Flying Squirrels owner sues Diamond District developer over heated encounter at new ballpark
As Richmond officials celebrated the opening night of the city’s new baseball stadium last month, a tense conversation happened in a hallway near the team offices of the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
Squirrels owner Lou DiBella got into an argument with local developer Jason Guillot, who’s playing a leading role in Richmond’s ambitious Diamond District redevelopment project.
That exchange has now escalated into a federal defamation lawsuit, with DiBella claiming Guillot took a movie quote out of context to falsely report back to the city that DiBella threatened to kill him and his family.
The lawsuit filed Thursday claims Guillot and the city then tried to use the alleged threat as leverage against DiBella as part of an ongoing dispute over how the $2.4 billion Diamond District project is proceeding.
The suit claims DiBella caught wind of the allegedly defamatory comment after Richmond Economic Development Director Angie Rodgers raised the issue with him in a phone call on April 9. The story Rodgers relayed to DiBella in that call, according to the suit, was that DiBella had threatened to harm Guillot if the team couldn’t get control of a small parcel of land next to the new CarMax Park.
“In other words, Guillot falsely and brazenly told the head of economic development at the EDA — the primary City official overseeing the Diamond District project — that DiBella had tried to extort Guillot with threats of physical violence,” the lawsuit says.
The suit names Guillot and his company, Thalhimer Realty Partners, as defendants. Guillot declined to comment Thursday evening, as he and others involved in the project seemed to just be learning of DiBella’s legal salvo.
No matter how the case plays out in court, it’s the latest example of tension over a major Richmond development project spilling into public view.
In addition to taking aim at the private developer leading the project, DiBella also accuses the city of misleading the public about the viability of the plan after some of the original developers involved pulled out of the project.
“Thalhimer, the City, and the EDA continued to lie — to DiBella, the MLB, and the people of Richmond — even after RVA Diamond Partners fell apart because they could not go through a lengthy, public solicitation process again and still meet the deadlines imposed by MLB to open a new stadium in Richmond,” the lawsuit says.
Mayor Danny Avula’s office said it had not seen the suit and could not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Five major accusations from Thursday’s lawsuit:
1) When Richmond’s EDA ceded stadium development to the Squirrels, they held back a small plot of land adjacent to the stadium for an “African American-owned food court,” to satisfy minority business requirements, according to the team. DiBella alleges that the developers then shopped that plot to former team executive Todd “Parney” Parnell to create a sports bar that would directly compete with the Squirrels’ concession sales.
2) The city’s originally chosen development group, RVA Diamond Partners, “considered building the Squirrels’ new stadium an act of philanthropy,” according to the lawsuit, and "the principal of Republic (one of the developers) described it as an albatross that they were only building because they were forced to.” As a result, the lawsuit said, they proposed a subpar stadium.
3) When Major League Baseball convened a meeting to ask about stadium construction falling behind schedule, DiBella alleges that the city represented that the RVA Diamond Partners group was still intact, though he alleges that the city knew at the time two of the three partners had withdrawn.
4) DiBella said along with the stadium, developers were supposed to open "housing, a hotel, and retail space,” but those have not yet been started, hurting the Squirrels’ business.
5) In the ongoing dispute over whether VCU will play baseball at CarMax Park, DiBella said that the Squirrels “have no obligation to maintain the field and stadium and share MLB-used spaces with VCU, and DiBella has been clear that he currently does not intend to do so.”
The disputed parcel
The lawsuit only offers DiBella’s version of the confrontation that occurred during the first home game at CarMax Park.
In the weeks leading up to opening night, the suit says, DiBella and Squirrels co-owner Larry Botel had been focused on a 0.8-acre parcel of land next to the planned entrance to the new stadium. DiBella says the team was told the area would be used for a Black-owned food court that wouldn’t compete with the Squirrels’ concessions business but would help the city meet its minority business participation goals.
However, the suit claims Botel had heard rumors of a plan to build a sports bar “somewhere in the Diamond District” named for former Flying Squirrels CEO Todd “Parney” Parnell.
“Parnell learned from a Thalhimer-affiliated broker shortly before opening day that Thalhimer planned to put the sports bar named after Parnell on the 0.8-acre parcel,” the suit says. “Parnell — who did not want the bar named after him to compete with the Squirrels — immediately informed DiBella and Botel of Thalhimer’s plan.”
The confrontation
It was against that backdrop that the confrontation involving DiBella, Botel and Guillott allegedly occurred on opening night.
With only a security guard around, the suit says, DiBella began raising concerns that Thalhimer and the city weren’t living up to their promises and ended up with a new ballpark surrounded by “nothing but a construction site.”
DiBella claims he didn’t mention the 0.8-acre parcel other than saying he “knew Guillot was now trying to compete with the Squirrels on the team’s front lawn.”
The alleged threat from DiBella occurred as the heated exchange was wrapping up.
“As DiBella was leaving, Guillot called out unprompted: What are you going to hit me?’ DiBella responded unequivocally that he would never hit Guillot,” the suit says.
DiBella then repeated an “approximate quote” from the 1982 film “Diner,” saying: “But if I did hit you, I’d hit you so hard, I’d hurt your whole family.”
The exact quote from the movie is “I’ll hit you so hard, I’ll kill your whole family.”
The lawsuit claims the comment was intended to be a joke, not an actual threat of violence.
“Throughout the entire discussion, Guillot never moved, flinched, or did anything to indicate that he felt threatened by or afraid of DiBella,” the suit says.
Michael Phillips
The call from Rodgers
DiBella says he learned Guillot had relayed the incident to the city after receiving a phone call two days later from Rodgers, the city’s top economic development official. She allegedly said she had heard a “serious allegation” about DiBella.
DiBella then became “upset,” the suit says. He told Rodgers Guillot was “lying,” urged her to speak to Botel about what happened, then hung up.
A subsequent text exchange was attached to the lawsuit.
“I will not be disrespected by you. Open an investigation if you wish,” DiBella wrote.
In response, Rodgers said: “I’m trying to say something to you that I really don’t want to put in email.”
DiBella says he took the exchange to mean others involved in the Diamond District project were attempting to use Guillot’s accusation as a “pressure point” in “ongoing business dealings,” including a dispute between the Squirrels and VCU over the terms of allowing the university’s baseball team to play at CarMax Park.
“DiBella and the Squirrels have no obligation to maintain the field and stadium and share MLB-used spaces with VCU, and DiBella has been clear that he currently does not intend to do so,” the suit says. “That’s why Rodgers used Guillot’s false allegation that DiBella engaged in criminal conduct to pressure DiBella to let VCU use CarMax Park.”
Michael Phillips
DiBella is being represented by Alexandria-based law firm Clare Locke, which specializes in high-profile defamation cases. He’s asking for damages in the “tens of millions of dollars.”
Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org. Michael Phillips contributed to this story. This article has been updated to reflect that DiBella said he intended for the phrase to be taken as a joke.
