Boxer Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather thought he had found the house of his dreams when he looked at a 35,000-square-foot, 12-bedroom, 17-bath super mansion tucked high in the hills of Bel-Air allegedly close to a property owned by Jay-Z and Beyonce.
The price of the home was $139 million, and after seeing the property, Mayweather quickly agreed to purchase it from retired emergency room doctor Joseph Englanoff. However, the undefeated boxer later discovered Englanoff was possibly using him as a patsy in what appears to be a complicated tax evasion setup, Los Angeles Magazine reports.
According to the outlet, the super mansion includes a scalable
rock wall in the gym, a vodka tasting room, a 44-foot chandelier at its center, a 6,000-square foot nightclub with a crystal-embedded wall, a ventilated cigar humidor, a temperature-regulated wine room, movie theater with custom leather seats, and a pool complete with hydraulic screens.Mayweather viewed the property in 2021 courtesy of its developer, Englanoff, who named it “La Fin,” French for “The End.”
Initially, Mayweather agreed to a handshake deal to purchase the property from the UCLA doctor; however, when Mayweather’s lawyers received the contract for the sale, they quickly realized the man who beat Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosely, and Canelo Alvarez wouldn’t be purchasing the super mansion. Instead, he’d be buying shares in Ashley Ridge Land LP, a Nevada-based company whose holdings included the mansion and a plot of land outside Las Vegas.
As a result, Mayweather’s lawyers began looking into Englanoff. They quickly realized their client could become an unwitting participant in a possible tax scheme if he went through with the sale. Additionally, not only was Mayweather asked to invest in a company instead of purchasing the property, but Englanoff wanted to be contracted as a paid consultant.
“After careful consideration of various aspects of this transaction, including due diligence, we advise our client not to proceed with this seller,” Rockard “Rocky” Delgadillo told LA Magazine.
Mayweather was forced to let the property go, as he was unwilling to cheat the system for the home. In addition to the alleged shady contract, the boxer’s team was also worried that Englanoff avoided paying his income taxes for years in California by setting up a Nevada residence, which he never, or rarely, lived in.
Englanoff told LA Magazine he and his wife, Gilat, considered moving to Las Vegas in late 2020, saying, “The move was predicated on us both being able to practice medicine in Nevada and as such, we applied for the NV Medical Board in early 2021. At the same time, we registered two vehicles in NV in anticipation of the move, not to avoid paying California taxes.”
Mayweather won 15 titles, which spanned 21 years, finishing with a 50-0-1 record. He was inducted into the 2021 International Boxing Hall of Fame class along with Wladimir Klitschko and Andre Ward.
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