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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

D.C. Sales Exec Says Politics Does Not Pay

A sales executive claims in court that a Maryland-based trade show company didn't pay him for his work on President Donald Trump’s inaugural parade or for his helping stage the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

WASHINGTON (CN) -  A sales executive claims in court that a Maryland-based trade show company didn't pay him for his work on President Donald Trump’s inaugural parade or for his helping stage the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, James Quinn says neither client was to pay him directly, but instead made their payments to defendant Hargrove Inc., which then unlawfully withheld his commissions, appropriating them for itself and its executives.

According to the March 21 complaint, he's owed $251,000 in unpaid commissions. He also seeks $1 million in allegedly unpaid wages and attorneys fees.

Quinn says Hargrove used a specific formula for calculating his commissions for other events, but when it came to these two high-dollar events, an entirely different formula was used.

For both the Trump and Democratic events, he claims, his commissions were based only on half the total revenue they generated.

Quinn says Hargrove then took the remaining money, and paid it directly to senior managers who, he claims, had "little actual responsibility for executing these events."

Quinn also insists some commissions weren't paid simply because Hargrove "did not want to," the complaint said.

Quinn says he secured the $7.4 million inaugural bid, and resigned after the work was completed, Quinn.

It was then, he said, that Hargrove allegedly made the unilateral decision to base his outstanding commission on just $1 million in earnings from the event.

Quinn claims Hargrove offered to pay him $10,000 in a "special recognition payout," but that he was owed more than $100,000 on the inaugural contract alone.

Quinn is represented by attorney Justin Zelikovtiz of the H Street Firm, DCWageLaw.

A representative of the defendant did not return a call seeking comment on Thursday.

Categories / Business, Employment, National

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