Twitter sued for overdue rent at San Francisco office

Elon Musk's Twitter Inc. is being sued for failing to pay $136,250 in rent at one of its office spaces in San Francisco.

According to a complaint filed by landlord Columbia Reit, Twitter is late on rent at 650 California Street on the edge of Chinatown where the social media platform is the tenant for the 30th floor of the building.

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 29 in state court in San Francisco, claims Columbia Reit sent a notice of nonpayment on Dec. 16 and gave the company five days to pay.

Musk, who has slashed expenses at Twitter while his personal wealth shrinks, did not immediately respond to an email from USA TODAY. Twitter no longer has a press department.

The company's headquarters are located at another San Francisco address, 1355 Market St., where Twitter has also reportedly fallen behind on rent, according to The New York Times.

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How has Twitter purchase affected Musk's finances?

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO bought Twitter for $44 billion in October and the company was expected to be on the hook for about $1 billion a year in interest payments from the deal.

Most of Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla shares, which have lost more than half of their value since he took ownership of Twitter. He has sold nearly$23 billion worth of the electric vehicle company's stock to fund the purchase since April, when he started building a position in Twitter.

He also lost the top spot for the world’s wealthiest person, according to Forbes.

Why is Musk cutting costs at Twitter?

Musk defended his extreme cost cutting measures last month in a late night Twitter Spaces call.

“This company is like, basically, you’re in a plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” Musk said in late December.

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What is Musk doing to slash expenses? Moves include auctioning off office equipment

In addition to not paying rent and laying off workers, Musk's Twitter is also auctioning off high-end office furniture, kitchen equipment and other relics from the past, when Twitter had more than 7,500 full-time workers around the world.

Some three-quarters of Twitter's employee base are expected to have left the company, either because they were laid off, fired or quit.

Among the items Twitter is auctioning off are a pizza oven, 40-quart commercial kitchen floor mixer (retails for around $18,000; bidding starts at $25), high-end designer furniture such as Eames chairs from Herman Miller and Knoll Diamond chairs that retail in the thousands.

Even a Twitter bird statue (bidding starts at $25) and a neon Twitter bird light display (bidding starts at $50) are up for grabs in this fire sale-style auction reminiscent of the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, when failed tech startups were selling off decadent office wares.

Contributing: Associated Press

Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.

Twitter layoffs: Elon Musk's Twitter cuts jobs across the company ...

CNN Business —

Twitter on Friday laid off thousands of employees in departments across the company, in a severe round of cost cutting that could potentially upend how one of the world’s most influential platforms operates one week after it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk.

Numerous Twitter employees began posting on the platform Thursday night and Friday morning that they had already been locked out of their company email accounts ahead of the planned layoff notification. Some also shared blue hearts and salute emojis indicating they were out at the company.

By Friday morning, Twitter employees from departments including ethical AI, marketing and communication, search, public policy, wellness and other teams had tweeted about having been let go. Members of the curation team, which help elevate reliable information on the platform, including about elections, were also laid off, according to employee posts.

“Just got remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed from Slack,” one Twitter employee said on the platform. “So sad it had to end this way.”

Another employee said that she and other members of Twitter’s human rights team had been laid off. The employee added that she is proud of the team’s work “to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders.”

Simon Balmain, a former Twitter senior community manager who was laid off Friday, said in an interview with CNN that he lost access to Slack, email and other internal systems around 8 hours before receiving an email Friday morning officially notifying him that he’d been fired. He added that the lay off email “still didn’t provide any details really” about why he’d been let go.

“The waves of annoyance and frustration and all that stuff are absolutely mitigated by the extreme solidarity we’ve seen from people that are in the company, people that are in the same position, people that left the company in years gone by,” Balmain said. “It’s like a giant support network, which has been absolutely amazing.”

One Twitter employee who was laid off told CNN Friday that some workers are relieved to have been let go. “For me, being safe would’ve been punishment,” the employee said.

While Twitter employees were posting about being laid off, Musk on Friday appeared for a friendly interview at an investor conference and spoke about making cheaper electric vehicles and his ambitions to go to Mars. During the interview, Musk said of Twitter, “I tried to get out of the deal,” but then added, “I think there is a tremendous amount of potential … and I think it could be one of the most valuable companies in the world.”

The interviewer said that Musk had laid off “half of Twitter” and Musk nodded, although he did not comment on the remark.

(In a series of tweets Friday evening, Yoel Roth, head of Twitter’s trust and safety team, confirmed overall headcount was cut by roughly 50%. The layoffs eliminated 15% of the company’s trust and safety team, leading to reductions in customer service but little change to content moderation, according to Roth. )

In his interview, Musk appeared to frame the sweeping layoffs as necessary for a company that, like other social media firms, was experiencing “revenue challenges” prior to his acquisition as advertisers rethink spending amid recession fears.

Musk also said “a number of major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter” in the days since the acquisition was completed.

Elon Musk spoke at an investment conference Friday morning as employees at Twitter, which he now owns, were receiving notifications that they had been laid off from the company. Baron Capital

Twitter had about 7,500 workers prior to Musk’s takeover, meaning roughly 3,700 employees were laid off. The cuts come as Musk attempts to improve the company’s bottom line after taking out significant debt financing to fund his $44 billion acquisition.

The email sent Thursday evening notified employees that they would receive a notice by 12 p.m. ET Friday that informs them of their employment status.

“If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email,” a copy of the email obtained by CNN said. “If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.”

The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”

The email concluded acknowledging that it will be “an incredibly challenging experience to go through” for the workforce.

Several Twitter employees on Thursday night filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Twitter is in violation of the federal and California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) after laying off some employees already. The complaint was later amended to acknowledge that while several of the plaintiffs did ultimately receive sufficient notice of their termination under the WARN Act, Twitter still allegedly failed to give sufficient notice in the case of some employees.

The WARN Act requires that an employer with more than 100 employees must provide 60 days’ advanced written notice prior to a mass layoff “affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.”

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has made clear that he believes complying with federal labor laws is ‘trivial,’” Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement to CNN. “We have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rights.”

WARN notices were filed by Twitter on Friday for nearly 1,000 impacted employees at the company’s various California offices.

Separately, other labor lawyers told CNN Friday they had begun receiving inquiries from Twitter employees questioning whether their terminations may have been unlawfully discriminatory or retaliatory.

“Former Twitter employees have reached out to us regarding their layoffs and their circumstances, and so we’re looking at all the issues — beyond appropriate notice — and to make sure the employee wasn’t laid off due to their membership in a protected category,” said Chauniqua Young, a partner at the law firm Outten & Golden.

Beyond the potential for lawsuits arising from the layoffs, other legal experts say Musk’s handling of the cuts may well create further problems for him down the road — whether in terms of attracting future talent or by keeping remaining workers satisfied.

“Once you treat people like this, they remember that,” said Terri Gerstein, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute. “Of the people remaining, it is a certainty that none of them feel secure in their job, and I would be shocked if the remaining people were not updating their resumes right now or talking with each other about starting a union.”

Musk started his tenure at Twitter by firing CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives, according to two people familiar with the decision.

And in less than a week since Musk acquired the company, its C-suite appears to have almost entirely cleared out, through a mix of firings and resignations. Musk has also dissolved Twitter’s former board of directors.

Many staffers on Friday summed up their feelings with a hashtag, #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense play on one previously often used by Twitter employees.

- Brian Fung and Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report

Donie O'Sullivan Clare Duffy
Donie O'Sullivan
Clare Duffy

Hertz false arrests over stolen cars: CEO 'to do right' by customers

Hertz Global Holding's new CEO Stephen Scherr said last week that customers have been harmed by the rental car company's policies, which have led to false arrests.

Scherr told multiple news outlets, including CNBC's Squawk Box, that the company "will do right where our customers have been negatively affected," and that "we have changed our policies to avoid the possibility of this happening."

More than 230 plaintiffs are suing the company for false arrest and, in some cases, prosecution. The lawyers for this group say they know more cases are out there, with warrants for the arrest of people who rented from Hertz years ago continuing to surface today.

Scherr's comments came amid mounting pressure from Congress, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urging the White House Competition Council to examine rental car companies, including Hertz; and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., demanding answers from Hertz.

► Hertz:Senators call for investigation after hundreds of rental car customers claim false arrest

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In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on April 6, Blumenthal urged FTC Chair Lina Khan, "to open an investigation into Hertz’s inaccurate and potentially unfair practice of reporting its vehicles as stolen and take appropriate enforcement action to ensure Hertz’s consumers are not falsely arrested or otherwise harmed."

He cited reporting by USA TODAY and other media outlets in his letter about Hertz, which is based in Estero, Florida, and operates the Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty car-rental brands.

What did Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr say?

Scherr, who took over as CEO on Feb. 28, laid out the problems causing the wrongful arrests to CNBC: When a car was mistakenly reported stolen, that report was not rescinded even though it should have been. When a customer later rented a vehicle, they were pulled over and arrested for driving a stolen car in some cases.

"It’s not acceptable to Hertz to have any customer — a single customer — sort of caught up in some of what’s happened," Scherr said. But he added, "to put context to it, if you look at the several 100 people impacted... we engage in 15 million transactions a year, this is 1/100 of a percent of those transactions."

