Dan Lust, a sports law attorney, has been looking in on Brian Davis’ now two lawsuits against Bank of America, and when he joined Kevin Sheehan on Tuesday, he explained exactly what’s going on – and how it’s giving us some insight onto where the money Davis said he had is actually coming from.
“Davis claimed he had enough money to purchase the Commanders and claimed the money was legit and not from overseas, and we’re getting some answers on that over the last couple days,” Lust said. “This lawsuit basically says that Bank of America did not present the offer to Dan Snyder and he suffered damages because of it, and on the back end, we do get some indication of where this money is coming from.”
At least $5.1 billion of the $7.1 billion he was going to bid for the Commanders – the amount he sent the bank, and is suing to get back immediately in the second suit – is apparently from the estate of Severino Garcia Santa Romano, who, if you Google the name as law analyst Daniel Wallach (who joined Chris Russell later Tuesday) did, you’d find this name as a Filipino-American soldier and CIA operative who long story short, may have illegally taken some already-stolen gold stashed by the Japanese on those islands and later lost some of it to his lawyer, and future Filipino President, Ferdinand Marcos, but still had some in an estate that was administered by Terciana Rodriguez, who sent the note to the bank.
It’s a rabbit hole that even the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland couldn’t explain, but Lust did ponder something Eric Bickel of the Junkies said all along: maybe this was a ploy to go after Bank of America and “develop some capital,” if you will.
“There are more questions than answers, and if you’re a Commanders fan, you may not want to go down this rabbit hole,” Lust said. “People may be wondering why Davis is coming in at the eleventh hour with all this, and maybe this was the play all along, to go after Bank of America in this type of a lawsuit. But, we don’t know what Brian Davis’ connection to this individual is.”
Sheehan looked at the entire lawsuit and thinks ‘there is nothing in here that says the money belongs to Brian Davis or Urban Echo,’ and nothing on the bank draft says that, either.
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“You’re not wrong, and people can put up the money in any number of facets – but I’m not sure Brian Davis was every going to be the 100 percent owner of the team,” Lust said. “The whole thing seems very odd to me, and I think we’ve found the play all along: put together an offer and find a way to stay in the headlines. I do have more questions about the sourcing of the money - like, I think in the second suit, he wants Bank of America to credit the money back to his account, but if it's not your money, how can that happen?”
Lust doesn’t think this will affect the sale in any way, thankfully, and had to chuckle as Sheehan asked that if you were Davis’ lawyers in this suit, given all this, wouldn’t you ask for your money up front?
“I work at a firm with 100 lawyers – some clients you know where to find and don’t ask for a retainer up front, but when you have a character like Davis, who in the past, has been sued for not providing certain funds, I would certainly ask for a large retainer up front if my name was going to be attached, especially given the negative publicity that will come with it,” Lust said. “It’s possible the firm may be working on a contingency basis, but I would not do that in this situation if the juice isn’t surely worth the squeeze.”
Sheehan also said that ‘this thing has reeked from the beginning’ and called Davis’ interview with the Sports Junkies last month ‘a used car sales pitch,’ and now that we have a little more information, the biggest takeaway is that we now know it definitely wasn’t Davis’ money?
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“I think we knew that all along, and would’ve been surprised if he had it – bettors might have put it at minus-1000,” Lust said. “The part of the lawsuit I can’t get my head around is that he alleges in his complaint that Snyder would’ve accepted his offer had it been presented – but the Josh Harris offer is backed by some of the most notable millionaires in the country, while Davis’ offer is backed by the estate of someone who allegedly had a lot of gold. There’s no comparison there, and that’s the part where I think the claim has some failures right off the bat - it's a leap of faith to think Snyder would've accepted that bid right away."
Lust also chimed in on Josh Harris' bid for the team and the gambling issues the NFL has with its players and more – listen above to hear it all!
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