Former Las Vegas strip club mogul sent back to prison
Former Las Vegas strip club magnate Rick Rizzolo must return to federal prison for two years and pay more than $2.6 million in taxes that he evaded, a federal judge ruled Friday.
In June, Rizzolo admitted to evading $1.7 million in employment taxes on wages paid between 2000 and 2002. He declined to speak during his sentencing hearing, except to tell U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro that he understood the proceeding.
His lawyer, Richard Tanasi, told the judge that Rizzolo has not had the means to make payments since his 2014 indictment.
“It was a matter of dollars and sense, not evasion,” Tanasi said. “He simply does not have the funds, and that’s why payment has not been made.”
The 59-year-old Rizzolo, a businessman with suspected mob ties who owned Crazy Horse Too, must make payments of $25 per quarter while he is incarcerated, Navarro decided.
Rizzolo is expected to surrender by Jan. 26, and once he is released, his payments toward the total owed increase to 10 percent of his gross income.
The plea agreement marked the second deal Rizzolo has struck with the government since 2006, after a decadelong federal racketeering investigation, when authorities suspected he was running an extortion racket out of his topless cabaret.
More than a decade ago, Rizzolo walked away with a single felony tax conviction, a one-year-and-one-day prison sentence, and an agreement to quit the strip club business.
He also was ordered to pay $10 million in restitution to a Kansas tourist, Kirk Henry, whose neck was snapped in the Crazy Horse Too parking lot after he accused the club of padding an $80 bar tab. Henry died earlier this year, still owed millions of dollars from Rizzolo.
Authorities have said Rizzolo hid cash payments to strip club employees characterized as henchmen who hustled patrons.
In pleading guilty, he also admitted to hiding income and assets from the IRS after he was ordered to pay restitution to Henry.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.
