White House gate-crashers have long chased spotlight

WASHINGTON — Before Tareq and Michaele Salahi catapulted to international notoriety as possible White House gate-crashers last week, the Virginia socialites had their pictures taken with President Obama during his inauguration, Prince Charles at a polo match and Oprah Winfrey at another event. They had Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy speak at their elaborate wedding, which more than 1,800 guests attended.

Friends describe the 40-something pair as "fun-loving" and unabashed about pursuing the spotlight.

By Friday, Secret Service agents were seen trying to track down the pair to learn how they got into Obama's first state dinner.

Interviews and court records show the couple have a far less glamorous side. These documents and statements include dozens of civil suits alleging nonpayment for services, a long-running, public feud with Tareq Salahi's parents about ownership and control of their now-idle 108-acre winery and claims the couple made about accomplishments that can't be verified.

"Living large"

Casey Margenau, a McLean, Va., real-estate agent and longtime friend of Tareq Salahi, said he had talked with the couple Thursday. He said the investigation was "hard on them," because the couple believed they "really were invited guests."

"There's a video out there of Tareq opening a Champagne bottle with a saber," Margenau said. "That's him. That's his personality ... they've always loved living large, always loved living in the spotlight." The circumstances of the state dinner at the White House on Tuesday remain unclear.

On Wednesday, hours before the White House denied the Salahis were legitimate guests, a reporter asked the couple via Facebook how they happened to attend the dinner. Tareq, captain of the America's Cup Polo team, responded: "India is the challenger in the America's Polo Cup World Championships June 11/12 2010, and they are very excited in this first ever cultural connection being hosted on the DC National Mall since Polo is one of the primary sports in India."

When pressed about why they did not appear on the official list, he added, "It was last-minute attending."

Reached on his cellphone, their attorney Paul Gardner said, "OK. No. No. No," and hung up.

The pair had been scheduled to be on the "Larry King Live" show Monday night, but CNN canceled Saturday.

Family connections

Tareq Salahi's stake to local fame and wealth stems from the family winery, Oasis. It is one of Virginia's oldest, founded in 1977 by Dirgham and Corinne Salahi. It was known for its sparkling blended wines, and it hosted large social events.

But it had fallen into debt in recent years and became the subject of ugly local complaints about disruption the winery's events caused on narrow back roads. It devolved into a bitter family squabble pitting parents against son.

The family put the winery up for sale in 2007, and a year ago it was still on the market for $4.7 million. In February 2009, according to court records, the winery filed for bankruptcy. In a civil suit in Fauquier County, Va., Circuit Court last year, Dirgham and Corinne Salahi said Tareq had interfered with the winery's sale.

The bankruptcy papers describe the repossession last year of a 2004 Aston Martin valued at $150,000, and a Carver 350 Mariner boat valued at $90,000. The document lists $334,000 in assets and $965,000 in liabilities.

Both sides later said the lawsuit was dormant, and Tareq said it would be settled without monetary payments. The dispute grew so unpleasant that Tareq and Michaele, who had lived there, left.

The couple were not at their latest listed address in Front Royal on Friday or Saturday. The two-story house, assessed at nearly $700,000, lies on a gravel road near the top of a mountain. Parked in the driveway was a white stretch limo, with a vanity tag reading "VAWINE3." Small stickers on passenger doors advertise "America's Polo Cup."

A splashy start

The two met in 1999 at a Christmas party in Margenau's home.

"Tareq was very aggressive about trying to get engaged," said Rachel Harshman, who owns a horse farm near Middleburg and was formerly friends with Michaele.

The Salahis eventually staged a self-described "wedding of the century," on Oct. 5, 2002, at the Cathedral of St. Matthew The Apostle in downtown Washington.

According to a video on YouTube, the wedding and the reception (the latter held at the winery) featured "28 Bridesmaids, 28 Groomsmen, 8 Flower Girls ... a 36 piece Big-Band during dinner & dancing ... 186 catering food servers ... 36,000 square feet of tenting ... 50 Bar tenders ... 46 Chefs ... 15 Official photographers ... 8 Video cameras with full film crew/sound team ... one camera man standing on a Construction Crane 300 feet above the Cathedral."

Unverified claims

Harshman, who said the couple owe her tens of thousands of dollars, said she had noted something odd when she met Michaele in the 1990s. At the time, she said, Michaele was working jobs in retail and living with her parents in a condominium in Oakton, Va. The family was not wealthy, Harshman said.

One night out with friends, Harshman said, she was surprised when Michaele casually mentioned she was a model. "I said, 'You never mentioned this to me before.' " Later, Harshman said, "it grew into 'supermodel.' I ignored it half the time."

Last year, Michaele, now 44, told a reporter she had been a Washington Redskins cheerleader, and she has been photographed at several alumni events. But the cheerleaders' director of marketing, Melanie Coburn, wrote in an e-mail: "We have no record of her being a member of the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders."

Nor could the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders Alumni Association find any record of her, said Terri Crane-Lamb, president of the association.

Tareq Salahi, 40, a polo player and wine expert, meanwhile, also was running up a sizable number of detractors.

He became involved in Courage Cup, a polo match launched in 2004 by Greg Ball, a former Air Force officer. Salahi was later one of the board members who sided with Ball in a bitter feud (involving e-mails blasted to hundreds of area polo fans) over who controlled the event: Ball, or the two women he asked to run it in 2006 while he pursued a state Legislature seat in New York.

A newspaper investigation found that as much as $10,000 in ticket sales to the Poolesville, Md., match — though widely advertised as benefiting polo training for underprivileged kids — ended up in a political-action campaign started by Ball, and eventually into his campaign treasury.

Salahi then launched America's Polo Cup in 2007.

He and the event were sued for $300,000 by Market Salamander, a high-profile catering operation in Middleburg, Va., in 2008, alleging nonpayment of services for a Polo Cup event.

This spring, the organization hosted a U.S.-Italy polo match, with performances by the band Huey Lewis and the News and fireworks to benefit a Salahi-run charity that said it raised money for childhood diseases.

But the next week, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services sent an official caution noting the foundation had, as of three days after the event, "not registered with or been granted the appropriate exempt status by the commissioner as required by law."

The organization's Web site now lists a federal tax ID number. It was not clear whether the warning from the state has been resolved.

The day after the state dinner, Michaele Salahi went to Georgetown's Roche Salon. She had been there the week before, a visit filmed for possible inclusion in "The Real Housewives of Washington," a potential reality show planned for Bravo.

On her second visit, she was excited about the White House event. "She was telling me all about the dinner," Dennis Roche said. "She was like, 'It was really great.' She said they didn't get home until 5. Then she came back in here."

As to how she got into the event, "she alluded to me is that she had White House clearance," Roche said. "I took that to mean, if she had White House clearance, she had an invitation."

Washington Post staff writers Cindy Boren, Michael Cotterman, Wil Haygood, James Hohmann, David Montgomery, Dan Morse and Ian Shapira, and researchers Meg Smith and Julie Tate contributed to this report.