Banned strip club owner is asking to return

Monday, Oct. 6, 2003 | 11:06 a.m.

Former Club Paradise owner Sam Cecola, banished from the strip-tease industry in 1998 following a federal tax conviction in Chicago, has filed suit in District Court to force Clark County licensing officials to allow him to return to the club in a non-managerial role.

In a 19-page lawsuit filed last week by his lawyer, Dominic Gentile, Cecola seeks to rescind a March 9, 1998, agreement he signed with county licensing investigators voluntarily surrendering his license and turning over his club to his wife, Geralyn. He wants to work at Club Paradise as a consultant to his wife.

Named as defendants in the suit are Clark County, the Clark County Business Licensing Department, the Clark County Liquor and Gaming Board and Metro Police.

Cecola, who lives in Chicago, was convicted in 1997 of six tax charges for skimming money from adult bookstores in Illinois and Wisconsin.

He alleged in the suit, however, that he was the victim of a smear campaign by Metro Police intelligence detectives, who falsely linked him to Chicago organized crime figures. The allegations played a role in persuading county licensing investigators to force him out of Club Paradise after his tax conviction, as well as persuading state gaming agents to nominate him for Nevada's Black Book of undesirables banned from casinos.

Clark County officials had no comment on the lawsuit this morning. Metro Police had not been served with the lawsuit and would not comment, said Detective Jeff Roch of the risk management division, which coordinates legal claims against the police department.

Gentile was traveling and not available for comment this morning.

The state Gaming Control Board withdrew its nomination in August 2001 after Gentile presented evidence that police had erred in linking Cecola to the Chicago mob figures.

Cecola also contends in the suit that he signed under duress the 1998 agreement giving up the club and agreeing not to enter it. At the time, the suit said, Cecola was was secretly assisting federal authorities in Chicago in a probe into organize crime and could not divulge his cooperation to local officials out of fear for his and his family's lives.

DO FEDS CONFIRM THIS??----

As a result, he was unable to explain to local authorities that he was a "victim" not an associate of organized crime, the suit said.

Cecola, the suit said, testified that he was forced to pay a "street tax" to Chicago mobsters for the privilege of operating adult entertainment businesses there.

Cecola's cooperation led to the 1999 federal indictment and later conviction of several Chicago mob figures, the suit said.

His inability to assist his wife in the operation of Club Paradise, the suit said, is hurting the Las Vegas business.