You bought a bike, you got a super-great deal on it.
[Judge Acker] And when you saw the ad,
you didn't have any reason to think that it was stolen.
- Yeah. - You knew it had no paperwork,
no pink slip, no registration, no nothing?
But I've done this process before.
Which is exactly the problem, Mr. Jimenez.
Red flags everywhere.
If you had reason to believe
that it could have been stolen, you got problems.
[announcer] Now on Tribunal Justice.
["Ride of the Valkyries" plays]
[announcer] Today's case was filed in Murrieta, California.
Judge, this is case number 2087,
Jimenez versus Garcia.
All parties have been sworn in.
You may be seated.
- [Judge Levy] Thank you, Cassandra. - [Cassandra] You're welcome.
- All right. Mr. Jimenez… - [Isaiah] Yes.
… according to your complaint, sir,
you and your witness,
you buy and sell dirt bikes,
and you do that as a side hustle.
And in December of 2023,
you saw an ad for a dirt bike.
The defendant posted that ad. You bought the bike.
You didn't know it was stolen,
according to your complaint.
But when you went to turn around and sell that bike
is when the rightful owners,
according to you, came to look at the bike.
They told you that it was theirs.
They took it.
And now, you got no bike, no money,
and you're suing the defendant for $1,400.
$700 for what you spent on the bike,
$300 for gas, labor, and time to get it, uh, running,
and $400 for lost profits.
Correct.
[Judge Levy] And Mr. Garcia, your answer is pretty simple.
You said the bike was a gift from your girlfriend.
You had no idea it was stolen.
You owe the plaintiff nothing.
- Yeah. Pretty much. - [Judge Levy] All right.
Mr. Jimenez, why don't you tell us about the first time
that you had come in to contact with the defendant
and how it was you came in to possess this bike?
Yeah. So, uh, my buddy here, he--you know,
if he sees a good deal, we don't really do that much,
but if we see a really good deal, we'll hop on it.
He saw this bike for sale.
I reached out to him.
We agreed on a price right away.
Uh, he lives about an hour and a half from me.
I drove down there the next morning.
Uh, bike was good, the VIN was intact.
Usually with dirt bikes, uh, the VIN will be scratched off or messed with.
And he also gave me a bill of sale,
- so I took it home, worked on it. - What'd it need?
[Isaiah] Uh, a rebuild on the carburetor.
Got it running perfect. The bike was great.
So the date that you saw the ad online
from the defendant was December what?
Uh, 23rd we saw the ad.
24th early in the morning, I picked it up.
Okay. And this is a picture of the bike?
- There we go. That's the bike. - [Judge Levy] All right.
Tell us your recollection of what the ad said.
I believe it said, "Bike's been sitting for about two years,"
or been sitting, uh, and the price was good.
- I hopped on it. - So now, uh, that's December 24th.
You fixed the bike up and then you put it up
- on the market for sale, correct? - Correct.
[Judge Levy] And when was that?
Uh, 29th?
- [Judge Levy] About five days later? - [Isaiah] Correct.
And you put it online for how much?
- Uh, 2,200. - [Judge Levy] $2,200?
- Yeah. - And what happened?
[Isaiah] So, uh, these-- those things sell day and night,
so we had, uh, quite a few people wanting
to come in the evening of the next day.
Another guy was very adamant
about coming early that morning the next day.
And so, uh, he comes to check it out.
Uh, they're checking out the bike, just like normal.
Uh, they start it up. It runs fine.
And then it was two of them.
His buddy looks at the VIN
and he was just telling me, uh, like,
am I sure it's not stolen or do I have any paperwork?
I told him I got a bill of sale.
Did he ask you, do you have any reason to believe it's stolen?
Yeah, because I wasn't selling it with paperwork.
I was selling it on bill of sale
where many bikes on the market move like that.
His buddy was kind of sitting on it, playing the whole part,
and then he goes in the truck, gets the pink slip,
and then comes out,
and, uh, aggressively shows me the pink,
and claiming that I stole his bike
in which I was pretty shocked.
So I told him, you know, "Wait here."
I was gonna go get the bill of sale.
Mind you, my truck was in the backyard,
um, and it's pretty far away,
so I had to walk all the way to the back to get the bill of sale.
