Richard Sheriff, manager of the Stan Sheriff Center at UH and the university’s “point person” in the Stevie Wonder benefit concert planning, said Tuesday that his bosses had vetted local promoter Bob Peyton and his company, Bob Peyton Entertainment, and that Sheriff simply relied on their judgements in recommending the deal go forward.
But this account differs in substantial respects from what Sheriff previously told a factfinding team hired by the university, and is also contradicted by statements made by then-athletic director Jim Donovan and associate director Carl Clapp.
“My superiors told me they had checked out Mr. Peyton,” Sheriff said in public testimony before the Senate’s Special Committee on Accountability. “I had seen his resume so I knew he had done shows in Hawaii for 30 years.”
Sheriff continued: “All I was told was that they had checked out Peyton and that he had good reviews.”
Members of the committee accepted Sheriff’s statement and did not pursue the question further.
But in an earlier statement to the factfinders, Sheriff gave a different description of his role in checking Peyton’s background.
I was comfortable with (Peyton)’s reputation based on seeing their name in connection with various events and from talking to people within the local entertainment industry. I talked to people who worked for Rhema, a local audio company, and Theatrics, a lighting company that had just recently done work for a show at the Center. Their feedback about (Peyton) was positive. Clapp also mentioned to me that he had checked into Peyton and gotten good reviews. I do not know what specific steps Clapp took to investigate.
According to the factfinders report prepared by attorneys Dennis Chong Kee and Calvert G. Chipchase, neither Donovan nor Clapp did their own investigation of Peyton or his company, and did not know about the promoter’s financial troubles.
“Donovan does not know whether anyone other than Sheriff investigated (Peyton),” the report stated.
“Through Sheriff, Donovan was aware that (Peyton) had put on a (Stevie Wonder) concert 18 years ago. Sheriff also told Donovan that (Peyton) is ‘a good guy,’ which Sheriff based on his conversations with (redacted) in Hawaii.”
The names in parentheses are redacted in the public version of the factfinders report, but I have filled in the blanks with the obvious names.
Donovan also told factfinders he only knew what Sheriff told him about Peyton.
Donovan’s statement is included among the attachments to the factfinders report made public by the Senate committee:
“I did not do anything to investigate (Peyton) or (BPE). Sheriff told me that he did. Sheriff said that (Peyton) did the previous (Stevie Wonder) concert in Hawaii, and that (Peyton) could be a contract with (Stevie Wonder)’s management. Sheriff also talked to lighting crews and others in the industry who have worked with (Peyton) & Sheriff told me (Peyton) has a good reputation and pays his bills.
I did not task anyone with investigating (Peyton), nor do I know if anyone was tasked with such an investigation. To my knowledge extending back to 1985, we have never investigated an outside user of our facilities. I only know that Sheriff inquired about (Peyton)’s business reputation among sound, stage and lighting type companies.
After receiving Sheriff’s assessment that Peyton was “a good guy,” Donovan told Sheriff to “handle it.”
“I believed that the event was within Sheriff’s scope of responsibilities,” Donovan said in his written statement.
Clapp, meanwhile, told factfinders he didn’t do anything to investigate Peyton, and did not know whether anyone was asked to do so.
Clapp also told the factfinders that Sheriff doesn’t routinely report to him within the athletic department’s organizational structure.
I believe he reports to [Teri] Chang [the facilities person in athletics]. I believe Chang reports to the Athletics Director, but I assist the Athletics Director, so at times I work closely with Chang.
Clapp told the factfinders he didn’t learn about the concert until receiving an email inviting him to a May 18 meeting about concert seating, at which point planning was quite far along. Clapp was out of town and did not attend. However, about two weeks prior to that date, Clapp signed off on a form requesting the assistance of the university’s office of general counsel in drafting the contract with the promoter. However, the documents show discussions between Sheriff and Peyton started in March, so it is likely Sheriff’s background checking took place much earlier.
Donovan’s defended the rather cursory checking by pointing out the athletics department had never investigated an outside group that wanted to rent their facilities, implying there was nothing different about Peyton’s proposed Stevie Wonder concert.
But there was a big difference.
Although the deal was officially described as a “Facilities Use Agreement,” and may have started out as a simple rental proposal, it was soon apparent that Peyton could not finance the deal without the university’s facilities and access to the box office cash. So it really ended up as a nonbid deal in which UH would provide financing and facilities Payton needed, and the promoter would get a fee in the form of a percentage of the concert’s profits. If it had been processed through the UH fiscal system as a purchase of this kind, it would likely have triggered other UH procurement reviews that would have scrutinized Peyton’s ability to deliver the goods before any payments were made to outside parties.
In any case, it’s too bad the Senate committee gave Sheriff a pass on this issue.
[My apologies for several typos in the first version posted this morning. And thanks to those who flagged them and let me know! Distributed editing at work.]
