Deal Gone Bad To Buy OG Strip Club In LV Results In Default Judgment Against Ex-NFL All-Pro Player
By ALAN SNEL
Copyright LVSportsBiz.com
Dashon Goldson is a 33-year-old former NFL All-Pro player with a reputation as a hard-hitting safety on the football field. The two-time Pro Bowler’s resume includes an All-Pro season with the San Francisco 49ers, with stops at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Redskins and Atlanta Falcons, his most recent team in 2016.
But in Las Vegas, Goldson is now known for something much different than his exploits on the football field. In this particular forum — the Eighth Judicial District Court in Las Vegas — Judge Susan Johnson entered a default judgment Tuesday against Goldson and two others previously for nearly $2 million as part of a deal gone bad related to the purchase of a well-known Las Vegas Boulevard strip club not too far from the Stratosphere in the city of Las Vegas.
It’s money, a lawsuit claimed, that is owed to the former owner of the closed Olympic Garden strip club. The OG Gentlemen’s Club at 1531 Las Vegas Blvd. was one of Las Vegas’ most colorful strip clubs and known for having both female and male strippers before it shuttered in October 2016.
Today’s default judgment against Goldson in a downtown Las Vegas courtroom is the most recent chapter in a sorry financial investment case that involved yet another professional sports athlete getting caught up in a real estate and business investment that may have sounded promising to the NFL player at the start but turned sour and laden with lawsuits in the end.
To tell the story of the Goldson/OG strip club purchase case gone awry, LVSportsBiz.com went through hundreds of court papers, legal documents, a confidential NFL letter and even an NFL Players Association Alert issued in February 2013 about an involved character who was part of this strip club saga. This story narrative is based on information found in these legal papers, affidavits and letters.
For Goldson, it all began with someone telling him about a plan in early 2015 to buy the strip club that Las Vegans simply refer to as the “OG.” It involved the NFL player and a French businessman named Amadou Tall, who, two years earlier, had caught the attention of the NFL Players Association Security Department, which issued an “ALERT” about Tall in February 2013.
The NFL players union Alert was blunt about Tall: “The NFL Players Association Security Department received information alleging that Amadou Tall is operating a business named Invictus Executive Management Services LLC, also known as Invictusports.com. Mr. Tall is NOT an NFLPA certified Contract Advisor, nor is he an NFLPA Registered Financial Advisor. It has been alleged that Tall is actively advertising his business to NFL Players and his advertising may lead players to incorrectly believe that he is certified and/or registered with NFLPA.”
The NFL union alert did not stop Goldson from associating with Tall.
In fact, in a Jan. 29, 2016 affidavit, Tall said under oath that Goldson is a “business client and friend.”
According to that affidvit from a little more than two years ago, Tall explained two men, Christophe Jorcin and Alberto Jauregui, approached Goldson in early 2015 to “inquire regarding his interest in participating in the purchase of the OG Club and corresponding real estate.”
Jorcin and Jauregui offered the NFL safety a 40 percent share in the business in exchange for Goldson giving $2.5 million toward the $12.5 million needed to buy the strip club and land. This was only two years after Goldson had signed a lucrative contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In March 2013, Goldson signed a five-year, $41.25 million deal with the Bucs, with $22 million guaranteed.
In April 2015, Goldson placed money into escrow to help with the purchase of the Olympic Garden strip club, according to the Tall affidavit.
LVSportsBiz.com tried to contact Goldson through a real estate agent who is selling the NFL player’s Southern California home. This Los Angeles Times story from Sept. 20, 2017 says Fran Chavez of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services California Properties has the listing.
LVSportsBiz.com could not reach Goldson. But our first question would have been, “Why did you get involved in buying a strip club that had a gaming license when the NFL is known to frown upon NFL players getting involved in gambling operations of any sort?”
The OG had gaming slot machines in the club at the time. It had licenses for liquor and gaming to operate an erotic dance establishment.
It took only a month for Goldson’s connection to the OG purchase deal to show up in the NFL offices of Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Adolpho A. Birch III, NFL senior vice president of labor policy & government affairs, sent a “confidential” letter dated June 12, 2015 overnight to Las Vegas lawyer Vernon Nelson, representing the buyers of the OG.
Birch was as forward as he could be in his letter to Nelson when he stated, “This letter confirms that Mr. Goldson would be in violation of League Policy if his group purchases the property and fails to remove the slot machines from the property. League Policy prohibits players from owning and/or operating any gambling-related enterprise — even when such ownership and/or operation is partial, indirect and/or through a business organization. Accordingly, should Mr. Goldson complete the purchase transaction, he should, at minimum, take immediate steps to terminate the establishment’s Space Lease Agreement in order to comply with League Policy.”
In July 2015, OG’s then-owner Peter Eliades accepted a term offer of $4 million for the strip club, $8.5 million for the land and $2 million for Eliades to serve as a club consultant. The Las Vegas law firm of Bailey Kennedy is representing Eliades.
Goldson had increased his equity investment to the OG purchase group called Sterling Entertainment Group LV, LLC to $16,080,000 with his membership percentage to 99.988, according to Tall’s sworn testimony in the Jan. 2016 affidavit.
The OG was shuttered in fall 2016 and has remained lifeless since. Since then, it has twice filed for bankruptcy. It first filed a Chapter 11 petition in July 2017, which was dismissed in February 2018. Then on March 20 just last week, it refiled for bankruptcy on the eve of a foreclosure sale to auction the strip club and the property it sits on.
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The old Las Vegas Boulevard strip club may have closed, but the lawsuits and legal action have piled up.
In the end, there is now a nearly $2 million judgment against Goldson, Tall and Jorcin for money Judge Johnson declared is owed to former OG owner Eliades. Technically speaking, the judgement against the NFL player and his two partners is for $1,817,904.64 for breach of contract; $127,588.10 for attorneys’ fees and costs; and interest at the rate of 12 percent per year from Jan. 30, 2018 until the judgement is paid in full.
The building actually is open for one eight-hour shift every 30 days to maintain the zoning entitlement permitting the operation of a sexually oriented business.
Goldson is still involved in real estate, but this case is innocuous in California. The NFL player has put his 10,656-square-foot house built 20 years ago in Encino, California on the market for $6.995 million in the San Fernando Valley after buying the property for $4.4 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. He also had reportedly purchased four condo properties in Marina del Rey, California about five years ago.
In Sept. 2013, Realtor.com posted this story with the headline, “NFL Safety Dashon Goldson Is a Real Estate Mogul. It would be hard-pressed to use that headline these days.
But he has been MIA in the Las Vegas default judgment case that played out today. After the required public notices were published after Goldson has not responded to plaintiff Eliades’ complaint, Judge Johnson granted a summary judgment against Goldson today.
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Inset image of Dashon Goldson in primary photo is cropped from a photo by Keith Allison (www.flickr.com/people/keithallison) under an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
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