Robert dahl napa valley murders

The investor, Emad Tawfilis, had called in a panic shortly before noon Monday, saying he was running through grapevines to escape a business partner who was firing at him from behind the wheel of an SUV, the Napa County Sheriff's Department said. As authorities headed to the scene, the owner of Dahl Vineyards, Robert Dahl, shot the fleeing investor, who fell to the ground, Sheriff's Capt.

Douglas Pike said. Dahl, holding a. The two men were at Dahl Vineyards and on a telephone conference call with their attorneys when they took a break on Monday. The lawyers never heard from them again. Myles Davis: Yeah, 'cause he's a [laughs] -- he -- yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean, it wasn't about the money, it was about, you know … there was concerns that he was in trouble.

Tracy Smith: 'Cause he was getting underwater? Myles Davis: Yeah. Tracy Smith: Did you say anything? Tracy Smith: No? Did you figure he'd find a way out of it? I hoped he would. And then there was Francine and Greg Knittel. Just a few months after the successful debut of the brewery they started with Dahl and a well-known brewmaster, the business started slipping.

Lew Perdue: I got the first inkling that Dahl wasn't what he says he was because a friend of mine went to his "brewery," and I put quotes around that because my friend liked craft beer, and he wasn't making beer at his robert dahl napa valley murders, unquote "brew pub. Tracy Smith: He wasn't making beer at the brewery? Lew Perdue: No … He was buying kegs from someone else.

And when this friend of mine came face-to-face and told him about that, he just went ballistic. Tracy Smith: Like he'd been found out. Lew Perdue: Like he had been found out. Dahl's partners, Francine and Greg Knittel, say they didn't know what Dahl was up to at the brewery and they were shocked when Dahl came in one day and announced he was shutting down the whole thing.

Greg Knittel: Robert's sitting there and he goes, "Guys, the brewery's not making enough money … I'm gonna close the doors. And, unlike Myles Davis, they felt personally betrayed by their friend Robert Dahl. Tracy Smith: what gets to you the most? Francine Knittel: Somebody that we trusted … had this capability … were gonna pretty much screw us over.

But no one felt more ripped off than Emad Tawfilis. Instead, Dahl diverted the cash, spending it on his lavish lifestyle, the brewery business -- just about anything else. Dahl had stopped paying back the money he borrowed. Tawfilis hired a lawyer. He was angry, he wanted his money, and he wanted to find out everything he could about Robert Dahl Tracy Smith: …you amassed a pile of information about Robert Dahl.

Dawn King [reading from papers]: This is the pile of liens that Robert had against him. Tracy Smith: Oh, my goodness. Dawn King: Yes. Tracy Smith: So you can smell a rat? Dawn King: Well, I like to put rats in prison anyway. King started digging. Dawn King: So he was not paying his bills. I mean, he was just like charging credit cards. A lot of what King discovered happened back in Minnesota during the years before Dahl came to Napa.

But to the private investigator, it told a story. Dawn King: You know this is the theft -- one of his theft charges. Tracy Smith: One of his theft charges? Dawn King: Yes, he had two. Dawn King: This was the theft by swindle. Tracy Smith: He actually was convicted of theft by swindle? Dawn King: He was. Thefts and swindles got Dahl thrown into jail not once, but twice back in Minnesota, and left him a convicted felon.

Dawn King: I mean, this guy was a criminal. Now, here in the wine country, Dahl seemed to be scamming again. Every time he'd get a business investment, the money seemed to go right into his pocket. Tracy Smith: Was this kind of a Ponzi scheme? Steve Burch: Yeah, to some extent, except that no one got paid. So usually in a Ponzi scheme, the first people in get paid.

Tracy Smith: But at this point, well, Robert did. Steve Burch: It was -- right. Robert got paid, but Robert spent all the money. He started blogging what he found and guess who responded? Robert Dahl. Lew Perdue [unfurling a seemingly never-ending document]: And those are his comments. Those are his comments and then he starts to rant paragraph by paragraph by paragraph.

