John Leslie Hug Stole over $1000 Los Angeles California

I was also ripped off by John Leslie Hug. I got the same sob stories as everyone else. Here is our story. 

I was a fairly new music producer myself in the mid 2000s and signed to a small label overseas. I decided last minute that I wanted to attend the Grammy Awards. I looked around for someone that had tickets but didn't want to go(I didn't know atthe time that grammy tickets are not supposed to be sold). Enter John Leslie Hug. 

I don;t even remember now how I found him, but I DID do some research and he looked legit at the time. I wish now this report had been live. Anyway....I sent him around $700 to hold the tickets for me. We purchased airline tickets across the country to Los Angeles. The day before we fly out, he calls me and says he didn't have my tickets. He gave me a story about getting into a wreck and losing the tickets(It's been years so I am trying to remember the EXACT story)...but said he had a friend that had some and he would sell the pair for around $400. SO I sent another $400. What choice did I have at this point really....we had already bought plane tickets and were flying out like the next day. 

We get to LA and I go to meet John Hug at his apartment on the beach. I pick him up and we go grab dinner. After dinner he confesses that he no longer has my money...NOR does he have grammy tickets. He began to tell me all sorts of stories about his wife, and daughter, a wreck over a ravine where supposedly all the money for tickets...or tickets themselves...it was never really clear, was lost. 

I knew right then we had been ripped off. I called LAPD and they didn't want to do anything about it. John ended up reimbursing me about $150. I am almost certain now it was probably stolen from someone else. 


I sent him a letter a year or so later to ask about the OTHER $800 or so I was still owed. In reply, I got a message from him trying to claim that there was another person named John Leslie Hug with a multiple personality disorder using his name and reputation to steal money. 

Around this time, I had become a recording academy member. I contacted them and explained the situation. They told me then, that grammy tickets were not supposed to be sold. They told me that they were aware that John had been selling them. So here's what happened. He took everyone's money for the tickets. When he showed up to get the tickets, the academy refused to sell him the tickets. (I got this info first hand from the academy). Instead of giving everyone's money back, he stole it. He is a thief. DO NOT do ANY business with this man. He is a second rate con artist. I amshocked he isn;t in prison yet with all of the stuff against him. I am sure he would have been if the LAPD had just listened to me and done a little research themselves.