Will the Predators Become the Prey?
Where there's smoke, there's fire. And for William “Boots” Del Biaggio—and his plastic fantastic Barbie-esque wife, Kristen Del Biaggio—it seems their happy home (or should we say monstrous estate) is on the verge of going up in flames.
The Scene reported on the money woes of the second-largest Predators investor this week. Turns out, it was just the beginning of the financial cluster-muck about to befall the savvy San Jose venture capitalist turned socialite.
Two San Jose banks—one started by Boots' father—have filed suits against Del Biaggio for using other people's brokerage accounts and making bogus claims about boo-coo bucks he didn't have to secure an estimated millions and millions in loans. One of the suits dubbed Boots “a complete fraud.”
As reported here, Bootsgate has now turned into a family affair. A lawsuit filed Tuesday by a Palo Alto bank demands immediate repayment of a $1 million loan Boots obtained with his wife. The golden couple used their family trust to guarantee repayment. Boots' wife also is named in another lawsuit that alleges he borrowed $10 million to invest in the Preds that he never paid back. All this from a man whom The Tennessean dubbed a godsend after he contributed nearly 30 percent of the capital the local group of investors used to purchase the Preds.
Predictably, Boots' marriage is now hitting the skids. Mrs. Boots filed for legal separation on Tuesday.
So much for Boots' legal troubles not affecting the Preds, the local owners group and Metro, which has promised to pump plenty of cash into the Preds organization to keep the team around. Guess the Preds owners—all of whom have been fairly mum since the start of this mess—will finally have to face facts: The proverbial crap is hitting the fan.
(Photo courtesy of San Jose Magazine.)
Comments
Glad the Scene is not sticking their heads in the sand with the rest of the City on this one. Great job on the story and with your analysis of where this is going.
With a Mayor that was a former legal director and the hired gun Thrailkill surely Metro has protected us with some provisions in the lease to protect the increased subsidy given to the team under these circumstances. Metro has certainly moved aggreesively against the Sounds and their current lease at Greer under much less turmoil. And Metro also moved aggressively against the Titans for far less.
This should get real interesting.
Posted 06/05/2008 at 02:54:37 PMhttp://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=568440
Posted 06/06/2008 at 06:54:35 AM