Basketball campers left in lurch

By Abigail Goldman

Friday, July 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Welcome to basketball camp at Innovations International Charter School of Nevada, where you will learn to dribble, pass and defend, all without ever playing a full-court game.

Yes, basketball camp, but no basketball games, because the almost $16,000 check that Principal Connie Malin cut for new equipment — hoops, backboards, nets — was cashed and never seen again.

The owner of a now shuttered sporting goods store cashed the check 30 minutes after he got it, then stopped returning Malin’s calls. He stopped replying to her e-mails. He stopped, the principal says, speaking with his distributor, who has the entire order sitting in a warehouse, waiting for someone to make a payment.

So where are you, Gary Straub?

His store, M&G Sporting Goods Inc., came highly recommended, Malin said. She spent six months researching the purchase and applying for a federal grant to finance it.

On May 6, government money secured, the business manager of the school gave Straub a check for $15,980. Bank documents indicate it was cashed shortly thereafter, Malin said.

Straub sent the principal an e-mail three days after the check was cashed, reporting delivery men would call before dropping off the equipment. Malin said she never heard from him again.

Later she would learn that months earlier, Straub had filed for bankruptcy protection. But first she had to find out the hard way: driving to the store on Decatur Boulevard only to see that the entire place had been packed up. The phone had been disconnected, too, and the store’s Web site had been taken down.

Attempts by the Sun to reach Straub by phone, e-mail and through his bankruptcy attorney were unsuccessful. The sporting goods store, founded in 1983, had its business license revoked a little more than three weeks ago, according Nevada secretary of state records.

The school, on Oakey Street southeast of downtown Las Vegas, plans to file suit to try to recoup the money, because it feels cheated and because the federal government has suggested it — remember who this money really belongs to, after all. Although the kind of fraud alleged in this case is criminal, local bankruptcy attorneys say a civil suit provides the best chance of getting the money back, if there is any money to get. Straub’s attorney would not comment on his client’s case.

What the school eventually can get, it turns out, is the equipment Malin ordered — minus the Straub markup. That is, she can buy it when the school has the money, which will take some time to accumulate.

The principal made a deal with the Nebraska manufacturer, Bison, to buy the basketball gear at cost: $11,000. So the items will sit in storage somewhere until the cash comes along.

Meanwhile, the gym is freshly painted, summer basketball camp is in full swing, and the coach Malin hired to teach her students is having them practice their jump shots into thin air.