Music festival organizer convicted, ordered to pay restitution to local charity
By James Kmosko
Mooresville resident Linda Costner Brooks, organizer of the Vocals For Veterans Music Festival, has been convicted of misdemeanor larceny and false advertising.
The festival, organized by Brooks and her company Local Vocals, was held on October 11th and 12th at The Turn Sports Lounge, just north of the Lincoln County line on NC-16 Business.
Brooks, who uses the alias Linda “Kay” Brooks, advertised the festival as a benefit for L.O.V. Thrift Store, a local charity that supports veterans in need of financial or other forms of assistance. She stated on the official Facebook page for the event, “all proceeds will go to Love Our Veterans (L.O.V.), a non-profit organization in Denver, NC.”
Various companies and individuals from the Denver/Chronicle area donated time, money, auction items, the event’s venue, and other goods and services to the festival. An unknown number of individuals purchased tickets.
No funds earned at the festival were donated to the thrift store charity. According to Gini Popko, co-founder and store manager at L.O.V., numerous attempts were made to contact Brooks before she was arrested. Brooks stated on several occasions that she would deliver a check to the store, but no check was ever delivered. The Chronicle Chronicle also attempted to contact Brooks, but received no response.
The Catawba County Sheriff’s Office was alerted in November that L.O.V. had not received the proceeds from the music festival. Gini believes the person who contacted the sheriff was a sponsor or a purchaser of an auction item. An investigator was assigned to the case.
A warrant was issued for Brooks’ arrest on December 12th. She was taken into custody and charged with obtaining property under false pretense, embezzlement, felony larceny, and false advertising.
Court documents state, “[the] defendant’s incarceration is necessary to prevent the likely destruction of evidence, subornation of perjury or intimidation of potential witnesses.” She was held on $110,000 bond.
Court documents indicate that Brooks intended to flee the scene before law enforcement took her into custody.
“When [the law enforcement officer] went to take [the] defendant into custody, they found all of her bags packed, as she was getting ready to leave due to someone alerting her she had active warrants,” court paperwork reads. “When [the officer] went to stop the defendant, she did not initially stop … Defendant is a flight risk … and stated at initial appearance she just lived with two friends and would not confirm an address.”
Brooks pleaded guilty on December 18th to larceny and false advertising, both misdemeanor offenses, and all other charges were dropped.
Brooks was sentenced to serve 45 days in county confinement and 18 months of supervised probation, and to pay L.O.V. Thrift Store $1,559.35 in restitution, $1,500 of which had been paid at time of publishing.
Both Gini Popko and court documents estimated the amount of proceeds from the music festival to be $5,000.
“It’s an unfortunate circumstance,” Gini said. “We’re disappointed that it came to this. We’re appreciative of everyone that supported us, and sponsored, and bought auction items. This was the worst case scenario, but at least the veterans are going to get something out of it. Lesson learned, the hard way.”
A woman matching the description of Linda Costner Brooks and bearing the same name was arrested twice in South Carolina in 2016. She was charged the first time with disorderly conduct and cruelty to children (torture, deprivation) and the second time with domestic abuse.
No other individuals have been arrested or charged in connection with the Vocals For Veterans Music Festival. Court documents and other case details can be found on the nccourts.gov online services portal.
So glad she got convicted. LOV does a GREAt job for vets and they operate on a hope and a prayer and a breath - the fact that she swindled them was beyond low.