Estate Sale Services

It was just an awful tra News 5 investigators digging deep into allegations made against an estate sale business owner accused of taking money from her clients. Jessica Galeta is facing a felony theft charge and has multiple civil cases brought against her. News 5 investigator Jonathan Walsh takes us inside our hidden camera investigation that shows the woman was still taking on clients as her court cases piled up. I'm looking for some stuff for my brother. News 5 investigators use multiple producers and several undercover cameras to track down the. . . We usually do one every week. But our story starts at Rocky River Municipal Court for Jessica's felony theft hearing last month. She did not show and her attorney. . . I'm not going to make any comment at this time. Okay? Jonathan, you have a good day. How do you feel about what happened today? Disgusted. Cindy Hough from North Olmsted is listed as the victim in the felony case. She hired Jessica to run an estate sale. My husband passed away a couple years ago. Cindy says Jessica stole from her sale. She's taking money from people and she'sticking it down her bra. She did not have any record of nothing. She wrote nothing down. And when the sale was all over. . . She called me and said, well, And I go, well, wait a minute, Jessica. There's a lot of stuff gone from my house. I don't understand how people can do the things that they do. Angie Swanson from Mayfield Village came to court to support Cindy. Angie hired Jessica to run her own estate sale earlier this year. She says Jessica gave her less than $400 after the sale. Before the sale, she sold the refrigerator for $500, which I physically witnessed. Angie sued in civil court for $6,000. A magistrate ruled in her favor, but Jessica is challenging that ruling. Angie's mom had slipped into dementia. And the whole idea was to have Jessica sell some of her mom's possessions. It's about her not having any empathy for people in their life struggles. More civil suits have been filed against Jessica, including a judgment against her in Bedford Municipal Court. How's it going? Good, how are you? Not bad. While the felony case and other civil suits are ongoing, News 5 investigators saw Jessica continuing to run the state sales in our area. How much for these hand cards? You want a bowl? Well, I don't know. At one sale, we saw Jessica writing something down after making a sale, but at another event, our producer asked Jessica whether she gives receipts for purchases. I mean, you could write up the receipt I would give you. Because it's just going to be a piece of paper. Okay. But I usually don't know. They're the same kind of issues. Sarah Kornakovic from Westlake says she had after hiring Jessica when Sarah's mom passed away. And it's still so fresh. Sarah filed this criminal complaint against Jessica. Westlake police say the case will go to the grand jury. Meanwhile, Michelle Marin from Solon says she was a customer at Sarah's estate sale run by Jessica. You'd ask how much something was, and she didn't have any idea what to charge. At a different event, our camera caught Jessica looking up prices on her phone and changing them on the fly. Because that is a professional one. Michelle tells us at Sarah'sale, she witnessed at least 10 people ahead of her spending $75 to $100 each, or even more. We saw over $700 just in two customers. With many more in line. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And people were there all day. Sarah tells us Jessica reported $1,300 in overall sales. What do you think about the total that she got? I think it's ludicrous. It's way so heavily on my conscience that other people are finding her and using her for sales. And that's why we've decided to move forward with News 5. Set her. Yep. Blue shirts. Yep. Go. Now, back to our quest for answers from Jessica herself. Hello Jessica. Jonathan Walsh from News 5. Where are you going? We've got some questions to ask you about your former clients. They accuse you of doing them wrong. Are you stealing money from them? Why are you running from us? She refused to answer any of our questions. What do you say to Cindy? We asked the women why they're stepping forward with their stories, and they all said the same thing. She needs to be put away and she needs to stop selling. She needs to stop with her estate sales. I'm News 5 investigator Jonathan Walsh. Now the website, Estatesales. net, tells us Cleveland Estate Liquidators and another company, Jessica Galata, owns, called Cleveland Appraisers and Liquidators, are banned from the site. Jessica's next felony hearing in Rocky River Municipal Court. Schedule tomorrow morning.