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Double Trouble Ismael “Robert” Chavez is charged with criminal impersonation and a DUI.
Ismael “Robert” Chavez and Dr. Richard Feldman may be Nashville’s least dynamic duo.
The pair—both of whom have been featured on the cover of this paper in the past year for nefarious behavior—teamed up a few weeks ago and, between them, assaulted a restaurant manager, impersonated a police officer and ran from the cops. The episode saw Chavez hauled off to jail, charged with criminal impersonation and a DUI.
For those just joining this circus already in progress, here’s a little background. Chavez was the president of the Tennessee Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (THCC) until a Scene story detailing his housing scheme for illegal immigrants and his growing unpopularity among his own board, some of whom complained that he used the organization for personal gain (“Bad Man of Nolensville Road,” Feb. 15). Chavez was later deposed from the presidency of the THCC.
Dr. Richard Feldman is another matter. Last spring, the Scene reported that Feldman—who owns a lucrative chain of diet clinics in Tennessee—swapped his services as a doctor for sex with prostitutes; sexually molested, abused, insulted, robbed and took advantage of his patients; had sex with a patient who was under age; waved a gun at fellow doctors and verbally and physically berated his staff (“Dr. Feelbad,” Aug. 24, 2006 and “Dr. Feel Worse,” Sept. 21, 2006). Now Feldman is facing charges of fraud arising from claims about the effectiveness of one of his weight loss treatments.
What follows is an account of what happened on the evening of May 29, when Feldman and Chavez walked into The Yellow Porch, an intimate restaurant in Berry Hill popular with power lunchers by day and fine diners at night. The recollections are from the restaurant’s manager, who did not want his name used in this story. Calls from the Scene to the two men’s attorneys went unreturned.
Feldman was “stinking drunk” when he arrived with Chavez. The manager says that the two were “doing business with a regular customer of mine. Otherwise I wouldn’t have let [Feldman] in the door.”
The manager says that Feldman was impossible to ignore—and not just because he was drunk. “He had this bright-green, 1970s-era suit on. He looked like a leprechaun.”
Trouble started when Feldman began “hooting and hollering” at female restaurant patrons, the manager recalls. “He was making completely inappropriate sexual comments about these guests.”
The manager says he asked Feldman to keep it down but that Feldman continued to act “like an asshole. He thinks he’s Jesus or something…. I’ve worked at every club in this city, and I’ve never dealt with a 20-year-old as stupid and as much of an asshole as [Feldman].
The manager recalls finally telling Feldman, “If you want to act like you’re in a nightclub, then go to a nightclub.”
The manager says Feldman told him to “Go fuck yourself” and stood up to leave. As he did, he managed to spill every drink at the table, “all over everybody he was with.”
This both enraged and humiliated Feldman. “For a minute there, he looked like he might cry.” Instead, the manager says that Feldman attacked him. “He rushed me…came right at me.”
The manager—who says that he started working at Yellow Porch to get away from these kind of nightclub melees—put Feldman into a choke hold and was just about to throw him to the ground and “kick his ass” when Chavez stepped up.
According to a police report, Chavez “told the store manager that he had a badge and presented himself as a law enforcement officer.”
The manager then let Feldman go. After that, the manager says Tennessee’s self-proclaimed “No. 1 Diet Doctor” scurried from the restaurant and “hid in some bushes” in surrounding Berry Hill because the real cops were on the way.
Chavez—who the manager says only had one drink during dinner—then got in a white Jaguar and went looking for his pal.
When police arrived at The Yellow Porch, the manager pointed out Chavez’s Jaguar, which hadn’t made it very far. The cops pulled Chavez over. According to their report, he had a 12-pack of Budweiser—with four beers missing—in the backseat, “blood shot red” eyes and a “strong order (sic) of alcohol beverage coming from (his) breath.”
The former president of the THCC refused to take a breath or blood alcohol test and was booked for DUI and criminal impersonation. (He has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 7.) This is his second run-in with the law, the first occurring in 2001 when he was charged with disorderly conduct and driving without a license.
No charges were brought against Feldman—and the police report makes no mention of him—though he’ll never be able to eat at The Yellow Porch again. Says the restaurant’s manager, “That guy is banned from here for life.”