Among . (Many of them written by Erica C. He pauses. Frank Colacurcio Sr. and his son Frank Jr. and four close associates were indicted in 2009 for conspiring to use their four Western Washington clubs as fronts for prostitution and money laundering. (At a 1985 legislative hearing on crime in New Mexico, a federal investigator testified that Franks gang then numbered about 50 throughout the West and was behind an assortment of topless-related enterprises.). The way they do it is by finding another reason to fire a dancer, she explained. If passed, the property tax levy will help fund behavioral health infrastructure in the region. Look at the money theyre throwing at him. [1], In the 1960s, Colacurcio acquired more interests in restaurants and nightclubs. "[7] The investigation focused on Frank Sr, Frank Jr., and former Washington Governor Albert Rosellini for bribing members of the Seattle City Council. The Colacurcio name still reverberates in the cash-rich world of nude women three decades after Colacurcio and his brothers, William and Sam, started a jukebox business. And currently, thats getting clubs and dancers, alike, to agree on rules around these laws and getting the adult advisory committee to come up with the mandatory training for dancers. Heidi Wills and Strippergate - George Howland Jr. Pending cases. But there have been several meetings with the adult entertainment advisory committee. Last month, she was the only dancer who showed up in person. They were in separate prisons, notes a Seattle detective. Forbes contributed $600 to Wills in the spring of 2001. The corporations and three of the individual defendantsLeroy Richard Christiansen, 68, of Seattle, Washington, David Carl Ebert, 62, of Monroe, Washington and Steven Michael Fueston, 62, of Tacoma, Washingtonare barred from operating any adult entertainment business in Washington State for the next five years. Franks star began its notorious rise in the late 1950s, amid a series of hearings and newspaper reports pointing to him as the man behind illegal gambling, prostitution, and payoffs at clubs in downtown Seattle and around the state. In March 2006, the FBI started a multi-agency task force to investigate alleged organized crime, racketeering, and cold case murders tied to Frank Sr. successors, heirs an signs. ", First of all, Jane told me, I think if someone is blacklisted from a club they would be embarrassed to sue the clubmost of our customers are married men. This settlement 's'made between Frank lacurcio, Jr. and Fr Colacurcio, Sr., (jo' ly, "Respondents") an ayne Barnett, Exe tive Director of the eattle Ethics and E tions Commission (co ectively, the "Parties". Prosecutor and now-retired U.S. Sen. Brock Adams threatened him with prison for contempt. Colacurcio house for sale again, this time with a price break The tapes contents never surfaced from the investigation back then, but, says a former Colacurcio associate today, The tape was a recording Bill made of a city councilman describing how the payoff system worked, how the cops picked up the money and then passed it down the line-to him and others. So finally he stands up, goes over to the hotelman, peels off six $100 bills, walks back, picks up the coffee table, and throws it in the fucking fireplace! Brutal spasms aside, Frank never quite made the criminal big time. Frank Kinney, who tracked the Colacurcios and their associates for years but was never able to deal the blow that would knock them out. The city needs an experienced council member, Wills said. For me, I didn't know this was, as the kids say, a "thing" until this past April when I was researching a story about strip clubs in Seattle. In 2010-2011, a massive FBI crackdown completely crippled their entire organization. In 1962, he opened a beer garden at the Seattle World's Fair.[1]. Nicholas Furfaro a.k.a "Nick" - Nightclub manager, known member since 1963 and high ranking member. "We've always been very close; he's always given me advice on everything," he says. COLACURCIO, JR. agreed to forfeit $1.3 million in cash, all interest in the strip clubs and related property worth more than $6 million, and . Shira Cole has been out of the dancing business for three years. The Colacurcios wanted to expand Rick's north Seattle parking lot. Yet he is consistently vague about how many dancers he employs and how many clubs he runs. public synchronized void methodint i string msg. The mostly cash businesses kept investigators close on his trail, trying to expose crimes associated with the strip clubs. She tries to make it to every meeting. Frank F. Colacurcio Sr. (1917-2010) - Find a Grave Memorial The club was slated for demolition after following guilty pleas by the other members of the board -- identified in the lawsuit as Frank Colacurcio Jr., Frank Colacurcio Sr.'s nephew Leroy Richard Christiansen, longtime associate David Carl Ebert and Steven Michael Fueston, manager of a Tacoma club also closed through the plea. This agreem is binding One of the main sticking points for the clubs is the customer blacklist that would ban bad acting customers. 2005: Found guilty of a misdemeanor, groping a strip-club waitress. ), Despite his nearly lifelong battles with the law and local crusaders, Franks empire thrives. The first time, 1943, Frank was 25 and the girl, 16. As a result, Babes, like the well-patrolled Papagayos, went you-know-what up. 1995: Sent to federal prison for two years after violating probation by fondling a woman applying for a job at one of his clubs. I do understand that retaliation threat, Cole told me, I understand completely. