The Hammer Has Dropped
Indictments begin to roll. Who'll be next?
INSIDE VEGAS by Steve Miller
AmericanMafia.com
January 24, 2005
Since February 21, 2003, when 80 agents of the FBI and IRS raided the
Crazy
Horse Too strip club, speculation ran rampant as to when the Feds would
complete their investigations and issue indictments.
Well, that time has come.
At high noon on Wednesday, January 19, FBI agents arrested swing shift
manager and neck breaker Bobby D'Apice as he stepped from his new Cadillac.
Thrown to the ground in his $3,000 silk suit, D'Apice was searched at gunpoint.
FBI agents hold D'Apice at gunpoint
(AmericanMafia.com photo by Buffalo Jim Barrier)
According to a front
page story in Thursday's Las Vegas SUN, "Buffalo Jim Barrier, who owns
a mechanic shop next door to the Crazy Horse, said he saw FBI agents arrest
D'Apice in the parking lot of the club as he was going to work. 'He was
getting out of his car, and they grabbed him and took him to the ground,'
Barrier said. 'They handcuffed him and then took him away.' Barrier alleges
that Rizzolo has tried to have Barrier's businesses shut down so that the
Crazy Horse Too could expand.
Barrier has leased property in the strip mall since 1978, and the Crazy
Horse Too opened in 1984."
Wednesday evening while the club remained open for business, local TV
news ran lead stories about the take down. (Click here for streaming video:
KVBC
TV and KLAS
TV) The next morning, headlines blared across the front page of the
Las Vegas Review-Journal:
FEDERAL
INVESTIGATION: Club manager arrested
Indictment alleges racketeering at Crazy Horse Too
By GLENN PUIT
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Federal law enforcement officials arrest Crazy Horse
Too shift manager Robert D'Apice
shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of
the strip club. He is charged with
racketeering, tax evasion and making false statements
to a grand jury.
(Review-Journal photo by John Gurzinski)
Also expected to be indicted for Racketeering and other charges is the
club's purported owner, Frederick "Rick" Rizzolo, and several of his family
members. However, part of the basis of the Fed's investigation involves
suspected hidden ownership of the lucrative business, possibly by members
of the Bonnano crime family.
I've been writing about the brutality at the Crazy Horse since 2002
when INSIDE VEGAS began. I steadfastly believe that Rizzolo, et .al., have
for years been receiving improper help from allies at City Hall. First
in 1998, from former Mayor Jan Jones and ex-Councilman Mike
McDonald who allowed the Crazy Horse to expand by 6,000 square feet
without benefit of building permits or additional parking. Then in 1999,
when present Mayor Oscar Goodman took office and a series of brutal beatings
went uninvestigated by the City, Clark
County District Attorney, and the Las
Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. At the behest of Goodman who
received $40,000 in campaign contributions from Rizzolo, and Councilwoman
Janet Moncrief who employed Rizzolo's PR man as her "transition team
leader" and advisor, Treasures, a less influential gentleman's club, had
its liquor license revoked in Spring 2004 for only one conviction for solicitation
for prostitution.
Meanwhile, the mayhem was allowed to continue just down the street.
Treasures
was the Crazy Horse's biggest competitor, and coincidentally, Oscar Goodman
was the criminal defense attorney for several key employees of the Crazy
Horse prior to his election. Treasures was ruining the Horse's business,
but that's no longer the case thanks to the alleged actions of City Director
of Business Activity Jim DiFiorie who is accused of selectively prosecuting
Treasures at the behest of Goodman and Moncrief. The $50 million dollar
club went dark less than a year after it opened.
The owners of Treasures have just amended their lawsuit against the
city. Sometime in the coming week, their attorneys will be filing for a
preliminary injunction and hope to be in court within 30 to 45 days.
In the meantime, local cops and paramedics were refusing to write up
incidents at the Crazy Horse, and cops often threatened to arrest those
who dared file complaints.
Bobby D'Apice (brown jacket) escorts
Las Vegas Paramedics into Crazy Horse Too
for coffee and eye candy. Many
recent incidents of violence at the club have gone
unreported by LVMPD and LVFD personnel.
(Photo by Buffalo Jim Barrier)
All this while District Judge Nancy
M. Saitta seemed to get all civil cases filed against the place, and
after accepting over $9,000 in campaign contributions from Rizzolo and
his associates, ruled in the club's favor almost every time.
Judge Nancy Saitta
Other local judges also had their hands out.
Municipal Judge George Assad
received $5,000 from Rizzolo
After the Feds intervened, amazingly little changed. As recent as August
2004, bar patrons were still allegedly beaten by bouncers for refusing
to sign inflated credit card tabs, and complaints continued being ignored
by the police department and DA. This cavalier attitude probably made the
work of the FBI that much easier since the bar's operatives were not covering
their tracks.
As news reports speculated that indictments were imminent, several suspected
hidden owners attempted to divest
themselves of real estate and personal property possibly to avoid asset
confiscation. To the dismay of the new Sheriff who inherited a slew of
crooked cops from his predecessor, one Crazy Horse executive even hired
a police detective who moonlights as a real estate agent to sell his million
dollar house.
Rick Rizzolo's name appears as the sole owner of record on legal papers
along with several corporations he heads including RICRIZ LLC, RICBAR LLC,
and THE POWER COMPANY, INC. But rumors have it that the Feds believe he's
just a front, a "Mr. Cleanface," placed in the business to take the heat
and maintain political connections by doling out campaign contributions,
alleged sexual favors, and throwing lavish parties. Rizzolo is also known
to be a degenerate gambler, something I'm sure the IRS hasn't overlooked.
"He marches into the casino surrounded by eye candy. The bosses only
let male's deal to him because of his foul language. After usually losing
up to $350,000 per night, he makes a scene screaming obscenities. If he
wins, he throws thousands of dollars at the dealers and bosses. What a
nut!"
These are the words of a local dealer who says he often deals to Rizzolo.
Last week, for the forth time, Rizzolo failed to appear for a taped
deposition in the Harassment lawsuit brought by his next door neighbor
Buffalo Jim Barrier. Barrier's attorney Gus Flangas wanted the court to
compel Rizzolo to appear and be deposed. Evidently, Rizzolo was in the
hospital at the scheduled date, and the court and Flangas believed his
described infirmity to be true. However, Rizzolo had recovered enough to
show up at his business thirty minutes after Bobby D'Apice was arrested.
Rick Rizzolo
(Photo by Mike Christ)
Now the clock is ticking and the Las Vegas media is standing by to cover
what promises to be the biggest organized crime crack down in our town's
history.
Crooked politicians, judges, cops, and mobsters are expected to be linked
to hidden money and payoffs of monumental proportions. The beating death
of Scott David Fau and the crippling of Kirk Henry are expected to again
become headlines as the truth emerges and well known heads roll.
This sad story broke for the first time on AmericanMafia.com., and therefore
our readers will be the first to know when the long-awaited hammer drops
for the final time, and the lights go out in the blood soaked Crazy Horse
Too once and for all.
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Copyright © Steve Miller
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