Marge Schott, accused by General Motors of inflating sales at her Chevrolet-Geo dealership in Montgomery in order to meet quarterly sales quotas, said Tuesday she is selling the dealership.
Mrs. Schott will sell the dealership to the Joseph Auto Group, which operates 15 dealerships at 10 sites in the Tristate. The privately held firm has 620 employees and had 1995 revenues of $350 million.
''Sometimes you don't feel accepted, you know,'' Mrs. Schott told Channel 19 (WXIX-TV) News. ''I just made up my mind and started talking to the Josephs in November.''
Mike Horvath, general manager of the franchise, said Mrs. Schott notified Chevrolet that she has been working with the Joseph Group to sell the franchise, which she has had for 16 years.
''She sent a letter to Chevrolet around Christmastime giving notice that she had decided not to continue as a Chevrolet dealer after 16 years of service,'' he told the Associated Press.
Mrs. Schott declined to speak to The Enquirer about the sale. The Enquirer first revealed in a Dec. 24 story that GM had made the allegations against Mrs. Schott.
Bill O'Neill, head of marketing for GM's Chevy Division in Flint, Mich., said Tuesday night that company policy prohibits him from commenting on an independent dealership. Joseph Rouse, an attorney for the Joseph Group, also declined to comment.
Mrs. Schott, whom baseball suspended in June as president and chief executive of the Reds, will keep her Schott Buick franchise in Norwood.
GM alleges that Mrs. Schott falsified 57 sales to meet quarterly quotas to keep the Chevrolet-Geo franchise. Seven Reds employees, including acting CEO John Allen, are among those who Mrs. Schott falsely claimed bought cars from the dealership, according to a GM auditor.
The Reds' connection has drawn the interest of Major League Baseball, even though Mrs. Schott has two seasons left in her suspension from running the club day-to-day.
In a document filed Dec. 4 with the Ohio Motor Vehicle Dealers Board, GM alleges that Mrs. Schott ''simply fabricated 'purchasers' that never bought a vehicle'' in order to satisfy quotas.
GM alleges that such transactions violated a 1995 agreement, in which quotas were established.
Chip Baker, Reds marketing director, previously did not deny that Mrs. Schott moved the vehicles reported as ''sold'' from her dealership to her Indian Hill estate. Nor did he deny that Mrs. Schott sold the vehicles months - and in some cases, nearly a year later - many of them at auction.
But, Mr. Baker said, Mrs. Schott's actions do not constitute fraud. ''Mrs. Schott did nothing illegal, nothing fraudulent, did not commit a major breach. If this is a violation, it is a technical violation of the (1995) agreement she had with GM,'' he said last month.
BOWDEN, ALLEN DENY CAR SALES CLAIMED BY SCHOTT Published Jan. 4, 1997
GM'S LIST OF 57 ALLEGEDLY FAKED SALES Published Jan. 4, 1997
BASEBALL TO EXAMINE GM ALLEGATIONS Published Jan. 2, 1997
GM SAYS SCHOTT FAKED SALES Published Dec. 24, 1996
