Investors sue Las Vegas developer failed Strip arena

A California law firm has accused former NBA player Jackie Robinson of failing to pay back $800 million in loans for a defunct arena project on the Las Vegas Strip.

Kent Limson, a partner in Torrance, Calif.-based Tacsis APC, filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against Robinson and All Net Land Development, which planned to build the basketball arena at 2601 South Las Vegas Boulevard, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

“At the center of the fraudulent scheme is Robinson, who lured individuals into loaning funds to his entity for the project with the promise of high interest, quick repayment and foolproof lending,” the lawsuit says.

Limson and Tacsis seek damages of more than $6.4 million, three times the amount owed on loans issued to Robinson and his affiliated companies. Robinson and his associates could not be reached for comment by the Review-Journal..

The 17-acre site where the Wet ‘n Wild waterpark once stood is south of the Sahara casino and next door to the city’s tallest Strip resort, Fontainebleau, on the north Strip.

It’s where locally based LVXP was approved this month to build a 752-foot-tall, 2,605-unit hotel and condominium complex mated to an 18,000-seat arena for an NBA basketball team.

Robinson tried for more than a decade to build the $1.3 billion All Net Arena, but abandoned it last year when the Clark County Commission refused to extend a deadline on use permits, according to the Review-Journal.

In addition to Robinson and All Net Land, the lawsuit names locally based Dribble Dunk and AGS Assurety; Denver-based entertainment and sports law firm Messner Reeves; Nevada residents David Lowden, owner of the land; Timothy Arellano; Lorin Jacobs, a Henderson doctor; and Salt Lake City-based Torben Welch, a partner of Messner Reeves.

The complaint lists up to 100 other unnamed people affiliated with All Net.

Robinson and his associates received loan proceeds from investors and Robinson personally guaranteed repayment through “performance bonds” issued by AGS, according to the complaint. Funds deposited to All Net were allegedly transferred to a Dribble Dunk account Robinson controlled.

Between August 2014 and December 2019, Robinson and his associates collected an estimated $800 million in short-term loans that were never repaid, according to court documents.

“Plaintiffs received performance bonds as security for the loans, which plaintiffs would later learn through discovery were fraudulent forgeries,” the lawsuit says. “Not a single bond was ever issued.”

Limson and Tacsis APC accused Robinson of paying himself, family members and his business partners, knowing that the All Net Project itself was facing “a huge multimillion-dollar deficit and was ready to collapse,” according to the lawsuit.

A similar lawsuit was filed by Limson and Tacsis in February 2020 in a federal court in Los Angeles, but the case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. Many of the accusations in that case were repeated in the Nevada filing.

— Dana Bartholomew