Dallas-based Diamond Doctor sold to Diamonds Direct, a jewelry chain looking to expand in Texas
By Cheryl Hall
3:45 PM on Nov 2, 2016 CDT
David Blank has sold his independent jewelry store, Diamond Doctor, to Diamonds Direct as part of the Charlotte, N.C.-based retail chain’s aggressive expansion plan.
You may recall that Blank, aka the Diamond Doctor, became the target of an online and billboard attack in May by Nashville attorney Brian Manookian, who claimed that Blank dupes customers with overgraded diamonds.
Blank countered with a suit in federal court.
But Blank said Wednesday that the sale had nothing to do with this ongoing legal battle. Rather, it is the perfect handoff of his company for a good (and undisclosed) price to like-minded, consumer-oriented people.
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“I’ve been at this for nearly 13 years, and I’ve been approached by hundreds of companies in the past wanting to buy my business,” Blank said Wednesday.
“And candidly, it was never ever for sale.
“But Diamonds Direct is the most dynamic jewelry company in the country at the moment. They’re the darlings of the industry. I think these guys are the perfect fit for my business and my staff.
“The great thing about this company that pushed me over the edge was a shared value system. They’re extremely philanthropic. They’re going to step into my shoes with all the charities.”
Diamond Direct president Itay Berger concurs.
The Dallas store, which began operating under the new ownership Wednesday, is Diamonds Direct’s 10th U.S. location and its third in Texas. It also has a store in Austin and one that opened in San Antonio two weeks ago. Diamonds Direct has been aggressively acquiring companies since it was bought by an investment fund owned by Blackstone Group last November.
“We’ve been looking at Dallas for a few years but never found the right timing and the right location,” Berger said.
“The opportunity came up through a mutual acquaintance.
We saw a great location and decided to move forward. It was quicker than finding a freestanding locations in Dallas, which is a wonderful [read: expensive] real estate market.”
Diamonds Direct is a vertically integrated jewelry business with a buying office inside the world diamond exchange in Tel Aviv. Berger lives in Israel and heads up that operation. The company offers loose and mounted diamonds ranging in size from under half a carat to 20-plus carats.
Amit Berger, Itay’s brother and the company’s senior vice, is moving here from Birmingham, Ala., to oversee the Dallas operation.
But Blank will be at the store for at least two more years. “I will be here day to day. I want to make sure this is a very smooth transition for everyone.”
Cheryl Hall, Business columnist. Cheryl, a journalism graduate of SMU, has covered business for more than 45 years and gets her phone calls returned. She’s won numerous awards including several Katies from the Press Club of Dallas and a lifetime distinguished achievement award from the Society of American Business Editors and writers.
[email protected]/cheryl.hall.5015CherylHall_DMNCheryl_Hall_LinkedIn IconCheryl Hall
Diamond Doctor RICO Lawsuit’s Crazy Settlement
Randy Johnston
Aug 23, 2017
Blog, Trial Lawyers
Comments Off on Diamond Doctor RICO Lawsuit’s Crazy Settlement: ‘Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing’
(Aug. 21) – Two seasoned Dallas trial lawyers say they have never seen anything like what they witnessed last week in federal court in the fraud and racketeering case between the Diamond Doctor and a Tennessee lawyer.
Never, says Randy Johnston, has he seen a federal judge rule that a lawyer likely fabricated a client and committed abuse on the judicial process, and then a lawyer representing the first lawyer “almost begged the judge” in open court to postpone a trial so they could try to settle the dispute.
Randy Johnston
At the heart of the case, David Blank, the former owner of the Diamond Doctor, accused Tennessee trial lawyers Brian Manookian and Brian Cummings and their law firm of engineering a $3.
6 million scheme to extort money from the Dallas-based jeweler. Manookian countersued, claiming that Blank and his company committed diamond fraud and cheated customers.
Adding intensity to the litigation, the FBI has opened an investigation of the Nashville lawyers and his firm and has been actively following the Diamond Doctor case, according to lawyers familiar with the case.
Blank and Manookian settled their litigation in the wee-hours of Wednesday morning after the federal judge handling the trial ruled that Manookian acted in bad faith in key parts of the case. Terms of the agreement are confidential, but The Texas Lawbook has learned that Manookian agreed to a permanent injunction to leave Blank and his family alone for good.
“David spent millions of dollars in legal fees and expert services for two reasons: he wanted his reputation back and he wanted peace,” says Johnston, who is the managing shareholder of Dallas-based Johnston Tobey Baruch. “He got both.
“There is zero evidence – not one shred of evidence – that David or his family did anything wrong, and we were ready to prove that in court,” Johnston says.
Efforts to obtain a comment from Manookian and his Dallas lawyers were unsuccessful.
Blank sold the Diamond Doctor business to Diamond Direct last year.
Dallas trial lawyer Bruce Steckler, who also represents Blank and Diamond Doctor, says his clients are pleased with the settlement agreement.
Bruce Steckler
“I cannot tell you how difficult this has been on David and his family,” Steckler says. “This case was 24/7, non-stop work. One day, we were dealing with a non-profit set up to attack our client. The next day, we faced robocalls targeting our client’s customers. The next day, there were Facebook sites and posts falsely attacking our clients.
“I’ve never seen a case like this before in my life,” he says.
The last few weeks – indeed, even the last few minutes – of the case proved fascinating.
Lawyers in the case conducted jury selection last Tuesday morning and chose eight jurors to hear the case.
