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.
“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.
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. “That was the number one goal is to try to prevent this from happening to another family,” said Kornokovich.