Hertz customers have said they were arrested and jailed because the company accused them of stealing cars that they had paid to rent and, in some cases, had returned long before their arrest.

More than 230 of them are suing the company for a total of more than $530 million in damages. The case is being heard in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Hertz emerged from bankruptcy last summer and in February hired Scherr, a former chief financial officer at Goldman Sachs, to guide the company into new partnerships, like adding 100,000 Teslas to its fleet.

"We appreciate Stephen Scherr’s pledge to resolve the lawsuit and Hertz’s firm commitment to settling these cases," said Francis Malofiy, a Philadelphia attorney representing the plaintiffs. "However, it’s one thing to tell Wall Street that Hertz wants to put this behind them. It’s another to pay the damages in the hundreds of millions for the harm they caused."

He said it remains to be seen if Scherr's words "were simply lip service" or if the company will make good on his promise.

A Hertz spokesperson denied USA TODAY's request to interview Scherr and responded to questions about his public comments with a written statement that is almost identical to one the company has issued numerous times in the past.

“Hertz cares deeply about our customers, and we successfully provide rental vehicles for tens of millions of travelers each year. Where our customers have been negatively affected, we are committed to doing what is right by our customers. At the same time, we will protect and defend against false claims intended to cause our company harm.

"The vast majority of the current legal claims involve renters who were many weeks or even months overdue returning vehicles and who stopped communicating with us well beyond the scheduled due date. These situations where overdue rentals are reported to authorities are very rare and happen only after exhaustive attempts to reach the customer.”

When asked what policies would be changing specifically to address the problem of false arrests, Hertz sent a statement saying, "We continuously enhance our systems, processes and training to ensure they meet our high standards of service.’

Customer experiences differ from situation described by CEO

While some of the claimants in the case against Hertz were in fact pulled over in cars that had mistakenly been reported stolen, as Scherr described, many other people claim they were falsely accused of stealing cars for which they'd extended rental agreements and paid additional money to keep longer.

If Hertz believed someone was late in returning a car or hadn't paid the correct amount, they should have initiated a payment dispute and gone to arbitration, according to the contract they make customers sign, the claimants' lawyers argue.

Instead, a theft report is filed that the customer is completely unaware of, sometimes finding out there is a warrant for their arrest months or years after they thought they successfully returned and paid for their rental car, Malofiy said.

"They're converting a payment dispute to a criminal matter," he said.

Hertz did not respond to questions about those payment dispute circumstances which make up about 85% of the current claimants, according to Malofiy. The missing inventory circumstances described by Scherr only make up 15% of the claims.

And new cases are coming in daily, Malofiy said. Numerous people have contacted USA TODAY after reading about the lawsuit saying they too were wrongfully arrested.

Rescinding of police reports disputed

The lawyers for the claimants also question Scherr's statement about attempting to rescind mistaken police reports because the company has said on numerous occasions that it cannot or will not ever rescind a theft report once it's filed.

"Stephen Scherr's recent claims that the company withdraws incorrect police reports are not true for the vast majority of Hertz false arrest and police report victims that we represent," said Malofiy.

In December Hertz wrote emails to two customers complaining about false arrests in which a customer service representative stated the company was "not empowered" to take back a police report.

ReJeana Meado rented a car from the Hertz-owned Thrifty brand for a wedding in Houston from May 13 to May 16, 2021.

She dropped the car off in the early morning hours of the 16th as instructed by security personnel at the airport. But weeks later she got a letter threatening her with arrest, accusing her of not returning the car.

What transpired over the next six months was described by Meado in her court filings as a "fiasco." Dozens of calls and emails to and from Hertz with conflicting information.

She was told the car had been located, then that it had never been recovered. She was told she needed to fill out a police report, then told to fill out internal theft reporting forms with Hertz. Her credit card was charged more than $5,000 for a full month of rental even though she only had the car for three days. Then she was threatened that she still owed more than $5,000 that she'd already paid. She was told there was no record of the dispute, that everything was resolved and that no theft report had been filed. Then in December, she was told she was in fact reported to the police for theft.

“We are not empowered to withdraw the theft report; therefore, you must address this matter through the legal system. This is our final determination on this matter, and it will not be reconsidered," Lori Barnard with Hertz Executive Customer Service wrote to Meado in an email on Dec. 6.

Manuel Garcia got a very similar email from Hertz in December.

He'd entered into a long-term rental with Hertz in January 2021. These agreements are more like leases than rentals. The customer's credit card is charged at the end of every month that they keep the car.

According to his court complaint, Garcia realized that his credit card was never charged at the end of October and called the Doral, Florida location he rented from. An employee who knows him as a repeat customer told him he just needed to come renew the long-term rental within the next couple of weeks.

Before he could do so, Garcia's car was towed while he was out to dinner. The driver said the car was reported stolen by Hertz. After numerous phone calls and emails to Hertz he got the same answer from Lori Barnard with Hertz customer service.

"(W)e are not empowered to dismiss the police report that was filed with the

authorities. Therefore, you must address this matter through the court

system," Barnard wrote to him on Dec. 1.

A Hertz spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020 that the company has no “mechanism” to withdraw reports and does not do so because “In the rare instances this happens, if you report a crime, and you later say it didn’t happen, then law enforcement tends not to believe you if you retract it or say you were mistaken,” the spokesperson said. “Hertz’s continued good relationship with law enforcement is important.”

Both Meado and Garcia are fearful there could be warrants out for their arrest, which for Garcia could impact his immigration status.

Malofiy said if Hertz is serious about doing right by the customers wrongfully accused of theft, the company needs to immediately withdraw all pending police reports because new victims are finding out about warrants every day.

"Outstanding police reports, subsequent arrests, and prosecutions continue to follow victims for months or, in a number of instances, years after they've proven that they were lawfully renting Hertz customers," Maolfiy said. "If Mr. Scherr is serious about changing course, he should immediately take steps to retract all the faulty theft reports and right the wrongs Hertz has inflicted on hundreds of our clients and tens of thousands of other victims of its theft reporting practices."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow Katie Wedell on Twitter: @KatieWedell and Facebook: facebook.com/ByKatieWedell

Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill closings, lawsuits and liens ...

Robert Anglen

The Republic | azcentral.com

Boomtown Entertainment has opened 20 Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill restaurants since 2009

17 have failed in the past 18 months, and projects in 19 other cities were never completed

It is facing at least $28.6 million in lawsuits, judgments and liens in 24 cities

Company officials say the closures are part of a strategic plan to make room for future growth

Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill has generated a country song’s worth of grief in cities nationwide — along with nearly $30 million in lawsuits, liens, judgments and accusations of unscrupulous business practices against a Phoenix-based restaurant chain.

Boomtown Entertainment is accused in lawsuits of taking millions of dollars from mall owners and developers to build new locations and then walking away with the money, often leaving projects unfinished.

Boomtown closed most of its restaurants this year amid allegations that it stiffed landlords, contractors and suppliers, as well as racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in liens for failing to pay sales taxes.

An Arizona Republic investigation found Boomtown recently accelerated its restaurant closures, shutting down 10 since May with little or no warning to employees and customers. All told, Boomtown has closed 17 of its 20 Toby Keith restaurants in the past 18 months, including three in metro Phoenix and one in Tucson.

Boomtown officials followed many closures of Toby Keith restaurants with promises to open new ones in different cities. Since 2012, the company has announced plans to build 19 Toby Keith restaurants that it left unfinished or never started.

The Republic also found:

Boomtown, its affiliates and executives have been sued in 24 cities and are facing at least $28.6 million in lawsuits, judgments and liens.

No Toby Keith restaurant has been open longer than seven years, and some closed within months of opening.

The median time restaurants have stayed in business is two years. That includes the three still operating, in Rosemont, Ill., Foxborough, Mass., and Auburn Hills, Mich.

Boomtown's first Toby Keith restaurant, named after the country singer's 2003 chart topper "I Love This Bar," opened in Mesa six years ago. The concept was part dance hall, part nightclub and part Southern-dining experience. You want fried pickles with your American Soldier Burger? You got it. Beer was served in Mason jars and entertainment was provided by the Whisky Girls.

Toby Keith's was built big; the sprawling dining space included a stage for concerts. And if live music wasn't available, customers always could join in a line dance. The restaurant's centerpiece was an 85-foot-long guitar-shaped bar in star-spangled colors.

Keith's name was on the building, but he didn't have an ownership stake in the restaurant. He collected revenue on the naming rights and would make an occasional appearance. Boomtown wasn't the only company operating Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill, but it quickly became the biggest.

Boomtown had caught country lightning in a bottle. It opened three more Toby Keith restaurants in 2010. By 2012 it had 10. Then the bottle cracked.

In 2012, a Dallas mall owner sued the company for not paying rent. A judge ordered Boomtown to pay $1.4 million in 2013, and company officials closed the restaurant a few months later.

That first closure in 2014 was followed by more lawsuits. A pattern quickly emerged: construction delays, tenant disputes, missed rental payments, delinquent taxes and evictions, which led to more closures and unfinished projects. But even as Boomtown closed restaurants, it continued to open new ones through April 2015.

Boomtown officials said in interviews that each restaurant was unique and that legal issues at one location were unrelated to the others.

They described the shutdowns as part of an aggressive new business plan and said in August that the closure of four restaurants soon would be offset by the openings of new ones in Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and elsewhere.

