Cheetah Hallandale Beach Videos Show Customers Receiving Favors
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/brow...y/1330856.html
HALLANDALE BEACH
Strip club videos show customers receiving favors
The state has released videos taken at a former Hallandale Beach strip club of customers getting lap dances and other favors in VIP rooms.
BY JON BURSTEIN
Sun Sentinel
A now-closed Hallandale Beach strip club made video recordings of customers getting lap dances -- and sometimes more -- in private back rooms.
The Sun-Sentinel obtained five months' worth of footage seized from the Cheetah Hallandale Beach in March after a lengthy criminal investigation into possible prostitution and drug-dealing at the club.
In a sample of the almost 19,000 video clips taken inside the club, sex acts involving patrons and the dancers in the VIP rooms were captured on tape. Other cameras recorded the dancers' dressing room, the men's and women's bathrooms and other areas throughout the club.
The Sun Sentinel received the footage as part of a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco (ABT). The video clips became public after the state closed its criminal investigation into the Cheetah, which shuttered in March shortly after the raid by ABT and the Hallandale Beach Police Department.
No criminal charges were filed as a result of the acts caught on camera.
Cheetah owner Joe Rodriguez, who owns three other South Florida strip clubs, previously denied to the Sun Sentinel that there were cameras in the Hallandale Beach club's VIP rooms -- also known as champagne rooms.
Attorneys for the Cheetah filed an emergency restraining order in Tallahassee against the state, arguing that the tapes should not have been made public. The Cheetah's attorneys argue the footage was obtained with a flawed search warrant and the club's owner was not afforded the opportunity to stop the state from disseminating the footage.
``We don't know who has [the footage],'' said Luke Lirot, a Clearwater-based attorney for the Cheetah. ``We don't know what they have. We know none of it should have been seized.''
In addition to the video footage, the Sun Sentinel obtained the daily logs kept by Cheetah management that include the names of high-profile clients. Many of them are professional sports figures. It was unclear Thursday night whether any of them had been recorded in the club's VIP rooms.
In an undercover investigation that spanned 19 months, Hallandale Beach police and ABT agents went into the club at least 18 times, with dancers offering them sex and/or drugs, according to state records. Women with stage names like ``Fantasia'' and ``Jewels'' asked for as much as $470 to perform sex acts, using sales pitches like ``the VIP room would be like our honeymoon,'' according to state records.
Authorities raided the club on March 7, arresting 16 dancers and two managers on misdemeanor prostitution-related charges and/or felony cocaine-possession charges. In addition, the club's liquor license was suspended.
Prosecutors later dismissed the criminal case against one of the managers. Rodriguez was not criminally charged at any point during the investigation.
A second search warrant was executed on March 12 for four digital video recorders from the club with an ABT investigator telling a judge that customers in the strip club's private VIP rooms and restrooms were being recorded without their knowledge.
In May, Rodriguez cut a deal with the state, agreeing to pay a $15,000 fine and to sell his liquor license.
In a separate agreement, the Hallandale Beach Police Department kept $40,000 of the almost $61,000 seized during the raid.
Rodriguez has since filed a federal lawsuit against Hallandale Beach, arguing that the strip club's business licenses were improperly revoked.
Lirot said Thursday night that if anyone had violated the video voyeurism law, it was the state by releasing the Cheetah recordings into the public domain.
The Cheetah's management never intended for the tapes to be used for anything but security measures, he said.
Re: Cheetah Hallandale Beach Videos Show Customers Receiving Favors
As a resident of the state of Florida, it makes me feel good that my tax dollars are being used to fund these sorts of hard-hitting criminal investigations and making sure that miscreants such as these are taken off the streets.
Re: Cheetah Hallandale Beach Videos Show Customers Receiving Favors
Yea now hit every other club in S. Florida. Club owners, make sure you pay your cops off!
Re: Cheetah Hallandale Beach Videos Show Customers Receiving Favors
Let's go to the video tape.
Re: Cheetah Hallandale Beach Videos Show Customers Receiving Favors
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Earl_the_Pearl
Let's go to the video tape.
LOL - Its the only way we can be sure!