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on December 27, 1949, he was the son of Frank Colacurcio & Ethel Willis. AN ALASKAN MURDER WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA SHROUDED IN MYSTERY - Blogger At Franks trial in 1971, a nightclub owner testified he once paid Colacurcio $3,000 a month for police protection. John Gilbert "Gil" Conte | Hollywood goodfella He liked the setting, the quiet. Seattle newspapers were never quite sure what to call Frank. Frank Colacurcio Jr., 47, of Seattle, is the heir to his father's strip club empire, which has waned in recent years as cities have restricted nude dancing. He says his one indulgence is his boat, a 38-foot Bertram called 4PLAY, worth about $80,000. The assets of the Colacurcio organization were frozen by the government in June 2008 following a two-year investigation. I feel [that] Frankie-if he had to run it and his father wasnt around-I dont think hes capable of doing it. I doubt they want to out themselves as having been in a strip club and having been accused of bad behavior.. In 1957,[2] he was subpoenaed to testify before the U.S. Senate Rackets Committee. But it wasnt until 1971 that he was first convicted of racketeering-conspiracy and importing illegal bingo cards into Washington-and served two years in federal prison. She also didn't "explain why at least $8,455 from Colacurcio-connected campaign donors did not raise concerns in her mind until after weeks of media scrutiny," the Weekly wrote. "But theres so many rules that council members need to know." One day were sitting in the lobby of the Lake Quinault Lodge, by a big fireplace, talking business, says a former employee. "The majority of the attention we got wasn't deserved.". He had to have the honor. This political involvement meant persuading his friends and associates to donate the maximum limit to city council candidates. He was released from prison in 2013, and entered the strip club industry again in 2014. The indictment further details how credit card machines and ATMs were used to facilitate the prostitution and how the proceeds of prostitution were laundered through various bank accounts. Hiring agency director and high ranking member of family. A paranoid voyeur, Frank liked to keep an eye on things around the clubs. Bios of the six men indicted | The Seattle Times Wills, who served one four-year term, 2000-03, as an at-large city councilmember, is currently . She told the officers Frank had sexually attacked her during a visit to his family home in Bellevue. Son of Seattle strip club mogul headed to prison | king5.com The Colacurcio family owned strip clubs all over Washington and nine other states; Frank Sr. had been convicted on charges of racketeering, prostitution, filing false tax returns, and carnal knowledge (for having sex with an underage girl); Frank Jr. had been convicted of racketeering conspiracy; and in general the family was pissed whenever the media called them the mob or mob-adjacent. In return, theyd protect Frank and other illegal operators by not busting them. Colacurcio Jr. said it's about "the question of what are the customer's rights" and there "has got to be some sort of fairness in everything. Besides nude dancing and doing time, their common interests apparently include a longing for females. Its one of those wood-burl tables, for sale for $600. In court, the judge looked down and saw a much younger Frank this time. (A longtime Colacurcio associate recalls there were three pre-operative transsexuals or transvestites who danced as women at Franks clubs. In 1981, U.S. prosecutors charged him with skimming profits from the Brass Tiger in Federal Way and the Bavarian Gardens in Factoria. Colacurcio was indicted last year along with his son, Frank Jr., and several associates. They led him down the street, bloodied and looking like someone happy to be arrested. Frank Colacurcio Obituary - Monroe, CT - Dignity Memorial After the business succeeded, he and Franks mother, also Sicilian, moved the family to the then-rural, farmlike Eastside of the 1930s. Legally theyre not allowed to retaliate, Jane explained. ", Im a little concerned [about retaliation], Orwall told me. . They sized up their odds, took a deep breath, and pleaded guilty. A report issued by the State Patrol Organized Crime Unit to law-enforcement agencies in 1979 alleged that Colacurcio controlled a crime group operating topless taverns and other businesses in the state. Robin Price's daughter A Life of Crime . . The audio quality is often too terrible to even contribute meaningfully, Jane said. The training will incorporate a crash course in financial independence, being an independent contractor, dealing with workplace harassment, and more. "I have a conscience like everybody else," says Colacurcio, who shows his age not in his lively step or his solid handshake but in the deep creases that line his face. Franks home today is the federal correctional institution in Bastrop Texas, 30 miles out of Austin, built in 1979, holding 900 inmates whose average age is 37. The doors of Ricks, Sugars, Honeys, and Foxs will finally be closed for good, prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo. So that would be mitigated and it seemed like a no-brainer to me.". I understand that they played the tape for him one day and he suddenly felt too old to seek re-election. In the early 1990s, Colacurcio pleaded guilty to tax fraud at strip clubs he ran in Alaska and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. A lingering mystery of those long-ago probes has been a tape recording confiscated by U.S. agents from Bill Colacurcios house and said to be prime evidence of corruption by a top Seattle city official. Mr. Colacurcio had been in declining health for some time, suffering from congestive heart failure. Owner of 1-800-DRIVEWAY in the 203 area code. He had a family to support and there wasnt much call for a 65-year-old topless-bar manager. Nathalie Graham reported on city hall for, Supreme Court Ruling Could Allow Washington to Tax the Rich, How Washington Plans to Fix the Behavioral Health Crisis, Ambitious Housing Reform Has a Real Shot This Year. Three rows behind her sat Frank Colacurcio, Jr., a friend of Dadi's and onetime heir . But, one thing at a time. A daughter of Seattle's Oromo community, Biftu Dadi was remembered as a smart, spirited young woman. He got to keep the Rolex, the $400,000 home with an indoor pool at Sheridan Beach, and two other properties worth another $400,000. The government seized the properties, including Sugar's, in 2010. He finds him in a hotel room and, five stories up, opens the window and holds the guy out over the street by his neck. The brothers later sold the coin-op business when the city refused to re-license them, but it didnt end there. While the scandal was resolved, the appropriate council members fined, the dirty campaign funds returned, the re-zoning law repealed, and, eventually, the moratorium lifted, has enough time passed for Heidi Wills to be trusted again as a Seattle council member? The scandal centered on Rick's strip club, an old Lake City haunt that was famously co-owned by Frank Colacurcio Sr. and his son, Frank Colacurcio, Jr. Hey Frank, one said with a smile and a wave, standing over the battered, near-comatose man, this guy giving you trouble? If a dancer speaks out, in Jane's opinion, it's serious. [10] He was sentenced in September to a year in jail and fined $1.3 million.[10][11]. In fact, he credits the trouble with making the good times seem better.