Strip Suits: Exotic Dancers in Court

By Ashley Shaw | July 2, 2014

What do Illinois nuns and a New Jersey doctor have in common? Obviously the answer must be strip clubs. Strip clubs: some nuns can’t live with them, one doctor can’t live without them…mainly because when he tries to leave, they just lure him back in.

Exotic dancers are the stars of this post because they live wild lives resulting in legal hijinks that will amuse even the most button up among us. (Hopefully this short strip tease has been enough to get you to keep reading.)

Nuns, Noise, Neon Lights

If you’ve ever been to a club (I’m just talking about a regular club right now, we’ll get to the strip part in just a bit), then you know that electro-pop, techno-y dance music is loud. Like, get in your head, you can’t think of anything else and you certainly can’t hold a conversation with someone loud.

Now, close your eyes and picture yourself out on the dance floor, or even right outside the club, pulsating music pounding through your veins. No matter how much you might want to, don’t start to dance. Instead, sit down and say your nightly prayer. Can you do it?

Well, the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo Scalabrinians say they have been trying this exercise for quite some time now, and the answer is no, they cannot pray in this environment. Bordering strip joint, Club Allure, was open less than a year before the nuns decided to bring suit alleging that the club broke a state law requiring an adult-entertainment facility to be at least 1,000 feet from a place of worship. And just in case nobody wants to enforce that pesky law, the nuns are also saying this place is just a good old-fashioned public nuisance.

Club Allure claims that there are no police records supporting the sisters’ nuisance claim and that they have done nothing wrong. It is their intent to fight the nuns — I feel wrong even just typing that. So, the debate will move to the courts: are the neon lights, used condoms, and overall debauchery that plague the sisters on the regular – according to their claim – enough to shut down this scintillating business? Or will the sisters have to find a way to love their permanent neighbors?

Love and Loss

Don’t you hate it when strippers drug you and run up charges on your corporate card? Don’t you also hate it when you say you weren’t at the strip club on the nights charges were racked up, and are then told there is video surveillance of you actually being there?

If you hate those things, then you and Dr. Zyad K. Younan have a lot in common. Younan allegedly visited an elite gentleman’s club, Scores, four times in a 10-day period, racking up around $135,000 in food, drink, and…how best to put this…. ‘other’ charges. Only, instead of paying the tab or, if he couldn’t afford to pay, washing dishes in the back room like the rest of us poor slobs who can’t afford our bills, Younan decided to try contesting the charges with an impossibly absurd story. He claimed he didn’t owe the money because he wasn’t there and even if he was, he only spent money after being drugged out of his mind by the women. If this seems to be an elaborate “nana-nana-boo-boo, Scores, I’m not paying, and you can’t make me {sticks out tongue},” then keep reading for the secret, crazy plot twist.

If strip clubs didn’t need to constantly worry about lawsuits from nuns, then maybe Scores would have just let this drop. It turns out, however, that nuns are litigious and apparently so are strip joints. Scores sued Younan for the balance.

Addressing their upcoming suit and Younan’s claims of innocence, club spokesman Stephan Hyman addressed Younan’s drug complaint by asking the very question I wondered myself: If Younan was drugged that first night, then “why did he come back three more times? If he didn’t have a good time the first time, he should have stayed home the next three times.”

It turns out there is a legitimate possible answer: maybe Dr. Younan WAS ACTUALLY TELLING THE TRUTH!

A couple of months after this story placed Younan in an uncomfortable tabloid spotlight, the DEA and the New York police uncovered a ring of stripper-crooks who went to upscale bars and lured unsuspecting men back to strip clubs, Scores being one, spiked their drinks with drugs such as Molly, and then got them to sign off on huge bills in their druggy haze. And guess who their biggest alleged victim was: one Dr. Zyad K. Younan.

While the strippers have all been arraigned, there are no pending charges against the clubs themselves. And, as of a few weeks ago, Scores has not dropped the lawsuit. Will the strippers be convicted? Will Scores be paid? Will the doctor be vindicated? Only time will tell who has the best case: the strippers or the surgeon.

What I know is that, between the fun nun lawsuit and the stripper-con trials, I need someone to tell me why people always want to get out of jury duty. It seems like court would be a fun place to spend the day – as long as you bring a stack of ones.

—

Ashley Shaw (@Smoldering_Ashs) is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time.

Featured image courtesy of [Geralt via Pixabay]