Realities of Eliades family too much for prime-time viewing
A reality television deal-maker hunting for the next Las Vegas-based series might be tempted to peek behind the scenes into the tumultuous world of the Eliades family.
Headed by family patriarch Pete Eliades, you may know the clan best as the owners of the Olympic Garden topless cabaret. Pete Eliades is also a director of Nevada companies that operate Yellow, Checker, and Star cabs. Consider that merely the tip of the family financial iceberg.
These days, factions of the Eliades family are at war. The father is suing eldest daughter Dolores Eliades, and younger sister Afroditi Eliades-Ledstrom is mired in bankruptcy despite recently being worth millions. Dolores Eliades spent years quietly operating the topless cabaret that generated millions for her family. Now she's in a fighting mood.
At first blush, it sounds intriguing enough: A Vegas family makes an unfathomable score off the local skin trade and cab-and-limo racket, and all that money can't buy happiness. Reality TV, here we come.
But once you begin to peel back the layers of the story, a shadow falls on it. It's the darkness associated with the late Michael Ponzio.
These days Ponzio's family and friends must wonder whether they will ever see any real justice served in his awful case. Ponzio was killed March 17, 2007, after his vehicle was struck on Interstate 215 by a 2006 Porsche SUV traveling in the wrong direction. The Durango High graduate and UNR student was just 27.
The accident report written by Nevada Highway Patrol troopers concluded, "Afroditi Janet Eliades-Ledstrom was driving southbound in the northbound travel lanes This action caused her vehicle to strike the vehicle being driven by Michael George Ponzio."
Ponzio was dead at the scene.
The troopers requested charges of vehicular manslaughter and felony reckless driving. Eliades-Ledstrom, daughter of the politically active cab company mogul, was suspected in court filings of driving under the influence of a controlled substance at the time of the crash, but she was never charged as such. Nor was she ever charged with vehicular manslaughter.
She was charged with reckless driving, but even that was dismissed by the district attorney's office.
When the staggered Ponzio family took the case to civil court, a weeklong jury trial resulted in a major judgment. With interest and attorney's fees, according to court documents the plaintiffs are now owed more than $11.5 million.
Instead of attempting to pay the judgment, Eliades-Ledstrom decided to declare bankruptcy. Today, the judgment is part of a case that is slowly moving through in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
The timing of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy surely must be raising eyebrows within the justice system. After all, it's not as if the Eliades family couldn't have afforded to pay the damages. In addition to the Ponzio debt, which is disputed, according to her bankruptcy filing she also lists two claims totaling $4.2 million from the Eliades Non-Exempt Marital Trust, headed by her father.
How and when she came to owe that trust so much money are questions inquiring minds would like answered.
And just this past week a wild card surfaced in the Eliades story: Olympic Garden General Manager Emmanouil "Manny" Varagiannis was arrested on a felony structuring count. Varagiannis, who also is connected to the Midnight Entertainers outcall escort service business, suspected as a front for prostitution, is accused of making 208 cash deposits under $10,000 into four bank accounts in violation of federal cash transaction laws. Total cash in: $1.8 million.
The complaint in the case names Dolores Eliades as a cooperating witness. Given her proximity to Varagiannis and knowledge of the financial ebb and flow inside the Olympic Garden, she figures to be a valuable asset for the IRS and other law enforcement agencies for many months to come.
Now that I think of it, perhaps the sordid tale of the Eliades family isn't ready for a reality TV spotlight.
It has become too ugly for prime time.
John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Smith
