State Agency, Students Seek Owners of Cooking School

A day after the Los Angeles Culinary Institute shut its doors to students, officials at a state agency overseeing vocational education said they spent most of Tuesday trying to reach the owners and learn what led to the school’s abrupt closure.

“You’d figure they would have called back after all the desperate messages we left,” said Deborah Godfrey, an analyst with the Bureau for Private Post-Secondary and Vocational Education, a state agency that licenses private schools to operate in California. “But, still, no word from them.”

Godfrey said she would like to know what led to Monday’s closure before meeting at 11 a.m. today with about 50 institute students to help them get back $20,000 in tuition money.

“We know this is a difficult time for the owners and students,” Godfrey said. “As strange as it sounds, this is a common occurrence and we can help.”

Agency officials said their latest records--as of Feb. 22--show that the institute has a single contact person, Bruce Riddell.

The institute is owned by five shareholders, Ron Costa, Marlies Costa, Carla Skornik, Bruce Riddell, Uwe Dethlefsen and Dorit Ulrich, said attorney Sherman Lister. He represents Dethlefsen and Ulrich, who together own about 50% of the company.

Lister said his clients were also victims. They invested about $400,000 last year “without knowing that the business was very much in debt,” he said.

Raimund Hofmeister, who founded the school in 1991, sold it to Riddell in February 1998, Lister said. Riddell then incorporated the institute in Nevada and took on outside investors, the lawyer said.

The school incurred large debts and ran out of money, Lister said. “In the last few months, the school was running on a day-to-day emergency basis,” he said. “Chefs have not been paid in months.”

This week’s closure was not the first in the institute’s history. Hofmeister also faced financial difficulties about five years ago, when the institute was evicted from the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank for failing to pay a year’s rent. The school then moved to its current location at 17401 Ventura Blvd. in Encino.

The institute’s troubles have gone beyond financial setbacks. In a lawsuit filed April 20 in Van Nuys Superior Court, Hofmeister accuses Riddell and other institute officials of slander and not paying him about $20,000 in salary.

In the suit, Hofmeister alleges that he made a deal to manage the institute after selling it in 1998 but did not get paid as agreed. He also alleges that Riddell was among a group of people who accused him of embezzlement and that Riddell withheld such items as desk lamps, filing cabinets, books and tools that belong to Hofmeister, court records show.

“Plaintiff’s reputation as a master chef and dean of a culinary institute in the culinary community has been severely tarnished, all to his injury in an amount not yet ascertained,” according to the suit.

Hofmeister’s attorney Joel Seidel said the lawsuit spoke for itself and declined further comment Tuesday.

James Feffer, Riddell’s attorney, was unaware of a lawsuit, and said Riddell was disappointed to hear the school closed its doors Monday.

“Mr. Riddell had nothing to do with the closing and was certainly not part of that decision,” Feffer said. “He was shocked.”

Sherman Lister, an attorney for the institute, and other school officials did not return numerous phone calls Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Lori Miller and fellow students spent the day trying to get more information and hoping to use the class credit they have accumulated to get a job.

“We are trying to get jobs right away,” Miller, 31, said. “We can’t afford to just be home. Sometimes we just laugh about it. What else can we do now? All we can do is keep ourselves busy.”