Brewery says it caught thieving co-owner on tape: “Nobody at Joyride is aware”

A bankrupt Edgewater brewery claims to have audio recordings in which its former general manager boasts of filching hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company.

Joyride Brewing, at 2501 Sheridan Blvd., has been suing minority owner Grant Babb since December. It accuses him of embezzling or misappropriating $1 million, including by moving money to his other companies: Live Slow Brewing and Herman’s Hideaway.

Babb has denied doing anything wrong and is countersuing for $170,000 that he claims to have loaned Joyride. The case, which is scheduled to go to trial during five days in November, took a turn on June 5 when Joyride revealed the existence of two audio recordings.

“I mismanaged finances within Joyride, colluded between two companies, supported Live Slow with finances from Joyride, nobody at Joyride is aware,” Babb allegedly said in one.

In a second recording, Babb allegedly said that he expected Joyride to keep quiet about the thefts because “it looks bad” and the brewery did not have money for a lawsuit.

The recordings were supposedly attached as court exhibits to a motion that Joyride filed June 5. But when BusinessDen obtained all 13 exhibits to that motion in a records request, recordings were not among them. Joyride’s lawyers declined to answer questions about that.

“Mr. Babb denies any theft,” said Babb’s lawyer, Reid Allred at Cambridge Law in Denver.

“The evidence, including the recordings referenced in the motion, discuss various loans to and from Joyride,” he said. “The motion misrepresents the contents of the audio recordings, which were made without Mr. Babb’s knowledge of conversations where the parties were attempting to resolve their disputes. The truth will be shown through discovery and at trial.”

Allred didn’t respond to a Friday request for the recordings or a fuller transcript of what was said.

At the fall trial, Joyride would like to ask jurors to award it punitive damages since “Babb has unabashedly admitted to pilfering Joyride’s accounts.” First, it must convince Judge Andrew Poland to let it seek punitive damages. The judge has not yet ruled on the motion.

“The sheer breadth, scope and repetition of his conduct illustrates he purposely or recklessly made the transfers only thinking of himself, and with clear disregard to the consequences to Joyride and its rights,” Joyride Brewing’s lawyers wrote of Babb in their motion.

“He knew he could get away with it, and he did — for nearly two years,” the motion states.