Strip club wants FBI to return documents seized during raid

Jace Radke

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 | 9:43 a.m.

The FBI has failed to return legal documents to the Crazy Horse Too strip club, according to a motion filed by the club's attorney.

Anthony Sgro filed the motion Friday asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Leen to compel the FBI to return documents taken from the club during a Feb. 20 raid.

"The raiding FBI agents seized clearly identified attorney-client materials that should never have been seized in the first place," the motion states.

Four civil case files involving the club have not yet been returned, and Sgro further alleges that agents violated club owner Rick Rizzolo's Sixth Amendment rights by reviewing, organizing and copying the legal documents.

When some of the attorney-client materials were returned to the club, "there were clear indications that the documents had not only been reviewed by the FBI, but had in fact been reorganized and extensively flagged with post-it and other notes," according to the motion.

At a March 6 hearing before Leen, Assistant United States Attorney Eric Johnson said that the confidential legal documents were mingled with other records taken from the club. He said that agents put the legal documents aside when they found them in the course of their investigation, and added that copies were made of the documents to keep a record of what was taken.

Sgro alleges that FBI special agents Robert Clymer and Robert Bennett, who are investigating possible links between the Crazy Horse Too and organized crime, failed to reveal that the documents had been reviewed during the hearing despite being present when Johnson made his statements.

The motion asks that the agents be held in contempt of court.

At the hearing Leen ordered that the legal documents be returned to the club and that any copies of the documents be held by the court.

FBI spokesman Special Agent Daron Borst refused to comment on the investigation or the allegations made in the motion.