At first glance, Arman Izadi looks like just another member of the entourage surrounding YouTube stars Jake and Logan Paul.
He dances in the back of a Jake Paul music video and smashes through drywall dressed as a football player. He decorated the walls of his mansion with characters from the mega-popular shooting game Fortnite and painted himself as a cherub on a ceiling at Jake Paul’s house. Like any good YouTube personality, he has a catchphrase: “Here’s the deal, and it’s a big deal.”
And, like any good entourage member, Izadi is willing to stand up for other members of the crew. After the Pauls were mobbed by fans of rival YouTuber “Deji” in London, Izadi shot back with a video accusing the Pauls’ foe of encouraging his fans to attack a pair of luxury cars Izadi had rented for the event.
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“Motherfucker, you fucked up my cars,” Izadi said in a video. “So now you got a problem with a real Vegas motherfucker, and you might want to Google me, homeboy.”
As it turns out, Izadi was a violent pimp on the Las Vegas Strip, who was convicted of attempted battery and pleaded guilty to pandering, the legal term for pimping.
Representatives for the Pauls didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast.
In 2012, the self-proclaimed “mood director” for Las Vegas events, was arrested on a battery charge in Las Vegas related to a music-video shoot that went wrong.
According to court filings, Izadi had hired a film crew to turn one of his parties into music video footage. But after one of the men in the crew pointed out that the “relatively small amount of guests at the party” wouldn’t make for a compelling video, Izadi started punching and kicking the man. Izadi eventually pleaded guilty to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm, and was ordered to pay $30,000 in a related civil suit.
Izadi’s legal woes were far from over, though. In 2013, Izadi was arrested on 20 counts related to robbery, kidnapping, pimping, and battery. In grand jury transcripts reviewed by The Daily Beast, three women who said they had worked as prostitutes for Izadi described how he recruited them at nightlife events. Izadi then allegedly began setting up appointments for them with well-paying johns around Las Vegas, with Izadi always taking a cut of the proceeds.
The women made other, more serious allegations as well, describing Izadi grabbing them violently when they displeased him. One of the prostitutes alleged that she attempted to quit working for Izadi, only to have him waterboard her in a shower. According to the woman’s account, Izadi only calmed down when she agreed to get his name tattooed on her neck.
“I’m going to torture you all night long before you die,” the woman recalls Izadi telling her at one point in the incident.
Izadi insists he was set up in the pimping case by corrupt Las Vegas police, and says he’s working to clear his name.
“I didn’t do anything to anyone besides throw a good party,” Izadi told The Daily Beast.
Nearly all of the charges, including all of the violence-related charges, were dropped amid allegations that the top Las Vegas police detective on Izadi’s case was sleeping with prostitutes involved in other investigations and even taking money from another pimp. The FBI reportedly investigated the detective for years, although he hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing.
Izadi eventually filed “an Alford plea” for the felony pandering charge, meaning that he officially insisted on his innocence but pleaded guilty in the face of the prosecution’s evidence. Izadi was sentenced to a minimum of twelve months in prison, and surrendered nearly $12,000 to police in a related forfeiture case.
Izadi has continued to maintain his innocence in the pandering case, despite his plea, claiming that he was set-up by police.
“You can’t fucking do that shit in America and think you’re going to walk around,” Izadi said in a YouTube video posted Wednesday.