As I get to the truck,
they already have the bike loaded in their truck
and they drove off.
And you chased after them?
Uh, so, uh, it was early in the morning but I called my buddy.
He's right down the street. I woke him up kind of in a frantic.
I said, "Hey, man, there's a guy that took my bike.
Uh, he's in a truck. You gotta--you gotta get…"
[Judge Levy] All right. So that's what you do.
So you and he get in the car
- and then you chase the guys down? - [Isaiah] No, no, he does.
- [Judge Levy] Okay. - [Isaiah] There was just no way for me
- to pull my truck out. - [Judge Levy] I got it.
And they were gone and that was the end of your bike?
- [Isaiah] Correct. - All right.
Mr. Garcia, where do you say
that you got the bike from?
I got it as a gift from my ex-girlfriend.
- When? - [Mike] When?
It was like, uh, November.
I don't really remember the exact date.
It was like maybe--I had the bike
in my garage for about a month.
My plans were to clean the carb myself.
Would your recollection be refreshed
if I told you that it was November 23rd…
- I really don't remember. - … that your girlfriend bought,
at least according to documents that were supplied to us,
- bought the bike? - Possibly, yeah.
And then you decided
- one month later to sell it? - Yes.
[Judge Levy] Why did you decide to sell it?
Well, times were getting hard
and Christmas was coming up.
Uh, I was kind of short of money
and plus, I had, uh, some other--
I had court for something else.
You put that in your papers, did you not, in your answer?
- [Mike] Yes. - You said it was a DUI?
- Yes. - [Judge Levy] And as part of that DUI,
the court suspended
- your driving privileges, right? - Correct.
[Judge Levy] So then if that was the case,
if in fact that you didn't have a license,
why was your girlfriend giving you a motorcycle for?
Uh, I'm not even sure.
- Well, is Juanita Chagolla your witness? - [Mike] Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess we can ask her in a little bit.
All right. So, uh, when you post this bike for sale,
you heard the plaintiff testify what it said, it wasn't running,
it sat for about two years is what it said.
Yes. That's because that's what the guy
who sold it to my ex-girlfriend told her
and I figured it would be something small, you know.
I kind of know how to work on bikes as well.
I just didn't have the time or money to do it at the time.
Okay. You remember also including on the ad,
- "No paperwork"? - Yes.
[Judge Levy] You didn't hide that.
No, I didn't.
So no title, no pink slip,
- no registration? - Yeah.
Tell me about the conversation that you had with the plaintiff
because I'm gonna tell you guys right now,
the issue was whether or not
you were a bona fide purchaser of this vehicle,
whether you had any reason to believe
that there was a problem with title.
Because if you did, if you had reason to believe
that it could have been stolen, you got problems.
You fail to mention that the original ad
that was posted said very clearly, "No paperwork."
You remember that, right?
I do. But on the bill of sale,
he put his driver's license number.
It's just saying if anything falls bad,
this shows there's a track record of where you purchased it from.
[Judge Levy] Well, this is the bill of sale.
No amount.
So stop calling it a bill of sale.
There's also no way to indicate
who the prior owners were on that bike.
There's no way for DMV to know
whether the person that you bought it from
and the person that bought it from before them,
it had a chain of custody, a chain of title.
That right there is useless.
But I--I've done--I've done this process before and we have…
[Judge Levy] Which is exactly the problem, Mr. Jimenez.
So you saw the ad.
When you text him and said, "I'm interested.
How about if I give you $700 cash?"
Boom, right away, he said, "I'll take it."
- Yeah. - [Judge Levy] Like within minutes, right?
- Correct. - And then, you say to him,
"Are you the original owner?"
And he says to you, "No."
And right away that same minute,
you respond to him, "Okay. I'm on the way."
Did you even care whether or not this bike was stolen or not?
No. I go there to look at the VIN.
I've--there's--back when we were doing it a lot,
during school, we--countless of times,
we've encountered bikes with VINs that were scratched
and they say, you know, give me the whole runaround
of, uh, it was their brother's or something,
but that's what I go there for in person.
I'm not, you know, confirming with him I'm gonna come pick it up.
I'm gonna say, "I'm on the way."
I checked it out. The VIN was clean.
