Archived Story

Red Lodge developer pleads guilty to bad check charge
Posted on Jan. 8
By LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA of the Billings Gazette

BILLINGS - Jeanne Rizzotto, a former Red Lodge real estate broker, pled guilty Wednesday in District Court in Red Lodge to writing a bad check for $155,000 in January 2008.

With the plea, Rizzotto has entered into a tentative agreement that recommends a six-month deferred sentence and a $1,000 fine. The plea offer is also contingent upon Rizzotto paying $155,000 to James Casey and his wife before March 4, the date set for sentencing.

Rizzotto, known locally for raising two chimpanzees like children, purchased her chimps from the Caseys’ Missouri preserve. The bad check, however, was not connected with that purchase but subsequent dealings between the two.

Last May, Rizzotto pleaded not guilty to the charge. At the time, she acknowledged having insufficient funds in the account but had planned to shift the money from another source.

In exchange for Rizzotto’s guilty plea, the state agreed to dismiss a felony forgery charge filed against Rizzotto last summer. According to court records, Rizzotto was alleged to have signed both her name and the name of her son, Jarrod Tomassi, to a June 2002 document that secured a debt for $66,684.

Wednesday’s plea change came following a tumultuous year for Rizzotto, which not only included the two felony charges but reports of her disappearance in Arizona and finally a report that one of her pet chimps had escaped its pen and bit a neighbor.

If the plea agreement is finalized at sentencing, and provided Rizzotto meets the terms and conditions of her deferred sentence, the reported chimp bite remains the only unresolved matter.

Alex Dixon, acting county attorney for Carbon County, said no charges have yet been filed on the chimp biting incident, but he is still looking into the county’s options.

“And we’re hoping that will be resolved shortly,” he said.
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jcoats wrote on Mar 5, 2009 10:24 AM:

" The court case has EVRYTHING to do with the chimps!!!! The check she wrote was to MIke and Connie Casey THE BREEDERS OF HER CHIMPS and THE ORIGIN OF TRAVIS why the story doesn't tell us that I don't know. People like Jeanne Rizzotto are nothing more than desperate attention seekers, pimping animals because they lack the ability to generate the attention alone. Attacks like these are senseless in every form of the word and people like this including Mrs. Herold need to be shown that if they choose to partake in such reckless and potential deadly activity just by owning these vicious beasts that there consequences for such behavior There is no need for any one to own such dangerous beasts. But unfortunately, the arrogance and ignorance of people who think they can control them and keep them as “pets” just because they want to be different like everyone else, will never be stopped unless we make it happen. We cannot control the laws of nature but maybe together, we can make the laws of man reflect that. "

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