The New York State Young Republicans Club disbanded last week after a racist, misogynist and antisemitic group chat involving its members was revealed.
The implosion also exposed staggering unpaid bills from lavish social gatherings.
Syracuse.com obtained records showing the club ran up bills over $23,000 in one weekend at Embassy Suites Hotel at Destiny USA, which made a rare exception to a requirement that customers pay in advance to use its banquet facilities. The club's then-president passed off a series of excuses to increasingly urgent requests for payment.
“I’m not surprised you’re writing this story,” said Danielle Neuser, former director of sales at the Destiny Embassy Suites. “I just knew based on how he handled us that he was doing that in many different places. I think this kid is so full of BS and just was making up answers to kind of keep people at bay.”
Neuser told a reporter she sized up Giunta immediately when he showed up without a check to pay for the club's annual Teddy Roosevelt Dinner in late July 2024. She said it's the only time in her 30-plus years of experience in hospitality that she could recall a client offering so many excuses for non-payment.
“I saw through him from the day before the event, where he said he was going to come with a check,” she said, "and then he had like 13 excuses: That somebody forgot the checkbook and he didn’t have it. Then there was a fraud, and their bank account was compromised. It was like this kid had every excuse in the book.”
Benedicte Doran, former chair of the Onondaga County Republican Committee, said she tried to convince Giunta to pay up but he ignored her entreaties, even though her group had no responsibility for the dinner, where the club served a plated dinner with filet mignon and open bars.
“I did everything I could to get the guy to do the right thing, and he didn’t do it,” Doran said. “He’s just a bad guy.”
The 31-year-old Giunta resigned just before Politico reported his group had not paid off a bill totaling more than $14,000 for a a holiday party in December 2023 at the National Women’s Republican Club in Manhattan, and the Young Republicans also owed payment for a trip he took last year with club leaders in a bid to lead the organization on a national level.
“I am shocked and saddened by the alleged past wrongdoings that we have uncovered, and it is my duty to the members of and donors to this organization to restore its financial stability,” said the group's new vice chair Becky Oliveira last month in a statement.
The club filed a series of late financial disclosure reports dating back to last year with the state board of elections showing unpaid debts of $38,560, including meals at Dave and Busters and P.F. Chang's, and about three weeks after he stepped down, Giunta was implicated as a participant in the offensive and hateful group chat.
Giunta allegedly joked in one exchange, "Great. I love Hitler," while other Young Republicans leaders referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people,” talked about raping their enemies and killing their political opponents in gas chambers.
After that report, Assemblymember Mike Reilly of Staten Island fired Giuna from his job as chief of staff.
