Steve Quest (p/k/a Montagraph) vs. Nicholas Robert Rekieta & Rekieta Law, LLC (2023)

[ButWhyTho]

Unless he runs the trust he can't do that.

And if he thinks drug charges are bad he should try felony fraud. I believe he had a client who did that. Didn't work out well for her. He didn't do a great job reducing her sentence either.

If he has control of the trust and isn't just a trustee then that would mean the trust is fair game for Monty anyways. But if daddy Warbucks is still in charge then it would be off limits and there might be ways for him to either redirect the funds or outright dissolve the trust and create a new one to funnel the money elsewhere. Like a new trust naming the children as beneficiaries and giving it a vague blanket use case such as "towards any costs that may be incurred relating to their care". That would basically cover the house, food, transportation expenses, school, and shit like that at least.

 

[Dixieland Buckaroo]

My assumption is that Nick is somehow paid a substantial "salary" from that LLC Celeste set up in Nevada for him. That's why he has to pay taxes (aside from nominal gains over the last year from streaming). It would also explain how he lawyer-talks his way around "having a trust".

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

My assumption is that Nick is somehow paid a substantial "salary" from that LLC Celeste set up in Nevada for him. That's why he has to pay taxes (aside from nominal gains over the last year from streaming). It would also explain how he lawyer-talks his way around "having a trust".

I think he has unjronically said something like, 'You don't HAVE a trust; A trust exists for your BENEFIT!'

He is not above shading the truth heavily.

 

[break these cuffs]

I think he has unjronically said something like, 'You don't HAVE a trust; A trust exists for your BENEFIT!'

He is not above shading the truth heavily.

That's rather generous. Nick is a lying liar who lies. A lot of people still like to pretend he's a just a conniving lawyer who weasel words things to his advantage. The truth is that he's an addict and one seemingly with a personality disorder at that. I do think playing word games gets him off like few things can. watching another man plow his wife for example, but in the end he'll just lie to protect his ego, his image, or to own the haters. Nick has enough low cunning to sometimes consneed something small if he can weave a narrative to his advantage to string paypigs along. That's really it, though. He's just a shyster.

 

[Owlbear]

My assumption is that Nick is somehow paid a substantial "salary" from that LLC Celeste set up in Nevada for him. That's why he has to pay taxes (aside from nominal gains over the last year from streaming). It would also explain how he lawyer-talks his way around "having a trust".

Income from many kinds of trusts is taxable coming out of the trust, and this setup is often used to avoid taxes on money going into the trust (and capital gains tax on assets in the trust). I believe he also likely has a salary from the nonprofit board he sits on (this is very common), and the LLC may pay him distributions or a salary. Trust fund brats often do have to pay taxes on the money they get.

 

[Captain Manning]

My assumption is that Nick is somehow paid a substantial "salary" from that LLC Celeste set up in Nevada for him. That's why he has to pay taxes (aside from nominal gains over the last year from streaming). It would also explain how he lawyer-talks his way around "having a trust".

Could be.

I mean, he has to get money from somewhere. He has no day job, and he's not streaming. The Locals subs aren't nearly enough to pay the bills. It's all a bit suspicious. Especially now.

I have been pretty consistent in saying it's coming from familial wealth without getting too deep into the weeds as the exact mechanism used.

 

[Owlbear]

Nick is a lying liar who lies. A lot of people still like to pretend he's a just a conniving lawyer who weasel words things to his advantage.

A real lawyer weasel-words things so that the truth is still within the bounds of the definitions of the words they use. Nick used to try to do that (often badly). The lies I noticed from him recently are things like "I never said that" (when he did) and "I am clean and sober" (lol) and other statements about his past self. He tries to play the lawyer game on things like "the kids are back in the house." When he says something about the current state of the Rekietaverse, it's often revealed later that he was telling a 10% truth, not a complete lie.

I mean, he has to get money from somewhere. He has no day job, and he's not streaming. The Locals subs aren't nearly enough to pay the bills. It's all a bit suspicious. Especially now.

I have been pretty consistent in saying it's coming from familial wealth without getting too deep into the weeds as the exact mechanism used.

IMO it's pretty safe to assume there's at least one trust involved. In fact, he has admitted that his grandfather had a residuary trust set up (for the assets that don't make it into the other trusts by the time of his death).

 

[AnOminous]

I think he has unjronically said something like, 'You don't HAVE a trust; A trust exists for your BENEFIT!'

He is not above shading the truth heavily.

That's entirely legally true. However, even making that argument makes a nearly inescapable inference that you do, in fact, have a trust of which you are a beneficiary.

