Thursday, January 20, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

FEDERAL INVESTIGATION: Club manager arrested

Indictment alleges racketeering at Crazy Horse Too

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. Photo by John Gurzinski. Federal agents lead Crazy Horse Too shift manager Robert D'Apice to an unmarked FBI vehicle Wednesday after placing him under arrest on charges of racketeering, tax evasion and making false statements to a grand jury. Photo by John Gurzinski. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson and Michael Squires/REVIEW-JOURNAL. Click image for enlargement.

Federal officials made their first arrest Wednesday in the decade-long investigation into activities at the Crazy Horse Too strip club.

Shortly before 1 p.m., shift manager Robert "Bobby" D'Apice pulled his silver Cadillac sedan into the parking lot of the club on Industrial Road.

Federal agents who had been staking out the club immediately surrounded D'Apice and ordered him to the ground at gunpoint. They then handcuffed him and bundled him into the rear of an unmarked car.

D'Apice, a former boyfriend of porn queen Marilyn Chambers, did not respond to a question from a Review-Journal reporter who witnessed the arrest.

"Buffalo" Jim Barrier, who watched the takedown from his nearby auto shop, lauded the "militarylike precision" of the arrest. "It was bing, bang, boom," said Barrier, who has clashed with the club's ownership.

A racketeering indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges D'Apice and unnamed others at the strip club used force to compel customers to pay disputed charges.

The indictment cites the September 2001 incident in which Kansas City tourist Kirk Henry was paralyzed from the chest down. In a civil lawsuit, Henry alleges D'Apice broke his neck outside the club.

Las Vegas attorney Don Campbell, who represents Henry, praised federal authorities Wednesday. "The FBI has put a lot of work into vindicating a terrible, terrible, injustice," he said.

An attorney for D'Apice declined comment.

D'Apice, 50, and two co-defendants were named in indictments unsealed Wednesday afternoon. All three are scheduled to make their initial appearance in federal court this afternoon.

One indictment charges D'Apice and his wife, Nicole Lee Rubino, with tax evasion. Prosecutors allege the couple failed to pay at least $40,000 in taxes from 1996 to 2002. Rubino, who is pregnant, is scheduled to turn herself in today.

A second indictment named D'Apice and former Crazy Horse Too cocktail waitress Paula McBride, 27.

That indictment charges D'Apice with one count of racketeering and four counts of making a false statement to a grand jury. McBride, who was arrested Wednesday afternoon, is charged with two counts of making a false statement to a grand jury.

Prosecutors allege she told FBI agents that she saw Henry and D'Apice leave the Crazy Horse Too together and that D'Apice remained outside for about two minutes before returning to the club. Testifying before a federal grand jury in January 2003, McBride said she told FBI agents no such thing.

The charges against D'Apice carry a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. McBride faces a maximum sentence of 10 years, while Rubino could face up to five years.

In the racketeering indictment, prosecutors allege federal officials since August 1995 have been investigating activities at the Crazy Horse Too, just off the Strip.

Federal officials Wednesday described the investigation as ongoing but would not say whether they expected additional arrests.

A defense attorney for Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo acknowledged Wednesday that further charges could be coming.

"Mr. Rizzolo is afraid that after so much time and expense and energy that the government has put into this case, that they now will seek to justify it," defense attorney Tony Sgro said.

Sgro said a federal grand jury already has been hearing evidence regarding his client. Grand jury proceedings take place behind closed doors.

Sgro added that federal prosecutors have promised to advise his client before seeking an indictment. "Thus far, I've received no such notice," the attorney said.

Critics, including attorneys for the paralyzed tourist, said Crazy Horse Too management bred a culture of lawlessness within the club.

"For years, the management and 'security' staff of the Crazy Horse has been infested by a rogues' gallery of thugs, thieves, drug pushers, and corrupt ex-cops," an attorney for Henry wrote in court documents. "Most, if not all, have well documented ties to organized crime figures who frequent the premises. All of this has nurtured a culture of violence marked by robberies, beatings and even death."

Rizzolo painted a different picture in an interview at the Crazy Horse Too the day after the February 2003 raid in which dozens of law enforcement officers searched the club for 11 hours. The raid was part of the investigation into links between the business and organized crime.

Rizzolo denied having involvement in criminal activity and said his club makes more than $10 million a year. "It makes so much money, I wouldn't do something stupid to jeopardize it," he said.

In the same interview, Rizzolo speculated that law enforcement officials were targeting him because of his longtime friendship with Joey Cusumano.

