Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 | 2 a.m.
He’ll be back in his old neighborhood, but the scenery won’t be the same for his homecoming.
There will be no leggy topless dancers at his beck and call, for example, and no more VIP clients looking for private lap dances.
But after a 9 1/2-month stay at a federal prison in Los Angeles, former Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo is expected to be back on the block March 4.
Rizzolo, according to his attorneys, has been told he can spend the final month of his prison term for tax evasion at the Las Vegas Community Corrections Center, a 120-bed federal halfway house a few blocks down Industrial Road from Crazy Horse Too.
And there’s a good chance the U.S. Marshals Service will still be trying to sell the closed topless club to pay off Rizzolo’s $17 million debt to the government — including a $10 million settlement arranged by the government with a Kansas City area man who suffered a broken neck in an altercation at the club.
The Marshals Service obtained a court order to take control of the Crazy Horse Too in September after Rizzolo couldn’t sell the club on his own to meet the financial obligations outlined in his 2006 criminal plea agreement.
Rizzolo surrendered to authorities May 22 and has been serving his sentence at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.
Since September, the Marshals Service and the commercial real estate company it hired to market the Crazy Horse Too, CB Richard Ellis, also have had trouble finding a buyer.
Geoffrey West, the CB Richard Ellis vice president handling the sale, said he is dealing with several potential buyers, four of whom have offered more than $30 million for the club. He expects one of the deals to go into escrow within two weeks.
“We’re still motivated to see this property sold in an expeditious manner,” West said.
But over the past few months West has said that before, and each time the would-be buyers failed to come up with the money to close the deal.
One of Rizzolo’s attorneys, Mark Hafer, said Rizzolo is returning to Las Vegas “intending to rebuild his life.”
Hafer said he doesn’t know exactly what Rizzolo plans to do.
But one thing he won’t be doing is getting back into the strip club business. His plea agreement prohibits that.
The month Rizzolo is expected to spend at the Las Vegas Community Corrections Center, the only such reentry facility under contract here with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, will give him more freedom than a prison cell.
Like all its residents, Rizzolo will be expected to get a job, or at least look for one, during the day and spend his nights at the facility near Circus Circus.
Hafer said Rizzolo will be rooting for the Marshals Service to sell the club at the $30 million-plus price tag. His plea agreement allows him to receive the remaining proceeds after the government gets its share.
And according to Hafer, Rizzolo will need every penny.
Hafer estimates his client’s total debt on the property, which includes a $2.1 million fine owed to the city, is $28 million.
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