Law360 (September 8, 2025, 4:29 PM EDT) -- A real estate developer, his associates and his current and past attorneys submitted fake contracts as evidence of their ownership of the company that runs the Miss America pageant in a $500 million lawsuit and should face sanctions, the plaintiffs — who allege they're the rightful owners — told a Florida federal judge Saturday.

Robin Fleming, chief executive officer of the pageant, said in Saturday's motion for sanctions that she acquired the pageant and its assets from the Miss America Organization in late 2022, and that real estate developer Glenn Straub and his associates were not part of the deal.

Straub, Craig T. Galle, Kathleen A. Fialco and Palm Beach Polo Inc. and their prior legal counsel submitted a pair of fake operating agreements for the Miss America companies that were passed off as copies of originals created by Straub in December 2022, the plaintiffs said, adding an assertion that current counsel continues to stand by the agreements.

The motion asserts that those purported operating agreements submitted to the federal court should be "null and void," alleging that Galle created them in April 2024 and backdated them to Dec. 28, 2022, and passed off as authentic.

"After plaintiffs pressed defendants in discovery to produce the native files for these two documents, defendants' new counsel recently admitted that there are no native files — and that the two documents at issue are of recent fabrication and backdated," Saturday's motion for sanctions states. "In other words, the documents are fraudulent."

The motion does not identify the attorneys by name. But according to court documents, William R. Clayton, Miguel Aristizabal and Riley F. Kennedy of Clayton Trial Lawyers PLLC filed the operating agreements as part of their answer to Fleming's complaint. Clayton, Aristizabal and Kennedy asked to withdraw as counsel, and a federal judge terminated them as counsel in an order on June 27.

Defendants' counsel Todd A. Levine and Terri Meyers, of Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine PL, withdrew the operating agreements as evidence and struck part of an amended counterclaim, according to a notice filed Friday. The defendants have filed a counterclaim of fraud in the inducement, conversion, breach of fiduciary duty and other claims.

Saturday's motion says that the defendants' prior counsel seemed to have acted intentionally and in bad faith.

The motion alleges that Straub and Galle have provided the allegedly false documents in multiple court proceedings, including this suit, which was removed from state to federal court. Galle created the false documents "just days before Straub brought the state action for the purpose of wresting control of the Miss America Companies from Ms. Fleming."

"Because these were the primary documents upon which Straub relied for his claim of ownership of the Miss America Companies, the misrepresentations in each instance were material," the motion for sanctions states. "In so doing, Straub and Galle committed fraud against Ms. Fleming and upon this court (as well as against the state court, the bankruptcy court, and the New Jersey court), unreasonably and vexatiously multiplying the proceedings."

Defendants' counsel Todd Levine, of Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine PL, told Law360 Pulse that the request for sanctions "has no merit" and they plan to oppose the request in a response.

When asked why they withdrew the agreements and struck parts, Levine said that the new legal team for the defendants thinks "those documents and the references to them are unnecessary to the counterclaim and we were trying to avoid unnecessary motion practice in the case."

"Moreover, we will be amending the answers, affirmative defenses, and counterclaim," Levine said.

This sanctions motion comes after Straub and his associates unsuccessfully tried to have Fleming's counsel disqualified. U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in April denied Straub and his associates' motion to have Carlton Fields disqualified from representing Fleming and MAO IP Holding, finding that such a move is extraordinary and that the allegations are "scattered and speculative."

Counsel for the plaintiffs declined to comment Monday.

Robin Fleming, Miss America IP Inc., Miss America's Scholarship Foundation Inc. and MAO IP Holding Co. LLC are represented by Benjamin G. Chew, Camille M. Vasquez and Jessica N. Meyers of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, and Gene Rossi, Justin L. Chretien, Bruce J. Berman and Natalie Napierala of Carlton Fields.

Glenn F. Straub, Craig T. Galle, Kathleen A. Fialco and Palm Beach Polo Inc. are represented by Todd A. Levine and Terri Ellen Tuchman Meyers of Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine PL.

The case is Robin Fleming et al. v. Glenn F. Straub et al., case number 9:24-cv-81507, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

–Additional reporting by David Minsky. Editing by Amy French.

Update: This article has been updated with additional comments from the defendants' counsel. For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.