Has anyone heard this before?

[Wurider05]

Quote

Haven’t really seen anybody try to explain why. I wasn’t alive at the time, but the way my father, who was a huge Atlanta sports fan and lived in the city from like 85-2007, explained it was as follows:

Deion and Nique both wore no. 21 and we’re by far the most famous athletes in Atlanta at the time. They opened a nightclub together, Club 21. This lawyer, Fred Tokars, worked with Nique, Deion, and Club 21. Doing what, I’m not so sure, but my dad said he ran the nightclub.

This Tokars guy did some wack shit, racketeering, cocaine deals, but namely having his his wife murdered. When he got arrested, they were going to have Deion and Nique testify, due to the connection. His trial started in February of 94, Deion left Atlanta in free agency in early 94, and Nique was traded in early 94.

My father claimed they were kind of forced to leave/be traded, because Tokars had left a dirty taste in everyone’s mouth, and made everybody question whether Nique and Deion were involved. So the teams let the two players leave, so nobody would question if the teams were keeping sketchy players around.

I can’t find any concrete proof to this story, but I chose to believe it because it lessens the pain of Deion and Nique leaving Atlanta.

I have never heard this before but it kind of makes sense. I remember the case well. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/AtlantaHawks/comments/sd2caf/why_was_dominique_traded_during_the_199394_season/

 

[Diesel]

14 minutes ago, Wurider05 said:

I have never heard this before but it kind of makes sense. I remember the case well. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/AtlantaHawks/comments/sd2caf/why_was_dominique_traded_during_the_199394_season/

 

I remember the Tokars murder.  It was a big thing... However, I fail to recall Nique and Deion owning a club together.   

As I recalled Tokars was a Lawyer whoose wife found out about his money laundering.   Instead of bringing her into the business like Ozark.. he had her killed.   

Now it could be that his money laundering spot was Club 21.  But I really don't remember Nique being into that.   That may have been Deion.  Nique had another Club called Dominiques' Downtown.  Now that I have looked it up, it was Co-owned with Deion.   That's special.  So it's very possible that Tokars were using those night spots to launder his money?

The problem with saying that Dominque was traded because of the Tokars case is that Dominique didn't know nor did we want to be traded.  Babcock had a thing about "letting his stars get old on him".   He traded Willis for this reason.  He traded Dominique for this reason.  He would have traded Mutombo for this reason.   Nique was having a really good season when Babcock traded him for Manning who was on the last year of his contract.   Babcock didn't believe that he could negotiate a contract with Nique that would be beneficial to the Hawks. 

 

[macdaddy]

Yeah i remember the Tokars murder very well.  It was absolutely awful.  Kill your wife and scar your kids for life.  What a friggin dirtbag. 

But i don't remember Nique or Deion's names being mentioned even tangentially.   Of course back then there was more cooperation with local media i think but who knows.  I doubt either of those guys were in the know about what Tokars was doing.  It would have been way too risky for them for no real reason.  

If I remember Tokars was considered to be very smart.   He also turned out to be a huge piece of shit.  Bad combo.

[Spud2nique]

This is all news to me. Also, I don’t believe it because, well it sounds like a lie. Lol. I dunno  

[JayBirdHawk]

Did some research on this story.

Quote

Prosecutors said Tokars ordered the slaying because his wife had uncovered his criminal activity and was threatening to divorce him. She could have exposed his links to what the government said was a murderous cocaine ring.

Prosecutors said Tokars had helped cocaine dealers from Detroit set up offshore bank accounts and open glitzy nightclubs and other businesses to hide the illicit profits from the distribution of cocaine shipped to Georgia from Los Angeles and Miami.

 

 

 

 

One of the bars bore the name of two of Atlanta's best-known athletes, basketball star Dominique Wilkins, formerly of the Hawks, and Deion Sanders, who plays outfield for the Braves and defensive back for the Falcons. Wilkins and Sanders testified, but neither was accused of any wrongdoing.

 

ALABAMA JURY CONVICTS EX-AMHERST MAN IN WIFE'S DEATH; LIFE SENTENCE POSSIBLE | Latest Headlines | buffalonews.com

 

Regarding them leaving it was always about money - Falcons and Hawks not wanting to pay them.

[Watchman]

Tokars was the "Speaker of the Year" (or some similar title) at the Georgia Society of CPAs (Tokars was both an attorney and a CPA, with an emphasis in tax cases).  After his conviction, all references to him were quickly removed from the walls of the GSCPA headquarters.

[kg01]

I do remember their club but the rest is false imho.  Loose conjecture by a guy tryna sound important.

Eta. I recall reading an update on the tokars story.  Iirc one of the sons recently died, had an understandably difficult life.

Edited January 27, 2022 by kg01