Probe ends Galardi’s low profile

Jean Norman

Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 | 9:40 a.m.

-- Las Vegas Sun

Throughout his career as a strip club owner, Michael Galardi has worked to avoid the limelight.

He was successful until May, when federal authorities raided two of his strip clubs and the offices of his company. And he kept a low public profile. Before his name surfaced in connection to a corruption probe, the most recent public photos of him were 20 years old.

His father, Jack Galardi, a Las Vegas businessman since the 1970s, had maintained the high profile. He was a subject in a 1992 federal drug probe in which he was never charged. Years later the Clark County Commission, voting 4-3, refused to authorize Metro Police to travel to Atlanta to do a background check on the elder Galardi.

Michael Galardi, who is president of Cheetahs and The Gold Club Inc., owner of Jaguars, landed in the news when he was named as a target of the federal investigation after the May raids.

The publicity hasn't been favorable.

The younger Galardi hired former County Commissioner Lance Malone after Malone lost a re-election bid in 2000 and formed a consulting business.

Prosecutors said that Galardi used Malone as a middleman to deliver money to public officials in San Diego and Las Vegas, charges that have cost Galardi.

He pleaded guilty in San Diego in September to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, he admitted to trying to bribe three San Diego councilmen to influence their votes on a proposed no-touch ordinance.

Then Oct. 24 he pleaded guilty in a Las Vegas federal court to a racketeering charge that alleged that from 1994 to May 2003 he paid off public officials between $200,000 and $400,000 to help his clubs with their votes.

As part of the plea he agreed to repay $3.85 million and give up ownership of Cheetahs and Jaguars.

The forfeiture of the clubs is already under way in different venues.

Two weeks after that plea, county officials said Galardi had 30 days to turn over his license to operate Jaguars and the Leopard Lounge, his two clubs in the county's jurisdiction.

According to the county, wire fraud is considered a crime of "moral turpitude," a crime that would almost always disqualify a person from holding a license to operate a business involving naked women, liquor and large sums of cash.

The Las Vegas City Council has set Jan. 7 as a date to determine whether to revoke the liquor license for Cheetahs, which is within the city limits. His lawyer said Galardi no longer has a financial interest in the club, that he had turned it all over to his father, Jack.