Columnist Jeff German: Learning that San Francisco businessman Luke Brugnara is ready to buy the Crazy Horse Two topless club from Rick Rizzolo

Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

He's offering few details, but San Francisco real estate man Luke Brugnara confirms he's got a deal to buy the embattled Crazy Horse Too topless club.

"I can't disclose anything right now," says Brugnara, who five years ago failed to persuade state gaming regulators to give him a license to run the old Silver City casino on the Strip.

"But we have a deal on the property."

And, according to the 40-year-old Brugnara, who estimates his net worth at a half-billion dollars, he's paying about $40 million for the troubled, but popular joint.

The transaction is giving credence to rumblings that Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo has been trying to unload the club before federal authorities file a massive racketeering indictment against him.

Rizzolo's lawyers flew to Washington in December to meet with top Justice Department officials in a last-ditch effort to persuade them not to charge the longtime strip club operator, who has been linked to a series of mob figures over the years.

The criminal case, however, is proceeding and nearing its anticipated indictment, I'm told.

Rizzolo also isn't getting totally out of the topless club business. He's opening a new and larger club in Philadelphia this week.

Brugnara, meanwhile, says his agreement to purchase the Crazy Horse is contingent upon his receiving a license from Las Vegas to run the topless club.

He says he filed an application for a temporary license in December to operate the Crazy Horse.

But Jim DiFiore, the city's top business license official, tells me that the application was incomplete and that officials are in the process of returning it to Brugnara so that he can provide them with more information.

"The application wasn't accepted," DiFiore says. "It wasn't filled out completely. We want him to clarify some statements he made."

One of the clarifications DiFiore says officials want is exactly what percentage of the club Brugnara plans to have.

Brugnara tells me he intends to be the sole proprietor and expects to provide licensing officials with that information and anything else they need.

On the surface, Brugnara seems an unlikely candidate to take over the Crazy Horse.

He's a family man, with four young children at home, and is wild about collecting expensive art.

The San Francisco media describe Brugnara as having a meteoric rise in the real estate business in the early 1990s, when he made a killing buying and selling office buildings in the city's downtown business district.

Brugnara says that in 1999 -- about the time he made a play to buy the old Desert Inn, only to lose out to Steve Wynn -- he owned more than 2 million square feet of office space in the heart of San Francisco.

In his dealings with city officials, Brugnara might want to avoid some of the rhetoric he lobbed at state regulators when he sought a license to operate the Silver City on the Strip.

In March 2001 Brugnara was criticized for filing an application to run the Silver City that was "filled with inaccuracies and omissions."

At his hearing before the state Gaming Control Board, Brugnara locked horns with board members as they raised concerns about his background.

The board refused to approve Brugnara's license, and Brugnara told the board, "It's so predictable what you'll do. The people on the Strip wind you up."

Two weeks later he also sparred with members of the Nevada Gaming Commission as they closed the door on his attempt to get a license.

Brugnara, who ultimately sold the Silver City property at a hefty multimillion-dollar profit, defended his past, saying gaming regulators were raising a "cumulation of little issues" with him.

"There was a lot of money at stake," he says. "I didn't have a criminal record at all. There have been people seeking a license with far more egregious problems than I did who skated through the process. I just didn't think the process was being fair to me."

Among the list of concerns regulators brought up at the time was an extramarital affair Brugnara once had in which he admitted impregnating the woman. The woman later accused him of threatening her life after she asked for additional financial support.

Brugnara says the woman's claims against him ultimately were dismissed, and "she never got a dime."

He also says a 1989 concealed weapons charge regulators raised was a minor offense that resulted in a mere $100 fine. He says he inadvertently left a handgun with a bullet inside in the glove compartment of his car instead of his trunk, where it was supposed to be under California law.

Brugnara, meanwhile, says he has other deals in Las Vegas in the works, including a casino project on the Strip, and that he intends to come back to state regulators as early as April seeking another gaming license.

And he says he's in Las Vegas to stay.

In November, he says, he bought a 20,000-square-foot home here that he estimates is worth about $10 million.

As for the Crazy Horse, Brugnara insists, "This isn't a life-changing deal for me one way or the other."

He says he's aware of Rizzolo's troubles with the feds, but still expects the sale to go through.

"Rick Rizzolo has done a wonderful job of building up that club to where it's at today," he says. "I fully expect this transaction to close."