Tracy Smith: Oh I see this, the caps in red. Lew Perdue: Everything in … big red capital letters just keeps coming. This is like one of those magic scarves. Lew Perdue unfurls a seemingly never-ending document with comments from Robert Dahl. I think I measured this at 26 feet. Just ranting and ranting and ranting. Tracy Smith: And what did this say to you?

Lew Perdue: This says to me the guy's -- was off his nut. Things were really heating up. Both sides were suing and it looked as if things were headed for a showdown. Emad Tawfilis was angry -- very angry. He wanted his whole investment back, but it wasn't looking good. Dawn King: Oh, my gosh. I mean. I used to get 10, 15, 20 phone calls a day.

Tracy Smith: How desperate was Emad? Dawn King: He was a desperate man. On a scale from one to 10, he was about a nine. David Wiseblood Emad Tawfilis' attorney: He was not gonna let someone like Robert Dahl take advantage of him and bully him into being submissive. David Wiseblood: Emad came to me saying "I have this problem. That strategy was to hammer Robert Dahl in court and force him to pay up.

David Wiseblood: So the strategy was -- file a lawsuit in Napa … to basically get control of the collateral … and to basically prevent stuff from disappearing… That collateral was mostly the wine tanks and all the equipment used to make the wine. Tracy Smith: So what happened? David Wiseblood: Robert didn't roll that --well … I had in a four-month period -- 19 court appearances in the Napa court, which is crazy… So, I mean, the short answer is that the Napa court issued an injunction against Robert … saying "you can't sell inventory," which in effect should have shut down his wine making and wine selling operations.

Tracy Smith: That all belongs to Emad, basically? David Wiseblood: Right. Pretty much. Even though Emad Tawfilis was winning in court, Robert Dahl was doing everything he could to cheat.

Robert dahl napa valley murders

He was even secretly taking equipment and trying to sell it off. Steve Burch: Robert at that point had started hiding equipment, hiding whatever he could. He started moving stuff. I think he had every intention to pay back the entire loan. Dahl's lawyers believed he was a stand-up guy. That classic all-American, risk-taking entrepreneur who puts it all on the line and at the last minute comes out a hero.

Kousha Berokim: The business was growing and it was not a Ponzi scheme or a house of cards. Kousha Berokim: If you look at that document again, you will see that that goes back to when he was about 19 or 21 years old or so. Tracy Smith: But still, people look at that and say "once a conman, always a conman" Kousha Berokim: …Robert definitely had his share of failed ventures before as well.

Tracy Smith: But you don't think that proves that he's a thief? Kousha Berokim: Not at all. A thief doesn't go to court. Kousha Berokim: He was a risk-taker… And when you take risks sometimes you end up harming other people as well. But our system is set up for that. In the wine business, Dahl's lawyers say, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

And they insist Emad Tawfilis was the real villain in this business deal. Tracy Smith: You think that was a scam for Emad? Kousha Berokim: Absolutely. How would one come up with that much cash and why? It's still a mystery where all that cash came from, but Robert Dahl's lawyers say Emad Tawfilis was so angry, he was determined to destroy Dahl's business.

Jasmine Duel: His barrels of wine were taken. His cars were taken. Days before, a judge appeared to have backed Dahl into a legal corner, ordering a hearing on an count contempt citation for violating court orders not to move or dispose of corporate assets and lying to the court. He said he had talked to both men and written extensively about their legal dispute.

Dahl, those who knew him say, came across at first as an ambitious, fast-talking salesman with a wealth of moneymaking ideas and the appearance of financial competence. When he arrived in California around from Minnesota, he left behind a group of investors who so liked his pitch for Duraban International, a company he had founded to produce a mold-killing spray, that they bought the firm.

Lodge, a lawyer for the investors, said in a telephone interview from Anoka, Minn. Tawfilis, 48, of Los Gatos, worked in the Silicon Valley tech industry, but apparently in finance and accounting rather than software. In return, he was to split profits from wine sales that the loan financed.