Golfers putt on the sixth hole green at Lakewood Country Club on August 23, 2017. (Seth McConnell, The Denver Post)
On June 3, 2024, developer Brad Eide was chatting with an executive from RK Industries during an RK networking event at Lakewood Country Club.
Talk turned to Nick Steitz, a JLL broker nearby who had attended the University of Oregon at the same time as Eide, who was also at the event.
“He mentioned that he was thinking about hiring Nick for business development and I told him verbatim, ‘He’s a liability. I would never hire that guy,’” Eide recalled in a deposition.
“I gave him my opinion. If you want somebody in business development that’s going out and representing your company, I didn’t think that he was a good fit. That was my opinion.”
Steitz had been drinking alcohol — “It looked like he was physically and mentally incapacitated,” Eide later said of the broker — and had jokingly flicked the developer’s penis and grabbed his butt in the banquet hall earlier in the event, Eide explained under oath.
“It was uncomfortable. … Somebody that’s not totally familiar with me was, I think, behaving with a locker-room mentality,” he said.
What happened next would become a topic of conversation in Denver’s real estate world and the source of litigation for nearly all of 2025, until a confidential settlement between Steitz and Eide largely put an end to that in the middle of December. Eide also dropped his claims against Lakewood Country Club then.
“As we were done talking, I went to turn, and I noticed that Mr. Steitz was squatted down in a tackling position no more than a foot or two away from me,” according to a transcript of the undated Eide deposition this year, obtained by BusinessDen in a records request.
Eide, 45, weighed 190 pounds. Steitz, 43 and a former NFL lineman, weighed far more.
“He went to grab my legs, and I grabbed over the top of him as he grabbed my legs. And then as I grabbed ahold of him, he — like an offensive lineman — pushed my legs up into the air. And then we fell backwards through the food table that was behind us,” Eide explained.
“It felt like a wrestling move,” according to the developer. “Over his shoulder, through a table.”
One of Eide’s collarbones shattered in several places, requiring a hospital trip and surgery.
“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Steitz texted Eide that same night, according to the latter. “You wouldn’t stop choking me and I got really freaked out. I couldn’t breathe.”
Eide sued the broker, JLL and the Lakewood Country Club in January. The defendants denied doing anything wrong and JLL said it could not be held responsible for Steitz.
Steitz’s defense, as he alluded to after the scuffle, was that Eide had grabbed him around the neck and cut off his oxygen, causing Steitz to panic. Eide, a white belt in jiu jitsu, faced questions about his chokehold abilities at his deposition but denied using one.
“Are you able to tell me why you’ve sued (the country club)?” Eide was asked at that deposition.
“So, there is a bit of a known factor around town that Lakewood Country Club is a bit of a loose country club and they have heavy pours and they tend to have wild parties,” he said. “I’ve heard from members that I know — that are there — that it’s a bit of a party country club.”
A four-day jury trial is scheduled for May but the county club and Steitz will not be taking part. Only JLL remains a defendant.
Steitz, meanwhile, has since left that firm and now works at Trevey Commercial Real Estate.
“Supported by witnesses to the incident, Mr. Steitz continues to dispute Mr. Eide’s version of the event,” Steitz’s lawyer, Kevin Ripplinger, said in an email.
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized Lakewood Country Club’s dismissal from the case.
Golfers putt on the sixth hole green at Lakewood Country Club on August 23, 2017. (Seth McConnell, The Denver Post)
On June 3, 2024, developer Brad Eide was chatting with an executive from RK Industries during an RK networking event at Lakewood Country Club.
Talk turned to Nick Steitz, a JLL broker nearby who had attended the University of Oregon at the same time as Eide, who was also at the event.
“He mentioned that he was thinking about hiring Nick for business development and I told him verbatim, ‘He’s a liability. I would never hire that guy,’” Eide recalled in a deposition.
“I gave him my opinion. If you want somebody in business development that’s going out and representing your company, I didn’t think that he was a good fit. That was my opinion.”
Steitz had been drinking alcohol — “It looked like he was physically and mentally incapacitated,” Eide later said of the broker — and had jokingly flicked the developer’s penis and grabbed his butt in the banquet hall earlier in the event, Eide explained under oath.
“It was uncomfortable. … Somebody that’s not totally familiar with me was, I think, behaving with a locker-room mentality,” he said.
What happened next would become a topic of conversation in Denver’s real estate world and the source of litigation for nearly all of 2025, until a confidential settlement between Steitz and Eide largely put an end to that in the middle of December. Eide also dropped his claims against Lakewood Country Club then.
“As we were done talking, I went to turn, and I noticed that Mr. Steitz was squatted down in a tackling position no more than a foot or two away from me,” according to a transcript of the undated Eide deposition this year, obtained by BusinessDen in a records request.
Eide, 45, weighed 190 pounds. Steitz, 43 and a former NFL lineman, weighed far more.
“He went to grab my legs, and I grabbed over the top of him as he grabbed my legs. And then as I grabbed ahold of him, he — like an offensive lineman — pushed my legs up into the air. And then we fell backwards through the food table that was behind us,” Eide explained.
“It felt like a wrestling move,” according to the developer. “Over his shoulder, through a table.”
One of Eide’s collarbones shattered in several places, requiring a hospital trip and surgery.
“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Steitz texted Eide that same night, according to the latter. “You wouldn’t stop choking me and I got really freaked out. I couldn’t breathe.”
Eide sued the broker, JLL and the Lakewood Country Club in January. The defendants denied doing anything wrong and JLL said it could not be held responsible for Steitz.
Steitz’s defense, as he alluded to after the scuffle, was that Eide had grabbed him around the neck and cut off his oxygen, causing Steitz to panic. Eide, a white belt in jiu jitsu, faced questions about his chokehold abilities at his deposition but denied using one.
“Are you able to tell me why you’ve sued (the country club)?” Eide was asked at that deposition.
“So, there is a bit of a known factor around town that Lakewood Country Club is a bit of a loose country club and they have heavy pours and they tend to have wild parties,” he said. “I’ve heard from members that I know — that are there — that it’s a bit of a party country club.”
A four-day jury trial is scheduled for May but the county club and Steitz will not be taking part. Only JLL remains a defendant.
Steitz, meanwhile, has since left that firm and now works at Trevey Commercial Real Estate.
“Supported by witnesses to the incident, Mr. Steitz continues to dispute Mr. Eide’s version of the event,” Steitz’s lawyer, Kevin Ripplinger, said in an email.
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized Lakewood Country Club’s dismissal from the case.
