OLD BRIDGE — It was not the fact that a township-based ticket broker allegedly defrauded Laurie Mancuso of over $600 that has the mother of three trying to shut his business down.
Rather, she said it was the tears shed by her 11-year-old daughter over the outcome of what should have been a fun-filled event.
Numerous complaints of fraud and deception, such as the one signed by Mancuso, of Hazlet, against John B. Forrest, owner of Tri-State Ticket Exchange, 2350 Route 9, continue to be investigated by the Old Bridge Police Department, according to Capt. Scott Dyson.
After nearly two months of investigating the complaints filed by private citizens against Forrest, 40, police executed search warrants at the ticket brokerage on Nov. 27 and seized evidence including computers and boxes of paperwork, Dyson confirmed.
A Colts Neck resident, Forrest previously pleaded guilty to a charge of credit card fraud in October 2001 in Monmouth County. Forrest was arrested during the November raid and charged with 25 counts of theft by deception and fraudulent use of credit cards. He was later released on $750,000 bail, Dyson said, and continues to operate his business in the building that houses the Keg N’ Cork bar on Route 9 south near Fairway Lane.
The ticket broker had previously been arrested by Old Bridge police on Oct. 4 when he was charged with three counts of credit card fraud and two counts of theft by deception based on complaints filed by three customers who had bought tickets through his agency.
Forrest was subsequently released on $250,000 bail in that incident.
Police charge that, at the time of his Nov. 27 arrest, Forrest had defrauded his customers, who had purchased tickets to concerts, sporting events and Broadway shows, of more than $40,000 by double-billing their credit cards and charging them for tickets that were never actually produced.
As complaints continue to come into the police department’s detective bureau and consumer agencies, Dyson estimated that Forrest could have defrauded area residents of much more than $40,000.
While in some cases Forrest is accused of double-billing, he is also accused of falsely offering clients tickets for prime seating.
"[Customers] bought tickets for front-row seats and [later] found out they were in the nosebleed section," Dyson said.
In other cases, customers would pay for tickets they were falsely told would be available for pickup at the venue box office just prior to the event, he added.
Forrest is not currently registered with the state Division of Consumer Affairs to sell tickets to events inside New Jersey, and is currently banned from applying for that registration, according to Genene Morris, an agency spokeswoman.
Those restrictions do not prohibit Forrest from selling tickets to out-of-state events, Morris acknowledged.
Out of 43 complaints about the business on file and currently under review by the state division, most pertain to tickets purchased for shows and sporting events in New York and other states, Morris said.
"The vast majority of complaints concern events outside of New Jersey," Morris said.
In January 1999, the division filed a civil complaint against Forrest based on allegations that he had sold tickets for New York Jets’ playoff games for more than 300 percent above face value, Morris said.
In August 2001, Forrest resolved that complaint by agreeing to pay a $100,000 fine to the state and to resolve customer complaints filed with police out of a $25,000 escrow account, Morris said.
Forrest was placed on five years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to the credit card fraud charges in October 2001 in Monmouth County, Dyson said.
"As part of the probation agreement, [Forrest] agreed not to sell tickets to any New Jersey event," Dyson said.
However, Mancuso said Forrest sold her tickets for a Nov. 7 skateboarding exhibition at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford. That exhibition featured professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, who has a wide appeal among children and teenagers, Mancuso said.
Mancuso said her husband, Vincent, had been looking for tickets so they could take their children to the event, and arranged to buy from Tri-State Ticket Exchange. Although the sixth-row tickets had a face value of $75 each, Mancuso was charged $498.12 for three tickets for himself, his son Adam, 20, and daughter Melissa, 11, an avid Tony Hawk fan. The tickets were charged to Mancuso’s wife’s debit card on Oct. 7.
Three weeks after the purchase, the Mancusos had not received the tickets, even though Tri-State allegedly told them they would be mailed to them via Federal Express, Laurie Mancuso said.
After several phone calls to Tri-State and conversations with representatives there, the Mancusos said they were given a confirmation number for ticket pickup at the arena.
At the arena, Vincent Mancuso reportedly picked up the tickets at the window and discovered that they were not in the sixth row, but in the 26th, and with an obstructed view.