Cusumano was an associate of slain Las Vegas mobster Anthony Spilotro and has a felony conviction for his role in a conspiracy to skim $315,000 from a Culinary union life insurance policy.

As a Black Book member, Cusumano has been banned by gaming regulators from state casinos because of his unsavory reputation.

In the interview, Rizzolo said he had known Cusumano for nearly three decades, but the two had no business relationship.

"We can't even associate anymore because of my privileged license, but he's still my best friend," Rizzolo said.

In Rizzolo's deposition for the Henry case, the plaintiff's attorneys questioned him about his relationships with reputed mobsters Fred Pascente and Chris Petti. The two men are listed in Nevada's Black Book.

The attorneys asked Rizzolo about shift manager Vincent Faraci, a convicted felon and the son of a Bonanno crime family captain.

D'Apice has prior criminal convictions. Both stem from his stint from 1980 to 1986 as road manager for Chambers, his girlfriend at the time and the star of the 1972 adult film "Behind the Green Door."

According to court documents, vice raids during Chambers' performances in San Francisco and Cleveland led to the pair being arrested twice in 1985.

Chambers faced obscenity charges, and D'Apice was charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit both times.

In Ohio, he faced a charge in connection with the type of bullets loaded into his .45-caliber pistol. The criminal charge said D'Apice possessed "armor-piercing bullets that would go through a bulletproof vest."

Henry's attorneys referred to the rounds in court documents as illegal "cop killer" rounds. D'Apice said in his deposition that they were safety slugs designed to avoid ricocheting when fired.

D'Apice was running the club when Henry suffered his injury.

In a civil deposition, D'Apice said he was tossing another patron out for exposing himself to a dancer when he found Henry in the parking lot. D'Apice said he thought Henry was drunk and had fallen down.

"I said, 'You can't lay here. Just get and go wherever you have to go,' " D'Apice said. "He says, 'I can't move my legs. Would you call 911?' And I did."

Campbell said Wednesday that a neurosurgeon concluded Henry's injuries were clearly the result of an assault.

"It appeared that someone literally tried to unscrew his head from his shoulders," Campbell said. "It was the worst injury he'd ever seen."

State prosecutors determined insufficient evidence existed to file criminal charges.

The racketeering indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges the incident involving Henry was part of a pattern of behavior in which Crazy Horse Too employees used force to make patrons pay disputed charges.

"If a patron refused to pay a dancer, or if a patron disputed the charges claimed by a dancer, dancers contacted the shift manager, or other male employees of the Crazy Horse Too. Depending on the patron and other circumstances, the shift manager or other male employees regularly sought to extort or rob payment from patrons through explicit or implicit threats of violence, and through actual use of force and physical violence against patrons," the indictment states.

Prosecutors allege D'Apice and other male employees would encircle customers who disputed charges. Prosecutors also allege D'Apice detained patrons to make them pay a disputed charge, and on at least one occasion, he physically escorted a customer to an ATM to make a withdrawal.

Prosecutors specified five incidents between April 2000 and January 2001 in which they contended D'Apice took a customer's property by force. Few details are provided in the indictment, and the victims are identified only by their initials.

The indictment of D'Apice comes more than a year after Las Vegas strip club owner Michael Galardi pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges that allege he bribed officials in Las Vegas and in San Diego.

Federal officials have declined to say whether the Galardi and Crazy Horse Too investigations are related.

Sources have indicated the two investigations are proceeding on separate tracks.

Jack Sheehan, author of "Skin City: Uncovering the Las Vegas Sex Industry," said he thinks law enforcement's recent scrutiny of strip clubs has been influenced by the owners of Strip megaresorts.

He said resorts are poised to bring such clubs out of the industrial parks and onto the Strip after years of watching millions of tourist dollars siphoned into strip clubs.

Also, hotel executives told Sheehan that they worry about the influence of shady characters in the strip club industry and the potential for bad publicity, he said.

"My gut feeling is, if there's one industry in Las Vegas that still has remnants of the good ol' boys, if you will, it seems to be the gentlemen's clubs," said Sheehan, whose book was published by the same company that owns the Review-Journal.

Several hours after the arrest of D'Apice on Wednesday, it was business as usual at the Crazy Horse Too. Scantily clad women paraded through the club as a couple dozen of men ogled from their chairs in the near darkness.

"It is what it is," said a 51-year-old who declined to give his name. "It's a go-go place. The girls are nice, and the management is always friendly."