Strip club owner is sued over wage dispute with dancers - in the news

Aug 23, 2011, 9:19 PM

A suburban strip club owner serving a federal prison sentence for tax fraud is now being sued by one of his employees who said he cheated her and other dancers out of wages and also improperly classified them as "independent contractors" to avoid paying taxes.

Michael Wellek, 63, of Libertyville, tearfully apologized at his February sentencing for not paying taxes on some $12 million in cash Internal Revenue Service agents found stashed in an Elk Grove Village warehouse he controlled. The money was stuffed in bags labeled by the Wellek-owned strip club they came from â€” Skybox in Harvey, Heavenly Bodies in Elk Grove Village, and Cowboys in Markham.

comments (3)

Jump to latest

Dudester14 years ago

Illinois......hmmm. Well, he should have found a better way to deal with those huge cash reserves-there is always diversification. He owned three strip joints. He should have invested in franchises, a Kinko's, a Burger King, etc.

deogol14 years ago

Diversification indeed. I know of an owner who sold his share of a club and bought a restaurant. There is only so much nonsense ya can take when ya get older I suppose.

I wonder how he could think $12,000,000.00 could be overlooked. It's not like the IRS doesn't look around to like areas and compare revenues. (irs.gov makes for interesting reading, or not.)

And if ya think ya can do so, that shit has to leave the states (Cayman Islands?) or go in barrels buried in the ground. (There might be a question of where such old bills came from in the burying part though.)

georgmicrodong14 years ago

Dudester, yeah he should have diversified, but not into restaurants and such, rather into politicians. Illinois has a long and storied history of effective corruption. :))