CA - Joey, Summer, Gianni, Joseph Jr McStay Murders - Feb 4th 2010 #5

[mrjitty]

But when he realized that, he went and called QB to try and delete all of the records.

Yes.

This is the biggest red flag IMO.

Deleting your entire business records is insanity and will create you huge problems with the tax man. No way did Joey request that.

 

[mrjitty]

SO IF JOEY TOLD CHASE TO WRITE HIMSELF A CHECK, WHY DID CHASE MAKE HIMSELF A BRAND NEW LOWER CASE VENDER NAME?

AND WHY DELETE EVERY THING HE DID?

And why commit a felony offense by fraudulently signing the cheque himself

 

[Tortoise]

The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior, however, people also change.

Maybe Joey wanted him to write those checks.

Chase (allegedly) printed himself a cheque (and deleted it) for $2495 on Feb 2nd, and cashed it same date.

He also visited Joey on Feb 2nd (same date) and Joey gave him a handwritten cheque for $100 which he deposited next day.

If Joey wanted to give him $2595 he was right there that day with him to have done it.

That IMO is prima facie evidence that Joey did not want to give Chase $2595, but he did want to give him $100.

All Chase needed to do was print himself $2595 if it was all legitimate cheque writing authorised by Joey.

 

[mrjitty]

I tend to think it's because there's better money to be had. I often wonder about defense attorney's, just how many of them believe their client is guilty and just want to represent to make sure they get a fair trial?

A typical career path back home when you decide you might want to be a Court lawyer in criminal is to go work with a prosecutor's office because you will be guaranteed a lot of appearances. I knew people who did this out of our litigation department. The thing about commercial litigation is when you are young, although you are working Court cases, lots of your work is just supporting the older guys and it can be really boring. You can also take a crack at "duty solicitor" which is essentially defending people at the weekend etc who'd been arrested. Some of my mates did this to get experience.

Anyway you'd do that for a few years and then often pivot to the defence side as then you can get back into private practice and make far more money

People who stay prosecuting often have an eye on becoming a judge.

I know it is a bit of a cliche but it really is a job. I don't think old hands get invested in particular clients guilt or innocence. IMO the rivalry vs the prosecutor is more significant!

 

[mrjitty]

Chase (allegedly) printed himself a cheque (and deleted it) for $2495 on Feb 2nd, and cashed it same date.

He also visited Joey on Feb 2nd (same date) and Joey gave him a handwritten cheque for $100 which he deposited next day.

If Joey wanted to give him $2595 he was right there that day with him to have done it.

That IMO is prima facie evidence that Joey did not want to give Chase $2595, but he did want to give him $100.

All Chase needed to do was print himself $2595 if it was all legitimate cheque writing authorised by Joey.

+1

And call me old fashioned but "what Joey wanted to do" in the context of cheques is indicated by his signature

Seeing as he did not sign the cheque for $2495, this is prima facie strong proof he did not intend Chase to receive the money.

Meanwhile CM fraudulently signed the cheque as Joey, which is strong proof of intention to defraud Joey.

 

[Tortoise]

We have seen the cheques, but other than that, we don't have any testimony yet about when those were done (other than the one on Joey's computer on the 4th, which isn't the one's we saw written to MSM), where they were done from, if the signature's were actually compared by an expert or not, etc. That testimony hasn't come yet.

I believe Carmen's testimony that she said at the time she received the cheques the signatures didn't look right is good evidence for the jury to decide this.

If a lay person spots it and acts on it it's actually not only then become pretty damn obvious to someone who is used to seeing Joey's writing, but it's better than competing 'experts' who will give the jury two different opinions on the handwriting and leave the jury none the wiser.

 

[mrjitty]

I believe Carmen's testimony that she said at the time she received the cheques the signatures didn't look right is good evidence for the jury to decide this.

If a lay person spots it and acts on it it's actually not only then become pretty damn obvious to someone who is used to seeing Joey's writing, but it's better than competing 'experts' who will give the jury two different opinions on the handwriting and leave the jury none the wiser.

It's impossible for the later cheques to be Joey's signature in any event.

 

[katydid23]

from a CNN interview with Chase, in 2014:
'No clue' how McStays' were killed, Merritt told CNN - CNN

At their lunch the day of the disappearance, Merritt said, he and McStay talked business. They were working on a waterfall project for a Saudi couple, and Merritt said there needed to be a large check written to a stainless steel company doing work for them.
McStay seemed happy. On the horizon was another project that would involve 500 waterfalls. Each one would sell for $17,000 or $18,000 -- as much as $9 million total -- but McStay still needed to sign the contract.
"It was pretty much a done deal," Merritt said.


This^^^^ might be the key to the problems that came up at lunch that day.

If Joey really was looking at building 500 waterfalls, he was going to need to hire a welding company to build them. No way he was gong to depend upon Chase for a huge job like that.

That news might have triggered Chase the wrong way.

 

[Mica]

[QUOTE="JMarsh, post: 14806993, member: 232670"]Here's an addendum question to that. If Chase killed Joseph and wrote the checks knowing he was dead, why delete the checks at all? LE would know the checks had been written if they looked at Joey's bank statements. So it would actually be more suspicious if those checks were deleted from Quickbooks.

