LAS VEGAS (CN) - Las Vegas claims a subcontractor that worked on the Mob Museum swiped 14 historically significant steel window grilles worth about $22,000, after a dispute arose over payment. The city-sponsored museum is not to be confused with the oft-sued Mob Experience, in the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, which filed for bankruptcy last month and closed after only six months in operation.
Las Vegas sued J.L. Wallco Inc. dba Wallternatives and Richard Nieto, the company's secretary-treasurer, in Clark County Court.
The city says it hired Wallternatives to remove 14 steel window grilles from a former courthouse-turned-mob museum and to remove lead-based paint.
Shortly after Wallternatives removed the grilles from the site, a dispute arose over Wallternatives' requests for change orders and request for payment. Now Wallternatives refuses to return the grilles, the city says.
Set to open in February 2012, the museum will occupy a former federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas where some of the Kefauver Committee hearings on organized crime were held.
The building is Las Vegas' only historic building "designated as significant at a national level," according to its website.
The city wants its grilles back, and documentation that the lead-based paint was properly disposed of.
It is represented by Craig Dunlap, with Fennemore Craig.
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