Former Pure host gets five months in tip-concealing scheme

A former Pure Nightclub host was sentenced Monday to five months in prison and five months of home confinement for filing a false tax return in a $7 million tip-concealing scheme on the Strip.

Kelly Doll, 31, pleaded guilty in June to hiding $153,000 in tips from the Internal Revenue Service on the 2006 tax return. He is the fifth defendant sentenced in the tip-pooling scheme, which occurred at the Caesars Palace nightclub between 2005 and 2007.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du on Monday also ordered Doll, who is free on his own recognizance, to pay the IRS $39,934 in restitution and serve one year of supervised release after he does his time. She gave him until Jan. 28 to surrender to federal prison authorities.

"I hope you keep in mind the errors you made in this case," the judge told Doll when handing out the sentence.

Doll declined to address Du when given the chance, but his lawyer Gregory Cortese said Doll acknowledged making a serious mistake and was humbled by the criminal proceedings against him.

Justice Department lawyer Joseph Rillotta sought a total of 10 months behind bars for Doll, arguing the former host committed a "fairly egregious fraud" upon the government.

Rillotta said a tough sentence also was needed to deter others from evading taxes.

"A lot of folks might be saying, ‘I’m going to sock this away like Mr. Doll,’ " Rillotta told Du.

In all, prosecutors alleged, Doll concealed $220,000 in tips from the IRS between 2005 and 2006. He acknowledged that tips made up the bulk of his income at Pure.

Hosts, doormen and executives put the tips into a pool every night and then distributed them on a weekly basis, prosecutors alleged.

The long-running IRS investigation became embroiled in controversy in June when Senior U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson handed out a light sentence to a key player in the scheme, former Pure co-owner Steve Davidovici.

Dawson briefly held up Davidovici’s sentence after word surfaced that the judge’s 38-year-old son, Brian, worked for another nightclub once associated with Davidovici.

Eventually, Dawson concluded he had no conflict of interest and ordered Davidovici to start serving his sentence.

In the meantime, the FBI’s public corruption squad in Las Vegas launched a criminal investigation into the younger Dawson’s relationship with Davidovici. Prosecutors appealed Davidovici’s sentence, but earlier this month, without explanation, the Justice Department dropped the appeal.

In August, Dawson took himself off the cases of both Davidovici and another former Pure VIP host, Ali Olyaie.

The FBI and the Justice Department have kept a tight lid of secrecy over the Dawson investigation.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.