-grader still was fighting for life as members of a local car club called Reazon II Roll took to the streets to help pay her medical bills.
"People were just throwing money when they heard how young she was," said Phil Salone, a former member of the now-defunct club.
By the estimate of club co-founder Marty Paolino, they raised $2,500 to $3,000 over several months.
But Brittany's parents said their daughter, whose brain stem was partially severed in the accident and who now lives with permanent brain damage, got exactly $20 of it.
Club co-founder Ray Pennetti Sr. told the Times the club raised only $1,500. But he acknowledged it spent more than half of the cash on itself, for things such as barbecues, a New Year's Eve party and car repairs for club members.
"Why wasn't it the club's money to begin with?" said Pennetti Sr., 50. "We did the carwash. We put our sweat into that carwash."
His son, Ray Pennetti Jr., 24, the club's former president, echoed that rationale.
"The club earned it, the club raised it, so why not bring it back and put it into the club?" Pennetti Jr. said. "And that's what we did."
Pennetti Jr., whose record shows arrests in the 1990s for fraud, grand theft and forgery, said Brittany Micklo's family got "a couple hundred dollars" from the fundraising effort. Pennetti Sr. said it was $500, though he could not furnish a receipt. The girl's mother, Victoria Cooper, and the girl's guardian, Trish Cook, said they received only two $10 checks.
Cooper, 27, thinks the Pennettis exploited her daughter's tragedy.
"This is my daughter that they used," she said. "I drive by their house, and I just want to say, "Why? Why did you use my daughter's accident to put money in your pocket?' "
The Pennettis, for their part, placed blame on the girl's parents, saying Cooper and her ex-husband, Tom Micklo, bickered bitterly about the donated funds and left confusion about who should receive them.
So after giving the family $500, covering expenses for the carwashes and donating up to $200 to Fox Hollow Elementary School, Pennetti Sr. said, the club spent the rest on itself.
"I gave some money to some of the club members to fix their cars," Pennetti Sr. said. "Before we even started this carwash, we decided we'd keep a portion of the money."
Neither Richard Tauber, who was the Fox Hollow principal until recently, nor Vickie Shea, the school bookkeeper, recalls receiving money from the car club.
"I remember them coming into the front office saying they wanted to do that," Tauber said. The school refused to take money, he said. "We didn't know who these people were."
Brittany's parents said they specifically asked the Pennettis, in November 1998, to hold onto the money until the court could appoint a guardian to handle the girl's trust fund.
Trish Cook, who became guardian in January 1999, said Pennetti Sr. promised to meet her at the McDonald's on Little Road on March 9 that year to hand over the funds, but he did not show up at the appointed time. Cook said he later told her he was having trouble coming up with the money.
"The whole thing was a disaster," Cook said. "It's bad enough that Brittany lost out. This could be going on with other people."
Richard C. Williams Jr., Cook's lawyer, told the Times he sent a letter in April 1999 to Pennetti Jr.'s Fox Hollow Drive home requesting the donated funds. Getting no response, Williams said, he sent a second letter in June, this time by certified mail, and again got no response.
It was the club's decision as a whole, both Pennettis said, to keep part of the money.
"The club decided to do that," Pennetti Jr. said. "Nobody put it in their pockets."
Pennetti Jr. said: "All the money's gone. There's no club, nothing left."
Salone, 22, of Port Richey, estimated that about 20 of the members took part in the fundraisers and that in one day a group raised $1,100. Carrying collection buckets, he said, members approached cars to describe the little girl's plight.
"We'd go to the car (and say), "There's a little girl hit, Brittany Micklo,' " he said. Hearing her age, he said, people gave generously. "We're talking people that felt really bad. There was $10 bills, there was $20 bills going in there. ... There was thousands and thousands of dollars."
Salone said he never told prospective donors part of the money would go to the car club, because he thought all of it -- minus expenses for the carwashes -- would go to Brittany.
"Nobody would have done it if they knew it wasn't for the girl," Salone said. And people would not have donated, he added, if they knew it would pay for parties. "You think they'd give me money if I said that?"
At the end of the day, Salone said, the money went to "Big Ray and Little Ray," as the Pennettis are known.
A records check shows Pennetti Sr. has no criminal history in Florida. Pennetti Jr., however, was arrested in Nov. 1995 by the Clearwater Police Department on charges of passing a bad check; he pleaded not guilty and underwent pretrial diversion that resulted in no conviction.
In March 1997, Pennetti Jr. was arrested again, this time for trying to cash a $404.29 check stolen from the Lone Star steakhouse, where he had recently been fired, according to Pasco County Sheriff's Office reports. Charged with grand theft and uttering a forged instrument, Pennetti Jr. pleaded no contest and received probation.
Victoria Cooper, the girl's mother, said her daughter's medical expenses so far have reached about $500,000, though insurance will cover most of it. She said she doesn't need the money the car club raised, but doesn't want another family to stumble into the same mess.
Cooper, who quit her job as an automotive distributor after the accident to take care of her daughter, said she was initially very grateful for the club's help. She even ran off color copies of her daughter's picture and bought posterboards for the fundraising effort.
"It was all a gimmick," Cooper said. "They figured this was an easy way to get money on someone else's tragedy. That is what disgusts me."
Even before the fundraising dispute, Cooper said, she had known the Pennettis in 1997 as salesmen for a deli she ran in Port Richey. She said she fired them after a disagreement.
Brittany, now 8, has been taking classes for the learning disabled at Fox Hollow, but her mother worries she won't get any better.
"Right now we are at a complete standstill with her brain," Cooper said. "I might have a child that stays at a first-grade mentality."
To put the controversy to rest, Pennetti Sr. told the Times, he will give Brittany's trust fund $300 -- but no more. He is unapologetic.
"I don't feel I done anything wrong," he said. "We tried to help somebody out. It backfired because of the parents."
Until a thorough investigation is performed, said Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis, it won't be clear whether there was a crime committed. Halkitis recalled a former New Port Richey fire chief who, in the 1980s, was charged with grand theft for pocketing more than $300 that people donated to pay for firehouse equipment.
"Obviously I would assume the Sheriff's Office is going to investigate this," Halkitis said.
Williams, the attorney for the girl's guardian, said he had not contacted the Sheriff's Office because he thought there were only a few hundred dollars at stake and there wasn't enough proof to warrant a criminal complaint.
As members of Reazon II Roll, car owners would gather on Monday nights at the McDonald's on Little Road and Embassy Boulevard to show off their autos, some of them antiques and lowriders. Activities, according to a club brochure, included a canned-food and toy drive for the Salvation Army.
Paolino, the club co-founder, said Reazon II Roll was "supposed to be a charity-type car club -- do things for other people and stuff like that." He said some members grew suspicious about what had happened to the funds they had collected and quit.
"They all came to me, and it's like, "Hey, where'd all that money go?' " said Paolino, 29, of Port Richey. Paolino said he told them he didn't know, and that he quit the club himself out of frustration with the Pennettis.
Paolino recalls club members voting to spend part of what it raised -- whatever exceeded a $3,000 target figure for the girl -- on itself. "From what I understood, $3,000 was supposed to go to Brittany," Paolino said.
Salone said he was unaware of such an arrangement.
While Paolino estimated the fundraising brought in $2,500 to $3,000, he said he couldn't be certain. He added, "The only ones that know were Big Ray and Little Ray."