"If I Can Finance Him, and I Will…" - The Scandals of Fred and GMF Motors

Owner of GMF Motors, Fred Fayeghi, was a frequent fixture in the local Las Vegas press, with the coverage a mixture of negative and positive. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)

The catchphrase you can’t forget

“If I can finance him, and I will, I can finance anybody.” Those living in Las Vegas during the 80’s or 90’s remember the catchphrase of Fred Fayeghi which was featured in every commercial for his used car dealership, GMF Motors. The GMF Motors marketing campaigns also relied heavily on comically cheap setups, such as offering to finance a “hitchhiker” trying to catch a ride near his car lot.

But both Fred and GMF Motors courted criminal controversy during their decades in the Vegas Valley.

Fred Fayeghi was found in criminal contempt of court in 1993 in relation to a brawl he started with the attorneys for his former business partner in the halls of the Foley Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas. Fayeghi’s ups and downs were covered regularly in the local press during the decades he operated GMF Motors. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)

fight at the foley federal building

Faramarz “Fred” Fayeghi emigrated to the United States from his native Iran with much of the rest of his family in 1976, with Fayeghi later claiming to already be a millionaire at the time he arrived in America. His notoriously so-bad-as-to-be-memorable television ads began running in 1985 and were routinely ranked as the worst local commercials by the Las Vegas-Review Journal year after year.

But a memorable catchphrase and a sizeable pool of potential customers resulted in booming business for Fayeghi, with GMF Motors employing 55 people by the early-90’s. However, it was at this same time when GMF Motors was prospering by offering astronomically high interest rates that Fayeghi ran into legal troubles which would ultimately result in felony charges against the used car kingpin.

A dispute between Fayeghi and his business partner resulted in bankruptcy proceedings. On September 8, 1992, a hearing was about to be held in the bankruptcy case, and Fayeghi and his former business partner, along with his former partner’s attorneys, were gathered in the halls of the Foley Federal Building in downtown Las Vegas. Fayeghi became enraged while waiting for his case to be called, and he began shouting threats at R. Carl Sorenson, one of his former partner’s attorneys. The next thing Sorenson knew, Fayeghi delivered a blow directly behind the attorney’s right ear, sending Sorenson to the ground unconscious. Sorenson’s business partner and a fellow attorney, Larry Johns, leapt into action to defend his friend. Johns traded blows with Fayeghi in the courtroom halls until Fayeghi was eventually taken into custody, having received a bloody nose during the fracas.

Fayeghi was convicted of criminal contempt of court the following March by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Clive Jones. Prosecutors sought monetary sanctions and a short prison sentence for Fayeghi, but Judge Jones limited the punishment to a $500 fine.

A finance manager was accused of committing sexual assault against a customer at the GMF Motors lot in 1993. The case was followed by the local press, including the sudden dismissal of charges. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)

Allegations of predators on the GMF Lot

Much more serious crimes involving GMF Motors allegedly occurred the month following Fayeghi’s conviction. In April of 1993, headlines reported a traumatic assault allegedly perpetrated by a finance manager at the GMF Motors dealership located at Sahara and Boulder Highway.

On January 20, 1993, a nineteen-year-old woman and her husband visited the GMF lot to buy a car. After placing $1,000 down for a new car, the woman alleged a GMF sales manager and finance manager approached her after a different salesman led her husband away to a separate area of the dealership. The sales manager allegedly told the woman that she and her husband would be unable to obtain financing unless she was willing “to give the finance manager a dance.” The woman feared for her safety because she was alone in a room with the two managers. She reported that she was then led to a private office by the finance manager, who locked the office door behind them. The finance manager then allegedly sexually assaulted the woman.

After being released from the office, the woman found her husband. Two days later, the woman returned to the dealership for repair work on her car, and she reported being approached by a different sales manager who requested that she come to a nearby hotel room to dance for him. The woman responded by calling her husband and asking him to come to the lot. Later that day, she contacted the police and filed a report for sexual assault against the finance manager, though she was so upset she was unable to provide a statement until a rape crisis counselor arrived at the station. Several months of investigation passed before the finance manager was charged and booked on two counts of sexual assault.

Fred Fayeghi fired the finance manager a few weeks before the news of the charges broke for reasons he refused to detail. However, Fayeghi told reporters regarding the sexual assault charges against his former employee, “I have no idea about the whole situation.” Fayeghi went on to say he believed the charges were false because he spoke to the couple twice after they purchased their vehicle and they were “very happy” with their experience.

However, the case took an unexpected turn over the summer. The detective assigned to the woman’s report never sought to administer lie detector tests to either the finance manager or the victim.  However, after Deputy District Attorney Valerie Monroe was assigned the case for prosecution, she requested and obtained the finance manager’s consent to sit for a lie detector test, which Monroe claimed the manager passed. Monroe further claimed that the victim could not be located to administer a polygraph examination.

The finance manager’s defense attorney then moved for a dismissal of the charges based on the outcome of the polygraph examination. Deputy District Attorney Monroe did not oppose the motion, and Justice of the Peace Kelly Slade dismissed the two counts of sexual assault. Russ Shoemaker, the detective that worked the case, was surprised to learn of the abrupt dismissal of the charges.

News reports about the dismissal of the criminal case concluded by noting the victim delayed two days before going to the police because she believed she was at fault and that nobody would believe her claims.

Coverage of Fayeghi’s problems with the IRS over allegations of unreported income as written up by Las Vegas journalist John L. Smith, summing matters up in his trademark style. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ)

Tax Troubles

Fayeghi and GMF Motors dealt with more legal troubles during the latter-90’s, including civil claims that GMF violated federal consumer lending disclosure regulations, but the new millennium saw Fayeghi become the target of a criminal probe that could have shut down his dealership and landed him in federal prison.

Early one morning in April of 2000, agents from the IRS Criminal Division arrived at GMF Motors to execute a search warrant for documents evidencing potentially millions of dollars in unreported income. Fayeghi was out of the country in Iran at the time of the raid, but employees of the dealership that spoke to local reporters denied the company engaged in any wrongdoing.  The IRS continued to investigate the dealings at GMF Motors even three years after the initial raid.

A few of the more memorable GMF Motors commercials that left their mark on Las Vegas locals living in the city during the 80’s and 90’s. These commercials were regularly voted as the worst in the city several years running. (Las Vegas-Clark County Library District/LVRJ/YouTube)

A Local Icon

Despite the scandals and criminal complications experienced by GMF Motors and Fred Fayeghi over the decades, his mark on the Las Vegas Valley endures. An article from 2021 on KNPR.com included Fred and GMF Motors among a list of local business owners with memorable TV jingles, proving a big personality and a goofy (or at least memorably annoying) catchphrase can lead to induction into the pantheon of local Vegas advertising legends.