The former mayor of Harvey, Ill., demanded thousands in monthly payments from a strip club to allow it to stay open, federal prosecutors said.
In 2003, prosecutors said, the mayor of a city in Northern Illinois sent a message to the operators of a local strip club: Pay me or I’ll shut you down.
The mayor of Harvey, Ill., a city of about 18,000 just south of Chicago, knew that the strip club allowed prostitution in a private area of the club, and he demanded $3,000 a month from the business to let it stay open, according to prosecutors.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the club yielded to the threat, eventually even acquiescing to a demand from the mayor to double its payment to $6,000 per month. The scheme continued for about 15 years, prosecutors said.
Wow, what and atrocity! How dare sex work be carried out in a place with security and safeguards! What would Jesus think!!! Oh, wait…
Illegal strip club brothels are AWFUL. Owners are scum, they’ll threaten and blacklist dancers that don’t put up, get women on drugs and under their thumbs. Just pimps with a storefront.
What we want is actual legal prostitution, where there are actual regulations and safety checks, not just illusion.
I didn’t think I needed the /s
Then again, what’s to stop a legal brothel owner from doing the same shady shit? The authority figures were already paid off!
Mandatory third party audits like we do with every other regulated industry.
Come to where I live and see auditors paid off.
So what 3rd party was inspecting the strip club then? Obviously it’s not EVERY industry.
I think you missed a word there
You’re just slippery sloping. Obviously if every level of oversight is corrupt you’re fucked, but if the 3rd party auditors have proper monitoring by the state, who has proper monitoring by the feds, there’s several levels of checks and balances.
If you’re genuinely curious, research the legal brothel industry in Nevada.