>>16445148 lb
>>16445222 czech'd
>Rachel’s Gentleman’s Club, an Orlando strip club.
https://www.rachelsorlando.com/rachels-girls/
hmmmm…
RACHEL'S OWNER IS ARRESTED
Orlando Sentinel
•
Mar 29, 2001 at 12:00 am
After years of revelry with flashy cars, blond women and high living, the owner of the two Orlando-area Rachel's men's clubs was arrested Wednesday on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, prostitution and money laundering.
James Veigle, 56, of Winter Park is accused of turning the two strip clubs into sexual fantasy lands for big spenders.
It has been clear for months that Veigle was the principal target in a vice investigation that already has snared 34 people, most of them Veigle's former employees. His attorneys had been negotiating his surrender for weeks.
Shortly before he surrendered at the Orange County Jail, Veigle told the Orlando Sentinel that he planned to fight the charges.
"We've been shadow boxing for eight months," Veigle said. "It's a time of reckoning."
He said that he had done nothing improper. He insisted that any illegal acts at his clubs in Casselberry and south Orange County had been the work of employees.
"I was going to get a Richard Nixon mask and go, 'I am not a crook,' " he joked.
Veigle, 56, a real estate, restaurant and nightclub entrepreneur worth an estimated $10.6 million, is charged with 13 counts by the Office of Statewide Prosecution. According to the charges, customers could buy sex and drugs at the clubs if they had enough money and knew the right people.
"The bottom line was his club ran on the premise of catering to customers," said Rick Bogle, chief assistant statewide prosecutor in Orlando. Employees "gave customers what they wanted. If they wanted girls who would fondle them, touch them, have sex with them, that's what they provided. If they wanted girls to go home with them, that's what they provided."
Veigle is charged with personally taking part in five acts of prostitution. He's accused of paying one dancer to have sex with three customers: a food company executive, an auto dealer and a third man identified only by his first name.
He's also charged with arranging for two other women to perform sex acts for two other customers: a soft-drink executive and a professional athlete.
Most of the money-laundering counts relate to prostitution as well, but two are tied to cocaine sales.
Veigle is not accused of selling or using drugs. Instead, prosecutors allege that undercover agents got club managers to give them cash advances of up to $1,800 on credit cards after the managers had been told the agents wanted money to buy cocaine.
Agents then used the cash to make three drug purchases.
If convicted on all counts, Veigle could be sent to prison for more than 170 years.
"It's easy to allege something," said defense attorney Harrison "Butch" Slaughter. "They can't prove it."
Veigle surrendered at the Orange County Jail at 3:15 p.m. as part of a pre-arranged deal with the Office of Statewide Prosecution. He stepped out of a black Mercedes-Benz sedan, walked through a gaggle of reporters, was handcuffed, fingerprinted and photographed.
A little over an hour later, he was released from jail on a $1 million bond.
The high bond amount angered Veigle, but he said prosecutors had threatened to send out a SWAT team to his eight-acre lakefront estate to arrest him unless he agreed to that amount.
Most of the bond $900,000 was secured by two Seminole County warehouses put up by friend and Rachel's investor Ed Quinn. Veigle only had to pay $10,000 – 10 percent of the remainder.
Thirteen people all but one of them an employee were charged with racketeering in July. They included managers and dancers, people snared in a six-month undercover investigation at the clubs in Casselberry and south Orange County.
Virtually all of those suspects are cooperating with prosecutors.
The only suspects charged Wednesday were Veigle and the corporations that own the Rachel's in south Orange County and the Casselberry Rachel's, which was closed earlier this month.
Veigle also owns a club in West Palm Beach that has not been charged with any crimes.
Prosecutors originally insisted that Veigle not be allowed back in the Orlando area clubs while he awaited trial. That demand, however, fell during negotiations with Slaughter.
Today will be "business as usual" for Veigle, Slaughter said. His client was all smiles when he walked out of the jail.
