U.S. government angling to join skin industry — briefly, reluctantly

By Jeff German (contact)

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The U.S. Marshals Service has hired one of the valley’s most politically connected law firms — Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner, Renshaw & Ferrario — to help it get liquor and exotic dance permits from the city to run the Crazy Horse Too.

The government needs to reopen the Crazy Horse Too so it can sell the topless club at a high enough price to, among other things, collect restitution for Kirk Henry of Kansas City, Mo., who was paralyzed in a fight outside the club in 2001.

The expensive legal talent in the Kummer Kaempfer law firm has a pretty good success rate lobbying before both the city and the county on behalf of some of the valley’s most influential clients.

But it must be distasteful for the government to have to hire the firm to deal with the city. Call it an indication of how desperate the Marshals Service is to sell the Crazy Horse Too.

As deal after deal collapsed in the declining real estate market, the value of the club has plummeted from $30 million at the time it was seized 15 months ago to what the marshals now say is $7 million. Former owner Rick Rizzolo, now a felon, is entitled to reap any profits from the sale, but only after he pays all of his debts associated with the club, including millions of dollars in government fines and $9 million to Henry. When last tallied months ago, Rizzolo’s debts were roughly $29 million.

In court papers last week, federal prosecutors said Kummer Kaempfer has “made overtures” to the city on the government’s behalf.

“We want to file an application,” says Chris Kaempfer, one of the firm’s principals. “We’ll be working with the city over the next several weeks to try and accomplish that.”

In the meantime, the government will be busy fending off a California bank’s effort to foreclose on the Crazy Horse Too property to satisfy a $5 million loan it made to Rizzolo.

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District Attorney David Roger says he expects to refile criminal charges against Marion “Suge” Knight in the near future.

But first, Roger says, investigators have to identify and locate the corrections officer who allegedly found the illegal drug Ecstasy and the prescription pain reliever hydrocodone on Knight when he was booked into the Clark County Detention Center.

Police arrested the hip-hop mogul Aug. 27 after they allegedly saw him brandishing a knife and punching a naked woman in a parking lot off the Strip.

The woman, Melissa Isaacs, whom police originally had trouble finding for a follow-up interview, was available to testify at a preliminary hearing last week.

But Justice of the Peace Abbi Silver ended up dismissing the felony drug and misdemeanor battery charges against Knight after prosecutors encountered problems producing other witnesses linked to a 911 call of the altercation involving Knight.

As for the corrections officer, his name doesn’t appear on any of the police reports, but it shouldn’t be impossible to identify him, Roger says.

Roger’s biggest problem with the case may be battling Knight’s defense lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, who so far have been giving prosecutors fits.

•••

At a news conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Greg Brower said the identity theft arrests of 13 people allegedly linked to Eurasian organized criminal groups were the result of cooperation between local and federal law enforcement agencies.

That certainly was the case, but there also are reports of jurisdictional friction behind the scenes between Metro Police and the federal agencies, as the two-year investigation came to an end.

There was infighting over such things as whether the suspects should be charged in federal or state court and which agency would take the lead in rounding up the suspects, sources said.

In the end, however, there were plenty of smiles on the faces of local and federal law enforcers when they met with reporters to share the fruits of the investigation.

Jeff German is the Sun’s senior investigative reporter.