During the lunch hour, the lawyers learned that U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant had adopted a sanctions order by U.S. Magistrate Kimberly Priest Johnson that was devastating to Manookian and his firm.
Blank’s lawyers filed an emergency motion on June 27 contending that websites, a Facebook page and robocalls were targeting Diamond Doctor customers with false, inflammatory allegations against the jeweler. The plaintiff’s lawyers claimed that the group behind the effort, Diamond Integrity Standards Foundation (DISF), was actually a fake organization operated by Manookian and the firm.
One of the websites proclaims, “IT’S TIME TO PUT NOTORIOUS FRAUDSTER DAVID BLANK BEHIND BARS.” The site, which plays the Chris Isaak song “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing” states, “We now know that he was also perpetrating a massive tax fraud on the State of Texas and the citizens of Dallas.
” Another website encourages people to sue Blank and states that DISF has created a victims’ fund.
Court records show that Manookian testified under oath that he was merely a lawyer representing DISF and that his client is Felipe DeMase, who he says is a joint citizen of Italy and Argentina who contacted Manookian through the firm’s website about setting up the foundation.
When asked for specific details about DeMase, Manookian claimed he could not answer because the information was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Lawyers for Diamond Doctor say Manookian testified that DeMase visited his office once, but that no receptionists or other law firm staff could verify his existence because none were working that day and that the firm’s security cameras were not working either.
“Based on the record before the court, it is more likely than not that the DISF is an alter ego controlled by defendants, and Felipe DeMase is a fictitious individual,” Judge Johnson ruled.
“At the very least, defendants have deliberately obstructed the Court’s efforts to determine how the DISF came into possession of the Diamond Doctor customer information, and defendant Manookian has offered disingenuous testimony and untrustworthy documents in response to the court’s efforts to establish the nature and scope of his alleged representation of the DISF and Felipe DeMase,” Judge Johnson wrote.
“Furthermore, the creation and publication of the DISF websites appears to have been deliberately timed to interfere with or improperly influence potential jurors and witnesses,” the judge wrote. “Accordingly, the court finds Defendants’ bad faith behavior constitutes an abuse of the judicial process that warrants the imposition of sanctions under the court’s inherent powers.”
It was that order, according to Steckler and Johnston, that motivated Manookian’s desire to settle the case.
Johnston said he stood at the lectern before Judge Mazzant in Sherman on Tuesday afternoon to deliver his opening statements when defense counsel sought a delay in the trial in order to discuss a settlement with the plaintiff.
The judge responded that he enjoyed trials, that he believed the jury was eager to hear the facts in this dispute and that the parties could negotiate a possible settlement at the end of the day, after opening statements were finished, according to lawyers in the courtroom.
But lawyers for Manookian stressed that his client was interested in settling at that moment and that it would be too late after opening statements.
“They knew I planned to put serious allegations in the record in my opening and that I planned to call Manookian as my first witness, and they could not afford for Manookian to be forced to answer questions under oath,” Johnston said in an interview with The Texas Lawbook.
“They almost begged the judge to stop the trial so the two sides could negotiate,” Johnston says.
Judge Mazzant finally agreed. The two sides officially reached their settlement agreement at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Johnston says his clients did not file a complaint with the FBI, but that they are cooperating.
“Every time the FBI calls, we answer their questions,” he says.
The case is Diamond Consortium, Inc. et al v. Manookian, case number 4:16-cv-00094, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
© 2017 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.
If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.
Original article written by: Mark Curriden of http://texaslawbook.net
Sourced from: http://texaslawbook.net/diamond-doctor-rico-lawsuits-crazy-settlement-baby-did-a-bad-bad-thing/
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Dr.
Schulze (Dr. Schulze) official dealer website – ProfStroySnab company
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Equipment for diamond drilling
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Diamond cutting equipment
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Construction equipment
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ProfStroySnab is an official dealer of the Dr.
Schulze GmbH (Dr. Schulze) – Germany
In 1984, the company “Dr. Schulze Diamond Tools and Machines” was founded, and since then it has been manufacturing a complex of diamond tools, together with the equipment necessary for it. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that under the full complex we mean equipment and tools for construction and for stone processing and industrial use, or rather discs for stressed concrete, sand-lime bricks and refractories.
ProfStroySnab provides its customers with a relatively wide range of tools from the German company dr.schulze gmbh diamond tools and machines, which is engaged in their manufacture and production, which is carried out at four factories. Let’s take a look at them next.
– First Plant Bollenberg 10, D-57234 Wilnsdorf. Brazed diamond tool management and production are drill bits, discs, cutters, etc.; small-scale production of individual diamond segments, which also takes place under the order of specific customers.
– Second plant Stahlstraße 16, D-57234 Wilnsdorf. Production, including equipment warehouse. There is a test site here.
– Third plant Straße D Nr. 3, D-39245 Gommern. Production of tools with laser-welded segments is carried out – these are discs up to one meter, drill bits, as well as large-scale production of diamond segments, which have a high level of automation.
– Fourth Plant Willhelm-Fressel-Straße 5, D-21337 Lüneburg. In this plant, the production of disk cases is carried out, which allows the production of any form of disks, completely different sizes and according to individual requirements of customers, which takes place in a short period of time. Also here is the production of diamond rings required for drill bits.
A huge number of professionals are currently working at the above mentioned dr.schulze gmbh factories for diamond tools and machines.
In 2007 significant investments were made to expand the production of discs and segments in Lüneburg and Wilnsdorf.