North Miami Beach police help consignors get items back from shuttered business

Owner pays portion of late storage fee to get items back

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. ā€“ It's been a saga ever since the first C. Madeleine's consignor reached out to Local 10'sĀ "Leave it to Layron" team earlier this year.Ā 

Richard Kirsh and his wife owned the upscale vintage consignment shop on Biscayne BoulevardĀ in North Miami Beach for more than a decade. The couple was forced to closeĀ up shop last spring and moved all of the merchandise into a nearby storage facility.

The plan was to find another location and reopen the store.

That plan, though, never took shape.

After our first story aired, C. Madeleine's owners were hit with lawsuits from consignors looking for their items, along with a former employee looking to be compensated for their work.

The LITL team continued to receive messages and calls from consignors looking for help and getting their items back. Ā  Ā 

The LITL later learned Kirsh was thousands of dollars behind on his storage bill.Ā 

Eventually, all of the consigned merchandise that was moved into nearly a dozen storage units was set to be sold at auction.

Then, a pre-Christmas miracle took place.

The LITL team learned just days before the bidding was supposed to begin thatĀ all of those items had been removed from storage. Ā Ā 

"We've gone to exceptional expense to protect the consignors' items,"Ā Kirsh said.

We paid him another visit after learning he'd paid a portion of his bill to gain access to the items and his records.

"We accept that responsibility," Kirsh said.Ā 

The items are now being held in another facility while he works to contact consignors to return their merchandise.

He said he hopes to complete that process within the next few weeks.

This time, though, North Miami Beach police will be helping to facilitate that process.

"One person alone has over $20,000Ā worth of items that were on consignment," Detective Zoila Simmons, ofĀ the North Miami Beach Police Department, said.Ā 

Simmons was assigned the case after several consignors filed police reports.

"Some of the victims sent me your articles,"Ā she said, referring to the previous stories reported by the LITL team.

She said she and other detectivesĀ eventuallyĀ visited Richard Kirsh.

"He explained the series of unfortunate events that led to this,"Ā she said. "He had every intention of opening up elsewhere."

Simmons said the city's Community Policing Unit got involved and helped get all the consigned merchandise out of the storage facility.

Over the course of three days, Kirsh was able to access those items and move them, narrowly escaping the storage facility's auction date.

We're told some of those items were held on North Miami Beach city property before being moved to another facility where they will be sorted and prepared to be returned.

"There was no criminal intent on [Kirsh's] part, and we can't prove, at this point, that anyone's items are actually missing,"Ā Simmons said. "Everything was in storage. Everything was still there, but it just hasn't been reconnected with their rightful owner."Ā 

Simmons said that's next on the to-do list -- reuniting rightful owners with their items.

If you're a C. Madeleine's consignor, with a consignment agreement, and would like your items back, contact the North Miami Beach Police Department:

Detective Z. Simmons: 305-948-2940, ext. 2834; Zoila.Simmons@nmbpd.org.
Major Richard Rand: 305-948-2940; Richard.Rand@nmbpd.org.


About the Author:

Layron Livingston made the move from Ohio's Miami Valley to Miami, Florida, to join the Local 10 News team.