Ex-strip club owner Rizzolo told to pay paralyzed tourist

A federal judge this week ordered former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo and the widow of his father to pay $1.05 million to a Kansas City-area man crippled in a fight with club employees in 2001.

In a written order, Senior U.S. District Judge Philip Pro said the money must be paid to Kirk Henry and his wife, Amy, within 30 days. Henry was a tourist at the time of the strip club fight, which left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Pro concluded in his 12-page order that Rizzolo tried to hide the $1 million from the sale of a strip club in Philadelphia, from the Henrys. Rizzolo fraudulently allowed his father, Bart Rizzolo, to collect payments on the sale proceeds while he was alive and then his father’s wife, Kimtram Rizzolo, Pro wrote.

The Henrys have sued Rick Rizzolo to force him to pay the remaining $9 million plus interest of a $10 million legal settlement over the 2001 fight. He is serving nine months behind bars for violating the terms of his 2008 supervised release from prison.

The violations occurred after Rizzolo, suspected of having ties to organized crime, served 10 months of a one-year prison sentence for a felony tax conviction. Rizzolo pleaded guilty to the tax charge in 2006 to end a decade-long FBI racketeering investigation at the Crazy Horse Too.

Prosecutors contended last year that Rizzolo had concealed from probation officers lucrative financial transactions, including several with offshore trust accounts. Many of the transactions were related to the sale of the Philadelphia strip club one day before his 2008 release.

As part of his 2006 plea agreement with the government, Rizzolo was given a year to sell the now-shuttered Crazy Horse Too and use the proceeds to pay his creditors, including the Henrys and the IRS.

But he was unable to sell the club, prompting the U.S. Marshals Service to seize it. The service could not find a buyer, and last year, after earlier letting the club’s adult licenses lapse, it abandoned its efforts.

In July, Canico Capital Group, the Southern California investment firm that owns the property’s first deed of trust, bought the club and its property for
$3 million at a public auction.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.