Attorneys tied to Aronoff and Ilitch helped them raise funds for Reps. Don Young, Candice Miller and others

Attorney Harold S. Fried, is president of the Michigan-based law firm Fried Saperstein Abbatt PC. Fried has represented Daniel J. Aronoff’s Landon Companies as confirmed in court documents filed 9.30.05 (Landon Development Corp. v. Target Corporation) and Minutes of the Novi Planning Commission. Fried and Aronoff are anchored in Michigan but both have residences and business interests in Florida. Aronoff’s Landon Development/Edison Farms and an office of Fried Saperstein are both located at 800 Seagate Dr, Naples, FL.

A Naples News article published 4.16.06, “Money a motivator in I-75 earmark?” indicates Fried helped Aronoff with a Florida fundraiser for Alaska’s Rep. Don Young that has now come into question as part of an alleged pay-to-play scandal involving a $10 million earmark for a Florida interchange.

According to the Michigan Bar Association member directory, Sarah Deson-Fried, Harold Fried’s wife, in 2003 she joined the Troy, MI law offices of Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone PLC as senior counselor in its real estate group; however, she’s no longer featured on the Miller Canfield Web site. Deson-Fried was a gubernatorial appointee to the Michigan Humanities Council Board of Directors and was elected its treasurer in 2005; however she resigned the post in 2007 with two years left on the term. She is also affiliated with HSL Investments, LLC.

The Michigan Humanities Council Web site lists the following as its largest donors for FY 2005:

Friends in FY 2005



Sage ($1,000 and over)
Daniel & Nancy Aranoff, Bloomfield Hills
Sarah Deson-Fried, Birmingham
Fried Sapersten Abbat PC
Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone
Marilyn Williamson, West Bloomfield

When it comes to defending high profile clients on criminal and personal matters, Harold Fried is frequently called upon by Michael Ilitch to represent his Red Wings players and several family members. And the Miller Canfield firm which employed Deson-Fried in its real estate group represented Ilitch/Detroit Tigers, Inc. in matters related to the development of Comerica Park; and handled business matters for Little Caesars Enterprises, Inc. and Ilitch Holdings.

A review of political contributions using OpenSecrets.org, suggests that when clients like Aronoff and Ilitch called upon Harold Fried to support political candidates they were trying to influence, Fried and his wife jumped on the bandwagon.

Between 1999 and 2005, the Frieds frequently made political contributions which mirrored contributions made by Daniel Aronoff and/or his wife Nancy. The beneficiaries of their political generosity included Reps. Don Young, Katherine Harris, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Thad McCotter among others.

Records available via CSPAN indicate Sarah Deson-Fried participated in a 3.11.03 fundraiser hosted by Detroit’s Ilitch family and attended by their friends, associates and a stable of their attorneys who raied money for Rep. Candice Miller. The fundraiser was held less than a month after Rep. Miller had introduced her first bill in Congress, H.R. 831, intended to pave the way for a Port Huron casino backed by Ilitch and friends. That bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Don Young.

Fried’s roster of high-profile clients who call when they’re in trouble includes:

*Sergei Fedorov, at the time one Mike Ilitch’s star skaters on the Detroit Red Wings, was arrested in 2001 after failing a field sobriety test and charged with driving while impaired. (Click-On Detroit)

*Bob Probert, another Red Wings player who was arrested in 1989 for smuggling cocaine and subsequently served three months in federal prison. (St. Petersburg Times)

*Nellie Varner, a former University of Michigan Regent who along with Herb Strather founded Atwater Entertainment Associates (MotorCity Casino), faced allegations of possible involvement in the 1998 murder of her daughter's ex-boyfriend. (Michigan Daily)

*Ronald Ilitch, the eldest son of Mike and Marian Ilitch, who was arrested on domestic violence charges in 2004 involving a girlfriend, Lisa Wood. Ilitch ultimately plead guilty to the charges. (Detroit Free Press)

*Fried also represented Ron Ilitch in a 1997 divorce proceeding. (Oakland Co. Courts)

*Michael Ilitch, Jr., another of Mike & Marian Ilitch's sons, has reportedly struggled with addictions during his life. Fried attempted to get Ilitch’s previously suspended Michigan drivers license re-instated during court proceedings in 2000. (Oakland Co. Courts)

Fried’s scruples have been questioned over the years:

In 1996, an Administrator representing Michigan’s Attorney Grievance Commission alleged that Fried and several colleagues participated in a scheme to counsel clients, who were dissatisfied with the judge assigned to their case, to retain an attorney related to that judge as co-counsel, solely for the purpose of removing the judge from their case. The Administrator alleged that Fried and the others received compensation based on their ability to get a client’s case transferred to another judge. (Grievance)

