Casinos sue over dead man’s debts

By Jeff German

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Death is no excuse for not paying your gambling debts, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in District Court.

Attorneys for Caesars Palace and the Hard Rock Hotel filed the suit against the estate of a Colorado man the casinos claim owes them a total of $715,000.

The lawyers say 52-year-old Ryan Clark passed a series of bad checks at Caesars Palace in an attempt to cover $565,000 in gambling markers just a few days before he died on Sept. 6.

Clark also failed to make good on $150,000 in markers at the Hard Rock in August, the lawsuit alleges.

When Caesars and the Hard Rock found out about Clark’s death in November, they lodged claims with his estate, but the estate has not paid the debts, the suit charges.

“Because Clark and subsequently the estate have failed to repay the value of this benefit, they have been unjustly enriched,” the suit says.

Not only do the casinos want the $715,000, they also want to be compensated for damages and their attorneys fees.

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Life is getting hotter under the collar for bankrupt Pahrump developer Hans Seibt.

U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee Lenard Schwartzer has put his investigator, ex-Metro cop Bill Holland, on the shadowy trail of Seibt’s finances.

Holland has been given the green light to investigate possible fraud on Seibt’s part. Seibt and his key investment companies filed for bankruptcy Sept. 25, listing nearly $70 million in liabilities and only $15.5 million in assets. Several hundred investors, many of them seniors, lost their life savings when Seibt sought relief from his massive debt.

Holland says he will look for evidence of fraud as he traces the flow of money into and out of Seibt’s biggest investment company, Clark and Nye County Development, which once owned a 17-acre luxury RV park in Pahrump.

Looking over Holland’s shoulder will be FBI agents continuing their parallel criminal investigation of Seibt, Holland says. (The FBI, as is its practice, wouldn’t comment.)

Schwartzer and lawyers for some of Seibt’s creditors have suggested that Seibt used cash he received from new investors to pay older investors in what authorities call an illegal Ponzi scheme.

As if Seibt doesn’t have enough troubles, attorneys for Schwartzer’s boss, the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which is part of the Justice Department, will grill Seibt under oath about his finances on Feb. 20. The proceeding is similar to a deposition and usually is done when questions of financial misconduct arise involving people who file bankruptcy petitions.

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Ed Friedland’s presence is starting to be felt at the Regional Justice Center.

Friedland, who became District Court’s executive officer in September, has made some high-level administrative changes in an effort, as he puts it, to make the court run more efficiently for the judges and the public.

The transplanted New Yorker says he’s forbidden by law from discussing specific personnel moves. But sources say that in the past couple of weeks he has let go of two assistant administrators, Pam Towers, who oversaw Family Court, and Tim Davis, his information technology department head who also shared oversight responsibilities in Justice Court.

Also, Family Court Clerk John Jensen has been reassigned to special projects, and his duties given to Assistant Court Administrator Steve Grierson, the clerk over all civil and criminal case filings.

And there’s word that Friedland isn’t finished shaking things up at the courthouse.