Archives
- Mob Experience at Tropicana files for bankruptcy (10-17-2011)
- Story of embattled Mob Experience fit for ‘The Sopranos’ (10-17-2011)
- Tropicana sued again over Mob Experience work (10-12-2011)
- Mob Experience faces new lawsuit over unpaid bills (9-28-2011)
- Mob Experience saga grows more bizarre with supposed threat (9-28-2011)
- Struggle escalates for control of Las Vegas Mob Experience (9-23-2011)
- Judge orders accounting of Mob Experience finances (9-21-2011)
Even as the Las Vegas Mob Experience was filing for bankruptcy on Monday, a state judge hit its developers and managers with sanctions for their conduct in one of the many lawsuits filed by disgruntled Experience investors and creditors.
Clark County District Court Judge Kenneth Cory ordered that $24,347 in sanctions be paid by Experience developers Jay Bloom and Louis Ventre, Experience manager Michael Unger and two Bloom companies: The Mafia Collection LLC and Eagle Group Holdings LLC.
The sanctions were ordered to cover some of the legal fees of Experience investor James Beckmann, who is suing Bloom, Ventre and the other defendants over allegations he invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in The Experience and helped procure some of its mobster artifacts under an arrangement in which he would be co-owner of the attraction.
Beckmann’s lawsuit, filed by Las Vegas law firm Pisanelli Bice PLLC, said that despite the promises of ownership, the defendants later defrauded him out of his equity interest in The Experience.
The defendants denied the allegations through their attorney, saying Beckmann came to the case with "unclean hands" and didn’t procure any artifacts for The Experience.
Murder Inc., the bankrupt owner of The Experience, is not a party to the lawsuit.
While Bloom, Ventre and the other defendants in the Beckmann case denied wrongdoing, at one point they did agree to pay him $735,000 over two years to settle the lawsuit, court records show.
But when it came time to sign the settlement papers, the parties differed over whether the debt could be discharged, or canceled, in the event any of the defendants filed for bankruptcy.
Attorneys for Beckmann insisted the defendants had agreed the debt would not be dischargeable, as their dealings with Beckmann involved fraud. The defendants denied the fraud allegation.
Cory, after questioning judges who had been involved in the settlement talks, said in his ruling Monday he couldn’t determine whether the fraud allegation was part of the settlement that had been agreed to.
"The court feels that the settlement agreement is not enforceable, but the defendants should be sanctioned for their failure to participate in good faith settlement discussions," Cory’s order said.
With Beckmann’s motion to enforce the settlement simultaneously denied by Cory, the lawsuit will likely continue unless a confirmable settlement is reached.
And whether the defendants will agree among themselves on how to pay the $24,347 is an open question, as Bloom and Ventre had a falling out and are litigating against each other, with Unger on Ventre’s side.
On top of that, Murder Inc. is refusing to indemnify Bloom for his legal costs in another lawsuit — something Bloom’s attorney may have to take up with the bankruptcy court now that Murder Inc. is operating in Chapter 11.
Bloom was the lead Experience developer and manager until this summer, when he said he voluntarily left and put most of his equity into escrow so more money could be raised for the struggling attraction at the Tropicana resort. Ventre says Bloom was forced out by investors who refused to put more money into the business unless Bloom left.