The Anatomy of an Asshole

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Please bear with me because I will not be brief…

This is the part of the story that you did not hear.

If you have found your way to this message, then I consider you someone I care about or are important in my life in some way.

This is the story of what happens when you try to help the wrong people. I have been guilty of this many times in my life yet even with all the despair and heartache it has brought me, I still can’t seem to stop myself from doing it.

It takes a special kind of person to knowingly take advantage of someone you call your friend, but there’s a special place in hell for those that have to lie about it to do it..

This is the story of an asshole, the thief, whom robbed a friend of our business partner of his Rolex in the bathroom at Base nightclub, yet I forgave.

The douchebag, full of pride, who screamed the N**** word, drunk out of his mind, at the valet employees of that same business partners club embarrassing both of us, yet I forgave.

The liar, who while claiming to be my best friend, used one of the most traumatic experiences of my life to put me down, knowing & admitting he was lying, yet I forgave…

It all started when I met Ryan T. Ondras out at Belle Station. As many of you will remember over the summer, I was still showing a lot of love in the club and buying bottles etc. just celebrating life and getting to know all of you. Ryan was one of the endless masses of people I barely knew and would come around trying to get into the circle. One day while I was out, he was at a table and asked me over, offering to buy me a bottle. This is literally what endeared me to him because I value selfless acts above all else. I only prelude you with this because I have been asked many times why I even did what I did for Ryan and got into this position, so I think it is important for you to know.

Around the beginning of August, we were spending lots of time together and I was in the middle of launching two new projects. Ryan wanted in, however he did not have the funds to buy into the equity of either company. I offered to help him build his credit and use bank funds to help fund his equity.

It’s a novel, legal trick I have learned over the years of having many businesses, a lot of which is thru trial and error and making just about every mistake there is in the book.

When we started his score was right around 680. He had a mortgage on a rental house in Indiana with some equity, but only one open credit card with some previous late payments, 2 store cards with total debt right around ~8K. Not the best circumstances to help someone become a business owner but I used my years of experience and was able to get his score to 750 & funded on a 15K loan and several credit cards totaling $27K.

The plan was to show the banks cash flow by using the cards to pay expenses and then paying them off with my funds so that we could get huge credit line increases in about 90 days boosting his score even higher.

November Bank Statement, of $16K in deposits, $14,500 came directly from me because he had no job.

The $15K loan evaporated almost immediately. As you can see from the Aug/Sep bank statement here, he paid off his Capital One card for $4K as I consulted for him to do, as well as $3K to my business Amex for his part of our going out. The rest was his expenses and going out.

Also on this statement is our trip to Vegas for my birthday that he has told everyone he paid for, however as you can see on the statement there is $2924.23 & $1941.70 in square payments from me that my COO sent over while we were still there.

Additionally, there are two transfers from my checking account ending in 2029 that I sent him for $3K & $2K to pay for credit card transactions and to help get his account positive since we had been on an extended trip to Florida & he was out of work.

You see, right in the middle of August Ryan had been terminated from his job at Audi for taking cars off the lot at night pretending they were his so everyone would think he had money. Not a big crime as far as I am concerned, but a very important part of this story.

For one of the business ventures we had to travel to Colombia for 10 days so that took up a good part of October but while we were there Ryan was in need of a new place to stay when we got back so he found a place at 2929 that would work for us.

I hesitated to move in at the last minute (Oct 15) because at this point Ryan had been spending money on the cards for his expenses (since he hadn’t worked since mid Aug) and I did not really see a way for him to pay for them, besides trying to get a loan on his house equity, which we tried to do but could not secure at a reasonable rate.

So, when we moved into 2929, I had to use my personal funds to pay for the deposit $3K, the pet deposit for his dog $400, all the application fees $500 and the first half months’ rent prorated at $4500 plus $3750 for credit card bills.

But by November 1^st I was ready to move out… even though we had all agreed to take the partying light and focus on work, he was out almost every single night using the credit cards to buy bottles & going out nonstop. I am sure all of you remember this from his social media posts. You can see from his Oct & Nov bank statements that he had virtually no money coming in except what I was transferring to him to pay for my card usage (either from Ryan A. Couture or Gravitas, my company). He does have his monthly rental house payment from Stephen come in, but his mortgage, insurance & car payment cancels that out completely.

Of course, I was furious… but I was counseled by my friends & partners to have a sit down with him and find a way if possible, to work it out. Even against my trepidations, since he was apologetic and agreed to change, I forgave him, yet again… So, I went ahead and paid all of Novembers rent $8500, plus wired him $9,800, $850 & $800 plus paid off his Nordstrom’s card $750.

Here is all of his bank statements and various spreadsheets used to track his spending, Dec was $7700 just in what he blew on bottles & going out. Again, with no job or income. I do not post these to be a dick… just to defend myself with facts.

September | October | November

December Spend

October | November | December

October | November

This is the part of the story where things get off the rails…

So, the going out & partying gets WORSE. There are people basically living on the couch, passing out everywhere, using my home as a hotel & party destination. All while its being funded by the credit cards I paid off… so by December, I cut him off.

It all started when I went to get a new pair of Christian Louboutin’s at the mall. While I am at the cash register, Ryan brings a pair of green red bottoms up to the cash register worth about $1,500 and looks at me as if to pay for it. I refuse. He goes absolutely ape shit, literally throws a temper tantrum and I have to buy him lunch to calm him down. All the time I’m thinking, why in the FUCK is he mad at me for not buying him shoes, when he has no job, is partying all night, sleeping most of the day, while I am getting up at 9am and working my ass off???

So of course the money starts to run out and instead of buckling down, Ryan chooses the dirtbag route: “Let’s tell everyone Ashton spent all my credit cards & make him look like a piece of crap so people feel bad for me and keep me around so I can still drink off their bottles…” keeping his impeccable, yet completely fraudulent “club life” image, that I helped create, intact.

Now I will give you that Ryan is extremely likeable, friendly and naturally very believable, so I don’t blame any of you for believing this droll. I am however very thankful for the people that didn’t take him at face value, knew me better and came to me for clarification. I wouldn’t know half of what he had said if not.

Seems like there was a WHOLE lot of “Don’t tell Ashton I told you this but…” going around.

To add insult to injury, at being evicted from the house and completely broke, he illegally charged back $5000 we used for a down payment on the Maybach to his OWN FRIENDS at Emperial… and gave ZERO fucks when they called him out on it…

He also charged back over $1500 in bottles he bought from HIS FRIEND at Aura… Plus tons more, all in charges I had already PAID for… a trick he learned from his cousin.

He has no sympathy for John & Matt, or Teddy or anyone for that matter. Ryan cares only for himself… Well I heard the banks cancelled all of his cards, so I guess that backfired on him.