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

That's entirely legally true. However, even making that argument makes a nearly inescapable inference that you do, in fact, have a trust of which you are a beneficiary.

The more full context was Nick saying: 'People keep saying I am a trust fund baby. First of all, you don't HAVE a trust. A trust exists for your benefit, so they are retarded'.

It was a clear elision of truth.

 

[Captain Manning]

The more full context was Nick saying: 'People keep saying I am a trust fund baby. First of all, you don't HAVE a trust. A trust exists for your benefit, so they are retarded'.

It was a clear elision of truth.

Again, I really think the best way to handle this is to simply say "Nick has access to familial wealth."

That way you avoid the semantical gotchas Nick tries to pull.

 

[Pedophobe]

Again, I really think the best way to handle this is to simply say "Nick has access to familial wealth."

I also like "Nick gets an allowance from his mommy".

 

[UncleTusky]

This is as good of a place as any to put it - as we all know Nick has retained Marc Randazza as defense counsel in this suit. We also all suspected Randazza charges extremely high rates but could not put a number on that. We no longer have to speculate here because Randazza's rates were made public in another case his firm is handling.

Spoiler: That is a lot of zeroes

To explain how I got this - Randazza Legal Group (RLG, Randazza's firm) was retained by Project Veritas in its civil suit against founder and ex-CEO James O'Keefe. The suit was filed in mid-2023 and is still ongoing (CourtListener docket here) with trial expected in mid 2025 at the earliest.

RLG recently filed a motion to withdraw as counsel for Veritas claiming breaches of the retainer agreement, the judge instructed RLG to upload a copy of the retainer because the motion only cited section numbers in the agreement without providing the actual text from the agreement, and earlier today the agreement was uploaded.

Without further ado here is where the Balldobux have been going for the past year-plus:

Note that the effective discount rate only applies for invoices paid in full within 21 days - if I read it right being even day late or one dollar short would cause the entire bill to revert to the higher rates. If Nick's track record with government debts is any guide this is all academic because he's probably paying much longer than 21 days after he gets the invoice.

The rates are called out as being 'negotiated' in Veritas' retainer agreement so these might be slightly different for Nick. If anything I would suspect he'd be charged more since there is no potential for him to win anything in a judgment/settlement.

Attached PDF is Veritas' retainer agreement with RLG. The language is pretty boilerplate so most if not all of it was probably copy-pasted over to Nick's retainer with them as well.

 

[Kosher Dill]

So, how many hours do we think Randazza himself spent on his personal fun-times theorycrafting about jurisdictional shenanigans? Probably a lot. Nick's going to need to sell a bigger house.

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

This is as good of a place as any to put it - as we all know Nick has retained Marc Randazza as defense counsel in this suit. We also all suspected Randazza charges extremely high rates but could not put a number on that. We no longer have to speculate here because Randazza's rates were made public in another case his firm is handling.

I believe that 1k USD per hour was the suspected rate for Randazza ITT, but it is always nice to have confirmation. Good work!

This is one things cows fail to comprehend--the truth outs. Always.

 

[Belgians in the Congo]

So any guesses as to how many billable hours Randazza has charged nick?

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

So any guesses as to how many billable hours Randazza has charged nick?

There is really no way to know, but my default answer is: 'Not enough'.

 

[Owlbear]

There is really no way to know, but my default answer is: 'Not enough'.

So any guesses as to how many billable hours Randazza has charged nick?

My running guess based on how much his team has written and otherwise done is that it's close to $100k. They haven't done a ton since he lost the appeal. Not enough for running defense for the balldo, though.

 

[AnOminous]

So any guesses as to how many billable hours Randazza has charged nick?

I'd be surprised if it's less than $20K for the appellate brief alone, just counting Randazza's own time.

Even though it was on a single legal issue, it was a rather complex legal issue, and on top of that, a novel argument that would require original research in choice of law, itself a rather thorny area. The drafting is of a qualify that I'd expect of senior counsel, so I'd anticipate much of the work had to have been done by Randazza himself or possibly someone else of partner level skill.

The rest of the case is probably handled by lower tier attorneys but even so, there is probably a burn rate even for just doing little to nothing while waiting for stuff to happen.

 

[UncleTusky]

So any guesses as to how many billable hours Randazza has charged nick?

There is really no way to know, but my default answer is: 'Not enough'.

Who is this meant to punish, Nick or Randazza?

 

[Mike Stoklasas Spock Ears]

I would like to take this opportunity to wish a VERY happy birthday to Steve Quest vs. NICHOLAS ROBERT REKIETA, Rekieta Law, LLC. Filed two years ago today! They grow so fast.