But The Republic found the company already had halted construction and walked away from its lease in Cleveland, delayed construction in Pittsburgh and canceled plans to build in Greenville, S.C.

Boomtown's website this week continued to display restaurant locations in 19 cities, but 16 of those are closed.

Boomtown: Closures are strategic and brand is strong

Boomtown CEO Frank Capri is a Valley real-estate investor turned restaurant entrepreneur. Gregory McClure, the company's executive vice president, is a Phoenix lawyer who has also served as the company's general counsel.

Boomtown, a limited liability corporation registered in Delaware, operates out of an address on East Bell Road in Phoenix.

Capri and McClure, who are named in several lawsuits, declined to comment. They referred questions to a former company spokesman and to an outside lawyer.

Boomtown's former vice president of operations, John Thomas, said in August that the company "has a strong brand" and rejected any notion of financial trouble. He described closures as strategic moves to position the company for future growth.

"Over the last year or so, we've decided to look at our business and make tough decisions and closed certain locations that were not making it," Thomas said. "Businesses evolve. Things change."

Thomas would not address accusations raised in the lawsuits or explain why Boomtown had failed to pay sales taxes at some of its popular locations, including the chain's flagship near Chicago.

Boomtown's outside lawyer, Jess Lorona, also wouldn't discuss specific allegations.

“If stores were closed or stores were not opened, such decisions were financially based,” Lorona said in an e-mail statement. “Many stores lost money from opening and would ultimately be closed. Others that were open for a period of time would start to lose money and would ultimately need to be closed.”

Developers' lawsuits in Michigan, Oregon and California

Property owners and developers accused Boomtown officials of using money designated for construction of Toby Keith restaurants at one location as a cash machine to pay for improvements at others.

These so-called tenant-improvement payments typically are used to pay subcontractors and are meant to ensure work at a specific location is completed on time. The money is paid by property owners and serves as an incentive for tenants to sign long-term leases.

Cases filed in Lansing, Mich., Springfield, Ore., and Newark, Calif., by the same property owner accused Boomtown of entering into contracts and accepting incentives and payments for tenant improvements, then diverting the funds without paying contractors and leaving projects unfinished.

“Boomtown has concocted a scheme (whereby) it agrees with landlords to apply (tenant improvement) payments to specific locations but then uses the TI payments to cover costs at other Boomtown locations or for other reasons,” Lansing Mall owner Rouse Properties of New York City said in a federal lawsuit filed in June.

The lawsuit alleges Boomtown officials submitted bogus certificates of completion to get $2.1 million in tenant-improvement money. Rouse said none of the subcontractors Boomtown identified in sworn statements worked on the project. It also said Boomtown’s failure to pay subcontractors resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in mechanic's liens being filed against the mall.

Rouse contracted with Boomtown to open five Toby Keith restaurants in malls nationwide, but said all were behind schedule. “Indeed, two of the five leases have been terminated based on (Boomtown’s) utter failure to pursue any construction on the property,” the lawsuit said.

Under terms of the Lansing contract, Rouse was required to pay Boomtown for tenant improvements during each phase of construction.

Rouse said in its lawsuit that it paid Boomtown $364,700 at the lease signing in January 2014 and another $1.1 million in September 2014 based on Boomtown's sworn statement and a certification that 25 percent of the work had been completed. In October 2014, Boomtown certified that 50 percent of the work was completed and requested another $729,480 payment.

“A representative of Boomtown assured (Rouse) that construction was on schedule or, at worst, a week behind,” Rouse said in its lawsuit.

The developer said it didn’t learn until December that subcontractors weren’t being paid and began paying them directly. The list of unpaid workers included plumbers, electricians, landscapers, framers and drywall hangers and concrete, insulation and heating and air-conditioning installers.

A federal judge in July awarded Rouse a $2.1 million judgment.

Another Rouse-owned mall in Springfield, Ore., also won a $304,368 default judgment against Boomtown in July. Gateway Mall said it paid Boomtown for tenant improvements on a project that was never started, court records show.

Lorona, Boomtown's lawyer, would not address specifics of any case but said the company was prepared to battle in court.

“All claims will be defended, especially those that are false and not true,” he said.

In the California case, Boomtown officials denied any wrongdoing and defended their handling of tenant-improvement funds.

NewPark Mall in Newark, Calif., accused Boomtown of depositing money for multiple development projects into the same account, making it hard to distinguish money designated for one Toby Keith restaurant from another.

NewPark said Boomtown took nearly $800,000 in tenant improvements and "failed to complete even the minor tasks that they promised to complete."

In court documents, McClure, Boomtown's executive vice president and general counsel, denied diverting money to other projects. He blamed the mall for exacerbating delays.

McClure said after construction began officials discovered “ventilation ducts, utilities and other amenities” were not located in the right places, requiring revisions to the plans. He said the company stopped construction after the mall denied access to parts of the building.

McClure said Boomtown “did not want to invest further resources in the construction and opening of the restaurant until the dispute … is resolved.”

Boomtown loses cases in Georgia, Idaho and Virginia without a fight

Boomtown has lost more than half of the $28.6 million in claims without a fight.

It has been hit with a series of default judgments in state and federal court. A judge in the Michigan case noted Boomtown “failed to plead or otherwise defend” itself in the case as required under court rules.

Cases in Savannah, Ga., Meridian, Idaho, and Newport News, Va., ended in similar fashion, with courts awarding $14.4 million total in default judgments against Boomtown.

Default judgments typically occur when a party to a lawsuit fails to respond.

Lorona said in August that he was unaware of any default judgments and would have to look into the cases. He said the lawsuits don't reflect a pattern.

“I don’t believe that Boomtown or Toby Keith’s (restaurants), based on what I know, is experiencing financial (problems),” he said. “I guess on its face, it looks like that.”

In Georgia, Boomtown announced in 2013 that it would open a 15,000-square-foot Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill at the Savannah Mall.

The restaurant was supposed to take up six storefronts on the second floor between a Bass Pro Shop and Target. But court and business records show that by 2014 the project was mired in delays.

According to media reports, Boomtown was accused of failing to pay subcontractors who had walked off the site in protest. Court records show the mall won a $7.9 million default judgment against Boomtown in July.

In Idaho, a court awarded a $5.9 million default judgment to a mall near Boise that evicted Boomtown in October 2014.

A mall in Newport News, Va., was awarded a $586,072 default judgment in July after it evicted Boomtown for failure to pay rent. The restaurant had been open for about three years.

Lorona said problems at some Toby Keith restaurants involve disputes with landlords over rent. He said closures occurred only after Boomtown attempted unsuccessfully to renegotiate lease terms.

While it could appear to outsiders that Boomtown owners “maybe bit off more than they could chew,” the company is involved in a “typical business situation,” Lorona said.

In Mesa, Boomtown's original Toby Keith’s forced to close

The closure of Boomtown's original Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill at Mesa Riverview last October shocked patrons and employees.

People said it was still drawing crowds five years after its 2009 grand opening when the dance floor was packed, crowds lined up at the bar and diners were prepared to wait for Southern-fried specialties.

Riverview was Boomtown's prototype for the Toby Keith's venues that would follow. It anchored a mall, was located close to downtown, offered free parking and billed itself as an entertainment destination.

Boomtown officials called Riverview’s closure a strategic move in order to make Toby Keith’s “a premier dining and entertainment venue.” They credited Mesa and the development “for believing in us when we first introduced this concept.”

What Boomtown officials didn’t say is that Riverview’s owners already had filed a lawsuit against them for failure to pay rent and had sought a restraining order barring them from the property.

Court records show that in June 2014 Kimco Riverview sued Boomtown’s development company for $219,327. The lawsuit claimed Boomtown wouldn't make good on what was owed even after the lease was amended five times.

Riverview said it had paid Boomtown $3 million to build the restaurant and told the court it had reason to believe Boomtown's CEO Capri was going to strip the building. Riverview alleged that Capri was planning to move the restaurant’s assets to avoid having them seized as the result of judgments against him in other cases.

Boomtown spokesman Thomas said the decision to leave Mesa was based on new plans to scale back the size of Toby Keith restaurants while still offering customers all the amenities they wanted.

“We've looked inward, to look at our concept and evolve it to where we can continue to grow,” Thomas said. "I don't think you ever open a restaurant, run it for two years and say let's ditch it."

Restaurants in Phoenix, Orlando, Houston and Oxnard, Calif., close in less than a year

Thomas talked about the company’s future from the VIP room of the chain’s newest showpiece bar and grill, on High Street in northeast Phoenix.

It was an hour after opening, just past 5 p.m. on a Tuesday in early August. Cool air circulated through a cavernous dining room, with neon lights bouncing off industrial fixtures. The atmosphere was roadhouse chic and devoid of a single customer.

Sitting behind darkened windows looking out at the guitar bar, Thomas appeared unconcerned by the empty stools and unused chairs, all branded with the “TK” logo. He talked expansion.

“We're going to be opening certain locations that will better our company profile," he said. “What worked three years ago and works four years from now are going to be completely different things.”

A little more than four weeks later and without notice, High Street closed. Employees came to work to find the doors locked and a notice from the landlord taped to the door.

It had been open for five months.

But it’s not the first Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill to close within months of opening.

