Peter Thomas has had a rough time over the past year. Not only has he dealt with lawsuits over alleged fights at his bars, but he’s also dealt with the very public breakup of his marriage to “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Cynthia Bailey. Now, the reality TV star has another bit of drama on his plate as news reports reveal that he’s being sued by an investor for alleged bad business.
According to reports, Atlanta-based investor Tony Taylor filed a lawsuit last week in Mecklenburg County Court, claiming that Thomas defrauded him out of $150k in a business deal gone wrong.
In the lawsuit, Taylor claims that he met with Thomas’ brother, Clyde, in February at the reality star’s Charlotte bar, Sports One. Taylor says that Clyde informed him that Thomas had plans to open a nightclub in Charlotte called Club 1 and that he was looking for business partners to invest in the new club.
Taylor explains that he had a business meeting with Thomas a few days later and was offered a chance to partner up with him and invest $300k of his own money for a 30 percent stake of ownership in Thomas’ club.
Taylor says that Thomas told him that he’d invested $2-$3 million of his own money in the club and that he had “arranged with producers of the Bravo network series ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ to have multiple segments of different episodes of the television show filmed at Club 1.”
Taylor also claims that Thomas told him that he was getting his own Bravo reality show called “What’s Peter Doing Now?” that would center on his Charlotte businesses. Taylor also claims that Thomas promised him that he would take an “active role in management from time to time as Thomas was required to travel extensively.”
Taylor had not yet agreed to partnering with Thomas at this point, but he claims that Thomas later offered to let Taylor host a CIAA party at Club 1 as long as he loaned out $50K to cover the costs of the event. Taylor says that Thomas paid him back the loan, plus $14K that included bar sales.
Taylor claims that Thomas continued to contact him regularly about investing in his club and in March Taylor met up with Thomas’ lawyer about investing $150K for a 15 percent of ownership of Club 1. Taylor claims that he began paying the money to Thomas through bank deposits and wire transfers. However, he claims that he still has “nothing evidencing an ownership or equity interest in Club 1.”
He is now suing Thomas for fraudulent inducement, securities fraud, unjust enrichment, constructive fraud, obtaining property by false pretense and violation of punitive damages and is demanding that he get his money back, as well as a jury trial.
Well, this seems like yet another messy drama for Thomas. What do you think of the lawsuit? Let us know in the comments.
