CLEVELAND — The owner of an estate sales business now admits she stole thousands of dollars from clients. News 5 Investigators are following through on our exclusive, accountability reporting during the past year involving Cleveland Estate Liquidators and owner Jessica Galayda.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
“We will enter a plea of guilty, your Honor,” said Galayda’s attorney Wednesday in Judge Kelly Gallagher’s courtroom. And with that, Galayda said she did, in fact, take money from Angie Swanson, Cindy Hauck and Sara Kornokovich.
“I’m shocked she pled guilty, to be honest,” said Kornokovich. She's surprised because after people complained about the way Galayda handled their estate sales and missing money, after News 5 went undercover and confronted her last fall, and even after facing charges in court, Galayda just walked away from the responsibility of making her clients whole again after stealing thousands from the sales.
“The only way to really hit her is to take money out of her pocket, because that’s essentially what she’s done to all of us,” said Swanson.
With a guilty plea to a felony theft charge, Galayda will also have to pay back $7,000.
“The toll is constant, you know. Your family, you got to put on the back burner,” said Hauck.
Our News 5 Investigation into Galayda has shown others who say she did the same thing during their estate sales at a time when the clients were at their most vulnerable.
The women from today’s case said the reasons they’ve stepped forward are to keep the word out on Galayda about what she’s done to them and for other potential estate sales clients to stay away.
“That was the number one goal is to try to prevent this from happening to another family,” said Kornokovich.
Galayda will be sentenced on July 26, and each of the victims will be allowed to address her directly to say how all of this has affected them.
This story is just one example of our commitment to following through. So, if you have a story you’d like us to follow through on, email us at InvestigatorTips@WEWS.com