Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.
Louis Palazzo and Ross Goodman, son of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, are suing to force an 85-year-old woman to sell her downtown land.
The lawyers want the court to enforce what they say is a binding oral agreement that would give the lawyers more time to buy the property fronting Las Vegas Boulevard South.
The property, which now has vacant commercial buildings on it, is in a city a redevelopment area and next to city-owned land.
The woman's daughter and lawyer say they believe Goodman and Palazzo had been trying to take advantage of her and tried to railroad the sale before she could get legal advice.
The daughter and the woman's lawyer said they also suspect that Palazzo and Goodman have a plan to work with Las Vegas city officials to develop the land.
Neither Ross Goodman nor Palazzo was available for comment late Wednesday.
City officials also could not immediately be reached for comment.
The property is the middle of the city's downtown, at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Clark Avenue. It's next to five city-owned parcels that are used for surface parking; the city is trying to market the property, which is south of the federal courthouse, across Clark, and kitty-corner to the city-owned Fifth Street School.
The property used to house a restaurant, a bar and a wedding chapel, among other businesses.
In their lawsuit, Ross Goodman and Palazzo claim the woman, Christine Von Sturm, backed out of an oral agreement that allowed Palco Promotions Inc., a Nevada corporation of which Palazzo is the sole listed officer on the Secretary of State's Web site, to extend the escrow period for the property at 511 and 515 Las Vegas Boulevard South.
Palco had offered Sturm $1.4 million for her property, appraised on the Clark County Assessor's Web site at about $500,000.
In their complaint, filed Aug. 11, Ross Goodman and Palazzo claim that Palco entered into a contract to buy the land on April 30, and put down $30,000 in earnest money. The date for close of escrow was given as Aug. 9.
On or about May 21, their lawsuit contends, they spoke with the property owner, Von Sturm, who they say orally agreed to extend the close of escrow until Jan. 12.
"In exchange, the parties agreed to release the earnest money," the lawsuit reads. The money was to be released in monthly increments of $4,285.71, beginning June 12.
Goodman sent a letter dated Aug. 6 warning Von Sturm's local lawyer, Lew Brandon of Las Vegas-based Moran & Associates, that Palco would initiate a lawsuit if the alleged oral deal wasn't honored.
The lawsuit Palco filed last month asks for enforcement of the "oral modification" between the parties, and damages of $10,000 and attorney's fees.
The property owner's daughter, and her California-based lawyer, appearing today on the television show "Face to Face With Jon Ralston," on Cox Cable channel 19, said Von Sturm was victimized.
"I find out this strange deal occurred with these two lawyers ... (they) gave her nothing down. An oral agreement, no legal counsel or real estate agent. I said 'That's not going to happen. Now they're suing my mother," said Christina De Musee, Von Sturm's daughter, said on the show.
She said at one point the city was interested in working with her mother.
"Several years ago we went to the Redevelopment Agency," De Musee said. "I said 'Mom, you could do an office building here, have income coming in.' They said 'That's a great idea. We'll give you the parking lot next door.' They want to develop this whole area. I come back in here with architects, investors ... suddenly the parking lot is not available anymore."
De Musee said she thinks there's another deal in the works.
"Obviously they're sewing it up for some reason ... I think there's a little bit of inside trading going on here. They told my mother her property wasn't worth any money. She's been offered $1.8 million dollars and I have the paperwork to show it," De Musee said.
"What's really going on is they don't think my mother had any defenses. It didn't matter what they said to her. They were going to get this property. They didn't realize I was her daughter. They didn't realize we have a very good lawyer here," she said.
De Musee and Von Sturm's California lawyer, Ted Cohen of Beverley Hills, Calif., told "Face to Face" that he believes "they felt this was a helpless woman, a confused woman."
He said that other attempts had been made to get the property.
"About, I think, two years ago, I went with Mrs. Von Sturm's daughter to the Redevelopment Agency to talk about what the plans were for that neighborhood because we were trying to find out what that property might be worth," Cohen said. "There just seemed to be a lot of interest. People were leaving notes for her.
"We thought something must be going on in that neighborhood."
Cohen said that he and his clients were told that if Von Sturm could develop her property, "the city would give her that particular parking lot owned by the city of Las Vegas. They also talked about the possibility of trying to obtain the adjacent property, which was a motel, and the property next to the motel.
"So these folks were thinking in terms of the large parking lot, the city parking lot, Mrs. Von Sturm's property and the motel adjacent."
But Cohen said that the city suddenly changed course.
"We were told that our people had dropped the ball and not come up with anything in a year and that the city had entered into an agreement already with, I believe, a developer out of California, to give them the parking lot," he said.
"We thought that probably if someone was just going to develop that parking lot ... that they would want more than just the parking lot ... we always felt someone would be trying to get the motel and Mrs. Von Sturm's property to do a large project."
The Boulevard Hotel is next to Von Strum's property.
Cohen said Von Sturm never touched the escrow account mentioned in the Palco lawsuit.
"She seemed pretty confused. She kept saying 'I was supposed to get $4,000 a month and I never heard from anybody."'
He also said that she didn't know what she had signed when she agreed to the initial contract.
"(She said) that she was not represented by an attorney or anyone and that someone had taken her over to the motel given her papers to sign. I don't know who it was. I later saw these papers and it was Mr. Palazzo ... not individually but on behalf of some company," Cohen said.
De Musee said "this has got to stop. This is my mother's nest egg. She's worked hard all her life. She's been here in Vegas for 50 years. She had a restaurant here, she had all sorts of businesses. She bought land. And now in her old age, when she should be most comfortable, my mother is totally crying all the time.
"My mother's been through a war. My father's a war veteran. They come here and work hard like everybody and she did very well for herself and she's going to keep this property. If I have anything to do with it, nobody's going to take anything from my mother."
"Face to Face With Jon Ralston" will run at 3:30, 5:30, 8 and 10:30 tonight on Cox Cable channel 19. The show also airs at 11 a.m. Friday.
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