Copyright Mechanicsburg Patriot News
When the New York State Young Republicans Club disbanded Friday amid an uproar over its racist and antisemitic rhetoric in a group chat, the club left behind unpaid bills from extravagant social gatherings. At two of those events, the club ran up bills of more than $23,000 over a weekend at a Syracuse hotel – spending big on a three-course plated dinner with filet mignon and open bars – but then didn’t pay, according to records obtained by syracuse.com. The Embassy Suites Hotel at Destiny USA hosted the club’s summer awards dinner last year, making a rare exception to its rule for customers to pay in advance of using its banquet facilities. But the hotel’s goodwill quickly evaporated as its managers spent four months trying to collect what it was owed, according to billing documents and dozens of internal emails reviewed by syracuse.com. The hotel’s increasingly urgent emails requesting payment were met with a series of excuses by Peter Giunta, 31, the club president who gained national notoriety last week for his “I love Hitler” group chat. Giunta resigned just before Politico reported that his group had not paid off a bill of more than $14,000 for a holiday party in December 2023 at the National Women’s Republican Club in Manhattan. The Young Republicans’ previously unreported debt in Syracuse followed on the heels of the Manhattan party and a trip by Giunta and club leaders to Nashville last year when he was campaigning for a position to lead the Young Republicans on a national level. In a since-deleted social media post, a former Donald Trump campaign staffer alleged the group owed $7,000 to Redneck Riviera, a bar and live music venue in Nashville, according to Politico. Danielle Neuser, former director of sales at the Destiny Embassy Suites, confirmed the problems in collecting payment from Giunta and the club. Neuser said she didn’t know about the club’s history of unpaid bills before its annual Teddy Roosevelt Dinner in Syracuse. But after Giunta showed up without a check to pay for the weekend events from July 26-28, 2024, Neuser said, she sized him up immediately. “I’m not surprised you’re writing this story,” Neuser said when contacted by a syracuse.com reporter. “I just knew based on how he handled us that he was doing that in many different places. I think this kid is so full of BS and just was making up answers to kind of keep people at bay.” Neuser, president of the Greater Syracuse Hospitality and Tourism Association, said it was only the second time in her 30-plus years in the business that she could recall a client making so many excuses over a prolonged period for not paying their bill. “I saw through him from the day before the event, where he said he was going to come with a check,” she said. “And then he had like 13 excuses: That somebody forgot the checkbook and he didn’t have it. Then there was a fraud. And their bank account was compromised. It was like this kid had every excuse in the book.” Benedicte Doran, the former Onondaga County Republican Committee chair, said she tried to intervene and convince Giunta to pay up even though her group had no responsibility for the event. The county committee regularly hosts election night watch parties at the hotel. “I did everything I could to get the guy to do the right thing, and he didn’t do it,” Doran said. “He’s just a bad guy.” Months later, after the hotel banned Giunta and club members from future visits to the property and threatened a lawsuit, he came up with sporadic payments that eventually whittled the debt down to $7,257.14, the documents show. When the Destiny Embassy Suites was sold to a private equity firm in Arlington, Va. in November, its managers decided to end their collection efforts, Neuser said. Now it’s unclear whether Destiny Embassy Suites or any other creditors to the club will be able to recover what they are owed. New York Republican Party leaders voted Friday to dissolve the club, whose goal was to recruit future GOP leaders between the ages of 18 and 40. After suspending its authorization for the New York State Young Republicans Club to operate at a statewide level, party leaders said their hope is to reconstitute the club under new leadership. What remained unanswered are questions about the group’s finances and what happened to the money it collected from membership dues and the sale of tickets to its events across the state. New York Republican Chair Ed Cox acknowledged the club’s management problems, without providing details, in a statement Friday. “The Young Republicans was already grossly mismanaged, and vile language of the sort made in the group chat has no place in our party or its subsidiary organizations,” Cox said. David Laska, a New York Republican Party spokesman, told syracuse.com that the state organization is under no obligation to pay off the club’s debts. “The New York State Young Republicans are a separately incorporated legal entity,” Laska said. “That entity owes that debt.” Giunta did not respond to a phone call and emails from syracuse.com asking about the unpaid bills. After Giunta resigned last month, the New York Young Republican Club, a separate New York City chapter, issued a statement that said it had “uncovered evidence of serious potential financial misconduct” within the parent club. “Our concerns include potential failures by the prior administration to follow basic internal control procedures in accounts payable and apparent unexplained material unpaid obligations,” the statement said. Without offering specific examples of the financial problems, the New York City club asked for a “transparent accounting” of the state organization and said it “will take all actions necessary to hold the responsible parties accountable.” At the same time, the state club’s new vice chair promised to investigate. “I am shocked and saddened by the alleged past wrongdoings that we have uncovered, and it is my duty to the members of and donors to this organization to restore its financial stability,” Becky Oliveira said in a statement issued Sept. 26. After Giunta resigned, the club filed a series of late financial disclosure reports dating back to last year with the state Board of Elections. The most recent report from last month shows the club in the red, with unpaid debts of $38,560. Although the Young Republicans reported raising $50,310 during the period, the club spent $49,993, according to the filing. Giunta previously told Politico that the accusations of unpaid bills were “nothing more than a sad and pathetic attempt at a political hit job.” About three weeks after Giunta resigned, Politico reported that it obtained almost 3,000 Telegram chat messages involving a dozen club members, including Giunta. Those messages were filled with racist, violent, homophobic and antisemitic comments.
