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NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City club manager and four women described as professional strippers are facing charges that the women scammed wealthy men by spiking their drinks and driving them to strip clubs that ran up tens of thousands of dollars on their credit cards. An attorney for the suspected ringleader said Wednesday his client denies the charges.
Scams targeting clients of strippers and bar girls have been reported in New York and elsewhere over the years. Here is a look at some cases:
— In 2003, a patron at the Manhattan strip club Scores, Savvis Inc. CEO Robert McCormick, refused to pay a $241,000 American Express tab and was sued by American Express. McCormick resigned as CEO of the Clayton, Missouri-based company over the issue. A Scores spokesman said at the time that it fingerprints customers and verifies each transaction with the credit card company.
— Russian mobster Alec Simchuk was sentenced in January 2013 to at least three years in federal prison after admitting he ran a Miami Beach scam that used so-called "B-Girls" to lure wealthy tourists into secret bars where they were charged exorbitant amounts on credit cards for alcohol. The scantily clad women trolled South Beach bars looking for rich men and invited them back to private clubs operated by Simchuk's gang.
—Also in Florida, bar girl Subhanna Beyah was charged in February with stealing $76,000 worth of jewelry from an oil tycoon. Beyah was accused last year of stealing nearly $500,000 worth of jewelry from New York Giants defensive lineman Shaun Rogers, a case that was eventually dropped. Beyah is now in a Miami-Dade jail awaiting trial on the most recent case as well as probation violation hearing stemming from a 2012 grand-theft conviction.
—Atlanta strip club owner Steve Kaplan pleaded guilty in 2001 to charges that included cheating customers and funneling club profits to the Mafia. Kaplan was sentenced to three years in prison and also agreed to pay a $5 million fine, turn the club over to the federal government and pay restitution to some customers.
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