Second Crazy Horse Too operator in IRS hot water?

By Jeff German

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

When Rick Rizzolo struck his deal with the government in June 2006, he pleaded guilty to evading federal employee taxes at the Crazy Horse Too.

Now, Las Vegas restaurateur Mike Signorelli — who leased the topless club from Rizzolo after federal prosecutors forced Rizzolo out — could soon be facing the same charge.

Courthouse sources say the Internal Revenue Service has built a criminal case against Signorelli for failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee taxes during his eight-month tenure at the helm of the club. Agents have asked the U.S. attorney’s office to seek an indictment against the man who has been the source of much headache for the government the past two years.

Signorelli’s failure to obtain financing to buy the Crazy Horse Too from Rizzolo prompted the city to shut down the club in July 2007 and, later, the government to seize it. The U.S. Marshals Service has had little luck trying to sell the club ever since.

Signorelli hasn’t helped that effort, challenging the legality of the government’s seizure in federal court.

The government first accused Signorelli of ducking his tax obligations in August 2007. An FBI agent alleged in court documents that Signorelli owed the IRS nearly $595,023 in employee taxes and the state another $386,202 in sales taxes.

With interest and penalties, sources say, Signorelli’s federal tax debt has swelled beyond $800,000.

Signorelli’s attorney, Steve Stein, could not be reached for comment this week.

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The district attorney’s office has filed a new criminal complaint against hip-hop mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. It stems from his Aug. 27 arrest, when police allege they observed him wielding a knife and punching a naked woman in a parking lot off the Strip.

The new complaint adds a fourth charge of felony coercion, accusing Knight of trying to drag his girlfriend, Melissa Isaac, by the hair against her will into his car. Knight also is charged with two counts of felony drug possession and one count of a misdemeanor domestic battery.

A Las Vegas justice of the peace dismissed the previous three-count complaint against Knight in December after prosecutors failed to provide defense lawyers with all of the evidence on the eve of the trial.

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A high-level group of Metro Police officers has had to delay temporarily a fact-finding trip to the site of November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, because of a holdup with visas.

The group was supposed to leave Saturday.

Homeland Security Lt. Tom Monahan says the five-member police contingent hopes to resolve the problem by the end of the week and take off for the hotel corridor in Mumbai shortly afterward.

Joining Monahan on the weeklong trek to ground zero will be Assistant Sheriff Ted Moody; Deputy Chiefs Joe Lombardo and Greg McCurdy; and Intelligence Analyst Cary Underwood. Moody’s duties include overseeing Metro’s patrol division, which would play a vital role in the response to any terrorist attack here. Lombardo is in charge of SWAT and special operations, and McCurdy oversees homeland security. A group of counterparts from the Los Angeles Police Department will be making the trip with Metro Police.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie says he wanted ranking Metro officers on the trip to show authorities in India that the department is serious about bringing home information that will benefit the local anti-terrorism effort.

The goal of the Mumbai visit, Monahan says, is to see firsthand how Indian authorities dealt with the deadly hotel attacks and apply those lessons to tourist-heavy Las Vegas, which boasts of having 17 of the 20 largest hotels in the world.

The Mumbai attackers, Monahan notes, killed with easily obtainable automatic weapons rather than with suicide bombers or vehicles packed with explosives.

The cost of the trip, which police estimate will be roughly $14,000, is being covered with private money.

Gillespie says he personally raised $5,000 from two Strip casinos, and expects the department will obtain the rest of the money from the Friends of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation, a nonprofit organization that solicits private donations for police.