Scores

by Blutrich, Michael D. ;

  PRAISE FOR SCORES

  “A fascinating, funny, and, at times, frightening tale of strippers, money, and the mob by one of the FBI’s most unlikely informants ever!”

  — Anderson Cooper

  “Scores is a compelling true crime book that takes readers on a wild ride. This book has it all—mobsters, strippers, extortion, G-men, and one unlikely FBI informant. Michael Blutrich has told a riveting tale that will keep readers entertained and enthralled.”

  — Miles Corwin, author of Homicide Special

  “In Scores, we finally have the definitive insider memoir of the club that changed New York City nightlife forever. The book is a blockbuster ride revealing secrets held close since the 1990s.”

  — Harvey Osher, Scores Owner, 1998–2008

  “Michael’s story is a riveting window into the secret world of FBI undercover cooperation by a prominent NYC lawyer against the Mafia. As Michael’s lawyer, I was present for many of the events he describes, and, unbelievable as it may seem, his story is true. His case is like no other I’ve encountered in my 40-year career, and his book will become an instant classic. Even knowing how it would end, I couldn’t put the book down until the final page.”

  — Morris “Sandy” Weinberg, Jr., partner, Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, Tampa,

  FL, former AUSA in the Southern District of New York, chair-elect of

  the ABA Criminal Justice Section

  “Michael Blutrich, a smart lawyer from Brooklyn, was feeling pretty good when his new Upper East Side strip club became a must-visit destination for everyone from Leonardo DiCaprio to Donald Trump. Then Blutrich found out he had partners he hadn’t known about: John Gotti’s crime family. An irrepressible wiseacre, Blutrich’s first thought was that he’d seen nothing about that in the lease. Then a couple of hoods whacked two employees and things got very real, very fast. Soon, Blutrich became the least likely undercover agent the FBI ever had, wearing a wire against Gotham’s biggest gangsters. But he kept his eyes open and his sense of humor and the result is this great read.”

  — Tom Robbins, investigative reporter and coauthor of Mob Boss

  SCORES

  SCORES

  How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York

  City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino

  Family, and Became One of the Most Successful

  Mafia Informants in FBI History

  MICHAEL D. BLUTRICH

  BenBella Books, Inc.

  Dallas, TX

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael D. Blutrich

  The events, locations, and conversations in this book while true, are recreated from the author’s memory. However, the essence of the story and the feelings and emotions evoked are intended to be accurate representations. In certain instances, names, persons, organizations, and places have been changed to protect an individual’s privacy.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  BenBella Books, Inc.

  10440 N. Central Expressway

  Suite #800

  Dallas, TX 75231

  www.benbellabooks.com

  Send feedback to feedback@benbellabooks.com

  First E-Book Edition: January 2017.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Blutrich, Michael D., author.

  Title: Scores : how I opened the hottest strip club in New York City, was extorted out of millions by the Gambino family, and became one of the most successful Mafia informants in FBI history / Michael D. Blutrich.

  Description: Dallas, TX : BenBella Books, Inc., [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016037690 (print) | LCCN 2016051586 (ebook) (print) | LCCN 2016051586 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781942952633 (trade cloth) | ISBN 9781942952640 (electronic)

  Subjects: LCSH: Blutrich, Michael D. | Mafia—New York (State) | Informers—New York (State)—New York. |

  Nightclubs—New York (State)—New York. | Organized crime investigation—New York (State)—New York.

  Classification: LCC HV6452.N7 B58 2017 (print) | LCC HV6452.N7 (ebook) | DDC 364.10609747/1—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037690

  Editing by Erin Kelley and Alexa Stevenson

  Copyediting by Scott Calamar

  Cover design by Faceout Studio, Kara Davison

  Jacket design by Sarah Dombrowsky

  Text design by Aaron Edmiston

  Text composition by Integra Software Services Pvt Ltd.

