The consultant who represented a potential conflict of interest that caused money laundering charges to be dropped against the owners and operators of two Houston area poker clubs is denying accusations that he scammed one of those establishments out of $250,000.
When Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg dropped the charges against the two clubs and referred the case to the FBI, she cited multiple conflicts of interest, with one being a former consultant and political fundraiser who apparently also had ties to the clubs themselves.
Proposed Houston Ordinance Never Materialized
Attorneys for the clubs confirmed that the individual in question was Amir Mireskandari. On July 17, attorneys for the Prime Social Poker Club claimed that Mireskandari had received $250,000 from the poker room to help secure the passage of a city ordinance that would clarify that the private poker clubs were legal.
But such an ordinance was never even proposed or debated by the city government, according to the Houston Chronicle. That led representatives of the Prime Social Poker Club to begin questioning whether Mireskandari was actually doing anything to help them earlier this year. The two clubs would be raided by Houston police on May 1.
According to Joseph Magliolo, an attorney representing Prime Social, Mireskandari also told the club to make thousands of dollars in contributions to Texans for Fairness and Justice, his political action committee.
According to attorney Chip Lewis, Mireskandari and private investigator Tim Wilson made a similar pitch to the Post Oak Poker Club, though they decided that the offer wasn’t legitimate.
Magliolo thanked Ogg for dropping the charges, saying that he believed the DA’s office was hoodwinked by Mireskandari as well.
“We believe we were the victims of a fraud, much as I believe the DA’s office was also a victim,” Magliolo told the Houston Chronicle.
Mireskandari: Clubs Invented Story to Get Charges Dropped
On Monday, however, Mireskandari denied the allegations, and in fact said that he thinks that the attorneys for the poker clubs manufactured the scheme in order to force Ogg to dismiss the money laundering charges.
In Mireskandari’s version of events, he was earning $10,000 a year from Wilson starting early in 2018 to draft a city ordinance that would benefit the poker rooms. Under the proposed ordinance, clubs would be responsible for safety improvements like improved lighting and security, while the city would be able to collect a licensing fee from the rooms.
According to Mireskandari, he had yet to actually propose the idea, planning to wait until after new municipal elections took place this fall. But after a terse breakfast meeting with representatives from Prime Social in November 2018, he backed out of the plan.
He just lays it into me, to the point where I feel physically uncomfortable,” Mireskandari told the Chronicle, recalling the meeting. “I get up and say, “Guys, I don’t know y’all. Never met y’all…I’m out of here.”
But attorneys for Prime Social say that Mireskandari’s version of events doesn’t hold up, and wouldn’t explain why the charges were dropped against the clubs.
“If we just concocted this story and she bit on it – he’s calling his friend that naïve?” Prime Social lawyer Zack Fertitta told the Chronicle. “I don’t think Kim Ogg is that naïve or gullible, and I think she did the right thing.”
