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Club Paris owner arrested in Jacksonville
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| grooviebeats |
its a long read i got from a local board here in jax but i found this both funny and sad for my city. The jacksonville beach cops really are this bad in this story. enjoy and get a laugh maybe.
| quote: | Monday, September 11, 2006
Club Paris Owner Claims False Arrest
John Hawley
After Jacksonville landing the Super Bowl the next biggest international point of note for the community was Fred Khalilians Club Paris arriving at the Jacksonville Landing. Yet, such upscale additions to Jacksonvilles otherwise sleepy and Dirty South style nightlife are not universally appreciated, which was evident according to Khalilian after he was arrested while visiting a Jacksonville beach nightclub on Sept. 5.
News stories of such an arrest come with assumptions of guilt, but there are two sides to every story. And Khalilian as a private citizen doesnt get as much copy with major media when accused of a crime by an official of the state. Yet, this official was an off duty Jacksonville Beach police officer who was moonlighting doing bar security. Essentially this was one bar employee accusing another bar owner of a crime and using his authority to put the incident in the record to damage Khalilian. While police officers are ethically considered on-duty all the time they also should be expected to have allegiance to whoever pays the pricey charges for their off-duty services. That is the rub as Khalilian believes that his arresting officers allegiance lays principally with his off-duty employer, which is why he purposefully humiliated him in an attempt to run him out of Jacksonville. Did any of the local media pick up on that point? Arent journalists supposed to get both sides of the story?
This is some of what Khalilian has to say about the incident:
This is Fred Khalilian, the owner of Club Paris.
This is in regards to the situation that took place on Tuesday morning at approximately 1:45 a.m. at The Ritz Bar & Night Club located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. As we all know, there are always two sides to every story. You have read reports and listened to the management of The Ritz and the JAX beach police officer, who at that time was an off-duty police officer and employee of The Ritz.
At the beginning of the night, Monday night, several of my friends and I decided to go to Jacksonville Beach to have a couple of cocktails and watch the Monday night football game. After being at Sneakers Bar & Grill for several hours, and having a great time meeting people and watching the game, for the first time I got to meet the general manager and area manager of Sneakers Bar & Grill, and they showed me a great time and great hospitality. We decided to leave Sneakers and walk to The Ritz down the street and have a drink, since I'd never been there before.
So my friends and colleagues and I were about to walk into The Ritz, when the door guy asked me for an ID before letting me in. He looked at the uniformed off-duty police officer that was working there, and clearly said, ''Do you see that dude? He's the owner of Club Paris.'' The police officer turned around and said, ''I guess he's at the right place at the right time.'' Next, we're inside having a couple of cocktails, and I opened up a tab at the bar with my black American Express, the same exact way which I did at Sneakers Bar & Grill. The bartender looked at my card and said, ''Black card, huh?'' We continued to buy our drinks, and noticed a lot of whispering going on amongst the managers and the bartender, as well as a lot of employees and heads turning.
Next thing you know, its time for the last call and time to go. The bartender came up to me and said, ''You need to close your tabs and its time to go.'' At that time, my friends, colleagues, and myself, including Harris, whose father owns Brumos Mercedes, Porsche, and Lexus, as well as some other high profile friends, including the management of Sneakers Sports Bar & Grill, we were all playing a game on their game machines. So I stopped the game, went up to the bar, and I said to the bartender, ''Sir I'm here to close my tab. Can I have my tab and my black American Express please?'' He looked at me, gave me a tab, and said, ''I don't have your credit card, and you need to pay your tab now.'' I looked at him and said, ''Of course you have my credit card. Remember you said it was black, huh?'' He looks at me and says, ''I don't know what you're talking about.'' Then his manager is in my face asking me if I seem to have a problem. I said ''Absolutely not, but your bartender has my black American Express, and he's asking me for another source of payment.'' He looks at me and says to the bartender, ''Get him his credit card now.''
