Las Vegas police: Deputies turned away trying to collect $500K debt at Wayne Newton home

Debt collectors turned away at Wayne Newton home

LAS VEGAS — Sheriff’s deputies were turned away from entertainer Wayne Newton’s sprawling ranch home Thursday while trying to collect a $500,000 court judgment stemming from back pay owed to a former pilot, authorities said.

Guards at Newton’s house, in a 38-acre walled compound dubbed “Casa de Shenandoah,” refused to accept service of court documents, and moving vans and Clark County sheriff’s civil division deputies left after less than 45 minutes, police Officer Bill Cassell said.

“They will have to seek alternative civil remedies,” said Cassell, a department spokesman.

Police and court officials said the case will return to county district court, where Judge Michelle Leavitt found Newton and his corporate entity, Desert Eagle LLC, in default June 8 on more than $400,000 owed to his former pilot, Monty Ward.

An Oct. 23 court filing in the case listed the amount due to Ward at almost $481,000, plus almost $128 per day in interest. The Las Vegas Sun reported Thursday that a lawyer for Ward put the amount due at more than $501,000.

Ward’s lawyer, John Muije, and Newton representatives did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press.

Ward is not the only creditor pursuing the 67-year-old crooner widely known as “Mr. Las Vegas.” Records show Newton has a spotty financial history.

In a civil lawsuit filed Feb. 9 in Clark County District Court, Bruton Smith, the billionaire chief of Charlotte, N.C.-based Sonic Automotive Inc. and chairman of NASCAR track owner Speedway Motorsports Inc., is seeking to seize Newton’s home for repayment of a $3.35 million loan.

A Speedway Motorsports corporate official in North Carolina and Las Vegas-based attorneys for Smith did not respond Thursday to messages seeking comment.

Court documents say Newton, Desert Eagle and Newton’s wife, Kathleen McCrone Newton, pledged the 38-acre personal residence as security for the loan in May 2007.

Desert Eagle also pledged as security Newton’s personal twin-engine jet, a Fokker F28 that an airport concessionaire said Thursday has been sitting abandoned at an airport near Detroit.

Joe Borgesen, owner of Oakland Air at Oakland International Airport in Waterford, Mich., said a lien has been filed against $66,000 in parking fees owed for the aircraft, which was valued in Smith’s lawsuit at more than $2 million.

Borgesen said the aircraft has been parked for more than three years and may be inoperable, with mold in the interior and engines that haven’t run in months.

Last summer, Newton was sued over $32,000 worth of hay for his horses and $37,000 for a 2005 Cadillac Escalade. The Cadillac lawsuit was dropped, but the lawsuit over the hay is pending in Clark County.

Newton filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992 to reorganize an estimated $20 million in debts, including a $341,000 Internal Revenue Service lien for back taxes.

In 2005, Newton disputed IRS claims that he and his wife owed $1.8 million in back taxes and penalties from 1997 through 2000.

Newton is credited with performing more than 30,000 solo shows in Las Vegas over 40 years. His latest show, called “Once Before I Go,” began in November at the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel and is due to end in April. He has not said if he plans to retire.

His best-known songs include “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard charts in 1972; his 1965 version of “Red Roses for a Blue Lady”; and his signature song, “Danke Schoen.”