Former Cleveland County leaders had more ties to firms linked to Catawba Two Kings Casino
Two former Cleveland County officials who landed stakes in the Catawba Two Kings Casino have had more business links to the project and its players than was known.
A former county manager and former county commissioner were early supporters of the Kings Mountain casino during their time in government. New reporting shows both have been connected to multiple companies that either own land around the casino site or have ties to the casino developer, a political player with a checkered past.
David Dear, the former Cleveland County manager, has been involved in two marijuana companies tied to Wallace Cheves, company filings show. The Catawba Nation hired Cheves to make Two Kings Casino a reality.
And Eddie Holbrook, a Cleveland County commissioner until 2018, including serving as chairman, is connected with at least two other companies that have been involved in the land deals surrounding the casino, including one related to Cheves.
The sparse paper trail showing these connections widens the view of a web of business ties among local supporters beyond what The Observer revealed this summer.
These findings come as the immediate future of the Catawba casino remains unclear. National Indian Gaming Commission regulators, who have been looking into Two Kings Casino for more than a year, expect to finish their inquiry soon, possibly by the end of the year.
The NIGC is investigating to make sure Catawba Nation controls the casino and receives most of the revenue from it, as required by federal law. Documents obtained by The Observer show regulators have been persistently dissatisfied that current agreements between the Catawba and Cheves’ company meet that standard.
Figures in a complex web
Dear and Holbrook were among the earliest public supporters of the Catawba Indian Nation building a casino in Kings Mountain.
This summer, The Observer reported that Dear and Holbrook held financial stakes in Kings Mountain Equipment Supply. Dear held his stake directly, Holbrook through a company he created with his wife. Kings Mountain Equipment Supply has contracts to provide slot machines to Two Kings Casino and reportedly earns 20 cents for every $1 of casino profit, reporting by the Wall Street Journal revealed.
But a multi-state trail of government paperwork shows more connections.
Until about two months ago, Dear was on the board of directors of MJ Holdings Inc., a cannabis cultivation, consulting and production company based in Nevada. It has close business ties to Cheves, according to multiple company corporate filings.
Named to the board of directors of MJ Holdings in September 2020, Dear resigned that position on Sept. 22, 2022, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Dear also held a stake in a company called Let’s Roll NV LLC, another cannabis company, which according to Nevada Secretary of State records is controlled by Blue Sky Companies, Cheves’ firm. It’s unclear if Dear still holds that stake.
After he left his job as interim county manager in 2011, Dear joined the Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership. When Dear returned as interim county manager in 2013, he wrote a passionate letter promoting a casino project for Cleveland County before the project was announced to the public.
The former county manager would not answer questions about company ties when contacted by phone. “I don’t know anything about that,” he said before he hung up the phone.
Holbrook is also more deeply tied to the casino project than has been reported.
Holbrook told The Observer last year that he had a stake in a company called E5 Holdings LLC, which owns nearly 40 acres on Dixon School Road near the casino site. But corporate paperwork for E5 Holdings reveals deeper connections to other players surrounding the casino.
Listed as managers of E5 Holdings along with Holbrook are Douglas Brown and Stuart LeGrand. They are Cleveland County business owners who previously contributed thousands of dollars to Holbrook’s 2018 campaign for county commission. Also listed as a manager of E5 Holdings, in Nevada filings, is a company called CHT Enterprises LLC.
Corporate paperwork for CHT Enterprises, filed in Nevada, list that company’s managers as Blue Sky Companies, Wallace Cheves’ firm; Jackpot Gaming LLC, a company with multiple links to Cheves; and Darrell Hardin, a Gastonia man with numerous ties to the casino industry and Cheves.
CHT Enterprises is also listed in corporate paperwork, filed in Florida, as managing two firms that are among the biggest landowners around the Two Kings casino site, according to Cleveland County property records. Combined, Kings Mountain Land Development Partners LLC and Kings Mountain Land Development Partners II LLC, own nearly 135 acres near the casino, including the parcel adjacent to the casino site.
CHT Enterprises was also involved in multiple land deals in Cleveland County in 2019 and 2021, according to the county’s register of deeds.
Holbrook did not return calls seeking comment for this story.
Casino developer Cheves said during an email exchange that Holbrook has nothing to do with E5 Holdings. This is despite Holbrook’s name appearing on corporate paperwork filed in Nevada and Holbrook himself previously acknowledging a stake in the company. Cheves did not answer questions about Dear’s involvement in the marijuana companies.
David Furr, a Gaston County lawyer who represents former casino investor Brown, confirmed Friday that both Holbrook and Brown had stakes in E5 Holdings. It’s unclear if Holbrook still owns a stake.
Filings for E5 Holdings in North Carolina do not list Holbrook, Brown or LeGrand as managers of the company, instead listing Trent Testa, who owns substantial land around the casino, as registered agent.
Cheves also said that Holbrook is not part of CHT Enterprises.
From the beginning
Dear and Holbrook were among the earliest public supporters of the Catawba Indian Nation building a casino in Kings Mountain, once a long-shot because the tribe did not have land holdings in North Carolina.
Cheves and Harris “immediately found support” for the casino project from Dear and Holbrook, with both citing the development potential in Cleveland County, The Observer reported in 2014.
While serving as interim county manager in 2013, Dear wrote a letter to then Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration urging support of the casino while the project was still code-named “Project Schoolhouse”.
“During thirty-seven years of local government management experience, I have never had the opportunity to participate in a project that has the potential to impact a community the way that Project Schoolhouse can,” Dear began his 2013 letter to McCrory, which was written on Cleveland County stationery. “This project has the potential to turn our entire economy around.”
Dear and Holbrook were photographed with Bill Harris, the Catawba chief, and Cheves at the casino site in 2014, six years before the tribe won federal approval to build a casino there.
“This project is so large and far reaching in scope that it will energize our entire regional economy,” Dear wrote that year in a front-page column in the Kings Mountain Herald. By that time he was with Cleveland County Economic Development Partnership.
Dear’s support of casino-related development in Cleveland County continued after he had an economic stake in the project.
Last year, Dear spoke at a Kings Mountain City Council public hearing in favor of Cheves’ plan for a rezoning that would allow him to build more than 500 homes and luxury apartments near the casino. He did not disclose his stake in Kings Mountain Equipment Supply or his affiliation with Cheves, according to minutes of that meeting.
The city council later granted the rezoning.
Stalled casino rollout
Connections to Two Kings Casino related businesses aren’t limited to local officials.
The brother of U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, and the husband of former Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley held stakes in a company positioned to make money from the casino, the Journal reported last summer. So did Butch Bowers, an attorney who has represented Haley and former President Donald Trump; and Patti Solis Doyle, a former campaign manager to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, the Journal reported.
The web of connections to companies surrounding the casino has raised questions at multiple levels of government.
In 2021, 14 North Carolina lawmakers wrote a letter to Attorney General Josh Stein, citing concerns about “a nearly untraceable network of LLCs.” Stein’s office declined to investigate, saying it did not have jurisdiction.
Since at least last year, the National Indian Gaming Commission has been investigating the Catawbas’ business agreements for the casino. The commission is set to finish its investigation soon and has yet to be satisfied that the agreements follow the law, which requires most casino revenue to go to the tribe, The Observer reported last week.
Catawba Chief Harris said then that the tribe is still working to address these issues.
Construction of the permanent casino — a $273 million project to include a hotel, restaurants and more — was supposed to start by the end of 2021, the tribe announced last summer. But that work has not begun as the investigation continues.
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 5:55 AM.