Venues in Orlando, Houston and Oxnard, Calif., all were open less than a year. The restaurants closed amid lawsuits and accusations that Boomtown broke leases, failed to make rental payments and in some cases still owe contractors for work. Boomtown has been sued for at least $3.6 million total in those cases.

Boomtown officials said in October 2014 that the High Street location, meant to replace Riverview, would be open to take its place within a month. One month became six, and High Street finally opened in April.

Neither Thomas nor any other Boomtown official would comment on High Street’s shutdown.

Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill in Peoria suffered a similar end in June. Two years after opening at Park West mall in 2013, employees and customers were surprised to find the doors locked and an eviction notice posted outside.

Park West sued Boomtown in July for $206,274 in back rent, interest and late charges.

CountryinAZ.com, a blog tracking the country-music scene in Arizona, said the closure came without notice or explanation.

“This closure has left many patrons upset and puzzled,” website owner Liz Kellogg wrote. “The Peoria location had been home to countless happy hours, live country music, country concert after parties, and country dancing.”

Inside Boomtown and Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill

It’s unclear how much Keith knows about the financial and legal issues facing his eponymous chain.

Neither the country singer nor his California-based publicist returned calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Boomtown officials would not discuss the terms of Keith's licensing arrangement. The star was ranked 32nd on Forbes magazine's annual list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities this year. In 2013,Forbes estimated the singer earned $12 million annually from his restaurant deals, taking a flat fee or a percentage of revenue depending on the location.

Keith licenses his name to other businesses operating Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill, including one at Harrah's Las Vegas. The Hal Smith Restaurant Group owns three in Oklahoma. No problems have been reported at those locations.

Boomtown CEO Capri has been named in a string of lawsuits, liens and judgments since signing his licensing deal with Keith.

Capri, who has brokered deals for some of the Valley’s most expensive homes, is a principal of Capri Homes LLC, Capri Concepts LLC and Capri Properties LLC.

He has lost more than a dozen lawsuits since 2008 and faces more than $3 million in judgments unrelated to the restaurants, court and business records show. Creditors, homeowners' associations, homebuilders and contractors have filed claims against Capri ranging from $1,328 to $1.1 million.

It wasn’t until 2012, when the Dallas mall named Capri in its $1.4 million lawsuit, that legal issues involving the restaurants spilled into his personal life. The Dallas lawsuit also named two Boomtown subsidiaries called Capri Restaurant Group Enterprises.

CRGEs are the entities Boomtown uses for developing and operating Toby Keith restaurants. Arizona corporation records show company officials filed paperwork to establish a CRGE in all 39 cities where they announced their plans to open a restaurant, whether or not it was built.

Corporation records also show Capri’s ambitious plans for expanding Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Beginning in 2009, around the time the Mesa Riverview restaurant was opening its doors, Boomtown officials incorporated the first of 25 additional CRGEs, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Philadelphia and Calgary, Alberta.

They never have been used.

Lawsuits say company failed to pay sales and other taxes

Boomtown also has a record of not paying sales, liquor and property taxes, which led the taps to run dry at one restaurant.

More than 60 percent of Toby Keith's business is derived from alcohol sales, company officials said in a recent court filing. So when the Mason jars can’t be filled, the restaurant is going to be in trouble.

Toby Keith’s restaurant in St. Louis Park, Minn., ran out of beer in May after state officials accused owners of failing to pay state liquor taxes and prohibited them from buying more, state records and local media reports show. The restaurant closed in July.

Boomtown has been accused of failing to pay taxes in Michigan, New York and Ohio, leading to other liens and lawsuits.

Its flagship restaurant near Chicago was nearly forced out of business in August over $700,000 in delinquent sales and property taxes. A lawsuit filed by the city of Rosemont to oust Toby Keith’s from the city-owned mall also accused Boomtown of failing to pay rent. Boomtown avoided eviction by paying its bills.

Boomtown suppliers also are racking up judgments.

U.S. Foods, one of the biggest food distributors in the country, filed a $579,000 lawsuit against the company in August for breaking its contract to buy some goods and failing to pay for others.

U.S. Foods, which named 16 CRGEs in its suit, asked the Maricopa County Superior Court in September for a default judgment.

Another lawsuit involved "Red-Solo-Cup lights," which resemble the cups ubiquitous for parties and kegs and immortalized in a 2011 Toby Keith song. In 2014, Rico Industries, an Illinois company that sells sporting memorabilia and novelties, won an $11,516 default judgment after it accused Boomtown of not paying for lights it ordered.

Spokesman Thomas said that explaining how the company became embroiled in such a legal morass was “way above my pay grade.” He said it was more important to look to the future.

Within nine months, fans could expect new Toby Keith’s to open, Thomas said, ticking off names of cities on his fingers – including venues that already have failed.

What The Republic found:

Boomtown Entertainment has opened 20 Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill restaurants since 2009.

17 have failed in the past 18 months.

The pace of closures is accelerating: three in 2014; 14 in 2015; 10 since May.

Phoenix-based Boomtown is facing at least $28.6 million in lawsuits, judgments and liens.

Lawsuits, liens or judgments have been filed in 24 cities. Those include allegations of contract breaches, unpaid rent, stiffing contractors or unpaid taxes.

The 20 stores stayed in business from five months to 6.7 years, with a median of two years.The company walked away without finishing some projects and never started others.

Boomtown has filed LLCs for other 25 locations that it has not acted upon

Toby Keith timeline

The 17 closed restaurants and their dates of opening/closing:

Tucson (2013/Aug. 2014)

Mesa (2009/Oct. 2014)

Oxnard, Calif. (2014/Nov. 2014)

Dallas (2012/2014)

Folsom, Calif. (2011/Jan. 2015)

Houston (2014/Jan. 2015)

Newport News, Va. (2012/Jan. 2015)

Woodbridge, Va. (2013/May 2015)

Syracuse, N.Y. (2013/May 2015)

Peoria, Ariz. (2013/June 2015)

Orange Beach, Ala. (2013/June 2015)

St. Louis Park, Minn. (2009/July 2015)

Cincinnati (2012/July 2015)

Orlando, Fla. (2015/July 2015)

Phoenix (2015/Sept. 2015)

Denver (2010/Sept. 2015)

Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. (2012/Sept. 2015)

The remaining restaurants and year of opening:

Exclusive: Trump's 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a presidential ...

Nick Penzenstadler, and Susan Page

USA TODAY

Donald Trump is a fighter, famous for legal skirmishes over everything from his golf courses to his tax bills to Trump University. But until now, it hasn’t been clear precisely how litigious he is and what that might portend for a Trump presidency.

An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits.

The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements.

Just since he announced his candidacy a year ago, at least 70 new cases have been filed, about evenly divided between lawsuits filed by him and his companies and those filed against them. And the records review found at least 50 civil lawsuits remain open even as he moves toward claiming the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in seven weeks. On Tuesday, court documents were released in one of the most dramatic current cases, filed in California by former students accusing Trump University of fraudulent and misleading behavior.

The legal actions provide clues to the leadership style the billionaire businessman would bring to bear as commander in chief. He sometimes responds to even small disputes with overwhelming legal force. He doesn’t hesitate to deploy his wealth and legal firepower against adversaries with limited resources, such as homeowners. He sometimes refuses to pay real estate brokers, lawyers and other vendors.

As he campaigns, Trump often touts his skills as a negotiator. The analysis shows that lawsuits are one of his primary negotiating tools. He turns to litigation to distance himself from failing projects that relied on the Trump brand to secure investments. As USA TODAY previously reported, he also uses the legal system to haggle over his property tax bills. His companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes, and the New York State Department of Finance has obtained liens on Trump properties for unpaid tax bills at least three dozen times.

Exclusive: More than 100 lawsuits, disputes, tied to Trump and his companies

And despite his boasts on the campaign trail that he “never” settles lawsuits, for fear of encouraging more, he and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases reviewed by USA TODAY. Most involve people who say they were physically injured at Trump properties, with settlements that range as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in an interview that the number and tenor of the court cases is the “cost of doing business” and on par with other companies of a similar size. "I think we have far less litigation of companies of our size," he said.

However, even by those measures, the number of cases in which Trump is involved is extraordinary. For comparison, USA TODAY analyzed the legal involvement for five top real-estate business executives: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center properties.

To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, only actions that used the developers' names were included. The analysis found Trump has been involved in more legal skirmishes than all five of the others — combined.

The USA TODAY analysis included an examination of legal actions for and against Trump and the more than 500 businesses he lists on the personal financial disclosure he filed with the Federal Election Commission. USA TODAY also reviewed five depositions in which Trump sat for 22 hours of sworn testimony. This report is based on those legal filings as well as interviews with dozens of his legal adversaries.

A handful of the ongoing cases involve local or state government entities, with the possibility of personal legal disputes between the president of the United States and other branches of government if Trump is elected. For instance, the Trump team has filed a lawsuit seeking a state ethics investigation of the New York attorney general. The suit was filed in response to an ongoing fraud investigation into Trump University by the attorney general, an elected state official.

Trump, New York attorney general spar again over Trump U.

And at a campaign rally in San Diego last Friday, Trump railed against a federal judge overseeing an ongoing lawsuit against Trump University. Trump said Judge Gonzalo Curiel "happens to be, we believe Mexican," and called him a "hater of Donald Trump" who "railroaded" him. Born in Indiana, Curiel was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama. The judge on Tuesday unsealed hundreds of pages of documents in the case.

