After Fake Charity Departed Petco Park, Former Workers Formed New One with Unclear Mission

Two men, who worked for a fake charity last year in Petco Park, have started a new charity called Greek Life Aid that provides staffing services for concession stands at the stadium. But the charitable mission and work of Greek Life Aid are not immediately clear.

One of Greek Life Aid’s founders initially promised to provide evidence of the group’s charitable giving. He has since declined to return Voice of San Diego’s phone calls.

Greek Life Aid staffed a Ballpark Eats near section 135 of Petco during baseball season. Most nights, fans could find a group of young people in pink t-shirts (the uniform of volunteers) serving up hot dogs and beer at the stand.

While many concession stands in Petco are staffed by paid employees, others are staffed by volunteer groups. The volunteer groups receive roughly 10 percent of the stands’ revenue, in exchange for running the stand. That revenue is supposed to go to whatever charitable group – it can be anything from a church to a little league organization – is running the stand, not to any individual or business.

Greek Life Aid claims to be a charity that helps students.

The only problem: Voice could not find any evidence of the group’s charitable activity, after reaching out to all of the public colleges and community colleges in San Diego County.

Last year, Voice exposed a group pretending to run a girls’ softball league that raked in big money at Petco over a nine-year period. There was no league. The group, Chula Vista Fast Pitch, was essentially acting as an off-the-books staffing service, posing as a charity.

Hugo Muñoz and Sebastián Pineda, the founders of Greek Life Aid, previously worked for Chula Vista Fast Pitch. Muñoz even has his name on Chula Vista Fast Pitch’s paperwork.

A day after our story came out in August of last year, Chula Vista Fast Pitch filed paperwork with the Secretary of State to register itself as a nonprofit. A few days later, an additional filing listed Muñoz as the group’s chief financial officer.

I spoke to Muñoz and Pineda for a few moments recently at their Ballpark Eats stand, during the Padres’ playoff series with the Atlanta Braves.

They say someone else put Muñoz’s name on the paperwork without his permission. Both confirmed they previously worked for Chula Vista Fast Pitch.

Our conversation was rushed and we didn’t have time to get into the specifics of what Greek Life Aid does. Pineda promised we could talk on the phone later and he would show me receipts for Greek Life Aid’s charitable giving. I managed to get him on the phone for a few minutes the next day, but he asked if he could call me back later. He hasn’t responded to my multiple calls and text messages since then.

From Greek Life Aid’s website and social media postings, it’s unclear how the group spends its money to support students.

A mission statement posted online suggests Greek Life Aid is an unusual charity: running concession stands is central to its charitable purpose. The mission, according to the statement, is to “support college students in achieving their education and personal goals by operating concession stands that generate financial donations for student organizations in San Diego, CA.”

The Padres organization does not manage concessions within Petco. A company called Delaware North, a mutli-billion-dollar hospitality company, is the park’s concessionaire.

Delaware North officials shut down Chula Vista Fast Pitch, but they see no reason to doubt Greek Life Aid’s charitable status.

“After thorough vetting and verification, we found no basis for concern regarding Greek Life Aid’s current operations,” wrote Charlie Roberts, a spokesperson for Delaware North, in an email.

Less than two months after Delaware North officials booted Chula Vista Fast Pitch from Petco, Muñoz and Pineda founded Greek Life Aid.

I asked them why, so quickly after Chula Vista Fast Pitch’s downfall, they had decided to start a new nonprofit.

“Because this is what we know how to do,” Pineda said, referring to concession services.

Pineda told me the operation was legit and that they have a “business plan.”

Often groups that provide external scholarships — as Greek Life Aid claims it does in some social media postings — send those scholarships into the colleges to disperse the funds.

I reached out to all the public universities and community colleges in San Diego County. No Financial Aid office had any record of the group providing scholarships to students. Likewise, none of the colleges list Greek Life Aid on their web pages for external scholarships.

I also reached out to several associated student groups across the region.

“From my position in Associated Students, I can’t say that the organization Greek Life Aid has come up, nor in my position as a fraternity member on campus,” wrote Tajuddin Henry, executive vice president of Associated Students at San Diego State University. Henry also noted that just because he had never heard of the group, didn’t mean Greek Life Aid didn’t do charitable work.

I didn’t hear back from some of the associated student government members I contacted, but Southwestern College’s Associated Student Organization president also confirmed that she was unaware of Greek Life Aid being involved at Southwestern.

Muñoz and Pineda are both graduates of State, according to the group’s website.

One post says of Muñoz: “Multi-talented business leader bringing over five years of experience in successful staff management.”

And of Pineda: “Forward-thinking project director/owner.”

One Instagram post says Greek Life Aid provides “job opportunities that contribute to the overall growth of students for their future careers.”

Another post claims the charity will “make student life easier and debt free.”

I asked Muñoz and Pineda if they were paying students to work in their concession stands. They said no.

That’s important because any group that is essentially employing people is required to follow labor and tax laws.

Last year, Voice discovered two other groups beyond Chula Vista Fast Pitch running questionable operations in venues across San Diego County.

Unlike Chula Vista Fast Pitch, the groups had filed up-to-date nonprofit paperwork. But Voice discovered they were paying people in cash and under the table to work in places like Petco, as well as Snapdragon and Chula Vista’s amphitheater.

The groups had filed limited tax returns in previous years, making it difficult to understand what types of charitable giving, if any, they had engaged in.

The leader of one of the groups, Lilianna Osuna of Lov4Jaro, said she was paying people a “donation” to work in her concession stands at concerts at the amphitheater.

Osuna’s Venmo account listed payments of anywhere between $40 and $70 to various people following concerts at the amphitheater by artists like Pitbull and the Jonas Brothers.

Osuna started Lov4Jaro to honor a family member who was murdered in a road rage incident in National City. But other members of the Osuna family fell out with her because they believed she was abusing the charity. They believed she was essentially using it as a catering business, but protecting herself from paying taxes by claiming to be a nonprofit.

Companies like Delaware North are called concessionaires. Delaware North is more than 100 years old and remains family owned and operated. It has revenue in the billions of dollars.

In 1972, an earlier version of the company was called Emprise. At the time, it was convicted of federal racketeering charges for helping conceal mob ownership stakes in the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.

Delaware North officials said they planned to change their verification standards, after Voice exposed Chula Vista Fast Pitch, last year. They have, however, declined to say how they would change their verification procedures.

Greek Life Aid’s paperwork is in good order, Delaware North officials said.

“Greek Life Aid has complied with all our requirements, including providing IRS documentation of EIN and tax-exempt status, the State of California articles of incorporation and approved nonprofit business filing, a W-9 and a certificate of liability insurance,” wrote Roberts.

Chula Vista Fast Pitch operated more stands in Petco than almost any other group and raked in several hundred thousand dollars over just a few months, according to receipts obtained by Voice. It worked in the park for almost a decade.

It took only a few public documents and a couple of phone calls to establish Chula Vista Fast Pitch wasn’t real. Chula Vista Fast Pitch had been a real softball league, run by other people, once upon a time. But it had been closed for nearly a decade. The men operating in Petco hadn’t even filed the necessary paperwork to be a working nonprofit and yet they ran their operation unchecked for years.