Of sex and the Mob at his Atlanta strip club. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photo) \nATLANTA - Sex for celebrities, including professional athletes. Buying protection from the crime family once headed by John (The Dapper Don) Gotti and using that connection to intimidate fellow club owners. Bribing Atlanta police. Overcharging customers. That's what one of Atlanta's most prominent exotic dance clubs has been hit with in a 97-page indictment almost a week after federal and local law enforcement raided the Gold Club.
Gold Club owner Steven Kaplan, according to the massive racketeering indictment, also provided for Gold Club dancers to perform lesbian sex acts and prostitution for club patrons and celebrities, with numerous acts said to be detailed in the indictment. It charges the dancers were paid $1,000 to go to a Charleston, S.C. hotel to stage a sex show and have sex with members of a professional basketball team which is unnamed in the indictment.
Authorities also tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the Gold Club sent the dancers on sex trips to a Buckhead hotel and to Las Vegas and Miami.
The paper also says celebrities and pro athletes were regularly enticed to come to the Gold Club to enhance its reputation, but authorities so far refuse to disclose precisely which athletes or celebrities had done so.
A federal grand jury has indicted the club, Kaplan, and fifteen other people, said to include club managers, dancers, a current and former Atlanta police officer, and two Delta Air Lines workers. Federal authorities didn't try to shut the club down or seize it, but they will do it if it wins a conviction, the Journal says.
Two of Kaplan's attorneys predict complete vindication for Kaplan and his co-defendants. "The Gold Club is licensed by the city of Atlanta and has always operated in strict compliance with the law," said attorneys Benjamin Brafman of New York and Steve Sadow of Atlanta in a formal statement obtained by the Journal. The club will keep operating for now, as City Hall spokeswoman Zee Bradford tells the paper it would be "premature" to revoke their license when they face only accusations.
FBI special agent Tom Bush, who spearheaded the investigation, tells the paper the Gold Club indictment is one step to erase organized crime's influence in the adult entertainment industry. "It should also serve notice to Georgians that organized crime is far-reaching and not limited to cities historically associated with it," he says, an allusion to the Gambino Family's New York base.
Kaplan has run the Gold Club since 1994 and is said to have long-time ties to the Gambino Family. The Journal describes him as having run clubs in Boca Raton (FL) and New York, where he "refined and perfected" his criminal activities and brought them to Atlanta.
He and other club officials are accused of skimming millions in cash from club operations to duck taxes and pay for Gambino protection. Kaplan pleaded not guilty Wednesday in federal court.
Bruce Harvey, an attorney representing one of the indicted dancers, Jacklyn Bush (a.k.a. Diva), says the indictment is as much of a fantasy as the adult entertainment world. Another dancer, Jana Pelnis, pleaded not guilty to charges of prostitution, the Journal says.
Atlanta police officer John Redlinger is accused of giving protection and fixing tickets for club officials in return for cash, food, drinks, use of a club limousine, and free tickets to Disney World. A former police officer, Reginald Burney, is accused of tipping off club officials when it was due to be inspected. Burney is also accused of receiving sex and free food and drinks, according to the indictment.
Atlanta police say those were individual officers acting individually.
"The Gold Club is popular with conventioneers, and often promote it by standing outside the Georgia World Congress Center handing out free admission passes," the Journal says. "Four golden lion statues greet patrons at the club's front entrance. Inside, a large room with couches and chairs is surrounded by private anterooms where naked women dance for tips."
The indictment also accuses the club of sanctioning regular patrons paying for sex, with one customer charged over $100,000 on his credit card for prostitution and other illegal sexual favors in a six-month period which ended last February. In addition, two Delta Air Lines ticket managers - Lawrence Wooten in Atlanta and Aaron Maker in New York - arranged for Gold Club personnel to get cut rates for free food, drinks, and unspecified other favors, according to the indictment. The two have been suspended by the airline, according to the Journal.
Kaplan's involvement with the Gambino Family is said to trace to the early 1990s, when a member of the Joseph Bonnano crime family tried to get a piece of Kaplan's Boca Raton businesses. Kaplan got help from the Gambino clan in easing out an unnamed Bonnano associate, funneling skimmed cash from various businesses including the Gold Club in return, according to the indictment.