He wrote his license number down.
Uh, it was--it was trustworthy.
[Judge Levy] Okay. Thank you.
- Judge Acker. - [Judge Acker] Thank you, Judge.
May we have Juanita Chagolla, please?
The chime witness.
Ms. Chagolla,
how do you know the defendant, Mr. Garcia?
Oh. Mr. Garcia is my ex-boyfriend.
[Judge Acker] And Mr. Garcia has testified
that you in fact purchased the dirt bike
that's at issue on or around November of 2023.
- Do you recall that purchase? - Yes.
[Judge Acker] How much did you pay for the bike?
A thousand.
[Judge Acker] I'd like you to describe for the court
the circumstances that led you
to buy the bike for Mr. Garcia.
Um, we were just going through hard times
and I was just trying to make him happy
and so I decided to get him a bike,
something that he's been wanting.
So I got him a bike
from some guy on Marketplace.
And when you saw the ad for the bike,
did you do anything to check it out,
make sure it was working,
make sure the title was clean?
What'd you do?
No, I just went.
I met the guy and I looked at it, at the bike,
and he told me that it was a quick fix,
nothing too expensive.
And I told him I didn't have a truck
and it was a surprise for Mike,
so if he would be able to bring it to me.
He said he'd bring it to my house.
- And… - Did you ask him for any documents?
Uh, he wrote me a paper with his name
and his ID number,
and showed me his ID number.
He said he would get me the pink slip.
He would contact me in about a week to give it to me
and he never contacted me.
So I called him about two weeks later. He didn't answer.
And then when Mike decided to sell the bike,
the guy's number was disconnected.
Why did you buy a bike
knowing that he didn't have a driver's license?
Because I have to assume, if you were dating,
you knew about the DUI,
you knew his license was suspended.
Why this gift?
Well, I didn't know
that he needed a license to drive a bike.
So Mr. Garcia,
- you sold it to the plaintiff for $700? - Correct.
Why were you willing to take a $300 loss on it?
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
Why would I have 'em come to my house
where I lay my head at,
put my name on a bill of sale?
[Judge DiMango] I've been on the bench a lot of years.
I could tell you the things that people do
that would shock the hell outta you.
[dramatic musical sting]
[theme music plays]
[announcer] Isaiah Jimenez is suing Mike Garcia for $1,400,
claiming the dirt bike Mike sold him
was repossessed by its proper owner.
But Mike says the bike was a gift from his girlfriend
and he didn't know that it was stolen.
Mr. Garcia, you sold it to the plaintiff
- for $700? - Correct.
[Judge Acker] Why were you willing to take a $300 loss on it?
I mean, I didn't even buy the bike anyways.
You're like, "I don't care. It's no…"
- [Mike] I could have gave him… - "… skin off my back."
- … $500. It was… - [Judge Acker] You're like,
"My now soon-to-be ex-girlfriend gave it to me
and I need some money."
I have to tell you,
I don't find anything terribly suspicious about that.
Can I? So, uh, on the message I had
when I reached out back to him,
you can see in the account or the message,
you can see that his account was deleted
and he also didn't respond
- to all of my messages, so. - [Judge Acker] Hmm.
I mean, did he delete his entire account or did he just delete
- the market that it's at? - [Mike] No. I think what happened was
he probably, uh--what is it?
Like, you could do it on Facebook too where you report something,
because by the time I went back on to the offer up,
the account was, like it was deleted
but not by me, you know,
like maybe it was reported.
- [Judge Acker] Well, if there's a… - I don't know.
… a report that the property's stolen,
then the platform itself may have…
- Yeah. - [Judge Acker] … just removed the ad.
Like the username wasn't there, nothing was there.
- That either… - Yeah, I think it's really unfortunate.
I have too many unanswered questions to draw conclusions
that have any reasonable good faith basis to my mind…
- Yeah. - … that he stole it.
I don't know if she had a reason to believe it was stolen.
I don't know if you had a reason to believe it was stolen.
But how many of these dirt bikes
have you purchased in the past?
Uh, probably like 150, like 200.
[Judge Acker] 150 or…
You've, like, flipped 150 or 200 of these bikes?
Probably like 200.
So let's say I believe that,
you didn't have any reason
- to think that it was stolen. - Yeah.