  Proofreading by Brittney Martinez and Sarah Vostok

  Printed by Lake Book Manufacturing

  Distributed by Perseus Distribution

  www.perseusdistribution.com

  To place orders through Perseus Distribution:

  Tel: (800) 343-4499

  Fax: (800) 351-5073

  E-mail: orderentry@perseusbooks.com

  Special discounts for bulk sales (minimum of 25 copies) are available.

  Please contact Aida Herrera at aida@benbellabooks.com.

  For my family, who in the darkest of life’s times taught me the meaning of

  unqualified loyalty, unshakable faith, and selfless dedication.

  For my dear and true old friends, who never withdrew their love, confidence,

  or support, even when my own dreams had fled and my hope deserted me.

  For the special old friends who welcomed me back into their hearts and lives,

  and patiently helped me to rediscover a place in a new world. And for the

  amazing new friends who accepted and healed a bruised and battered spirit.

  I have finally learned that a loving family and true friends are the only

  requirements for a life worth living. With this revelation, coming late in my life,

  I view myself as the luckiest man in the world.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue: Murders That Shocked the Big Apple

  PART ONE: PLEASE STOP BUGGING ME!

  1. Coping with Murder

  2. Taking Control and Promoting the HBO Fight

  3. Scores-Style Softball

  4. Hints of Future Problems Erupt

  5. How Did I Wind Up Here?

  6. The Madness Continues to Grow

  7. No More Secrets

  8. The Government Extends an Invitation

  PART TWO: SCORES: WHERE SPORTS AND PLEASURE COME TOGETHER

  9. The Birth of Scores

  10. An Unexpectedly Difficult Creation

  11. Mafia for Dummies

  12. Landing the Liquor License

  13. Welcome to Scores

  14. How to Own a Strip Club

  15. Valuable Lessons for Strip Club Owners

  16. Can Scores Be Rescued from Financial Ruin?

  17. Howard Stern and Scores: A Love Affair for the Ages

  18. Celebrity Hordes Rock Our World

  19. Breasts on Trial in Manhattan

  20. Trying to Tame the Mafia Beast

  PART THREE: DANCING WITH THE DEVIL

  21. The First Proffer: Time to Start Spilling the Beans

  22. Hello Cooperation, Good-bye Sanity

  23. I Think I’m Gonna Puke

  24. Sergio’s Encore Performance

  25. Lights, Camera, Action!

  26. Sergio’s Real Encore Performance

  27. The Beat Goes On

  28. The Investigation Just Keeps on Expanding

  29. Meeting with the Florida Prosecutors

  30. The Investigation Moves Up the Mafia Hierarchy

  31. Hemorrhoids to the Rescue

  32. Money Laundering and Florida Craziness

  33. Cooperation Complications, and How Leonard
o DiCaprio Saved My Life

  34. The Rule of Threes

  35. Descent into Madness

  PART FOUR: BECOMING IRRELEVANT

  36. Shock and Awe

  37. A New Life Begins, Maybe

  38. The 156-Page Plea

  39. Surrender

  40. Sentencing, Parts I and II

  Epilogue: The Aftermath

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  Murders That Shocked the Big Apple

  Scores. The first and most notorious upscale gentlemen’s club in New York City. After opening to the derision of its neighborhood residents on Manhattan’s fashionable Upper East Side on Halloween night 1991, Scores grew into an unrelenting cauldron of celebrity, publicity, controversy, and profitability.

  Unlike any New York club before it, except perhaps Studio 54, Scores’ regular patrons included film and television superstars, sports figures, major recording artists, fashion models, comedians, politicians, billionaire businesspersons, infamous mafiosos, and every horny New Yorker or tourist with cash or plastic assets. In a city that reveled in its secret adoration of celebrities, Scores was the singular stop where stargazing was matter-of-fact.

