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'Crash' couple faces uncertain future
Tareq and Michaele Salahi became nationally-known last week after they managed to slip uninvited into the White House State Dinner on Nov. 24.Locals, however, have been following the antics of the colorful couple for years. Those who follow the polo scene or the winery business are especially familiar with the couple who once resided in neighboring Fauquier.
Fauquier County deputies were frequent visitors to the Salahis' Oasis Winery near Hume when it was in full swing before declaring bankruptcy early in 2008, responding to neighbors' numerous complaints about noise, fireworks, rock bands, traffic and parties lasting through the night.
As the world has learned in the last week, Tareq and Michaele Salahi don't like to be constrained, so they went to Richmond to lobby for a change in the law spelling out how localities regulate wineries.
"On the positive side, Tareq was very instrumental in getting state law changed to reflect the underlying agricultural basis of wine production," said Brian Roeder, owner of Barrel Oak Winery near Delaplane.
"While he may have had an abusive relationship with Fauquier County, he played a very beneficial role at the state level in identifying the core issue that wineries are agricultural businesses."
Chris Pearmund, proprietor of the Winery at La Grange in Haymarket, agreed.
Two years ago Tareq Salahi was "directly involved,” in the effort to change state law, “and basically was the one who hand-carried [legislative changes] through" the General Assembly, Pearmund said.
"I spent a lot of time in Richmond, but he was definitely the head honcho," he added.
"[Salahi] was trying to bring a level playing field across the state,” Pearmund said, “and he has done more good [for the wine industry] than anyone in the state in the past decade."
Yes and no, other winery owners say.
Under Salahi's management, Oasis Winery "engaged in practices that seemed to disregard the concerns and welfare of its neighbors," Roeder said. "The general opinion among wineries here is that those activities poisoned the well in terms of wineries' relationships with their neighbors."
Almost without exception, Tareq and Michaele Salahi have been portrayed in the worldwide press as socialites. Individually, she has been called a former supermodel, Washington Redskins cheerleader and arbiter of style and fashion. He is referred to as an international playboy and accomplished polo player on the field and, as an organizer, a major player off it, as well.
As the week progressed, many of the details of those characterizations have been called into question.
No reporters among the hundreds working the story have yet unearthed any evidence of a modeling career. No former or present Redskin cheerleader who remembers Michaele on the sidelines has yet come forward.
The polo that he plays and over which he presides, students of the game largely agree, is much more modest than a casual onlooker is led to believe, and its international bona fides have been called into question.
While their future may include federal charges, their past includes a ruined winery, a long string of civil suits, many involving unpaid bills; repossessed cars and at least one boat; a residence in foreclosure; and his elderly parents evicted from their home.
Perhaps more seriously, there are nagging allegations that the charities that the Salahis and Oasis Winery support are mirages.
Because he is both a professional polo player and a lymphoma survivor, Charles Muldoon, who does promotional work for Morven Park, was asked by Tareq Salahi to help organize the inaugural America's Cup of Polo match at the park near Leesburg in 2007. The event was intended to raise money for Journey for the Cure, Salahi's charity to fund lymphoma research.
From his close-up encounter with it, Muldoon has concluded that "it is a complete fraud," he said.
Not only did virtually no money go to cancer research, he said, but many of the event bills went unpaid.
The America's Cup of Polo match was held at Morven Park for two years. Salamander Marketing of Middleburg catered one of them, and it has not yet been paid. Its $300,000-plus lawsuit is working its way through the system, as is Tareq Salahi's countersuit.
Not welcomed back to Morven Park for a third year, the event moved to a polo club in Poolesville, Md., for the 2009 match, and Salahi contracted with a small-scale caterer from Midland in Fauquier County.
Jerome Farmer, proprietor of Fresh Escape Catering, asked for half the money up front. It was hard enough to get that, he said, with the Salahis playing a game of keepaway for weeks before he finally secured a check.
He has not yet collected the remaining $16,000 and is having to pay 20 servers, who, typically, are paid separately by the client, out of his own pocket. The Salahis' failure to pay has put his business in jeopardy. Farmer is suing, and a court date has been set for Dec. 16.
"The event cost Morven Park money, which would have been fine if it were for an actual charity," Muldoon said of the initial America's Cups. "It wasn't, and the accounting that the board asked for, the accounting that Loudoun County, who also put up some money, asked for was so...shoddy...that there was no way to tell who, if anyone, had been paid."
Or what, if any, donations had been made to the purported beneficiaries.
In May, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services issued a statement warning potential donors that Journey for the Cure, which ostensibly supports research into lymphoma and multiple sclorosis, was not registered with the commonwealth, as charitable organizations are required to do.
When it comes to support of charities, the Salahis, Muldoon concluded, "are all hat and no cattle.
The Salahis did not return calls for comment.
- Don Del Rosso, Alex Bogdanovic, Laura Ruby, Sydni Scrofani and Mary Ann Kuhn also contributed to this report.
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