Former hip-hop star Peter Nash never seems to pass up an opportunity to take a shot at Robert Edward Auctions on his blog – and REA president Rob Lifson must be laughing all the way to the bank.
A New Jersey judge handed Nash – who has been embroiled in a bitter legal fight with Lifson for more than five years – another legal defeat this week, when she signed court papers on Tuesday ordering the ex-rapper to pay Lifson and his company more than $261,000 for legal fees.
Nash, better known as “Prime Minister Pete Nice” of 3rd Bass, became a sports memorabilia dealer after his hip-hop career fizzled in the late 1990. But Nash, once known for "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "The Gas Face," is now better known in memorabilia circles for his never-ending series of legal annd financial battles.
Nash had consigned numerous items to Lifson’s auction house before their relationship turned sour almost a decade ago, when Lifson claimed Nash had failed to pay back almost $1 million he had borrowed from REA. Lifson was preparing to sell memorabilia that Nash had put up as collateral for the loan when Nash sued him in 2007, claiming he did not have 100% ownership in one of the items, the first-pitch ball used to inaugurate the 1912 season at Fenway Park. Nash claimed that he had sold a 1% ownership stake in the ball after he had given it to Lifson and that the sale needed to be halted..
Lifson countersued, and New Jersey Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone ultimately awarded him $760,000 in 2009, plus 10% interest. According to the order signed by Ciccone earlier this week, that debt has been whittled down to about $66,000, primarily because Lifson has received payments from the Boston bar that Nash owns along with several partners.
Lifson, however, has found it difficult to locate Nash’s other assets and sources of income, and he has spent more than $261,000 trying to collect his judgment, according to court records. Nash admitted that he spent nearly $18,000 trying to hide assets, according to a letter Lifson’s attorney Barry Kozyra wrote to Ciccone on April 7.
None of this should come as a shock to Ciccone: The judge signed a bench warrant for Nash’s arrest back in 2009, after the memorabilia dealer refused to produce financial records Lifson need to collect his award. That may be why Nash, as Ciccone noted in her order, participated in an April 11 hearing on Lifson’s request for attorney’s fees by telephone.
Lifson spent some of his $261,000 in legal fees on attorneys who collected $53,000 in 2011 from Brooklyn’s Bishop Ford High School, which is closing in June due to shrinking enrollment and declining revenues.
As the Daily News first reported in 2010, Nash’s father, former Bishop Ford president and basketball coach Ray Nash, used more than $50,000 in school development funds to stop a bank from foreclosing on the former rap star’s Cooperstown home. School officials discovered the money was missing during an audit, and Peter Nash had to borrow money from a New Jersey collector so his father could pay back Bishop Ford. The incident was later investigated by former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ office. Hynes declined to file charges, saying Ray Nash had not demonstrated “criminal intent” when he took the Catholic high school’s money.
Nash gave the collector, Al Angelo, several pieces of memorabilia as collateral for that loan. When Lifson found out about the loan, he cried foul, saying that memorabilia should have been given to him to help pay off Nash’s judgment. Bishop Ford officials agreed to pay $53,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by REA that claimed the Brooklyn school interfered with its attempts to collect the judgment from Nash.
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