Two car-racing enthusiasts instrumental in opening two now-defunct Denver nightclubs were sentenced today to 12 years of probation for theft.
Jon Field, 51, and Paul Butler, 38, also have to pay $580,000 in restitution to the numerous contractors hired to build Field’s Banana Joe’s and Margarita Mama’s nightclubs in the Denver Pavilions. They also must pay $1.7 million to the Pavilions.
In an indictment returned in May 2005, the Denver grand jury accused the men of funneling $1.3 million of the $1.9 million given them by the Pavilions for construction into their own pockets.
The $1.9 million was to go to the contractors. The contractors, under heavy deadline pressure, often worked around the clock to finish the clubs only to discover they weren’t being paid.
Under the plea agreement, the two Ohio men are banned from doing business in Colorado for the next 12 years. The clubs closed in 2003.
Pat Tackwell, a master electrician and owner of SRT Electric, said today that when the men failed to pay contractors such as himself, “it was upside-down chaos.”
Tackwell said that at one point Butler said he’d pay him 60 cents on the dollar. When he declined, Tackwell said Butler told him, “Time is my friend.”
“I’m glad,” Tackwell said of the sentence and disposition. “The time is 12 years.”
Field was president of the Ohio-based Field Development Group and Butler was vice president during the time the nightclubs were being built. Butler was the project manager who oversaw the construction.
Butler at one time was listed as team manager of InterSport Racing, the sports-car racing team he and Field founded. The grand jury alleged that some of the money that was to go to the Denver contractors went for Field’s home and racing fees, equipment and fuel.
When the men pleaded guilty to theft in November, prosecutors put the restitution at $580,000 for the contractors and $2.5 million for the Pavilions.
But since that time, the men have made substantial payments to Pavilions and paid $250,000 of the $580,000 owed the contractors.
Prosecutor Joe Morales said today that he agreed to the deal because it will help reimburse the contractors and because the jury trial would have been long and complex and could have resulted in Field and Butler being acquitted.
The defense had contended that prosecutors had grossly miscalculated the alleged losses by the Pavilions.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
