Columnist Jeff German: Rizzolo’s worries mounting

Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

You won't find many Crazy Horse Too employees as close to embattled owner Rick Rizzolo as Bobby D'Apice.

The 50-year-old shift manager answers directly to Rizzolo, the chief target of an FBI racketeering investigation into an alleged pattern of lawlessness at the well-known topless nightclub.

It's why FBI agents have been looking to gain D'Apice's cooperation.

D'Apice, a convicted felon who once helped manage the career of porn star Marilyn Chambers, also is at the center of a 2001 assault at the club that left Kansas tourist Kirk Henry with a broken neck. Henry is now a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic.

The assault is the cornerstone of the FBI's efforts to show that Rizzolo allowed his managers and employees to routinely threaten, intimidate and beat up club patrons who disputed the amount of money they were being charged for lap dances. Agents also have alleged that drug trafficking and prostitution were occurring at the nightclub.

With D'Apice's arrest this week on racketeering, perjury and tax evasion charges, we can safely assume that he has yet to give agents the kind of cooperation they would like. Agents are looking to take the case to the next level, the potential indictment of the politically connected Rizzolo and several of his other managers.

There's still time, however, for D'Apice to switch sides as he contemplates the possibility of spending a lengthy period (up to 45 years) behind bars if convicted on the federal charges. Agents also obtained an indictment against his pregnant wife, Nicole Rubino, on the tax evasion charges. She faces up to five years in prison.

"I don't think it's an accident that he was singled out at this time with his wife (four months) pregnant," says Rizzolo's lawyer, Tony Sgro. "That's a lot of pressure."

FBI agents aren't talking about the timing of D'Apice's arrest, but they are suggesting that this is just the beginning of the troubles for Rizzolo and the Crazy Horse.

Agents have long suspected that Rizzolo has ties to organized crime, though he denies it. One of his other shift managers, Vinny Faraci, is the son of a reputed Bonanno crime family captain in New York.

More racketeering indictments are anticipated in the near future, with or without D'Apice's help.

"This is a harbinger of things to come," says Henry's Las Vegas lawyer, Don Campbell, who is suing the Crazy Horse in District Court over the 2001 assault. Campbell, a former federal prosecutor, has some knowledge of the federal probe.

Rizzolo, in the meantime, has other problems to worry about.

Sgro says his client isn't in very good health.

Within the past month, Sgro says, Rizzolo has suffered two heart attacks and gone through two open heart surgeries to clear blocked arteries. The latest procedure occurred a week ago.

But Rizzolo, Sgro says, continues to maintain his innocence and is prepared to keep fighting the government.

Rizzolo, however, could really be broken-hearted if D'Apice decides to cooperate with the FBI.