The trial is set for November — just after Election Day.

Trump’s history of legal actions provides clues about his style as a leader and manager. While he is quick to take credit for anything associated with his name, he is just as quick to distance himself from failures and to place responsibility on others. In one lawsuit — filed against him by condo owners who wanted their money back for a Fort Lauderdale condo that was never built — he testified in a sworn deposition: “Well, the word ‘developing,’ it doesn't mean that we're the developers.”

At times, he and his companies refuse to pay even relatively small bills. An engineering firm and a law firm are among several who filed suits against Trump companies saying they weren't paid for their work. In a 2011 deposition tied to a dispute over his deal with Van Heusen menswear, he said he abruptly decided not to sign a check to a firm that helped broker the deal, after 11 consecutive quarterly payments, because "I don't feel that these people did very much, if anything, with respect to this deal.”

The number of lawsuits raises questions about potential conflicts and complications if Trump does win the White House. Dozens of cases remain unresolved, about half in which he is the plaintiff. It raises the possibility of individuals being sued by the president of the United States, or suing him, in non-governmental disputes.

Under the law, Trump wouldn’t get special advantages as the plaintiff — or protections as a defendant. Under long-standing conflict-of-interest rules, as a plaintiff he couldn’t improperly benefit from governmental knowledge. He also wouldn’t get immunity from civil litigation that stemmed from events prior to taking office.

How USA TODAY NETWORK gathered Trump court files

Together, the lawsuits help address this question: How would Trump’s record in business translate into leading the most powerful government on the globe — a task that involves managing a $4 trillion annual budget, overseeing 1.8 million civilian federal employees and commanding the most powerful armed forces in the world?

While leaders who had business careers sometimes have been elected to the White House — oilmen George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, for instance, and mining engineer Herbert Hoover — the jobs have some fundamental differences, political scientists and presidential historians say. A president can't rule by fiat, as some CEOs do. And getting things done in government often involves building coalitions among legislators and foreign leaders who have their own priorities and agendas.

“He’s operating as his own boss and a CEO-on-steroids mentality, where you snap a finger and things get done,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who has written biographies of Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt and edited Ronald Reagan’s diaries. “But a lot of good governance is on learning how to build proper coalitions and how to have patience with the glacial pace of government, and you’re forced to abide by laws at all times. "

Brinkley sees "a lot of warning signs about having someone of Trump’s temperament and professional disposition being the commander-in-chief.”

To be sure, likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has had her own legal challenges, including an ongoing FBI investigation and civil lawsuits into her exclusive use of an email server while secretary of State. When husband Bill Clinton was president, she was involved in investigations by special counsels looking into the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas and other controversies. None resulted in legal charges against her.

During her time as first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of State, Clinton has been named in more than 900 lawsuits, mostly as a defendant, a review of state and federal court records finds. More than a third of the lawsuits were filed by federal prisoners, political activists or other citizens seeking redress from the government by suing a list of high-ranking officials.

The USA TODAY analysis identified at least 3,500 legal actions involving Trump. Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of records collected electronically and in person from courts in 33 states over three months, read more than 20 hours of depositions and interviewed dozens of litigants.

Among those cases with a clear resolution, Trump's side was the apparent victor in 451 and the loser in 38. In about 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs' claims against Trump. In hundreds more, cases ended with the available public record unclear about the resolution.

Close to half the court cases — about 1,600 — involved lawsuits against gamblers who had credit at Trump-connected casinos and failed to pay their debts. About 100 additional disputes centered on other issues at the casinos. Trump and his enterprises have been named in almost 700 personal-injury claims and about 165 court disputes with government agencies.

Dozens dealt with the bankruptcy proceedings of Trump's companies, and dozens more involved plaintiffs' lawsuits against Trump businesses that judges terminated because the Trump companies targeted had gone bankrupt.

They include Trump's ongoing suit against the town of Palm Beach over airplane noise near his Mar-a-Lago Club and an earlier lawsuit against the town over an 80-foot flag pole. Trump's team argued in court that a smaller flag would understate his patriotism, but he eventually settled with town officials, agreeing among other concessions to lower the pole by 10 feet.

There also are disputes with local governments from New York to Florida to Nevada over the size of his property-tax bills.

The terms of most of the 100 settlements that Trump and his businesses reached with plaintiffs have not been disclosed. In about 60 additional cases, those sued by the Trump side have settled with him.

A few have become fodder on the campaign trail, including two breach-of-contract lawsuits he filed against restaurateurs in connection with Trump's development of the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The businesses said they backed out of deals with Trump because of his derogatory comments about Mexicans. Both lawsuits are pending.

The luxury Trump hotel will have a prime view of the Inaugural Parade next January.

Review of thousands of legal actions show that Trump is fiercely protective of his brand, quick to distance himself from deals that struggle, willing to deploy outsized resources against adversaries and sometimes prone to micro-management, even in disputes that involve relatively small amounts of money. Those approaches, however appropriate in a business setting, may not translate to a political one, especially at the level of the White House.

Among the details:

• Trump distances himself from deals that sour.

When projects struggle, Trump doesn’t hesitate to cut ties, even those that relied on his name to secure investments. That was the case in condo projects that were never completed in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Panama and Baja, Mexico.

Condo buyers who sued to get their deposits back often said they believed Trump was a full partner in the buildings. Trump was shielded by disclaimers in sales agreements explaining his branding-only role, though plaintiffs and their lawyers argued in court that fine print didn’t sync with marketing materials that made it appear these were Trump properties.

In depositions and court filings in the condo cases and similar branding deals, Trump's team appears to try to have it both ways in depicting his involvement. On one hand, Trump contends deep influence over even the smallest details to ensure Trump-branded products and developments are up to his standard, and he places high importance on the influence of his marketing muscle in such deals — usually as the lead name, face and voice behind a project.

On the other hand, his team argues in court that he's not liable for the deals that fail because he's simply lent his name.

Trump himself walked lawyers through the difference between a brander and a developer in a 2013 deposition in one of the Fort Lauderdale condo cases.

“Well, the word ‘developing,’ it doesn't mean that we're the developers,” Trump said, arguing he’s not accountable when a project he lends just his name to goes under. “We worked on the documents, we worked on the room sizes and the things, but we didn't give out the contracts, we didn't get the financing, we weren't the developer, but we did work with the developer.”

In lawsuits over his Trump University, he testified that he had never met instructors who were described in the university’s promotional materials as being “handpicked” by him. “It depends on the definition of what that means, handpicked,” Trump said during an exchange with a lawyer in a sworn deposition last December.

When attorneys representing plaintiffs pointed out some instructors had criminal pasts and had been accused of berating seniors who signed up for the program, Trump replied: “In every business, people slip through the cracks.”

Florida attorney Sherri Simpson, who defends homeowners in foreclosure actions, said she signed up for Trump University classes because she hoped to capitalize on low prices during the housing downturn. She wanted to turn to a trusted real-estate name to learn how.

“I’m aggravated that I lost all that money,” she said in an interview. “He promised to hire the best, to handpick the instructors, make sure everyone affiliated with the program was the best. But he didn’t do that.”

• Trump is willing to spend large sums on small claims.

No detail is too small for a Trump suit, and he often brings to bear overwhelming legal resources that enable him to outlast his adversaries.

In February, he filed five lawsuits against eight neighbors of his Doral golf club in Miami for $15,000 in damages to reimburse him for "vandalizing" or "destroying" expensive areca palms and other plants his groundskeepers installed between their homes and the course. Trump's staff says the foliage was planted to block golfers' views of the houses; the homeowners say the trees blocked their views of the course. All five cases are pending.

“No other developer put so many resources in trying to fight claims brought by the plaintiffs,” said Jared Beck, a Miami attorney who has represented dozens of clients in lawsuits against developers in South Florida. He said none has fought with the tenacity of Trump, citing a “mismatch of resources” that often works in Trump’s favor.

Beck is now appealing to the Florida Supreme Court a case that dates to 2008 in which he represented a group of people who invested in condos in a failed development in Fort Lauderdale to which Trump licensed his name. “He is willing to go to the mat and has practically unlimited resources.”

• Trump fiercely protects the monetary value of “Trump” as a brand name.

Trump publicly has placed the value of his licensed real estate and other branding deals at $3.3 billion, though Forbes and other analysts question whether the figure is inflated. His moniker drives the value of his licensing deals, which now make up an important arm of his business model.

In one case, a South Florida developer hired experts who testified that having Trump's name attached to their proposed condominium development boosted the condos' value by at least $200 per square foot. The swanky seaside complex was only partially built, prompting some condo buyers to file a lawsuit against Trump and the developers seeking to recover their deposits. The developers had paid to license Trump’s brand, allowing them to use Trump’s name, his image and his reputation to help them sell units.

Trump has attempted to pull out or distance himself from similar licensing deals, real estate and otherwise, if he feels the situation is hurting his brand. He also goes to court to collect royalties and other fees he says he's owed on those same kinds of deals.

“Anything I put my name to is very important,” Trump said in a 2010 deposition tied to a failed real-estate development in Tampa licensed to carry Trump’s “mark," as he calls it. "If I allow my name to be used, whether it’s a partnership or whether it is a licensing deal, they are all very important to me.”

