Frank Colacurcio Jr., former owner of Sugar’s strip club in Shoreline, and his father, Frank Colacurcio Sr. are facing charges of political money laundering in Seattle.
The Shoreline club is also facing a court-ordered license suspension.
The father-son duo, together with two of their associates, were charged on July 12 by the King County Prosecutor’s office with funneling illegal campaign contributions to three members of the Seattle City Council during the 2003 election, including Council members Jim Compton, Judy Nicastro and Heidi Wills.
The four defendants are accused of providing cash reimbursements to individuals who wrote checks for the campaigns. The investigation was conducted by Seattle’s Ethics and Elections Commission and the King County Prosecutor’s Office.
The allegation originated during a zoning issue before the City Council in the fall of 2002, pertaining to a proposed expansion of a parking lot at Rick’s, a strip club in Lake City owned by the Colacurcios.
The permit had been denied several times before, and the Colacurcios had been fined for illegally developing more parking on their property without city approval, according to a press release from the King County Prosecutor’s office.
The three Council members who received the campaign contributions voted to override the planning department’s recommendation not to approve the parking lot rezone, with a 5-4 vote in July 2003.
There is no evidence that Compton, Nicastro or Wills were aware of the contribution source, according to the press release. By hiding the source of the contributions, the defendants caused Council members to file false documents with the city and state agencies that oversee election contributions. The Council members eventually returned $39,000 in contributions and paid fines to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission. During reelection, only Compton was selected for another City Council term.
The charge for filing false reports is a felony and the charge of conspiring to file a false report is a gross misdemeanor.
In November 2002, Shoreline and the owners of Sugars, Score LLC, headed to federal court after an undercover police investigation concluded the nightclub was violating the city’s adult entertainment ordinance, claiming dancers were allowed to dance close to patrons (violating the four-foot separation rule) and offer sex acts for money.
The ownership of Sugars has changed several times in past years, said Shoreline city attorney Ian Sievers, and he is not sure if the Colacurcios have an interest in Sugars at this time. The Colacurcios were more directly involved in Sugars in the past, he said.
A decision pertaining to the lawsuit was recently received from the Court of Appeals, Sievers said, which will go into effect in 30 days, depending on whether Score LLC requests a review of the decision. The decision is for a 30-day suspension of the club’s license.
“The first determination of nuisance is a 30-day suspension of their license,” Sievers said. “They would be shut down for about a month, then reopened.”
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