[Judge Acker] You know, maybe you're just an innocent purchaser.
How are you going to prove
that he either stole it or knew that it was stolen
or had a good faith basis for believing it was stolen?
Yeah. No, no, I don't think any of us can really prove that but…
But you have to prove it.
- If you want your money back from him… - Yeah.
… you've gotta prove to us
that he had some basis for knowing it was stolen…
- [Isaiah] Right. - … or that he stole it.
I mean, the fact of the matter is,
he sold me stolen property.
[Judge Acker] But if he didn't know that it was stolen,
then you might be out of luck. Judge DiMango.
[Judge DiMango] Well, I'm gonna say this.
You have a burden of proof, and it's not a humongous burden.
It's 51%. It's just a tipping of the scale.
So I just wanna put that out there for you.
You, it's more important that you know
a circumstantial evidence case
is what this is about.
And circumstantially, I could find,
or we could find, that indeed the evidence
was such that you reasonably should've known
that this bike was stolen.
So I'd like the witness back up here,
because if anybody was duped here,
maybe it was you.
You met a couple of years ago before this incident, is that correct?
Uh, we were together for about two years.
[Judge DiMango] And you were having issues,
- according to you? - [Juanita] Yes.
Well, what would make you think
he really, really wanted a dirt bike?
I've seen him a couple of times looking for a bike.
So I was like, "Maybe this will make him happy."
So, were you looking for a bike at some point?
I mean, did you have an interest in these bikes?
- Because, I mean, she's not crazy. - I'm just like him.
I--I've--I try to look for a good deal too.
Uh, this wouldn't have been my first bike.
I've had, like, 10 bikes,
and none of them were stolen.
So when he makes a phone call to you,
why would you drop the price $300?
I mean, I didn't think it's a significant drop, you know?
- I mean… - You got $300 to throw away?
No, huh? Okay.
Did you ask her how she got the bike?
- Yes. - [Juanita] Yes, he did.
You didn't have a means of picking the bike up yourself, did you?
You don't have a truck to put it on, right?
No, the guy I met, he brought it to the house.
[Judge DiMango] Exactly. He brought it to you.
So you don't know where he lived.
Really, you didn't know anything about him
other than what was on the piece of paper.
Did you ask her where the pink slip was?
Hmm, I think she had told me
that the guy was gonna get it.
[Judge DiMango] He was gonna get it.
So now you know,
he didn't come through with the pink slip.
You can't reach him.
You got a bike sitting in your garage for a month.
I believe at this point that you knew
that bike was stolen,
and that's why when you got the call from him,
you wanted to get rid of it.
You didn't steal it. She didn't steal it.
But when you sold it,
- I think you knew… - I don't think so.
… that it was--I don't think so.
- Why would I… - Can you step up? What?
Why would I have him come to my house
where I lay my head at, you know?
- Put my name… - [Judge DiMango] Hey, listen.
… my signature on a--on a bill of sale?
I've been on the bench a lot of years.
I can tell you the things that people do
that would shock the hell outta you.
This is peanuts
compared to what people do.
- What is your name? - Ryan.
[Judge DiMango] Ryan, what's your last name?
Souza. Ryan Souza.
[Judge DiMango] Are you his cohort in business here?
- Yes, that's correct. - And do you have anything to add to this?
[Ryan] Yeah, so Isaiah called me. He was showing the bike at his house.
"Hey, somebody's, um, stealing my bike
out of my front yard right now that I'm trying to sell."
Um, so I just--I ran to the house barefoot.
I'm like, okay, like…
[Judge DiMango] Did you go after the guy?
You flash your lights? Did you honk your horn?
- Did you find him? - Yeah.
So Isaiah kinda knew where he came from,
uh, based off his Facebook profile.
Um, he knew he came from Corona.
So I just made an educated guess.
I drove down to the freeway
towards Corona just hoping I'd find him.
- [Judge DiMango] And? - About 20 minutes later, I found the guy.
I followed him home, and I basically just asked him,
"Hey, what's going on?
Like, can I see the title just to verify what's going on?"
Um, I looked at the title.
It was that bike.
[Judge DiMango] It was that bike. It was him. It was…
It was him, yes. So it had the VIN. It was…
- Everything there? - Everything was fine, yeah.
