ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240028
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
With only minutes to spare before his fate was to be decided, Pierre Paiement saved face with his fellow owners of the Roanoke Express and saved his job as the team's general manager in the process.
Tuesday's announcement that Paiement would remain general manager was another surprising moment in what has become the most tumultuous five days in the Express' three-year history.
``This has been a very tough last three or four days for me and my family and partners,'' Paiement said.
Paiement saved his job only after admitting to his business partners Tuesday morning that he had remained involved with an East Coast Hockey League franchise in Biloxi, Miss. - a charge he had denied since March.
Paiement and Express president John Gagnon had launched the Biloxi franchise in March. Paiement announced on Feb.19 he had removed himself from the Biloxi deal because of conflict-of-interest concerns expressed by his Roanoke co-owners.
Tuesday morning at 10:30 - just 30 minutes before a news conference that had been scheduled to announce his status with the Express - Paiement and his co-owners reached a resolution.
``The issue was that I was involved in an inappropriate level with the Biloxi franchise,'' Paiement said. ``My partners realized I was not able to devote 100 percent of my attention to the Express. It's a good thing I have good partners to tell me when I step out of line. I'd like to apologize to them for that.
``My involvement [with Biloxi] was inappropriate. It was an issue my partners and I disagreed on. After discussions with them, I realized I was wrong and they were right.''
The apology apparently satisfied the team's minority owners, including Joe Steffen, the team's vice president and director of communications who scheduled the news conference.
``I have mentioned before that the Express is a family,'' Steffen said. ``Pierre Paiement is a part of that family. In a sense, he has been the head of that family.''
Steffen added: ``Someone said that the Biloxi franchise has been like a cancer on the Roanoke Express. .. Surgery has been successful; and we have resolved the ongoing problems with the Biloxi franchise as it relates to the Roanoke Express.''
Neither Paiement nor Steffen, the only club officials who spoke at the news conference, would comment as to what Paiement had admitted. Steffen said only that Paiement ``has agreed to completely divest himself of any ongoing interest in the Biloxi franchise.''
The turmoil reached a boiling point Friday, when Paiement and Gagnon were removed as officers from the club's board of directors. Although Paiement will keep his general manager's job, he no longer will be the secretary on the team's board of directors.
Gagnon, who owns 50 percent of the club, was removed as team president and replaced with Richard Macher, a minority owner who owns less than 10 percent of the club. Steffen referred to Gagnon as the team's ``former president'' on several occasions.
``Unfortunately, one of our family remains unrepentant,'' said Steffen. ``Mr. Gagnon is a shareholder of our organization. Mr. Gagnon is not the president [of the Express]. ... His attention is focused on Mississippi and we wish him well there. ... We will continue to look after his investment here.
``Mr. Gagnon has said all along that the Mississippi [team] is just an investment to him. That's what the Express is now [to Gagnon].''
Gagnon, who did not attend the news conference, continued to defend Paiement, with whom he founded the ownership group that saved professional hockey in the Roanoke Valley three years ago by purchasing a $500,000 expansion team that became the Express.
``Pierre should never have went through what he went through over the weekend,'' Gagnon said. ``It's a good thing this has ended on the right note, but he shouldn't have went through those long four days. Emotionally, it was a strain. As far as I'm concerned, he has nothing to be ashamed of. He's done nothing wrong. Ever.''
Gagnon declined to say if he planned to make any effort to regain the club presidency.
Club sources said Steffen was ready to make public several documents that linked Paiement to the Biloxi club after Feb.19. Gagnon said the documents Steffen had obtained were ``meaningless'' and ``had not been executed.'' Gagnon said he sent Steffen a copy of the Biloxi team's management portfolio, which he said did not include any references to Paiement.
Express offices were closed last Friday, as some club officials searched files for documents linking Paiement to Biloxi. One club source said that Paiement had billed the Express for travel expenses to Biloxi and that he had interviewed candidates for the Mississippi team's coaching job, including Bruce Boudreau, with whom Paiement was seen speaking at an Express game.
Paiement denied that he was interviewing Boudreau, who will be named the Mississippi Sea Wolves' first coach this week.
After a story appeared in The Roanoke Times on Tuesday that reported Roanoke's minority owners were going to produce the documents that proved Paiement's involvement with the Biloxi club, one club source said negotiations gained momentum.
``We were absolutely not bluffing,'' Steffen said. ``Nobody was bluffing.''
Steffen declined to specify what forms of evidence he had found other than to call them ``formal documents.'' He said he found no evidence of criminal involvement or ``financial improprieties.''
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ARNE KUHLMANN/Staff. Express general manager Pierreby CNBPaiement said Tuesday his involvement with Biloxi's ECHL franchise
was inappropriate. Minority owner Joe Steffen (right), who
spearheaded the conflict of interest concerns felt by other
co-owners, said the problems have been resolved. color.