Next thing you know, they have found my black American Express, and the manager looks at me and says, ''Sign this and lets go.'' At that time, most of my friends were already witnessing some of the things being said. I asked why was I being treated like that. For example, he said, Come on, hurry up, lets find it and lets go. As soon as I signed my credit card, there was a police officer in my face, letting me know that I'm trespassing on The Ritz property, and he's with the Jacksonville Beach Police Department. He asked for my ID, I gave it to him, and he looked at me and said, ''Don't you know you're not welcome here? But no worries, when I'm done with you, you will.'' I looked at him and I asked him, ''Officer with all due respect, can you please tell me in what way am I trespassing? What did I do or say?'' He said, listen to me Mr. Club Paris Hilton. I responded back, First of all, my name is not Mr. Club Paris Hilton, and you don't have to talk to me like that. I haven't said or done anything wrong to you. He said, You know what Mr. Club Paris Hilton? Right about now, we've had enough of you, haven't we so-and-so (Manager of The Ritz).'' The manager looked at him and said, ''Take care of it.'' He looked at me and said, ''Do you speak English? Put your hands behind your back.'' I didn't know what was going on. As I was putting my hands behind my back, I responded, ''What is going on here tonight? Why are you arresting me?'' He said, You just hit me. I said, I did not hit you sir. He said, You see, you just hit me again. I asked him, Sir, why are you doing this? He said, There goes the third time. You're going away boy, on a felony. He looked at the manager and said, We got him, go back inside, its time. All of my friends were standing there witnessing the whole thing. At that time more officers had shown up, and my friends were asking why were they doing this to me. The officer that arrested me was a middle-aged African American, Jacksonville Beach police officer. A female police officer who arrived at the scene, after speaking to him, which I overheard her, said to my friends, ''Its just a misdemeanor.'' They were changing words, and my friends couldn't believe what had just happened to me. When I was in back of his police car, he said to me, ''You should just close down Club Paris and leave this town.'' I asked him, Why? Is it because I'm taking a lot of business away from your employers at the beach? His response was, ''Don't worry, that's going to change now. I'm going to make sure I get you in there very good, I promise that you won't even have a bond, so save your cash rich boy. You need to be treated just like your partner Paris Hilton, like XXXX.'' At that point, he opened his door, started screaming, threw me out of his car, and put me into the back of another car. While they were transporting me to another car he said to me, Bye bye bye.
So I went to jail, the correctional facility in downtown Jacksonville. They were very nice to me, and every single one of them that read the incident report, looked at me and said, ''I'm sorry Fred, what a bullxxxx charge. That's your Jacksonville Beach police, everyone knows about their reputation.'' So I spent the night in jail for no reason, but it proves to me, and makes me feel good, that I'm taking a lot of business from the beach and making The Jacksonville Landing and Downtown Jacksonville better and more happening place on the weekends. My message to the Jacksonville Beach police officer is: If I hit him 3 times, which he says I did, shouldn't he have already used his taser or sprayed my face the first time?
Thank you in advance for your understanding and for reading my side of the story, as well as for the personal interviews.
Yours truly and in health,
Fred Khalilian
Owner of Club Paris International
Fred K. Pres- CEO & Management of:
www.Eurofitnesscenter.com
www.clubparis.net
The charges will most likely be dismissed, but some damage has already been done by the arrest. As one associate said after hearing of the arrest from media reports, Khalilian cant get away with pushing himself around here. This aint New York. Yet, if charges are dropped and it is proven that Khalilian did not push the officer and in fact the officer was using his law enforcement authority to benefit a business interest by falsely imprisoning a respectable member of the community then what? If the matter is dropped and officers working for bars in their off hours have carte blanche to intimidate other night club owners will Jacksonville or Jacksonville Beach ever be metropolises with the prestige and economic development associated with New York?
Note: The black American Express Card extends credit limits beyond the platinum level where cardholders can purchase everything from jet aircraft to luxury homes and businesses. It is doubtful that the bar tab at the Ritz was too steep for Fred Khalilian and his black American Express. |
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| washout |
beach cops here are messed up.
so are the city police.
i was involved with an incident involving jso (jacksonville police) and the beach police.
naturally, i was completely innocent.
long story short, i was a victim of wrongdoing by an off duty jso officer outside a bar at the beach.
the beach police covered for him and sent me downtown.
i filed complaints with internal affairs with jso and the beach police to no avail.
they just wept that up in the closet.
this story does not surprise me. |
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| washout |
| quote: | Originally posted by washout
long story short, i was a victim of wrongdoing by an off duty jso officer outside a bar at the beach.
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same bar by the way, ritz, lol.
wow, after reading that, im not surprised at all.
my arrest report was so blatantly fabricated it was pathetic.
sad he has to go thru that.
... assuming thats how things went. |
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