Despite pleading with box office personnel, Mancuso was unable to exchange his tickets, and was told that those tickets, with a face value of approximately $29 each, were the ones ordered for him, Laurie Mancuso said.
"You couldn’t see (the show) from where they were. They had an obstructed view," Laurie Mancuso said. "My daughter watched it through a pair of binoculars."
Even before the threesome arrived home that night, Laurie Mancuso said she was trying to reach Tri-State, to no avail.
She said she learned that Forrest or one of his representatives had secured the Row 26 tickets online from Ticketmaster just days before the show, and that her account was charged an additional $113 without her authorization.
In the ensuing days, the Mancusos received a $195 refund from Forrest’s firm. Laurie Mancuso said she was not satisfied, in part because Forrest and other representatives allegedly treated them rudely during their phone calls.
"They yell at you," Mancuso said.
Laurie Mancuso said she contacted Old Bridge police and spoke with Detective Bill Moscaritolo, who is the lead investigator of the numerous complaints and is continuing his investigation.
"The money was not what bothered me," Mancuso said. "What bothered me was that Nov. 8 was our 25th wedding anniversary, and we never got to take the kids out to dinner to celebrate. We were too absorbed with this." She said another issue was the sorrow her daughter felt about getting her parents involved in the event and the resulting ticket issue.
"This is about the effect it had on my daughter," Mancuso said. "She thought it was her fault." Mancuso said she did what she could to assure her daughter, Melissa, that she was not to blame for the outcome.
"When they made my daughter cry, I knew I had to shut them down," she added.
Another customer, Bob Noppe, a resident of the Parlin section of Sayreville, said he considers himself fortunate because he was able to still see a concert by The Other Ones at Madison Square Garden, despite the fact that the 10th row tickets he purchased for the event from Tri-State — at a cost of $777.75 — were not reserved for him at the box office, as he was told they would be. Noppe saw thTicket broker charged with fraud, deception
Owner of Old Bridge business out on $750,000 bail after police raid
By sue m. morgan
Staff Writere Nov. 26 concert, featuring the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, because he was able to find another concert-goer outside selling two extra tickets. Previously Noppe had asked Tri-State representatives if he could pick up the tickets at the company’s Old Bridge location rather than depending on a timely delivery by Federal Express. He said a Tri-State representative told him that he could pick them up once they arrived in Old Bridge.
"Each day I kept asking [Tri-State] if the tickets were in," Noppe said. "I kept getting a song and dance every day."
By the weekend before the concert, Tri-State was advising Noppe to pick up his tickets at the arena’s "will-call" window.
On Nov. 25, Noppe said he was told by Tri-State to call the agency the following day for a confirmation number that he could provide to get his tickets. He did so, and received a confirmation number just hours before driving to Manhattan for the show.
However, despite providing the confirmation number, Noppe was told there were no tickets waiting for him at "will-call." He immediately called Tri-State.
"I was told that the guy who had the tickets was arrested on his way there," Noppe said. The next day, Noppe contacted the state Better Business Bureau and the Division of Consumer Affairs, and spoke to Moscaritolo.
Although he has been reimbursed by Tri-State, Noppe said he is still seeking compensation for his troubles and for expenses for gas, tolls and parking in New York.
Subsequent calls to Forrest’s brokerage were never returned, Noppe said.
"The fact that they didn’t even have the consideration to return my phone calls didn’t sit well with me," Noppe said.
As a precaution, Noppe contacted the bank that issued his credit card and asked them not to authorize any other purchases charged to his account by Tri-State.
"I’m one of the luckier people [because] I didn’t have any real loss," Noppe said.
Repeated calls placed by a reporter over several days to Forrest’s attorney, Clifford Lazzaro of Newark, were not returned by press time. Forrest has been known to operate under as many as 12 different business names including Broadway Jacks, Westside Entertainment, The Exchange and TSTE Ltd., police said. Police are asking anyone who might have been defrauded by Forrester’s ticket brokerage to contact the detective bureau at (732) 721-5600 and the Division of Consumer Affairs at (973) 504-6200.