During a 2006 trial on wrongful discharge claims brought by a former Clerk of the 48th District Court (Bloomfield Township, MI), the Detroit Free Press reported that jurors heard testimony which alleged: “Harold Fried, an Oakland County defense attorney who has raised tens of thousands of dollars for myriad judicial candidates, routinely distributed tickets to prized sports events in an effort to curry favor with court employees.” (Detroit Free Press)

Strather identified those who formed nucleus of Atwater Associates in 1994

excerpted from an article published on 2.21.05 in Crain's Detroit:

When MotorCity was being organized in the days before the city's Detroit casinos were authorized, [Herb]Strather said, 112 Detroit area people each bought one or more $25,000 units in the company that eventually founded the casino.

"Many put in $100,000, four units," he said, making their holdings worth about $1.7 million today.

Strather said this investment growth in MotorCity doesn't include the $38.5 million that he and three other initial investors - Nellie Varner, Ron Slavik and James Blain - received when they sold their shares to Ilitch and to Mandalay, operating partner for MotorCity.

These four, along with former New Detroit President Paul Hubbard, funeral director O'Neill Swanson, and Barbara Callaway, who was Strather's grade-school teacher, were the original investors in 1994 when the city of Detroit voted approval for three casinos, Strather said.

That same article reported that Strather raised "about $3.3 million through Atwater to help win approval for three Detroit casinos in a 1996 statewide election campaign."

Strather, not known for consistency, appears to leave out Lawrence P. Doss in his references to AEA's original members although Doss signed the original Articles of Organization for Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC (AEA) in January 1995 along with Strather and Varner. Doss has been noted as Manager/Treasurer of AEA and along with Strather and Verner he was a signatory to the Detroit Entertainment LLC Operating Agreement on behalf of AEA.

Strather had formed another entity, Atwater Entertainment Associates, Inc., in May 2004. He changed the name to AEA, Inc. in January 2005 and the Michigan DL&EG indicates that entity expired in July 2005.

Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC was dissolved by Vivian Carpenter, Strather's wife, in September 2006.

See List: Investors - Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC

When reporter interviewed Herb Strather he failed to do the math

In February 2005, Robert Ankeny wrote in Crain's Detroit:

When MotorCity was being organized in the days before the city's Detroit casinos were authorized, Strather said, 112 Detroit area people each bought one or more $25,000 units in the company that eventually founded the casino.

"Many put in $100,000, four units," he said, making their holdings worth about $1.7 million today.

Strather said this investment growth in MotorCity doesn't include the $38.5 million that he and three other initial investors - Nellie Varner, Ron Slavik and James Blain - received when they sold their shares to Ilitch and to Mandalay, operating partner for MotorCity.

These four, along with former New Detroit President Paul Hubbard, funeral director O'Neill Swanson, and Barbara Callaway, who was Strather's grade-school teacher, were the original investors in 1994 when the city of Detroit voted approval for three casinos, Strather said.

Then, in March 2005, Robert Ankeny of Crain’s Detroit wrote:

Strather, who in the early 1990s organized the group that became Atwater Entertainment Associates L.L.C., said he, Karmanos and about two dozen of the 108 partners who own fractional shares of MotorCity also have offered to buy out and restructure that 11.5 percent of MotorCity for $118 million. Strather withdrew from the casino licensing process in 1999 before MotorCity opened, he said, in part because overdue taxes on some of his past development projects might have hindered approval from the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

But just a few months later, in October 2005, Robert Ankeny wrote:

Detroit-based Atmashpee L.L.C. scored a victory in a decades-old battle to win federal recognition for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts, said Herb Strather, Detroit developer and organizer of the company…

Atmashpee (the name is a blend of Mashpee and Strather’s Atwater Associates, organizers of what became MotorCity Casino L.L.C.) includes $12 million invested by more than 200 people. About 150 of them are former Atwater partners, he said

How is it that Ankeny could write in February & March that Strather's Atwater Entertainment Associates was a group of 108 - 112 partners and yet in October he reports 150 former Atwater partners represented 3/4s of the 200 investors in Strather’s AtMashpee casino syndication?

Was Ankeny enabling Strather to spread falsehoods and mistruths to some benefit?

Were Strather's inconsistencies meant to attract new investors or give some comfort to existing investors?

