UPDATED: The lawsuit has been settled, and Cristadoro has commented on the matter to East Cobb News.
ORIGINAL REPORT:
The vice chairman of the Cobb Board of Education is a defendant in a civil lawsuit in Fulton County, along with his business, for claims of theft, fraud, conspiracy and other charges.
On Monday a Fulton State Court judge declined to seal consent filings in the lawsuit, filed by Sagicor Insurance Co. against Alliance Activation LLC, Cristadoro, and another unnamed defendant.
That decision came after a late motion by four individuals, including a Cobb schools financial watchdog, to keep the court records public. Both parties had asked that the settlement details be kept private.
Cristadoro, of Post 5 in East Cobb, runs Alliance Activation, an advertising, events and marketing firm, which according to the lawsuit was paid a $250,000 sponsorship fee by Sagicor in 2023 for advertising at sporting venues in Tampa, Fla.
The lawsuit claims that the money paid to Cristadoro’s company, in five installments, was not passed on to another vendor, as agreed to in the contract, to perform the advertising services. Sagicor claims in the suit that Cristadoro, Alliance Activation and the other defendant, named John Doe in the filings, kept the money and have not returned it.
Sagicor is alleging that Alliance Activation and Cristadoro also committed breach of contract and fiduciary duty, civil RICO violations and negligence. The suit seeks the full reimbursement of the $250,000, plus legal costs and an unspecified amount in damages.
Cristadoro has denied the claims in court filings. Alliance Activation has offices in Sandy Springs, and still lists Sagicor as a client on its website.
In their motion, filed early Monday morning, the four individuals claimed that they were responding to the parties taking the “extraordinary step of sealing the judgment in a case from public view.”
As Post 5 constituents, they continued, they “have a vested public interest in the terms of this consent judgment, including any admissions made by Cristadoro as to his liability in this case.”
Judge Wesley B. Tailor ruled he would not grant a motion to seal the records, and set another court date for for Dec. 1 unless the parties come to an agreement.
A parent with two children in the Walton High School attendance zone, Cristadoro, a Republican, is in his first year on the school board, after being elected in 2024 to succeed the retiring David Banks.
One of the four individuals making the motion to keep the court records public is Heather Tolley-Bauer, an East Cobb resident and founder of Watching the Funds-Cobb, which has been critical of Cobb County School District financial issues. They’ve hired an attorney with an Atlanta law firm, saying they’re pushing for transparency in a matter involving an elected school official.
The motion filed Monday by Tolley-Bauer, Stacey Owens, Jennifer Simon and Maggie Dougherty said that “Cristadoro regularly highlights his business acumen and his entrepreneurial experience in campaign materials, Facebook posts, and interviews with the local press.”
As an elected official with a fiduciary responsibility, and “as a practical matter, Cristadoro often serves as the deciding vote on multi-million dollar contracts procured on behalf of the Cobb County taxpayers,” states the motion, which also alleges that “Cristadoro used his client’s money to pay off Alliance’s creditors and, it would appear, Cristadoro’s personal expenses.
“This was not a one-time event. Alliance’s bank statements show that he paid the same credit card company multiple times in the same month. In short, it would appear to be undisputed that Cristadoro, a fiduciary over his client’s funds, misappropriated a significant amount of money from his client.”
Cristadoro’s attorney objected to the late filing of the motion, saying it was politically motivated. Laura Judge, a Democrat who ran against Cristadoro last year, also has been involved with Watching the Funds-Cobb, but is not named in the third-party motion.
Another Watching the Funds-Cobb founder is Stacy Efrat, also an East Cobb resident and member of the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration who was appointed by the Cobb Democratic Committee.
Tolley-Bauer has said that she’s not a political activist and that her group is non-partisan. But in a 2021 East Cobb News profile of Watching the Funds-Cobb, she acknowledged she was involved in a fundraiser for a Democratic Cobb school board candidate challenging Banks in 2020. She also contributed financially to Judge’s campaign.
East Cobb News has left messages with Cristadoro and Tolley-Bauer seeking comment.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the school board, and all three GOP candidates on the 2024 ballot, including Cristadoro, won their races.
On Tuesday the Cobb Democratic Committee called for Cristadoro to resign, saying that the court documents make “him no longer fit to continue serving on the school board. His judgment cannot be trusted when it comes to handling taxpayer funds or transparency with the public.”
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