Official sued by AYSO has faced numerous other suits

Deirdre Newman

A youth soccer leader who has been sued for misappropriation of more

than $100,000 in community soccer funds has had numerous civil

lawsuits, liens, tax delinquencies and other claims filed against him

since the 1980s.

Anthony Anish, who was sued by the American Youth Soccer

Organization’s Newport Beach region in June, has an apparent history

of fiscal evasiveness that has resulted in 25 civil lawsuits being

filed against him.

“It appears to us that AYSO is just the most recent of a host of

[Anish’s] victims,” said Mike Wade, attorney for the region. “I have

gotten several calls from other attorneys asking for my assistance in

claims they are trying to file against Anish.”

The AYSO lawsuit accuses Anish of four main improprieties and

“numerous other instances of misappropriation, conversion, misuse and

fraud.”

Anish proclaimed his innocence about two weeks after the lawsuit

was filed. But his attorney, Jerry Werksman, is advising him not to

make any more statements to the media.

Werksman said he has filed Anish’s answer to the complaint --

Wednesday was the deadline -- and that Anish is trying to determine

what happened to the funds he is accused of misappropriating.

Werksman refused to comment on any of the other claims against Anish

because, he said, he was not involved with them.

Anish began serving as the interim regional commissioner around

February 2001, according to the lawsuit. Nine months later, he became

the regional commissioner. His duties in this position were

collecting and maintaining AYSO funds received from sources such as

registrations and fund-raising, according to the lawsuit.

The AYSO National Support and Training Center sets guidelines for

hiring regional commissioners including looking for good management

skills, people who can accomplish things and those that possess good

community contacts, said Lolly Keys, chief communication officer.

While AYSO has required reference checks on potential regional

commissioners, they have only started doing background checks in the

last couple of years, Keys said. A background check would turn up

criminal and civil matters, Keys added.

The background checks are only done on a random basis, “and I

think it’s unfortunate that Mr. Anish slipped through the cracks,”

Wade said.

If a thorough background check had been conducted on Anish, it

would have turned up the litany of lawsuits and information that some

of the judgments against him were never satisfied.

One example is a lawsuit filed against Anish in January 1997 by

Old Newport Travel Company against one of his companies, Leeds

Funding Group. The former travel agency sued Anish for $2,093 for a

bad check. It won a judgment, but never got a dime from Anish, said

Denise Rehe, the agent who worked with him.

“It’s great to win in small claims [court], but it doesn’t

guarantee you get squat unless you’re diligent and constantly be on

it about every little thing,” Rehe said. “He kept saying he would

make it good and he never did.”

Anish was also served with a complaint for unlawful detainer for

past rent in excess of $12,000 by his landlord for an office Leeds

Funding used on Airway Avenue. A judge ordered Anish to pay about

$10,000 in October 1998. AYSO is accusing Anish of using part of the

misappropriated money to pay commercial rent. On Sept. 27, 2002,

Anish wrote a check for $2,500 to the landlord of one of his

businesses, but reported it to AYSO as storage/rent, the lawsuit

claims.

In light of the financial travails of the Newport Beach region,

Wade said that the AYSO national center should consider handing over

the background checks to the local regions.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].