Hines Ward

A South Side restaurant co-owned by Steeler Hines Ward will be auctioned next week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The Locker Room Bar & Grill, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, will be offered on May 23rd.   We decided to look up the details behind this partnership:

Ward co-owns a bar in Pittsburgh’s South Side called “The Locker Room”.  The bar sustained serious water damage in February of 2007, due to flooding from a malfunctioning boiler, and it was closed for repairs until June of that year. The bar received an insurance settlement of $500,000, which subsequently became an issue during a legal dispute between the bar’s owners.

On September 11, 2007, co-owner Thomas Lettieri withdrew the entirety of the bar’s funds, approximately $19,000, from a corporate account, causing it to miss a large number of scheduled payments. The company filed suit for the return of the money, and Lettieri subsequently justified his actions by claiming that the money was owed to him, also voicing the belief that the other co-owners, Ward and Kimberly Pitts, as well as Pitts’s husband Korry Pitts, had falsified invoices and diverted company funds to their own bank accounts.  Company attorney Thomas Castello dismissed Lettieri’s allegations as “baseless, ridiculous and unfounded,” and the matter is currently before the court.

How does a guy that makes this much money, file for bankruptcy on a business valued this little?  Couldn’t Hines have purchased the business (pocket change) outright from his partners?  Then, sell it.  Should Chapter 11 be an option for people who have multi-million dollar contracts like Hines?  

We’re pissed and may be selling our Hines 86 jersey.