Were these representations designed to make others like Len Wolman, Sol Kerzner and brothers Richard & Stephan Slavik think there was more to AtMashpee LLC than there really was? Or were there some never-revealed "silent" partners behind Atwater Entertainment Associates that perhaps included Wolman, Kerzner and/or the Slavik brothers?

As noted in the first Ankeny reference above, the Slaviks' cousin, J. Ronald Slavik, was known as an "investor" in Atwater Associates.

See "Investors" List: Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC

Not so favorable report of casino syndicators Strather, Varner, Malik, Slavik et al

Excerpts from a 4.26.99 article published in the Las Vegas Sun:

Circus Detroit partners under scrutiny

DETROIT -- As state investigators probe the suitability of those seeking to run casinos here, a newspaper says some investors in the Atwater/Circus Circus group have troubled histories...

The Detroit News reported Sunday on its review of public records on the local investors.

It said companies owned by local investor group leaders Herb Strather and Nellie Varner of Detroit have paid taxes late, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cited a real estate company they own for several violations.

A bad real estate deal in 1986 led to the foreclosure of nearly 40 properties. This month, HUD issued five violations against a Detroit apartment building they own; courts have awarded their tenants about $750,000 in negligence claims...

Investor Michael Malik of Grosse Pointe was arrested in 1997 and accused of hitting his girlfriend's 12-year-old son, the newspaper said. The child is now Malik's stepson, but the boy's biological father is seeking custody. The charge was dropped after Malik served one year of probation and met conditions set by the judge...

Strather, Varner, Malik and Thomas Celani, along with minor investors James Blain and J. Ronald Slavik, are accused in lawsuits of fraudulently cutting two other developers out of the Atwater Group, the News said. They deny the allegations, which are pending in courts in Wayne and Oakland counties.

Also, Varner's adopted daughter, Janniss Scott Varner, is accused of attempted murder in an alleged shooting in Nellie Varner's garage... (See: Original Article)

Michigan Senator listed as "investor" in gambling casino syndication fund

It appears that Michigan State Senator Buzz Thomas (aka Samuel Thomas III) was apparently an investor in Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC (AEA), one of the founding interests – along with Marian Ilitch’s partners and Las Vegas-based Mandalay Resort Group (Circus Circus) – in Detroit’s MotorCity Casino.

Detroiters Herb Strather and Nellie Varner syndicated interests in AEA starting in 1995 in order to raise the capital they needed to push for the legalization of commercial gaming in Michigan (Proposal E – 1996) and lay the foundations for Detroit’s MotorCity Casino. Neither Strather or Varner were able to qualify for Michigan gaming licenses. Thomas, who was born in 1969 (1.28.69), would have been between 25 and 30 years old at the time he originally "invested" in the Atwater venture (AEA).

Thomas was first elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1996 and served from 1997 – 2002. He’s represented Michigan’s 4th State Senate District (Detroit proper) since 2003.

In 2003, he introduced Senate Bill 0904 intended to limit the State Lottery’s use of casino-like games. Rather, in 2004, Detroit’s commercial casino interests promoted and passed a statewide ballot measure, Proposal 1, which requires a statewide vote in order to establish any new state lottery games utilizing "table games" or "player operated mechanical or electronic devices." According to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network (mcfn.org), Marian Ilitch, representing MotorCity Casino, contributed $200.000 to support passage of Proposal 1 – at the time she was reportedly that casino’s largest individual shareholder.

Ilitch reportedly bought out the interests of AEA syndicators in 2005 when she acquired majority control in MotorCity Casino from Mandalay Resort Group/MGM Mirage. (MichiganDaily.com: Ilitch Outbids Partners for MotorCity Casino)

According to a Web site set up for AEA investors to enable class-action lawsuits, Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC included entities known as Bay Ventures and BV Atwater. Strather’s wife Vivian Carpenter has served as Resident Agent for all three affiliates.

According to Crain’s Detroit, three-quarters of Atwater “investors” have also “invested” in AtMashpee LLC, another entity Strather syndicated to raise capitol need to bankroll a Cape Cod casino resort plan with the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe of Massachusetts. Strather has also organized AtMashpee Notes LLC.

That tribe’s former chairman, Glenn Marshall, was under federal investigation and has agreed to plea guilty to federal campaign contribution violations and charges of fraud. Various Atwater/AtMashpee investors were identified blindly in the indicment documents. AtMashpee enabled Marshall's wrong doing by dumping $4 million into a hidden fund.

It's not clear whether Sen. Thomas was one of those Atwater investors who also helped to syndicate AtMashpee LLC.