Trump sued for $4.5 million over unpaid royalties after a company that had been paying him to call its liquor Trump Vodka fell on hard times during the economic downturn, hurting sales of pricier spirits. The company stopped making its licensing payments, and Trump terminated the deal and sued to recoup what he was owed. He won a judgment for the amount, though it's unclear whether he ever collected from the troubled company.

And he has been aggressive in suing unrelated companies that were using his name without permission. He won rulings over attempts to market Trump’s Best Coffee, a series of websites with names like trumpabudhabi.com and trumpbeijing.com, and a marketing agency calling itself Trump Your Competition.

Trump’s general counsel, Garten, defended the number of lawsuits. “Our philosophy is that we are a company of principle,” he said. “When we believe we are in the right, we are going to pursue the matter to the end. If that requires that we go to trial and present evidence to a jury, we are prepared to do so. We are not going to cave to pressure.”

But experts in the presidency and business say Trump’s record, including in courtroom disputes, raise questions about whether he has exhibited the leadership qualities that have distinguished the nation’s most successful presidents.

“Somebody like Lyndon Johnson was a guy who woke up in the morning studying the decisions and the hopes and the strengths and the weaknesses of all the people he had to influence,” said Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time. “For that, you need two traits I think Trump lacks: Number one, an attention to detail, and number two, you have to subordinate your own ego. I’ve seen nothing from Trump that suggests he has that capacity, and government is the art of compromise.”

Trump’s lack of government experience was a political advantage during the GOP primaries, reinforcing his status as an outsider vowing to shake up a dysfunctional Washington. But it threatens to be a liability in the general election. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last week, six in 10 voters said they had reservations about or were uncomfortable with Trump’s lack of experience in government or the military.

Even so, some of those who have sued Trump, been sued by him or otherwise been caught up in his legal wake, say they still may vote for him in November.

Philip Monnin represented his daughter, Miss Pennsylvania contestant Sheena Monnin, in a defamation suit Trump filed after she posted on Facebook that she thought the 2012 Miss USA Pageant was “rigged.” An arbitration ruling upheld by a federal judge ordered her to pay $5 million in damages, although she and Trump eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed lesser amount. Monnin, who lives in Michigan, said the suit demonstrated Trump’s bullying tactics and attempts to intimidate legal opponents.

But he doesn’t rule out voting for Trump for president. “Both sides have failed to bring satisfactory candidates,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think any of us in the family has decided what to do, and we have a lot of time to consider how to cast our votes.”

Contributing: David McKay Wilson, Karen Yi, John Kelly and Kevin McCoy

Exclusive: Trump's 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a presidential nominee

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Trump and the Law

Hertz settles lawsuits over hundreds of alleged false arrests | CNN ...

CNN —

Hertz will pay $168 million to settle 364 claims related to the company falsely reporting rental cars as stolen. These cases sometimes resulted in people being arrested and even imprisoned.

One lawsuit involving dozens of such cases alleged systemic flaws in Hertz’s reporting of thefts, including not recording rental extensions, falsely claiming customers hadn’t paid, failing to track its own vehicle inventory and failing to correct false reports to police.

Some of those involved in lawsuits against Hertz reported being held at gunpoint by police and spending days in jail before the false reports were worked out. In one case, a person claimed it took two years for the case against them to be resolved.

Hertz said in its announcement that a “meaningful portion” of the settlement payout will be reimbursed from its insurers, and that Hertz “does not expect the resolution of these claims to have a material impact on its capital allocation.”

While the company has policies in place to ensure “proper treatment” of its customers as well as protect the company, “it has taken significant steps to modernize and update those policies,” Hertz spokesperson Jonathan Stern said in an email. The company would not detail any specific policy changes, however.

The settlement will resolve 95% of pending claims against Hertz regarding these sorts of false arrest claims, the company said.

“While we will not always be perfect, the professionals at Hertz will continue to work every day to provide best-in-class service to the tens of millions of people we serve each year,” Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in Monday’s statement.

Scherr had said in an April interview with CNBC that the cases involved “1/100 of one percent” of Hertz customer transactions.

These companies will help staff in red states bypass abortion bans ...

New York CNN Business —

Millions of women in more than 25 states face an abortion ban if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized the procedure nationwide. For many of those women, employers’ benefit packages may be the only way they can soon afford a legal abortion.

Amazon became the latest corporation to cover employees’ travel costs to seek abortion care. The company told staff it would pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for medical treatments including abortions, according to a message seen by Reuters. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the nature of the Reuters report to CNN Business.

The company’s announcement echoes similar moves by Citigroup, Yelp, Uber and Lyft to help employees bypass Republican-led efforts in several states to effectively ban abortion. And it comes just hours after a bombshell report by Politico indicated the Supreme Court is prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade.

CNN has not independently confirmed the Politico report, and a Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment.

If Roe is overturned, legislatures in 26 states have pending laws indicating that they intend to ban abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. That could leave many women in need of abortion services hundreds or thousands of miles away from access to the procedure — unaffordable for many.

Corporate America is increasingly being drawn from the political sidelines on the abortion issue in response to pressure from investors, customers and employees. Companies are also struggling to attract and retain talent and worry about the impact these states’ anti-abortion laws could have on their workers.

Executives are also learning how difficult it can be to craft a political message without angering one side or the other. Disney, notably, is grappling with the political fallout of coming out against Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law. CEO Bob Chapek initially failed to condemn the legislation before backtracking and apologizing to staff and fans who were outraged by the legislation. After Disney publicly opposed the law and vowed to help repeal it, lawmakers in the state passed legislation to dissolve the company’s longstanding status as a self-governing special district.

Last year, as several states pushed legislation that would make it harder for some citizens to vote, hundreds of leading executives from companies including Amazon, Google, BlackRock and Starbucks signed a statement opposing the bills.

Here are some of the most prominent companies offering expanded assistance to staff in states curtailing abortion care.

Amazon

The nation’s second-largest private employer said it would cover up to $4,000 per year in travel expenses for staff members seeking non-life-threatening medical care, including abortions, if care isn’t available within 100 miles of where they live.

Tesla

The electric vehicle maker said in its 2021 impact report that it will help provide travel and lodging “for those who may need to seek healthcare services that are unavailable in their home state” as part of its expanded Safety Net program and health insurance offering. Tesla’s headquarters moved to Texas in 2021, a state that has banned abortions after six weeks.

Citigroup

Citigroup in March became one of the largest US companies to commit to covering employees’ travel costs if they need to leave their state to seek an abortion.

“In response to changes in reproductive healthcare laws in certain states in the US, beginning in 2022 we provide travel benefits to facilitate access to adequate resources,” Citi said in a letter to shareholders as part of its annual proxy statement.

Bumble

The dating app company, which is based in Austin, Texas, in September created a fund “supporting the reproductive rights of women and people across the gender spectrum who seek abortions in Texas.”

“Bumble is women-founded and women-led, and from day one we’ve stood up for the most vulnerable. We’ll keep fighting against regressive laws like #SB8,” the company said on Twitter the week the legislation, which amounts to a near total ban on abortions in the state, went into effect last fall.

Relief funds will go to organizations that support women’s reproductive rights, including Fund Texas Choice, according to Bumble.

Levi Strauss

The clothing company called protecting access to reproductive care a critical business issue.

“Efforts to further restrict or criminalize that access would have far-reaching consequences for the American workforce,” the company told CNN Business in a statement. “Given what is at stake, business leaders need to make their voices heard and act to protect the health and well-being of our employees. That means protecting reproductive rights.”

Under Levi’s benefits plan, employees can be reimbursed for travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including abortion. Part-time staff and others who aren’t included in the company’s benefits plan are also eligible for reimbursement, it said.

Lyft & Uber

The ride-sharing rivals each announced in September that they would create legal defense funds to protect any drivers who might be sued under the Texas law for driving a person who receives an abortion.

The law’s wording leaves open the possibility that a driver could be sued, possibly even if they didn’t know an abortion was happening, according to Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Lyft also said it would donate $1 million to Planned Parenthood “to ensure that transportation is never a barrier to healthcare access.”

Match Group

The Dallas-based company that owns Match.com and several dating apps including Tinder, OkCupid and Hinge, also announced in September a fund to ensure its employees and their dependents would be able to seek reproductive care outside of Texas.

“The company generally does not take political stands unless it is relevant to our business,” said CEO Shar Dubey in a memo at the time. “But in this instance, I personally, as a woman in Texas, could not keep silent.”

Salesforce

Salesforce announced in September that it would assist its employees and their families if they want to leave Texas after the state passed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law.

The cloud computing company told its 56,000 employees that they “stand with all of our women at Salesforce and everywhere.”

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tweeted at the time: “Ohana if you want to move we’ll help you exit TX. Your choice.” (“Ohana” is the Hawaiian word for “family.”)

Yelp

A representative for the San Francisco-based company said its employee health insurance already covers abortion care, but starting in May, Yelp will cover travel expenses for any US employees and their dependents who need to travel out of state to access abortion care.

The benefit extends to staff and dependents affected by any current or future restrictions on reproductive rights.

As a remote-first company with a distributed workforce, “it’s a priority for us to offer our employees consistent healthcare coverage, regardless of where they live,” a representative said.

