Update: This story got even stranger. This morning the Chronicle-Telegram reported one of the men caught with the 17-year-old stripper was actually a freshly-minted police officer.
31-year-old Matthew Byrd was found in the company of the minor and two other dancers only a few days after being sworn in as a North Randall auxiliary police officer. Byrd had yet to suit up for any shifts, however, and now he probably won’t. The police department let him go after learning of the incident at Christie’s.
Byrd and the girls were also in the company of a convicted sex offender. The paper identifies this individual as 28-year-old Michael Sperber; in 2004 he was charged with rape, and his record also has previous charges of sexual battery and gross sexual imposition.
*****
It all started one simple Thursday night, with a pair of stolen stripper boots. From there, it just got weird . . . and highly illegal.
According to the Chronicle-Telegram, the police arrived at Christie’s Cabaret in Brunswick last Thursday after one of the club’s dancers phoned in about stolen property. Christie’s is on Pearl Road, and has great drink specials . . . we’ve been told . . .
Anyway, as a note to topless dancers everywhere: if you’re working a shady establishment, you probably want to handle theft in-house. Once the police started poking around your club, they’re going to find something else worthy of a criminal charge or two. In this case, the officers stubbed their toes on a car in the parking lot holding three young dancers, two men, and, after a search, the stolen stripper boots.
But by that time the police were less interested in the stolen property than the individuals. Two of the ladies provided false identification. Initially claiming the guys in the cars were cousins, the women then admitted they’d met the men that night and were on the way back to smoke weed in their hotel room. Turns out, one of the men was a registered sex offender. All things considered, these are two lucky shadeballs — if the cops hadn’t started asking questions, one of those guys might have been a repeat offender.
This article appears in Oct 17-23, 2012.
Don’t place the full blame on the people running the club. Where is the minor’s parent(s)? or legal guardian? Didn’t anyone wonder where she was at such late hours?, and how is she earning the money she is making? If my daughter brought home $150+ a night, I would definitely question that and investigate it further. The minor (at 17) is also to blame knowing very well she falsified a document to further an illegal act. No one forced the minor to dance, or to lie. At 17 years of age, she knows very well right from wrong!!
Latinking: The club has a duty to know if they’re employing underage strippers. That place is exploiting very young, troubled people. And while making money off the teenager, they’re helping expose her to drugs and prostitution. I, personally, don’t care for the tone of Scene’s article, which was written by someone trying too hard to be hip and finding it all so amusing. The girl’s life in being destroyed by people who are knowingly exploiting her. I’m not against strip clubs, but they should know the ages of the young females they are employing.
Bullshit…Bust the establishment….Plenty of red flags and Christie’s Just chose to ignore them…
God, how I loathe the sex industry. Now we have two 18 year old girls with records? Are the cops planning to arrest the club’s owners?
I hope every damned man who frequents this joint has a *bad moment*, wondering if he’s been perving a child.
Who wrote this article? It is full of grammatical errors!
All depends on how good the fake ID is. Being a former door person at a few clubs, I’ve come across many good fake ID’s and I’m sure the better quality ones got by me too. Its almost to the point you need a magnifying glass to catch them. I’ve also seen real ID’s that minors get by going to the BMV with fake birth certificates. I remember a few years ago some local BMV workers got caught stealing supplies to make the fake ID’s. For the right amount of money, there are ID’s that even fool the cops.
Ah yes, wonderful people doing wonderful things.
The pride of Cleveland, on display here! It’s a shame that Dimora is in jail, I’m sure he would have been right in the middle of this. With a bag of cheeseburgers!