Two men who opened and abruptly closed a pair of nightclubs in the Denver Pavilions and were indicted for stealing $1.3 million pleaded guilty Wednesday to theft.
Nightclub operator Jon Field, 51, and associate Paul Butler, 38, will receive no jail time but will have to pay millions of dollars in restitution during the 12 years they are on probation.
Field was president of the Ohio- based Field Development Group and Butler was vice president during the time Field’s Banana Joe’s and Margarita Mama’s nightclubs were being built at the Pavilions, a retail and entertainment complex on the 16th Street Mall. Butler was the project manager who oversaw the nightclub construction.
The clubs closed in 2003. In an indictment returned in May 2005, a Denver grand jury accused the men of diverting $1.3 million of the $1.9 million given them by the Pavilions for construction into their own pockets and for the benefit of friends.
The $1.9 million was meant to go to contractors hired to build the clubs. The contractors, under heavy deadline pressure, often worked around the clock only to discover they weren’t being paid.
One of those contractors – Pat Tackwell, who was owed $300,000 by Field – grinned as he watched the men plead guilty. Tackwell, a master electrician who worked a 28-hour shift just before the clubs opened, said he has been to every hearing involving the men.
“I sit in the hallway and watch and wait,” Tackwell said. “They look down; they never can look me in the eye.”
He said this month was the first time he has found himself financially “out of the woods” and is “able to look at my books and say I’m profitable.”
Under the plea agreement, Field and Butler will have to pay Denver Pavilions a total of $2.5 million in monthly payments.
On top of that, they will have to pay $588,000 to the numerous contractors and subcontractors who worked on the nightclubs. Tackwell said the Pavilions has already reimbursed him all but $47,000 of the $300,000 he’s owed and he hopes to recover the remaining amount from the $588,000.
If Field and Butler fail to meet the restitution requirements, it is probable they will go to prison, Denver District Judge Herbert Stern warned the two.
The grand jury accused Field of using some of the money for his home and an expensive passion: sports-car racing. Butler at one time was listed as team manager of InterSport Racing, the sports-car racing team he and Field founded.
The men pleaded guilty to one count each of theft. In return, Denver prosecutor Joe Morales dismissed numerous other theft counts.
Morales said that the stipulation of no jail time was an “extraordinary deal” for Field and Butler but that he wanted to make sure that the “little guys” – the contractors and subcontractors who often lost thousands of dollars for their work on the clubs – were paid back.
The defense had contended that prosecutors had grossly miscalculated the alleged losses by the Pavilions. But in the civil settlement, the defendants admitted they converted $1.3 million to their own use.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