Starbucks

Starbucks’ healthcare plan is offering reimbursement for travel for abortion or gender-affirming procedures when those are not available within 100 miles of an employee’s home. Dependents who use Starbucks’ medical plan are also eligible for these benefits.

“Regardless of what the Supreme Court ends up deciding, we will always ensure our partners have access to quality healthcare,” wrote Sara Kelly, acting EVP of Partner Resources at the company, in a May 16 letter.

Kelly added that the company’s benefits team is working on details of the new benefit, including timing.

— CNN Business’ Catherine Thorbecke, Ramishah Maruf, Charles Riley and David Goldman contributed reporting.

Elon Musk wants Twitter users to pay to be verified. It could create a ...

New York CNN Business —

In 2009, after Twitter was sued by then-St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa for being impersonated on the platform, the young company introduced a new feature: a blue and white check mark.

The check indicated that Twitter had verified the accounts of artists, athletes, government officials and agencies and other public figures. The option, which kicked off with plans to verify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was presented as protection for individuals at risk of having their accounts fraudulently imitated and as a benefit to all users — a means of letting people know they could trust information being shared by prominent figures.

It soon became one of the platform’s signature features, copied by rivals like Facebook, and created a new kind of cultural cachet for those who received it. Now Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, is looking to overhaul the way verification works, with the potential not only to change who gets a coveted blue check mark, but also to create new headaches for users in spotting fake and fraudulent activity on the platform.

Musk confirmed this week he’s working to launch an updated version of the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service in which any user can pay $8 per month to get or remain verified. The world’s richest man has also used populist language, framing the move as a way to break “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark.”

If users buy in, the plan could be a new revenue driver for Twitter, something Musk needs following his $44 billion acquisition of the company, which was partly funded with debt. He has also suggested that verifying more actual, human users could help address the prevalence of fake and spam accounts that he purported to be concerned about during his months-long effort to get out of the acquisition deal.

The logic appears to go something like this: By requiring users to pay for verification, using a bank account or credit card, it would create a higher barrier to entry for inauthentic accounts. Musk said in a tweet Wednesday that if accounts verified under his new system engage in “spam/scam/impersonation, they’ll be suspended, but Twitter will keep their money!” And he said he would create a separate tag that would show up under the name of public figures, similar to how Twitter already identifies government officials and representatives of state media organizations.

But the move could disincentivize certain prominent accounts from being verified, making it harder for users to determine which are authentic. And it’s not clear that it will prevent inauthentic and bot activity either.

“In fact, this is making Twitter a pay-for-play system, and we know that propagandists, people working to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulation via Twitter, are very much willing and able to finance their operations,” said Samuel Woolley, assistant professor at the University of Texas’ School of Information and author of the book “Bots.”

“Most of the propagandists that social media companies are most worried about, like the Russian government, the Chinese government, extremist groups, have a lot of resources,” he said.

Currently, Woolley said, to get past the Twitter verification requirement that users link a cell phone number to their account, bad actors will “buy thousands of smartphones and put them on racks … and that’s a much more costly endeavor than paying an $8 verification fee.” In theory, a person could also pay to verify an account and then allow a computer to run it, thus effectively creating an automated (or “bot”) verified account.

There may be other complicating factors. Users might have concerns about handing over their bank or credit card information to a company that allegedly has major security vulnerabilities, according to a company whistleblower complaint from just months ago. In many parts of the world, people don’t readily have access to banking services. And many regular Twitter users who aren’t worried about being impersonated and don’t care about Twitter “clout” may also simply not care to shell out for a blue check.

It’s also not clear what would stop someone from creating and paying to verify an account fraudulently impersonating someone else, thus undermining the original purpose of the feature. It’s not hard to imagine someone paying to verify themselves as a customer support agent for a particular company and then using the credibility that comes from having a blue check mark to scam unsuspecting customers.

Twitter did not immediately respond to questions about the plan, including how it would prevent such imitation.

Musk has said his goal in buying Twitter is to bolster “free speech,” but some worry that the new subscription option could create a two-tiered speech system, based on who can and can’t afford to pay. With the new plan, for example, subscribers would get priority in replies, mentions and search, as well as the ability to post longer video and audio content while getting half as many ads as free users, according to Musk.

“You’re really saying that the free speech of people who pay is more important than the free speech of people who can’t,” said Jessica González, co-CEO of media accountability Free Press, who was part of a group of civil society leaders who met with Musk earlier this week to discuss content moderation and a recent surge of hateful rhetoric on the platform. “I actually told him … that I think that $8 a month is highly problematic.”

The proposed subscription update has been panned by several high-profile Twitter users, including author Stephen King and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. “Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription plan,” Ocasio Cortez said in a tweet Wednesday.

Musk on Wednesday hit back at critics of the plan, saying in a tweet: “To all the complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8.”

–CNN’s Jennifer Korn contributed to this report.

Anti-Asian hate crimes increased 567% in San Francisco as lawsuit ...

CNN —

Anti-Asian hate crimes in San Francisco spiked 567% in 2021, San Francisco officials said this week.

“That is significant, that is concerning, and that is alarming,” Police Chief Bill Scott announced Tuesday during a press conference addressing the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community ahead of the lunar new year next week.

The SFPD reports eight cases of Asian hate crimes in 2019, nine in 2020, and 60 in 2021.

Chief Scott said more than 30 of the incidents in 2021 were committed by the same person who deliberately targeted Asians. He was arrested in August for burglaries, acts of vandalism, and also faces hate crime enhancements. The chief also highlighted other arrests including the person accused of stabbing two Asians at a bus stop on Market Street. “That case got a lot of publicity, it was a bad look for our city,” he lamented.

“I’m heartbroken, I’m frustrated, I’m embarrassed, I’m angry about the violence that continues to impact many of the people who are part of our Asian community but especially our seniors,” said Mayor London Breed.

She pointed to the diversity of the city and though various communities were hit with hate crimes, she acknowledged none more than the AAPI community, especially the elderly.

“It would have broken my heart to have my grandmother be attacked in the way,” Breed said during the press conference.

Earlier Tuesday, the Alliance for Asian American Justice announced the filing of a federal hate-crimes lawsuit against the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the City and County of San Francisco, seeking to institute procedures that protect the AAPI community and ensure equal protection for justice.

The announcement was made at a press conference in San Francisco’s Chinatown district, claiming that “the justice system has often failed to treat victims with the dignity, respect and equal treatment that they deserve,” according to a statement from the Alliance.

The filing of the lawsuit follows an announcement Monday of the creation of a steering committee convened by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office Victim Services Division (VSD) “to address the gaps in services for AAPI elderly victims – to examine the challenges with case coordination, underreporting, and to develop a standard set of best practices for providing services in a trauma-informed and culturally-appropriate manner to AAPI elderly victims.”

The plaintiff, Mr. Anh Le, 69, a Vietnamese-American, is a survivor of an assault which occurred in November 2019 in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

He says that “justice has not been served” by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office though his attacker was charged with terroristic threats and elder abuse. Le says a man threatened to kill him and attacked him with a glass bottle while the man’s son attacked Le with a baseball bat.

“I pleaded with them to stop but they relished in their ability to inflict pain and fear on a defenseless senior citizen,” Le said, emotionally recounting his trauma.

Le said San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office allowed the defendant to plea to a misdemeanor and one year probation, without consulting the victim.

CNN has requested comment from DA Boudin’s office and the lawyer of the man Le accused of assaulting him.

Le said he felt “cast aside, ignored, and re-victimized by the institutions that were supposed to protect him.

“I am speaking out about my experiences today at great expense to myself because I hope that the leaders of our communities will see and feel the pain and suffering of Asian-Americans across the state of California and nationally throughout our country.”

A nationwide problem

The recent data from San Francisco and the lawsuit comes just weeks after the death of Michelle Go in New York City.

The death of Go, who was pushed to her death in front of a Times Square subway train, jolted Asian Americans across the United States, even though the incident isn’t being investigated as a hate crime. It prompted a kind of collective grief in a community affected by an increase in anti-Asian violence in recent years, advocates say.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people in the US have been victims of anti-Asian incidents, from verbal abuse to physical attacks.

In New York, hate crimes involving Asian Americans increased from 28 in 2020 to at least 129 incidents in 2021, said James Essig, NYPD chief of detectives, in a news conference last month.

When Go died, advocates and the Asian American community in New York were still mourning the death of Yao Pan Ma, a 62-year-old Asian man who police said was bashed in the head in an unprovoked attack in East Harlem.

He died from his injuries eight months after the attack, which happened a little over a month after eight people, including six Asian women, were killed in shootings at Atlanta-area spas.

On Sunday, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are coming together in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Philadelphia for a national commemoration of the one year anniversary of the killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee and honoring other victims of anti-Asian hate and bias.

Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old immigrant from Thailand, had recently received the coronavirus vaccine and was walking in the Anza Vista neighborhood the morning of January 28 when a man ran across the street and violently shoved him to the ground in what San Francisco District Attorney Boudin called “a horrific, senseless attack.”

Ratanapakdee never regained consciousness after the deadly assault.

Stella Chan Augie Martin
Stella Chan
Augie Martin

Employers who want workers in the office more often may be in for a ...

