California's sports and political worlds are colliding through the dormant United Football League franchise in Sacramento, with several coaches and employees suing owner Paul Pelosi - the millionaire husband of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco - claiming he failed to pay them after promising to do so.
Five employees of the Sacramento Mountain Lions - including former Raiders defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan, who held the same position there - say Paul Pelosi, a real-estate investor and businessman, owes them $250,000, according to the suit filed this month in San Francisco Superior Court.
That would seem like pocket change to Pelosi. He and his wife, the top Democrat in the House, are worth $26 million, according to federal financial disclosure statements. Their investments range from real estate around the Bay Area to their vineyard and home in St. Helena.
The league's founder is Pelosi's friend Bill Hambrecht, a San Francisco investment banker who managed Google's initial public offering.
"It's a vanity sports league and the people who own them are wealthy men," said Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco civil-rights attorney who is representing the plaintiffs. "They have ignored their obligations to pay these people. Hambrecht and Paul Pelosi could write a check for what they owe these people without blinking, and they haven't bothered to do it."
In meetings before the team, Dhillon said, her clients recall Pelosi guaranteeing that they would get paid.
An additional political twist: Dhillon is the vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party - but she said she this is not about politics.
"I didn't go out and seek this case; these plaintiffs sought me out," Dhillon said. "You can take this set of facts, you can take out the name Pelosi and take it to any labor lawyer in California and they would file this lawsuit because it is outrageous."
Paul Pelosi did not return phone calls requesting comment Monday.
When the league canceled the second half of its season in October, Paul Pelosi said in a statement that "it is our first priority to take care of our players, coaches, and staff and then to raise sufficient funds to take care of our other obligations and to resume fully financed operations in 2013."
Speaking as a "spokesman for the UFL ownership group" in that statement, Paul Pelosi blamed postponement on "a lack of sufficient funds due to the high cost of workmen's compensation insurance and other elements."
Dhillon said, "They never got (worker's compensation insurance), from what my clients told me."
Nancy Pelosi has a 95 percent lifetime rating on labor issues, according to the AFL-CIO rating of legislators.
Paul Pelosi's stake in the Sacramento football team is in the range of $5 million to $25 million, according to the broad scale used in federal financial-disclosure forms. He claimed between $1 million and $5 million in losses, according to the disclosures.
Founded in 2009, the UFL has teetered on the edge of viability. It promised to return in the spring of 2013 but didn't, and a future return is in peril.
Earlier this year, 78 of its players sued the league, its teams and Hambrecht for failing to pay them fully. They were seeking $1.5 million plus fees.
Nearly a year ago, Dennis Green - the former Stanford and Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach - sued the Sacramento team for $1 million that he said he is still owed for coaching the Mountain Lions. The matter is in arbitration.
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