Queens film festival founder arrested
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It took a couple of years, and even dozens of cases of animal cruelty, but borough authorities finally got their girl.
Less than two weeks after she was collared upstate for allegedly caging and neglecting nearly 50 dogs, Marie Castaldo, the founder and executive director of the Queens International Film Festival, last week was arrested on charges that she bilked vendors out of thousands of dollars worth of goods and services during the 2007 and 2008 events.
According to court records, Castaldo, 52, of Rego Park, has been hit with 13 charges in Queens, including nine felonies: first-degree scheme to defraud, third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and third- and fourth-degree grand larceny. She was arraigned last Tuesday and remanded to city Department of Correction custody on $15,000 bail. Castaldo remained this week in the Rose M. Singer Center on Rikers Island. Her next court date is Tuesday, Aug. 24. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison. Less than two weeks after she was collared upstate for allegedly caging and neglecting nearly 50 dogs, Marie Castaldo, the founder and executive director of the Queens International Film Festival, last week was arrested on charges that she bilked vendors out of thousands of dollars worth of goods and services during the 2007 and 2008 events.
According to the DOC, Castaldo, who is of unknown descent, is also being held on an outstanding immigration warrant.
An exhaustive investigation was conducted by the state police and Queens District Attorney’s Office after more than a year of urging and independent research by several alleged victims, including Dan Nuxoll, program director of Brooklyn-based Rooftop Films Inc., and James Hill, a Connecticut director who worked as a freelance projectionist for the 2008 festival.
“I couldn’t be more happy to hear that the law has finally caught up to this diabolical degenerate,” Hill told the Chronicle Tuesday night, adding that he was especially disgusted by the animal cruelty case.
Castaldo, who founded the festival in 2002 in Astoria and Long Island City, was supposed to pay Hill $1,250 for his services. Instead, he received one payment of $250 which Hill said Castaldo raided the ticket booth cash box to procure.
“At the time, I was really counting on that money,” said Hill, who was putting in 16-hour days at the festival. “I told her, ‘Look, if you plan on screwing me, it will be the most expensive thousand dollars you never spent.’”
Hill said he later received veiled threats from Castaldo’s then-husband Richard Castellano, an actor and convicted felon who appeared in the Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro film “Analyze This.”
“By then I was finding out more and more about her,” Hill said.
So was Nuxoll, after Castaldo allegedly stiffed him for $2,650 from equipment used at the 2007 event. He persisted in asking to be paid by an evasive Castaldo, but said he was met with threats on more than one occassion.
“She said if I showed up [to the 2008 festival], there would be men there that would make me regret it,” Nuxoll said. “I didn’t really understand the extent to which she was doing this thing.”
Castaldo allegedly scammed Kerry Wallum out of more than $20,000. He secured a performance by Kris Kristofferson for a tribute to musician Levon Helm as part of the 2009 festival’s closing ceremonies. But Castaldo told Wallum she couldn’t pay him, and he was forced to cancel the act.
According to Queens DA Richard Brown, Castaldo rented audio/visual equipment from Big Apple Rentals in 2008, but the check for $2,740 she provided bounced. Castaldo then allegedly made a payment of $950 to the company and refused any further payments.
Brown also said Castaldo failed to pay the advertising company Ballyhoo Central the $8,540.50 balance on a $9,740.50 bill. When Ballyhoo owner Stacy Lavender allegedly confronted Castaldo in November 2008, Castaldo chased her away and threatened to ruin Lavender’s business relationships.
And though Castaldo allegedly repeatedly claimed to vendors and participants that the QIFF was a state-registered tax-exempt organization, a review revealed it wasn’t.
“She makes a parasite look worthy of something,” Hill said of Castaldo.
Nuxoll, who is in the process of filming a documentary, tentatively titled “Island of Destruction,” about the Castaldo saga, asserted that the charges for which she will ostensibly be tried aren’t “even a tenth of what she’s done.”
Castaldo has a record of shady business practices in at least two states. According to published reports, she was sued in 2000 for not paying workers at the upstate Narrowsburg International Independent Film Festival, which she founded. At the time, Castaldo went by the name “Jocelyne Castellano,” and was even booked on a harassment charge for allegedly threatening the life of an attorney. And in 1997, Castaldo was sued by a Los Angeles promoter for breach of contract after bouncing a $35,000 check.
Nuxoll indicated he plans on attending Castaldo’s next court hearing. Hill said he’d like to see her go to jail for “many, many years” and subsequently be deported.
“I’m so thrilled to know she’s on Rikers Island,” he said with glee in his voice. “I hope she thinks of me.”
