Columnist Jeff German: Problems grow for Rizzolo

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

They're doing some high-stakes legal maneuvering over Rick Rizzolo's troubled life.

The embattled Crazy Horse Too owner showed up Wednesday for that pressure-packed deposition I told you about in the Kirk Henry civil lawsuit against the topless club.

But it wasn't exactly a lovefest.

About an hour into Rizzolo's testimony, Stan Hunterton, the lawyer for Henry's wife, abruptly suspended the deposition after Rizzolo, upon the advice of his attorney, Tony Sgro, started refusing to answer questions under oath about his suspected ties to the Chicago mob.

Sgro contended that Hunterton, a former prosecutor with the U.S. attorney's Organized Crime Strike Force in Las Vegas, was "harassing" his client.

Hunterton said afterwards that Rizzolo had no valid reason to duck the questions and that he intends to seek court sanctions against the topless club mogul.

"They're just trying to avoid having him take the Fifth Amendment with its negative ramifications in the case," Hunterton said. "They asserted a nonexistent privilege."

The timing of the deposition couldn't have been worse for Rizzolo, who has suffered from heart problems in recent months.

It came in the middle of sensitive negotiations with Strike Force prosecutors aimed at resolving a decade-old racketeering case against Rizzolo.

The talks reportedly have been moving very slowly, and there has been renewed speculation that prosecutors are preparing to file charges against Rizzolo for allegedly carrying on a "pattern of lawlessness" at the club.

A 2001 altercation involving Henry and Crazy Horse Too employees is part of the criminal investigation. Henry, a tourist from Kansas City, suffered a broken neck in the fight and wound up as a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic.

Sgro said it appeared to him that Hunterton was acting as "an arm of the federal government" with his line of questioning at the deposition.

"Those questions were intended to assist the federal government," Sgro said. "They had no bearing on the Kirk Henry case."

So Sgro said he plans to seek a court order limiting the subject of Hunterton's questions.

Hunterton, however, said he isn't acting in concert with federal prosecutors.

Furthermore, he said, he was entitled to ask Rizzolo about his reported mob ties. Like the government, Hunterton has alleged in the Henry suit that the Crazy Horse was run essentially as a "criminal enterprise" through violence and other forms of unlawful activity.

"We're asking very reasonable questions," Hunterton said.

Hunterton wanted to know the extent of Rizzolo's association with Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, a reputed top Chicago mob member whose younger brother, Rocco, just left Rizzolo's longtime employment. Lombardo is a fugitive, charged in a string of old Chicago area mob slayings.

Rizzolo also was asked whether he attended a May 1999 meeting of ranking crime family members in Chicago to discuss control of an ill-fated casino project in the suburb of Rosemont.

A Chicago FBI agent told the Illinois Gaming Board this week that Lombardo and Rizzolo were among those participating in the high-level meeting.

Sgro told me prior to the deposition that his client maintains he wasn't at the gathering.

But Rizzolo's whereabouts back in 1999 are the least of his problems.

This is a guy whose life seems destined to be run by lawyers for a long, long time.