Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 5:22 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
September 18 - 19, 2004
For most of the 50 years that she has lived in Las Vegas, Christina Von Sturm has run businesses, including a restaurant, at 511 and 515 Las Vegas Boulevard South, a block south of Clark Street. Today vacant commercial buildings on the parcels bear witness to her working years. But as downtown Las Vegas is steadily changing, with its old feel and land uses being transformed by the current generation of business owners, those vacant buildings are also bearing witness to a deal that has caught the attention of Metro Police.
On April 30 attorney Ross Goodman, son of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, and his real-estate business partner, attorney Louis Palazzo, met with Von Sturm, who is 85. The two prominent attorneys walked away with a signed contract to buy her parcels for $1.4 million by Aug. 9. They contend she is still an astute businesswoman, fully capable of handling her own affairs. Von Sturm's daughter, Christina De Musee, however, is saying the attorneys took advantage of her mother and is fighting to cancel the deal.
This was a quiet, private transaction until the attorneys filed a lawsuit against Von Sturm on Aug. 11. Five days earlier Ross Goodman had written to Von Sturm's attorney, on his firm's letterhead stationery, which lists his father as "of counsel," threatening to sue if the land deal did not move forward. The suit claims Von Sturm backed out of an alleged oral contract, which they claim is binding and which they say they made with her on May 21. This contract, they claim, extended the deadline for closing the deal to Jan. 12. They want the court to rule that the alleged oral contract should be upheld, even though real estate experts say the general rule is that property deals must be in writing.
There is more to this story than two attorneys trying to force an elderly woman to sell her property. On Aug. 16, Ross Goodman and Palazzo bought the property at 525 Las Vegas Boulevard South -- bordering Von Sturm's property on the south -- for $1.3 million. Von Sturm's parcels are all that separate their new property from a city redevelopment project at 501 and 507 Las Vegas Boulevard South and 508 S. 6th St.
Mayor Oscar Goodman himself recognized the value of that redevelopment property two years ago -- he considered buying it even though state law prohibits elected officials from buying redevelopment property. Also, on July 30, the mayor's chief of staff, Stephanie Boixo, was appointed to the city committee that would review redevelopment proposals for the city lots adjacent to Von Sturm's property. The city is now working with developers on a condominium project for those parcels. Boixo, who is engaged to marry Eric Goodman, Ross Goodman's brother, resigned from the committee on Aug. 18, two days after Ross Goodman and Palazzo bought the property at 525 Las Vegas Boulevard South. She has since resigned from city employment, effective Jan. 1.
Ross Goodman and Palazzo are not publicly commenting. Boixo is saying only that as soon as she became aware of a conflict she resigned from the city committee. And Oscar Goodman is claiming he didn't know about his son's intention to buy Von Sturm's property. But Metro Police's Financial Crimes Bureau, acting on a request from the Clark County Department of Senior Services, announced last week that it is examining the attempt to buy Von Sturm's property.
Our view is that the whole affair is worthy of a full-scale investigation. Ross Goodman, obviously, had connections inside City Hall. His father is the mayor whose No. 1 agenda over the past five years has been redevelopment. And the mayor's chief of staff, Boixo, who served on a committee that had foreknowledge of a redevelopment project affecting the value of nearby property, is Ross Goodman's soon-to-be sister-in-law.
If for no other reason, the air should be cleared about this whole deal so that prospective investors in downtown will not be dissuaded on the belief that you have to be connected to get anywhere. It also should be investigated to determine if elder abuse -- the taking advantage of senior citizens, which is prohibited by state law -- has occurred. On "Face to Face With Jon Ralston," a Sun news discussion program that is televised on Channel 19, Von Sturm's daughter said, "In her old age, when she should be most comfortable, my mother is totally crying all the time."
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