So that was the pink slip for that.
So the thief--the second thief was really not a thief.
- He was the… - [Ryan] That's correct, yeah.
- He was the rightful owner. - Uh-hmm.
And you found him. That's pretty good.
- You should be a detective. - [Ryan laughs] Yeah.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
[Judge DiMango] I think that I've asked enough
for my purposes. Thank you.
[Judge Levy] Mr. Jimenez, here's the problem.
You're here telling us,
- "Hey, I got duped," right? - Yeah.
[Judge Levy] Why not call the police?
I--so I did call the police.
Show me.
Show me a police report.
Right. So I called the highway patrol that morning,
and they told me, since it's a small claims,
I would have to go down to the local courthouse.
BS. You call the police
and say that someone sold me a stolen bike.
Do they tell you go to a small claims court?
You have to make a police report for a stolen…
- [Judge Levy] You gotta make--exactly. - … for a stolen thing.
You make a police report 'cause you know
what the police wanna stop people from doing?
Stealing people's property
- and selling it on Facebook Marketplace. - Right.
"And I want my money back from him,
but I wanna report him for a crime."
That's what an innocent person would have done.
That's not what you did.
And you know what the beautiful part is?
We don't have to figure out the truth,
because it's your burden.
What we know is, you bought a bike,
you got a super-great deal on it.
You knew it had no paperwork,
no pink slip, no registration, no nothing.
Before you got the bike,
you asked him if he was the original owner,
- and he said no, right? - Correct.
Then why is it that when you filled out the original paperwork
in small claims court, you said,
"The defendant owes me $1,400,
purchased dirt bike for $700 from defendant
claiming to be original owner."
Explain it.
You know, I was…
[Judge Levy] Any objective person
under these circumstances
would have seen red flags everywhere.
And if you were in fact, just duped,
then at the very least,
you'd have called the cops and reported him.
And the fact that you didn't suggests to me
is 'cause you knew that you purchased stolen property.
It means that you're not a bona fide purchaser, in my opinion.
- I'll speak to my colleagues. - I just need to know
what did the police officer say to you?
So I first called the city police,
and she was like, "This is not an emergency."
And so I said, "Okay."
So I called the highway patrol,
and the lady on the phone said--
uh, I explained it all to her.
She listened to the whole story, and she said,
"Hey, you go down to the court, file small claims."
I went, filed it and, uh, yeah.
- All right. Thank you very much. - Yeah.
[Cassandra] Court is now in recess.
All parties will be recalled.
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
So was the plaintiff a bona fide purchaser for value?
I don't think he was.
Plaintiff bought stolen property,
and I think he's met his burden by 51%.
He may not be a bona fide purchaser.
I just don't know.
[dramatic musical sting]
All right. So was the plaintiff a bona fide purchaser for value?
I don't think he was.
He knew he was buying this bike
without any paperwork whatsoever.
He was told by the defendant
that the defendant was not the original owner.
The defendant quickly accepted a cash offer
of $700 for a bike valued at $2,000.
When the plaintiff ended up fixing up the bike
and then trying to resell it, the true owners came and took the bike.
Someone who was innocent of any wrongdoing
would have filed a police report.
But instead, the plaintiff did none of that.
And as a result, I feel that he failed to meet his burden.
You know, in fairness, Adam,
it's funny I was thinking like,
well, maybe there's a sort of casualness
to these transactions.
You know, he checked the VIN.
I will say, I don't find it incredible
that he calls to make a police report
and they're like, "Uh, don't worry about it.
Like, you gotta go to small claims."
That's a--you know,
I think that that might have happened,
but I just don't know.
He may not be a bona fide purchaser.
The defendant may have had some reason,
but I just am not at that 51%.
I don't think that I've been convinced of anything frankly,
so I'd have to dismiss.
I found him credible with regard to his call to the police.
He made two phone calls.
I think he got the runaround like you get.
I mean, I've had a burglary, and I made a phone call,
And they were like, "Well, I don't know.
We'll see--well, we'll see what the sergeant says."
And they never get back to you.
I took him--it's credible.
Now I'm more with you on the line of,
it has to be that the defendant knew
he was selling the stolen property,
and so to that extent, I think I'm 51%.