  The first club of its kind to feature topless lap dancing, Scores attracted the fierce and perverse loyalty of the self-proclaimed “King of All Media,” Howard Stern. Tales of Stern’s star-studded parties at the club, replete with lurid lesbian exhibitions, were described daily and in excruciating detail on his radio and television programs; Stern’s personal endorsement served to vault Scores’ reputation into the national and international arenas. The club further attracted the unsolicited and costly “protection” of the Gambino crime family, which, over the years, seasoned its financial demands with every possible form of extortion, threatening beatings, arson, bombings, and even murder.

  My name is Michael Blutrich, and I am the club’s founding owner. It’s very nice to meet you. I will be your guide through this tale: a gay lawyer who found himself owning the most successful den of heterosexuality in the history of the western world. It is a tale of laughter and tears, luck and betrayal—and the beginning of the end of my lifetime of successes began at the club on one warm night in June 1996.

  JUNE 22, 1996, SCORES, 4 AM

  Scores was closed, the staff winding down from a typical Friday. Business had boomed and Willie Marshall, one of the club’s assigned mafia representatives, had acted as the evening’s manager. The stale stench of drying beer curdled the air, and ugly carpet stains were visible in the now brazenly overlit premises. Most of the club’s principals and senior executives were already with me in Atlantic City for a pay-per-view HBO boxing match between Macho Camacho and Roberto Durán, which I was co-promoting with Donald Trump at Trump’s Taj Mahal casino and arena.

  Proving the adage, “while the cat’s away, the mice will play,” the absence of the club’s experienced supervisors had resulted in Simon and Victor Dedaj, a pair of Albanian brothers, being accorded unusual freedom to roam around. They were acquaintances of Marshall, and were known for causing serious problems whenever they partied at the club. In the past, Simon and Victor had fired handguns into the club’s floor during arguments, stolen tips from bartending staff, touched dancers inappropriately, and refused to pay for drinks and food. Marshall had been under strict directive to issue this duo a lifetime ban from the club and, at the very least, should have placed an immediate tight leash on them, but it was probably easier and less confrontational at that late hour to just let them alone and hope for the best.

  One of the club’s most popular waiters, Jon Segal, a handsome and athletic college student, was packing up for the night when he began an innocent discussion with Simon about collegiate wrestling. When Jon mentioned he’d competed at school and won countless awards, Simon scoffed and grabbed the unsuspecting young man, quickly applying a dangerous choke hold.

  Alarmed, the bar manager, Laurie, tried to diffuse the situation with humor. “Come on, Simon,” she said, “you got your hands all over that gorgeous guy. People are gonna think it’s like a fag thing.”

  As Jon desperately struggled, his complexion began to turn a mottled blue. Laurie, now almost hysterical, screamed, “Simon, are you fucking crazy? Let him go, you’re killing him!”

  Simon tossed Jon to the floor, and walked menacingly toward Laurie. Marshall positioned himself protectively between the two.

  “Your girlfriend is a bitch! No one calls me a fag or crazy!” Simon screamed at Marshall, literally frothing at the mouth.

  “Simon, calm down, you might’ve killed him. She saved us all from a big problem.”

  As the confrontation settled, Segal rose from the carpet and began walking toward Marshall. In the same instant, Michael Greco, a new bouncer and one I’d never met, followed Segal toward the bar.

  Marshall attempted to further calm things by separating everyone. “Jon, hit the vestibule, I’ll meet you there in a couple minutes.” Segal immediately changed direction, and Greco diverted to the far end of the bar.

  Simon continued staring down Marshall, and Marshall walked to the end of the bar near Greco, away from Laurie. “Keep talking to me like that, Willie,” Simon said, “and I promise I’ll kill you or someone else here tonight!”

  “You’re not gonna kill anyone, Simon.”

  Just then, Simon’s brother Victor approached. The two brothers whispered in Albanian, and Marshall had the sinking feeling he was losing control.

  When the whispering between the brothers stopped, Simon brandished a gun and, without warning or provocation, shot Greco between the eyes. The bouncer silently crumpled to the floor and never stirred.

