On Friday, I connected some dots for you between the Forma Group and Ali Razavi and his surrogate, David Karlsruher. There is still the issue of a client that, according to David Karlsruher, dropped the Forma Group because of “performance issues.” I still do not know who that client is, or even if in fact, they exist, but I do know that in 2012, a former Forma Group client sued Rick Armendariz and his company for “performance issues.”
On December 11, 2012, Barbara Carrasco sued Ricardo Armendariz. In the lawsuit, Carrasco argued that she entered into a contract with the Forma Group on December 8, 2010. The Forma Group was supposed to provide Carrasco analysis on voting trends and legislative activities. Barbara Carrasco had agreed to pay the Forma Group $12,500 for the research. She paid an initial $6,250 to start the project.
The Forma Group agreed to complete the work in “late 2010,” according to the lawsuit. When the project wasn’t completed by the end of 2010, Armendariz agreed to complete the work “shortly after the New Year in 2011.” Again, after failing to meet the new deadline, Rick Armendariz told Barbara Carrasco that the project would be completed by the “end of January 2011” also missing that deadline.
On March 25, 2011, Rick Armendariz told Barbara Carrasco that the work was completed but that it was being “reviewed” by Mark Smith. On April 15, 2011, Barbara Carrasco received “a binder of printed materials and an unmarked compact disc, which contained material that TFG and Rick claimed was the research portion” of the project. TFG means the Forma Group.
According to the court documents, on August 15, 2011, Barbara Carrasco demanded her money back from the Forma Group. Armendariz refused to refund her money. Carrasco filed suit for breach of contract.
In March 2013, the case was settled out of court after the Forma Group refunded Barbara Carrasco $3,000 via a settlement agreement.
I am sure this is not the client that Karlsruher referred to as the “performance issue” client as the Forma Group was unable to deliver a viable product to Barbara Carrasco in 2011 as agreed by them. We will not know if Jaime Abeytia is right about Albert Weisenberger using the Forma Group as consultants until Weisenberger files an amended financial report or the 8-day report due early next month.
Interestingly, Carrasco’s court filing pointed out that the Forma Group’s business authorization had been suspended by the State of Texas during this period. When I first started to look into the Forma Group, I had difficulty getting details about them because besides being a secretive public relations firm their business authority had been suspended by the state.
I am still wondering how it is that a candidate will use a political consultant with the proven inability to abide by the business rules of the State of Texas until I remember that the politicians using them are the same ones paying to advertise on the blog of a criminal, Jaime Abeytia.