My thought is there is another explanation.[/QUOTE]

Do you think there's a possibility somebody set up CM? Somebody with computer skills?

 

[Mica]

Delete. Duplicate.

 

[Mica]

Ok... I was reading an old CNN transcript and I'm curious about this comment...

KAYE: But he didn't let anything was wrong...

P. MCSTAY: No, nothing was wrong.

KAYE: ... on your last conversation.

P. MCSTAY: You know, everything is fine.

KAYE: In fact things were better than fine. Joseph had just received a big paycheck for one of his fountains, $16,000.

P. MCSTAY: He was going to go to the bank and deposit a check. There was a branch of the bank right there at Rancho Cucamonga by where Chase lived.
​

Does this mean he told Patrick that he was going to the RC bank? Does that mean that Patrick knew that he was going to meet Chase for lunch that day?

CNN.com - Transcripts

ETA: I need to go to bed, but hoping to get some opinions on this statement by the time I wake up LOL

Yes Patrick knew JM was meeting CM for lunch on the 4th.


Snip

Patrick McStay spoke on the phone with his son, who ran a custom water feature business, and was scheduled to have a lunch meeting around noon.

Who killed the McStay family? - CNN

 

[Mica]

Wouldn't it be up to CM's defense team to prove Joey gave him permission or ask him to?

The only one who can answer that question is Joey.

 

[Mica]

I understand what you are saying katy, but Quickbooks was not linked to his bank account directly. Businesses allow their employee's access to QB's all the time. In fact, Elva Fonseca, Chase's former employee, had access to Chase's QB's when she worked for him.


From part of the transcript that you posted earlier tonight:

Q When you write a check from QuickBooks, does it automatically debit the money from an account?
A If the user has a credit card, a bank card, somethinglike that associated with QuickBooks, it can debit. It can be linked to Pay Pal, those type of things. But Joseph basically used these accounts for an online ledger where he created invoices, he wrote checks and kept track of his money coming and going out. But it was not actually associated to a bank.

Regarding bolded. I didn’t know JM’s QB wasn’t associated with a bank. But yet the PayPal was. The PayPal Dan said vendors had access to and the one Dan used to transfer money from JM’s bank account to the PayPal.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Yes.

This is the biggest red flag IMO.

Deleting your entire business records is insanity and will create you huge problems with the tax man. No way did Joey request that.

Ita!

The most important factor the jury will consider when looking at the QB activity evidence against CM is the uncanny TIMING of WHEN it all began to occur. Imo.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

The only one who can answer that question is Joey.

And the defense is totally aware of that. The one who knows those answers has been murdered.

Imo, that is why CM knew he could say anything he wanted about what Joey supposedly said.

He knew Joey would never be able to refute any of his concocted lies. Dead men can't speak and CM knew that all along.

Imo

 

[missy1974]

Yes he did, in fact he also spoke frequently about his work and friendship with CM during his calls with PM.

Hope I met the morning deadline in your timezone. Great find! That sure sounds to me like Patrick knew Joey was going to meet CM. Do we know if that check successfully got deposited on the 4th? I suppose the bank videos were long gone by the time the family was found. Wonder if JM was in the bank alone or if he ever made it to the bank. The time of the deposit would help with the timeline on the 4th.

Thanks! So this was a planned meeting. And if he spoke to Patrick about it and didn't mention that he was going to fire Chase that day, in fact that everything was fine and things were going good, that is interesting.

I don't know if it was deposited Plumeria, I don't think we have that info yet. I wonder if it was the "insurance cheque" that they were waiting on for the damaged waterfall? I hope we find out more about it.

 

[mrjitty]

Do you think there's a possibility somebody set up CM? Somebody with computer skills?

The problem with that idea is that CM had possession of the cheques.

IIRC one created/deleted shortly after the 4th was banked within an hr or so

 

[mrjitty]

The only one who can answer that question is Joey.

CM can testify to it and produce evidence to support his contention

e.g would there not be "a course of dealing"?

Logins from his machine going months back to support his claim?

 

[mrjitty]

Thanks! So this was a planned meeting. And if he spoke to Patrick about it and didn't mention that he was going to fire Chase that day, in fact that everything was fine and things were going good, that is interesting.

I don't know if it was deposited Plumeria, I don't think we have that info yet. I wonder if it was the "insurance cheque" that they were waiting on for the damaged waterfall? I hope we find out more about it.

That's why Joey's phone calls are interesting that day

He starts with calls from the crack of dawn

 

[missy1974]

Yes.

This is the biggest red flag IMO.

Deleting your entire business records is insanity and will create you huge problems with the tax man. No way did Joey request that.

If you listen to all of Ryan Bakers testimony... he says it's common for people to call in and want to change from online to desktop and after that to want to delete the online account, essentially just deleting the online info. (there was also a monthly fee to keep QB's online) The call isolated looks shady, but if the day before the call was about transferring data first, maybe not so shady. I think the calls the day before are going to be important too and will be interesting if we see testimony from that customer service rep later. Will be even more interesting if they have a recording of that call lol The defense implied that all calls should have been recorded, but Baker's wasn't.

Regardless of what the calls were about, I think the defense is going to have a huge hurdle trying to prove that CM had permission to do it, unless they can show some sort of proof. I just don't know what that would be.