  As Greco fell, the brothers ran down the nearby stairs toward the entrance to the street. Segal was in the vestibule and, without missing a step, Simon raised his gun and shot the young man four times in the chest. Victor laughed as he pulled a knife from his waistband and stabbed Jon repeatedly.

  And then the perpetrators were gone. The club was silent, only the acrid smell of gunpowder left to hang in the air. It was over in a matter of seconds. Stunned and in shock, Willie picked up a phone and called Andrew Pearlstein, one of my partners.

  PART ONE

  Please Stop Bugging Me!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Coping with Murder

  JUNE 22, 1996, 5:30 AM—ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY

  LEONARDO da VINCI PENTHOUSE SUITE, TAJ MAHAL

  HOTEL AND CASINO

  Deep in sleep, I was abruptly driven to conscious clarity when an unexpected ringing erupted. I grabbed at the delicate Victorian telephone on the nearby nightstand, and roared into its receiver, “Why are you calling me? I blocked this phone until 8 AM!”

  “Our apologies,” the hotel operator replied in sugarcoated tones. “Is this Mr. Blutrich? Because I have an emergency call for him from Andrew Pearlstein. Will you accept?”

  “Yes I will, sorry. Please put him through.”

  “Michael. It’s me. Just got home.”

  “I take it this is not good news.”

  “Nope. Willie Marshall ran the place tonight. Seems two of those Albanian lunatics got drunk, pulled a gun over something stupid, and murdered two of our people.”

  As the information registered, I realized I was now standing, with no memory of getting out of bed. “Who was killed?”

  “Jon Segal, the waiter, and a bouncer who started tonight. Their bodies were still in the club when I got there, as were tons of police. I had to step over puddles of blood . . .”

  Andrew continued to describe the scene, but I was no longer listening. Jon was my friend; we’d recently shared dinner at Japonica on University Avenue. The amazingly handsome kid had just done a television commercial for Abflex, and now Andrew was stepping in his blood?

  I realized there was silence in the earpiece. “Are you OK?” I asked.

  “Yeah, shaken but fine. I haven’t slept. I have a lot more damage control to do. The press is out in force; they were actually climbing th
e Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge to get pictures of the victims . . . ”

  I interrupted him, desperately turning my brain to business mode in the hope of calming down. “Listen Andrew. The cops are gonna want to putz around in the club forever with crime scene shit. Do whatever it takes, call who you need to call, but get them out. We have to open tonight or we may never open again.”

  “I’ll go back to the club. The radio and cable news are continuously playing the story. They announced one dead and one in surgery, but he’s not making it either.”

  I sat down on the bed and put a pillow in my lap. “I hear you. We need to get word out that we will be open tonight, and get our PR staff massaging the media.”

  “OK,” Andrew answered. “Do we want to brief Howard Stern’s people? Get them to downplay it on the air?”

  “I just don’t know yet, Andrew; we’ll play it by ear.”

  “Whatever you say. Anyway, go back to bed. I’ll be there for the fight. Save me some extra ringside seats.”

  “Yeah, you’re dreaming. I just had to ‘create’ two seats with folding chairs for a high roller from TropWorld. Bring opera glasses.”

  “Go back to bed. Who is he kidding?” I said to myself after I hung up.

  I drew a rattled breath. Dismayed and unraveling, I wandered from the master bedroom into the suite’s massive living room. My mind was exploding in eerie contrast to the dark and silent world peeking through the hotel windows. Not a hint of breaking sunlight, I poured myself the remainder of a leftover bottle of Perrier sitting atop a piano and walked past the butler’s station toward a row of bedrooms.

  My two guests from Montreal were soundly asleep, one of the men snoring laboriously. I really wanted to wake them; I needed some physical comfort. But, I silently mused, my broken French probably wasn’t adequate to make them understand either what had happened or what might lie ahead. I considered that it might be prudent to find them other accommodations in case the day became hairy with press or police. Leaning my head against the nearest wall, and pondering for the millionth time the endless ironies and secrets of my existence, I wearily mumbled softly, “You know what, fuck it.”