I think that he got this bike from her as a gift
and as the situation unfolded,
I think he thought something was up.
I think that's why he left it for a month
to see if anything happened.
He knew she didn't have the pink slip.
He knew the guy went to the house
to bring her the bike.
She represented to him that the buyer said
he was gonna get a pink slip to her.
He never got the pink slip to her.
So I think he was on notice
of a lot of things that didn't sit right
and any shrewd purchaser would have said,
"There's something wrong with this bike.
I'm getting rid of it."
And he sold it, and he said, "You know what?
I'm gonna get whatever I can for it."
The guy wanted it, 700 he said he'd pay,
he gave it over.
And I think that the plaintiff bought stolen property,
which is what he's saying,
and he wanted his money back.
So it would be my inclination
to return the $700.
The problem with the analysis is that
it makes absolutely no difference
whether or not the defendant stole the property or not.
It's all about the plaintiff.
And based upon what we know that the plaintiff did,
someone who's involved in the trade
of buying and selling these dirt bikes,
he fails to establish
that he is a bona fide purchaser,
because there were red flags on this purchase
from the defendant from the get-go.
Yeah, but even the defendant and his girlfriend didn't think
that there were red flags, and they were in the same circumstance.
He bought a bike, the price was reasonable…
- [Judge Levy] Who, defendant? - No, no, no, but remember,
- the defendant bought nothing. - Right, the girlfriend.
That's actually why I find him credible.
I don't think he was giving two thoughts about this bike.
It's a gift from an ex-girlfriend around Christmas.
- Let me sell it. - But if…
- I buy that--I'd buy that. - [Judge DiMango] But if we're gonna buy
the position that the defendant didn't know it was stolen,
based on all of the things I just said,
which were the same exact things that the plaintiff saw,
then why would we say the plaintiff knew anything?
Because the plaintiff is suing them.
The plaintiff is the one who has to prove
that he's a bona fide purchaser.
And based on that, I think
- he's met his burden by 51%. - Okay.
- Yeah, I'm gonna join Adam. - Okay.
- I just don't think he's met his burden. - Okay.
I don't think he's shady. I just don't think he's met his burden.
Okay.
[dramatic musical sting]
Court is back in session.
All parties are reminded that you're still under oath.
Thank you, Cassandra.
All right, Mr. Jimenez and Mr. Garcia,
we've had a chance to deliberate.
We do not have a unanimous verdict.
Judge Acker and I are in the majority,
and Judge DiMango is in the dissent.
It is her position that you were in fact, sir,
a bona fide purchaser for value,
that you had no reason to believe
that the bike was stolen,
or that you had either knowledge or constructive knowledge
that the bike was stolen.
That's her position. And as a result,
she would've awarded you $700
as a reimbursement from the defendant.
Unfortunately, she's in the dissent.
Judge Acker and I believe
that you were not a bona fide purchaser.
Someone who sold and bought bikes 100 or 150 times
should've seen red flags all over the place with this sale.
The original ad on the bike
said very clearly, "No paperwork."
He told you he was not the original owner.
You bought a bike for $700
that he very quickly agreed to knock down the price,
knowing it was valued at over $2,000.
And the fact that when you filed
your original paperwork with the court,
you said something completely different,
that he told you that he was the original owner.
Red flag after red flag.
The law wants people to make sure
that when they purchase items that they're not stolen,
that you don't become an unknowing fence.
And that's the reason why the law says what the law says.
Bona fide purchaser criteria, you fail to meet,
and that's the reason why the majority decision in this case
is that your small claims case
against the defendant is dismissed.
- Thank you. - [gavel bangs]
[Cassandra] This case has concluded.
All parties are dismissed.
[theme music plays]
Uh, I think it's crazy
how you can sell stolen property
and not be liable for any of it.
If I did, I didn't know.
I put all this time, work, money,
and now these people come to my parents' house
and just rob me in broad daylight.
We all took a loss, I think,
my ex-girlfriend as well.
Honestly, I don't know.
I gotta be cautious buying stuff.
Well, of course, especially after selling 150, 200 bikes,
I mean, I would've figured
he would have been more experienced.
Just gotta-- I gotta be more careful, I guess.
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