CNN —

Many employers have made it clear that they want their workers to return to the office – at least part of the time.

But some employees, who have spent the last two years working almost entirely remotely, are wondering why they need to return to in-person work at all. Gas prices are high. Covid infections are on the rise (again). They’ve been productive at home and when they do go into the office, few of their coworkers are there.

“Employees really want flexibility and choice over where, when and how to work. They don’t want to be told: ‘You need to be here on these days.’ They want to be able to choose,” said Ryan Luby, associate partner at McKinsey & Company.

Earlier this year, a survey from Pew found that among workers who have an office outside of their home, 61% said they are choosing not to go in to their workplace.

Whether it’s a hybrid model or requiring employees to come in five days a week, employers need to show the value of asking workers to commute into the office again if workers have been successfully working from home for two years.

“If the only thing that is different about their day is that they are going to be home less…and they get to the office and there isn’t anyone else there or aren’t people for them to collaborate with, then there is going to be some scratching of their heads of what’s the point of doing this,” said Vanessa Matsis-McCready, associate general counsel and director of human resources at Engage PEO.

Matsis-McCready added that offering back-up child or elder care to employees can help with the transition. Also, smaller perks like paying for podcast subscriptions to make the commute more enjoyable, free meals in the office, in-person learning sessions and social gatherings can also help entice workers to come back.

Are companies cracking down?

In one of the more extreme cases, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly sent an email to employees saying they need to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week or leave the company.

Still, many companies aren’t enforcing mandates just yet. But they are encouraging workers to come in, according to Brian Kropp, distinguished vice president in the Gartner HR practice, who added that companies tend to rely on badge swipes if they want to make sure employees are following protocol.

“The way that almost every company is tracking is: Did you swipe your badge when you came in through the doors or not?”

But for the most part, he said it’s too soon for companies to start cracking down on employees who aren’t putting in the required face time.

“At this point, they aren’t actively firing people who aren’t coming in often enough. “It’s much more of ‘let’s go talk to them and figure out what the problem is.’”

But that might not last too long.

“The idea that if someone really just doesn’t want to be in the office, I think a year ago a company might try working with them, but now it’s a little bit more of ‘Okay is that what we want for our business?’ And maybe if it’s not, maybe they’re not a match any more and that’s okay,” said Matsis-McCready.

Finding the right balance

Some companies are looking to meet employees half way.

Fertility benefits management company Progyny first reopened its Manhattan office in September with a plan that workers assigned to its headquarters would come into the office five days a week. The company gave workers three months’ notice and, anticipating resistance, used the first two weeks as a test.

After returning to the office full-time, workers met with their managers, and executives held check-in meetings to gauge how people were adjusting. One of the workers’ main concerns was child care due to uncertainty around closures.

“Clearly no one liked the five days and that is what we anticipated,” said Cassandra Pratt, senior vice president, people at Progyny. “We did get the feedback that confirmed our thought process that hybrid was better.”

Two weeks later, the company shifted its policy, requiring employees to come into the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays instead.

Still, some employees questioned why they were coming back at all when they’ve been working well remotely for the last two years, according to Pratt.

“That’s where we went back to the fact that our culture really is an in-office culture and we think those informal conversations and the face-to-face interactions are important to who we are,” Pratt said.”And we’ve seen a significant increase in collaboration. It’s also de-escalated some concerns and tensions and some group dynamics by being in person.”

The company expanded the types of roles that can work fully remote – but there are some limitations. Executives have to be able to come into the office three days a week and directors and vice presidents who manage teams in New York can’t work remotely full time. That requirement meant letting go of a few managers.

“We had a [few] people whose jobs really needed to be in-office given the level and scope of their role and they had relocated and we couldn’t make their role remote,” said Pratt.

Showpad, which offers software that aims to help companies boost sales, surveyed its workers ahead of reopening its offices last summer. The results showed that the majority of employees didn’t want to be in the office for more than one or two days a week. And 13% of workers wanted to work from home full-time.

While workers were clear about their preference, some of the company’s leadership initially worried the lack of in-person time could hurt its culture, said chief people officer Kelli Koschmann.

“Obviously, there was a tension between preference and business need and impact,” said Koschmann.

Now, the decision about how often workers come in is decided on a team level.

“[There] was a lot of conversation at the leadership level around what does good look like in terms of achieving the business impact that we want to have and how does being in the office play into that.”

How much does it matter if butts are in office seats?

Before setting up a firm in-office policy, digital workforce company Thoughtful Automation is assessing whether there’s a correlation between its employees’ performance and how many days they’re in the office.

The company, which launched in early 2020, started out fully remote. But as it grew, it opened up an office in Chicago and eventually gave workers the option to relocate – offering to pay their moving costs.

Now, the majority of the company is located in Chicago, and even though some employees had agreed to move, CEO Alex Zekoff said they still weren’t coming into the office as much as he wanted.

“In one of our all-hands meetings we had to be very explicit….and we put a policy in place.” Currently, coming in three days a week on average meets expectations, two or less is considered below expectations and four or five days a week exceeds expectations.

Zekoff noted the policy is still an experiment.

“We don’t actually know if someone comes in two days, are they less productive?” he said.

While there is no set in-person mandate right now, Zekoff said there have been some early signals of non-compliance.

“We are starting to have to deal with that,” he said. “It’s been a little bit more of a direct conversation of trying to understand what the issue is.”

Zekoff said they’ve also seen some indications that coming into the office more frequently does improve collaboration and performance.

“[One] team was sort of not coming in as much as another team and we noticed a team dynamic difference…the other team felt like they weren’t holding up their end of the bargain.”

But if the experiment shows that the increased office time doesn’t improve performance, Zekoff said he’s open to new polices.

“Policy should be an ever-evolving thing.”


Gangsta Boo dead: Three 6 Mafia rapper dies at 43

Gangsta Boo, the pioneering female rapper who got her start as a teenager in Three 6 Mafia, has died at age 43.

The hip-hop star (real name Lola Mitchell) died Sunday in Memphis, Tennessee, reps for the rapper at Echoing Soundz confirmed in a press release.

"The Mitchell family would like to thank everyone for their condolences regarding the untimely death of Lola ‘Gangsta Boo’ Mitchell. The family is asking for your continued prayers and privacy as we process the loss of our loved one,” said her mother Veronica Mitchell and family.

The press release adds: "Due to the ongoing investigation, specifics regarding the cause of death have not been released."

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DJ Paul, one of the founding members of Three 6 Mafia, took to social media to pay tribute to Mitchell Sunday, with a wordless post of Mitchell at turntable mixer. Ludacris, Big Boi, 2 Chainz and Lil Jon, among others, shared condolences in the comments.

The rise of Mitchell – also known as "the Queen of Memphis" or "Lady Boo" – as an ambassador of Memphis hip-hop started with her work on Three 6 Mafia's first full-length studio album, "Mystic Stylez," in 1995. She recorded several albums with Three 6 Mafia before parting ways with the group after the 2001 release of her second solo album, "Both Worlds *69." Her many collaborations include featured appearances with OutKast, Foxy Brown, Yo Gotti and Run the Jewels.

And while her success is associated with Three 6 Mafia, her solo work held its own. In 1998, she released "Enquiring Minds," which included the hit, "Where Dem Dollars At?!"

All three of her solo albums ranked on R&B charts. A steady stream of mixtapes and collaborations kept her name in play over the span of her nearly three decade-long career.

A week prior to her death, Mitchell filmed an unreleased video to "Imma Mack" for producer Drumma Boy's latest album "Welcome to my City Vol. 4," according to the press release regarding her death.

In a statement the producer and fellow Memphis native said, "Gangsta Boo was like a sister to me and told the world about me the way my blood brother did. We both are Leos and share the same energy towards unity and seeing people happy!"

"This is just such a devastating loss cuz she always wanted to see others win! RIP to the Queen Of Memphis, forever my sister," Drumma Boy (real name Christopher James Gholson) added.

As one of the first major female rappers representing the South, she shone a spotlight on those who came behind her, including GloRilla (aka Gloria Woods), the latest Memphis rapper to nab the national spotlight with hits like "F.N.F."

Last fall, Mitchell appeared on the podcast "Drink Champs," and spoke of the rising stars of GloRilla and Memphis rapper Gloss Up.

"It just made me feel good, 'cause they went whack and they represented Memphis right," Mitchell said.

On Sunday evening, Woods shared screenshots of what she said were conversations between her and Mitchell.

"She always supported me & the girls way back before we blew up," Woods said.

Rapper Al Kapone (aka Alphonzo Bailey), Mitchell's friend and collaborator, described her death as a deep loss for Memphis. Mitchell, he told the Commercial Appeal, let him know early on what his own style and influence meant to her.

"Boo is one of the first to represent female rappers in a major way and still is respected by the new female rappers today," he said. "Gangsta Boo is one of the reasons Memphis rap is global today."

Before Mitchell's death, Billboard asked her to describe her legacy or impact on female rap and hip-hop and general.

"I have to admit, respectfully and humbly, that I am the blueprint. I hear my cadence in a lot of men and female rappers. ... I wear that badge proudly," she told the outlet. "It just feels great to stand in yourself and look in the mirror and be like, 'Wow, you did that.' "

Contributing: Kim Willis, Naledi Ushe, USA TODAY

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