Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Suit seeks collection of $1.5M judgment against Strip entertainer

Zowie Bowie

Steve Honig

Zowie Bowie (Chris Phillips and Marley Taylor).

A Tennessee man says Zowie Bowie entertainer Marley Taylor ruined his career with false allegations of sexual harassment and he is stepping up efforts to collect on a $1.545 million court judgment against her.

Dan B. Wilson Jr. filed suit Wednesday in Clark County District Court against Zowie Bowie Entertainment LLC and Zowie Bowie performers Chris Phillips and Christine (Chrissy) Maria Gabell, aka Marley Taylor.

The suit, filed the same day Zowie Bowie announced an extended engagement at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, claims Wilson has received just $1,200 for the judgment that now totals $3.245 million with interest.

Wilson claims in his suit that Phillips and Gabell are using their Zowie Bowie company to hide Gabell's assets from he and other creditors.

A Zowie Bowie spokesman said the act was unaware of any lawsuit being filed and therefore had no comment on the allegations.

Wilson asserts the defendants were paid between $22,800 and $7,000 per week for performing at Red Rock Resort and the Palms casino-hotel in recent years, and that Phillips and Gabell have made misrepresentations regarding Gabell's income as a performer.

The suit seeks an accounting of all revenue earned by Zowie Bowie and Gabell to determine how much money is subject to garnishment to pay for Wilson's judgment.

While Zowie Bowie was performing at Red Rock, Gabell filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in May 2007, listing monthly income of $3,400, assets of $5,365 in personal property and debt of $1.565 million including the judgment for Wilson and more than $17,000 owed to the IRS.

She withdrew the bankruptcy petition after the court ruled she could not use bankruptcy to avoid paying the judgment to Wilson.

In the bankruptcy case, Wilson said in an affidavit that in 1995 he was the vice president of the creative department at music publishing group Sony/ATV in Nashville when he was assigned to work with Gabell, a songwriter at the time.

He was 49, she was 25 and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, Wilson said in the affidavit.

Wilson said that while the two worked together they started dating and this fact was known to his supervisors.

During their relationship he paid for her breast augmentation surgery and let her use his credit cards, Wilson said.

Wilson said in his affidavit that eventually she exceeded her spending budget and he demanded that she return the credit cards after she spent more than $45,000 on the cards for goods for herself, her family and a male "roommate"— apparently another boyfriend.

"As deeply as I cared for her, I finally realized that she was simply using me for my money," Wilson said in the affidavit. "I had no choice, this relationship had to end."

Wilson said that soon after this he lost his $100,000-per-year job after Gabell told Sony/ATV officials that he had sexually harassed her, stalked her, threatened to kill her and threatened to ruin her music career.

Wilson later sued Gabell in Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville and won a default judgment against her; and he said that Gabell later admitted in a deposition that she had lied to Sony/ATV about the consensual nature of their relationship and withheld the credit card information from a Sony/ATV official. The deposition was for a lawsuit Wilson filed against Sony/ATV over his firing.

"Ms. Gabell's false accusations, which led to my termination, took more than a career from me. Because of her lies, I lost a 20-plus year career and was ostracized from the Nashville music community. Companies that were recruiting me months before failed to return my calls.

"I lost my home — a 100-acre farm that had been in my family since the 1800s. I could not afford to buy a present for my daughter's wedding. Ultimately, I left Nashville in disgrace," his affidavit said.

"At Sony, I made in excess of $100,000 per year, went to black-tie events and kept the company of country music stars and high-profile music executives. After I was terminated, the only job I could secure was as a doorman, standing in front of a Gatlinburg, Tenn., restaurant, hawking diners into the door for dinner."

Gabell's attorney, in responding to the bankruptcy affidavit, complained about several references by Wilson to his active sexual relationship with Gabell.

"In a blatantly transparent attempt to denigrate Gabell, Wilson presents salacious details of his purported relationship with Gabell more than a dozen years ago," attorney Zachariah Larson wrote in a court filing.

"Wilson does not present any evidence to show that Gabell intended to cause injury to Wilson," the filing said.

Larson noted that Wilson, in his filing, said Gabell's motivation for making the false statements was so she could work with Sony/ATV executive Don Cook, who had a record of success with performers Brooks & Dunn.

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy