Posh Strip Club Owner’s Trial Begins

The owner of one of the nation’s most profitable strip clubs went on trial Monday, with federal prosecutors contending that he used the lure of sex to attract professional athletes and other celebrities while cheating customers to funnel cash to New York’s Gambino crime family.

Gold Club owner Steve Kaplan and six associates are charged with obstruction, credit card fraud, loan-sharking and other crimes. Kaplan is also accused of ordering more than 20 beatings of people who did not repay high-interest loans.

“This is an organized crime case,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Art Leach told jurors. “It’s a case about greed, about the desire for power and the fear of a national crime family.”

The club grosses about $20 million a year. It has five bars, a mini-restaurant, racks of expensive leather jackets and lingerie, and $500 bottles of champagne.

Prosecutors say the club also sold sex in its gilded private rooms.

Leach said Kaplan took advantage of customers when they were most vulnerable, getting them to sign “outrageous” credit card bills to avoid embarrassment.

Defense attorneys said their clients were simply smart businessmen who made millions of honest dollars by catering to high-profile guests. They also said the government’s case will rely on flimsy testimony from admitted criminals and liars.

“They have put together an assortment of criminals the likes of which this court has never seen--murderers, armed robbers, violent to the point where torture takes place,” said Steve Sadow, Kaplan’s lawyer.

He also said FBI agents expected to testify for the government were comparable to investigators who withheld evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy J. McVeigh.

Leach acknowledged that the government would call witnesses with criminal records to prove that Kaplan reported to John A. “Junior” Gotti, the acting boss of the Gambino family after his father was imprisoned. The younger Gotti, also a federal prisoner, was brought to Atlanta to testify.

Leach also said he will call Terrell Davis of the Denver Broncos, Jamal Anderson of the Atlanta Falcons and Patrick Ewing of the Seattle SuperSonics to testify about their visits to the club.

He said the athletes are not guilty of any crimes. “They are simply human, tricked and used through one of our strongest human appetites, our sexuality.”