According to a bio presented on Thomas' Web site, he has been:

Called “A Rising Star” by both the Detroit News and Hotline, one of Michigan’s five “Key Technology Leaders” by the Detroit Free Press, an “Under-40 Political ‘Buzz’ Saw” by the Michigan Front Page, recognized as One Of Four Up-And-Coming Leaders by Savoy, a national magazine spotlighting young, dynamic African-Americans, and chosen “Most Dedicated Detroiter” and “Best Local Politician” by Real Detroit Magazine, State Senator Buzz Thomas (D-Detroit) is known not only as a political force but also as a dynamic legislative leader.

You may want to review these related posts:

• Using borrowed money, Ilitch made overnight millionaires out of her Atwater partners
• Heirs of Chicago-based American Invsco founder helped bankroll casino ... are they at it again?
• Politico paid to gather signatures on petitions may have also invested in AtMashpee LLC
• Did principals at Goddard Clausen political firm help syndicate AtMashpee LLC too?
• Who's Who guide to complaint filed against former Mashpee tribe chairman Glenn Marshall
• Detroiters Strather, Deitch provided $4 million fund that enabled wrongdoing by ex-tribal chairman
• A one-time partner of Marian Ilitch & Mike Malik, had previous bribery conviction; bankrolled current plan for Cape Cod casino

Mlive.com: Michigan state senator from Detroit injures knee in fight outside bar
Wikipedia: “Buzz” Thomas (Samuel “Buzz” Thomas III)
Official Web Site: Senator Buzz Thomas

Heirs of Chicago-based American Invsco founder helped bankroll casino ... are they at it again?

Three of Chicago-based Nicholas S. Gouletas’ daughters were among the original investors in
Atwater Entertainment Associates LLC (AEA), the entity that pushed to legalize gaming in Detroit during the mid-1990s and then eventually morphed into MotorCity Casino which opened its doors in 1999 with financing from, and under the management control of, Las Vegas-based Mandalay Resort Group (Circus Circus).

A Web site which lists the names of AEA investors includes the names of Andrea Desiree Gouletas (born Oct. 1969); Deanna Eileen Gouletas (born Oct. 1960) and Victoria Michelle Gouletas (born May 1974). They are three of Nicholas Gouletas’ six children.

AEA was formed in 1995 by Detroiter Herb Strather and a partner Nellie Varner to syndicate financial interest and raise capital needed to advance their local casino plans. At that time, the Gouletas sisters’ ages would have ranged from about 21 – 35 years old.

Crain's Detroit indicates that many AEA investors were also investors in AtMashpee, LLC, another casino syndication organized by Strather to raise the money he needed to bankroll the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe's effort win federal recognition and build a casino resort on Cape Cod. That tribe’s former chairman has been under federal investigation and has agreed to plea guilty to federal campaign contribution violations and charges of fraud. AtMashpee enabled his wrong doing by dumping $4 million into a hidden fund.

It’s not clear if the Gouletas family is helping to bankroll that plan for a large scale Massachusetts casino resort.




As owners of American Invsco, the Gouletas family carries one of the most highly recognizable names in Chicago real estate. Siblings Nicholas S. "Nick" Gouletas, Evangeline “Engie” Gouletas and Vincent Goulet (he changed his last name) established American Invsco four decades ago (1969).

Today, the privately held real estate conglomerate is one of the leading developers of condominiums in the U.S. Nicholas is chairman and CEO of American Invsco and his son Steven is president. The Gouletas were pioneers in the business of condo conversions and the development of luxury hi-rise residential buildings. It is reported that American Invsco has developed and marketed over 45,000 condominiums in more than 40 cities across the U.S. with property values in excess of $4 billion.

In 1981, while attending Ronald Reagan’s 1st Inauguration, Engie Gouletas met then-New York Governor Hugh L. Carey, a widower; and they were married less than four months later. In 1998, she left American Invsco and formed Skyline Equities Realty LLC in part because of a long running feud with her brother Nicholas.

As one of the largest condo developers in the U.S., American Invsco and its affiliates haven’t been without controversy throughout the years.

Most recently, the Las Vegas Review Journal has reported on a class-action lawsuit being brought by those who purchased units in an American Invsco project known as The Meridian, located at 250 E. Flamingo Road, just one block from the famed Las Vegas Strip.

Curiously, a 10.17.08 Review Journal article indicates that Meridian Private Residence CH LLC, a so-called “affiliate" of an unrevealed Detroit-based venture capital fund, had been quietly bankrolling the start-up of American Invsco’s Meridian property.