Exotic dangers

12/13/2018 4:26:17 AM

I noticed this typo in a story about a Providence strip club: "...alleging that the Foxy Lady wasn’t paying its exotic dangers in line with federal and state law."

Sometimes there is truth in typos.

Here's the story:

The Foxy Lady strip club is closed pending a hearing Thursday after three employees were arrested on soliciting for prostitution charges after Tuesday night.

PROVIDENCE — The Foxy Lady strip club is closed pending a hearing Thursday after three employees were arrested on soliciting for prostitution charges after Tuesday night.

The decision was made Wednesday afternoon by the Providence licensing board.

Major David Lapatin said the investigation at the Chalkstone Avenue club was an undercover operation by intelligence and narcotics officers.

Melissa McNeely, 32, of Madison, Connecticut, Lindsay Hoffmann, 30, of Waterbury, Connecticut, and Neish Rivera, 25, of Providence, were charged in the investigation, police said.

The police are requesting an emergency closure hearing before the city licensing board at 1:30 p.m. today.

According to redacted police reports, all three women asked male patrons if they wanted to go downstairs to the private “VIP” room. Rivera and Hoffmann told the men that for $300, they would get “anything you want” for a half an hour, the report said. McNeely said that for $300, the person could perform oral sex on her, the report said.

The man or men who police say the women propositioned were not identified in the public version of the police reports.

The Foxy Lady is a long-running institution on the X-rated side of Providence, known for its contributions to the city’s night life and, in the morning, its Friday breakfast buffet is known as “Leggs ‘n’ Eggs.”

The self-described “gentleman’s club” was also one of the Providence strip clubs that prosecutors said mob figures shook down for protection payments in a 2011 indictment. Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio and Anthony L. DiNunzio were among the high-profile mob figures to serve time for their roles in the scheme.

And in 1993, a state grand jury indicted 26 people, including mobster Robert P. DeLuca, on charges of running an illegal gambling operation centered at the Foxy Lady.

A story in The Providence Journal exploring the Foxy Lady after the gambling charges drew protests for what some readers considered its lurid indecency, with one subscriber arrested for burning a copy of the newspaper outside its Fountain Street offices.

Listeners of the podcast series “Crimetown,” which chronicled Providence’s illicit underbelly, heard the story of Michelle, a Foxy Lady stripper who crossed paths with celebrities, attorneys and mobsters who went to the Foxy Lady.

The club’s owners have faced a different sort of legal trouble lately: A class-action lawsuit filed in 2015 alleging that the Foxy Lady wasn’t paying its exotic dangers in line with federal and state law. The club, the suit said, was illegally charging its dancers fees and improperly taking tips and giving them to people who weren’t entitled to them.

The case is still being litigated, but the dancers have won a series of legal victories, including a ruling from federal District Judge William E. Smith earlier this year that they are employees, not independent contractors. They were also allowed to fight the case as a class action, an important step that companies facing such suits strenuously resist.

The owners, identified in legal and corporate documents as Thomas and Patricia Tsoumas, could not be reached for comment Wednesday through their lawyers or a message left in person at the club.