State tax agents on Monday seized the Erie-based BenchWarmers Tavern & Grill business office and two of the company’s three restaurants for unpaid sales taxes, less than a week after the chain’s CEO was arrested on a parole violation and its sports bars were shuttered.

BenchWarmers owed $61,463.60 in sales taxes from April to July, said Mark Couch, Colorado Department of Revenue spokesman.

BenchWarmers officials closed their three restaurants, which have an adult-friendly theme similar to Hooters, on Thursday — the day after Kevin Foote, 47, was arrested on suspicion of not telling parole officers that he worked around liquor and financial records.

On Monday, Colorado tax agents seized BenchWarmers’ office, its nearly 5-month-old restaurant off Village Vista Drive in Erie and its Centennial eatery. They did not seize BenchWarmers’ Aurora restaurant, Couch said, because the 13950 E. Mississippi Ave. location was seized Friday by the city of Aurora. BenchWarmers owed about $12,000 in taxes to the city, said Kim Stuart, an Aurora spokeswoman.

Separately on Monday, Foote filed a theft complaint from jail alleging that his employees stole items from the Erie and Denver BenchWarmers locations.

Foote alleges vendors and former employees pulled pictures, televisions and sports memorabilia off the restaurant walls after they said company officials gave them permission to do so in lieu of pay. A regional manager, Mindy Bulmer, has told the Camera that some employees had not been paid since June 30.

Erie police Lt. Lee Mathis said Monday that Foote called the department about 5:30 p.m. Sunday from the Boulder County Jail to file a theft complaint against the employees who he said took equipment from the stores. Foote said he didn’t authorize them to take televisions, sports memorabilia, liquor, booth seats, T-shirts or anything else at the restaurant, according to Mathis.

But because Foote isn’t listed as an owner of the business but rather an employee, Mathis said, the department is looking into whether he has grounds to file a theft complaint.

From 1993 to 2003, Foote was arrested about a dozen times in Colorado on suspicion of numerous crimes including fraud, larceny, theft and illegal use of credit cards. A judge dismissed one felony larceny theft charge in 2000, but Foote went to prison three years later after pleading guilty to four counts of being a habitual criminal — misdemeanor convictions — and one count of felony larceny theft between $300 and $10,000.

Foote also has been the subject of lawsuits and unpaid-wage claims related to a planned restaurant operation outside of Colorado.

Last year, Colorado Restaurant Group — an entity registered to Foote — reopened a Bennigan’s restaurant in Amarillo, Texas. Foote’s Colorado Restaurant Group had plans to open additional Bennigan’s restaurants in Texas and New Mexico, said Phill Harmon, who was a former area director for Bennigan’s before the chain filed for Chapter 7 and closed most of its restaurants.

Harmon and a couple of other Bennigan’s managers joined the Colorado Restaurant Group in its efforts to franchise the American taverns.

“He had documents showing $8 million to $9 million in liquid assets,” Harmon said. “It looked solid.”

The plans did not come to fruition, Harmon said, noting only the Bennigan’s restaurant in Amarillo opened and that it closed two months later.

D&F Investments Ltd., the property’s owner, took possession of the restaurant and changed the locks, according to an Amarillo Globe-News article published at the time. D&F Investments also filed two lawsuits against the Colorado Restaurant Group claiming Foote’s company owed $7,300 in unpaid rent, another $43,000 in another debt D&F assumed and that the restaurant group caused contractors to place liens on the property, according to the news report.

The Texas Workforce Commission, the state’s department of labor, filed a lien in April against the Colorado Restaurant Group for $6,920.48 in seven unpaid wage claims, said Shannon Thomas, a spokeswoman for the office. The wage claims were filed between July and September 2009, and all of the claims were determined in favor of the workers, she said.

Foote’s lawyer, Brandon Marinoff, said there’s no fraud involved in the Colorado business closings, only “innuendo, rumors and accusations.”

“It’s just a failed business,” he said. “It started off splendidly. But he expanded so quickly. He couldn’t keep up with the expansion.”

He said Foote was “sick to his stomach” when he learned that employees were taking equipment from the restaurant as compensation, prompting him to file the report with police.

“You can’t allow people to come in and loot a business,” he said. “These assets should have been used to pay all the creditors, including the employees.”

The Erie Police Department has been investigating the business since receiving complaints in mid-July from contractors, suppliers and distributors who claimed non-payment, Mathis said. Investigators will meet with the Weld County District Attorney’s Office later this week to further discuss the case, Mathis said.

Pat Tauman, BenchWarmers’ vice president of marketing, said owners originally planned to keep the BenchWarmers’ restaurants open, despite Foote’s arrest, but a restaurant manager told the liquor vendors last week that the locations would be open only through the weekend.

That prompted vendors to pull out, Tauman said.

“This, of course, alarmed that vendor, who let all the vendors know,” she said. “Everything melted down from there.”