Pittsburgh regatta promoter testifies his business was a 'sinking ship'

The man who’s blamed for cancellation of last year’s Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta told a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee that his business was failing from the time he formed it three years ago.

“I was on a sinking ship from the beginning,” Derek Weber, 44, of Ross, told Rosemary C. Crawford at Monday’s bankruptcy hearing in Pittsburgh.

Crawford is the court-appointed trustee for LionHeart Event Group LLC, the company Weber formed in 2017. LionHeart organized and promoted the regatta and the city’s Fourth of July fireworks events until last summer, when city officials and the regatta’s board on July 30 abruptly canceled the event after they became aware of LionHeart’s financial issues.

A criminal investigation into Weber and Lionheart remains active, Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said.

“It’s a comprehensive, complicated investigation that’s going to take some time,” Hissrich said.

The bankruptcy hearing was the first time that Weber has publicly answered questions about what happened with his company and the regatta.

“There was too much debt to pay off past, current and unexpected bills,” Weber told Crawford at the hearing.

Weber detailed how he initially worked for Pyrotechnico, a New Castle-area-based fireworks company that had previously promoted the regatta.

Pyrotechnico officials didn’t return calls seeking comment about Weber, who told Crawford that he formed Lionheart as an independent spin-off of Pyrotechnico using cash from retirement funds.

Weber told Crawford that he had been involved with the regatta for about a decade and took over promoting it from a home office in the Ross house that’s in his wife’s name.

Lionheart was a one-man business that organized all aspects of the regatta, which was funded through corporate sponsorships. It cost about $1 million to put on each year.

When Lionheart took over promotion of the event in 2018, it inherited about $50,000 in unpaid bills. Weber detailed how Lionheart got by on a shoestring, using money from sponsorships to pay overdue bills.

“Essentially the events were undercapitalized,” Weber told Crawford. “I was not a good financial manager.”

In 2017, the event attracted Red Bull, which sponsored a Flugtag event held in conjunction with the regatta that helped with attendance and cash flow. But, Weber said, the event lost money in 2018 and he was dealing with those past bills plus ones for the 2019 event when city officials and regatta officials canceled.

Weber wasn’t warned it was going to be canceled before it was announced, he told Crawford.

“Within days, my entire life flipped upside down,” Weber said.

Lionheart filed for bankruptcy in September. Weber was charged in November with public lewdness and drunken driving from an Oct. 2 incident near his home in Ross.

Weber told Crawford he regretted the turn of events that caused the regatta to be canceled.

“I felt horrible about it. I really did,” Weber said. “It’s not something I expected.”

All of Lionheart’s money went to pay bills, but there just wasn’t enough to pay them all, he said.

“We were continually paying off debt up until the day of cancellation,” Weber said.

Now, the company is completely broke and has no assets, he said.

A credit union account that had about $8,000 available was closed to settle a corporate credit card account issued by the credit union, Weber’s attorney, Brian C. Thompson, said.

Lawyers for four of Lionheart’s creditors attended the hearing. They each asked why they weren’t paid. Weber couldn’t provide a specific answer for them.

Crawford gave Weber 60 days to compile financial records to confirm Lionheart’s finances since 2017.

Weber declined further comment after the hearing, as did the creditors who attended.