"They're very nice in there," Veigle said.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2001-03-29-0103290239-story.html
>>16445382 o7
this is getting weird - could there be a9/11angle to the strip club?
can't access the follow-on story about the strip club owner getting off on a deal (paywall, two years later):
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2003-07-15-0307150174-story.html
was archived only once on July 11th, 2021. 7/11 is the occult date for 9/11, DJT has made ref to this.
https://truthscrambler.com/2018/11/04/711-and-the-orange-warning-code-truthiracy/
https://fortune.com/2016/04/19/donald-trump-911-711/
The Florida connection to 9/11 even includes abloodline to Osama bin Ladenhimself.
Hisbrother, Khalil, owned a mansion just outside of Orlandofor almost 20 years, but in the days following the terror attack, he and his family fled the area.
https://www.wftv.com/news/9investigates/questions-remain-around-florida-connections-911-terrorist-attacks/KPOMT7ENIFCLXNO67QTTJSCQBA/
wayback machine won't let me access 2003 Orlando Sentinel article, redirects away:
https://web.archive.org/web/2021*/https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2003-07-15-0307150174-story.html
Orlando airport inspector credited with denying entry to the 20th hijacker of 9/11 terrorist attacks
‘It was a gut feeling,’ Jose Melendez-Perez said
ORLANDO, Fla – Some might call it a hunch or an instinct, the supernatural moment that stops you in your tracks.
Jose Melendez-Perez knows the feeling. After all, it was a gut feeling Melendez-Perez had 20 years ago that some believe changed the course of history and saved thousands of lives.
“That day, as long as I live, I will remember how everything unfolded,” Melendez-Perez said.
Twenty years ago, weeks before the 9/11 attacks, on Aug. 4, 2001, Melendez-Perez was working as an immigration inspector at the Orlando International Airport conducting secondary screenings.
That day would have been otherwise uneventful, except on that day, Melendez-Perez met a man he says gave him ‘the chills.’
“The first thing that came to me was that he was a hitman,” Melendez-Perez said.
“He was well dressed, in all black, with a military haircut. He kept looking into my eyes with his little, black devil eyes. I thought, ‘something is not right,’” Melendez-Perez said. “But I did not know what it was, because his passport is good, his visa was good.”
The man was a Saudi national who had not properly filled out his customs paperwork and claimed to not speak English, so, per protocol, he was sent to secondary screening for an interview with Melendez-Perez.
“This guy was staring at me giving me this dirty look, and I say, ‘something is not right with this individual,” Melendez-Perez said. “The first question I asked was, ‘Why don’t you have a return ticket?’
cont'd
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/09/10/orlando-airport-inspector-credited-with-denying-entry-to-the-20th-hijacker-of-911-terrorist-attacks/
By law, you were supposed to have a return ticket.
“A friend of mine is coming, and he will take care of it,” the man told Melendez-Perez.
“And how long have you known this person,” Melendez-Perez asked the man.
The man told him a week.
“‘You have known this person for a week, and he wants to buy you a $1,800 ticket?’ That did not make any sense. That was the first flag,” Melendez-Perez said.
Investigators now know that Melendez-Perez was questioning Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi national who was later identified as the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks.
At the time, however, all Melendez-Perez could do was trust his gut.
“The more question that I asked, the fewer possible answers that I could believe, at that time. He would not tell me the name of his friend,” Melendez-Perez said.
At the same time Melendez-Pérez was questioning al-Qahtani,the lead hijacker of the 9/11 attacks, Mohamed Atta, was at OIA waiting for someone to arrive.
Investigators said Atta even used an airport payphone to dial a number later associated with the terror attacks, concerned about his missing passenger.
While Atta waited, Melendez-Perez discovered that al-Qahtani did not have a return ticket, did not have a hotel reservation, had $2,800 in cash and could not provide an explanation for his visit.
“When I was asking him questions, he got upset. He got rude,” Melendez-Perez said.“When I came out of the interview room, I told my supervisor, ‘This guy is like, you know, he’s challenging me.’”
Despite his gut feeling, the red flags would not have been enough for Melendez-Perez to deny entry to a Saudi national, who, according to Melendez-Perez, faced little scrutiny when going through customs.
“I am not sure how it is now, but back then they were almost untouchable. They are allies, you know. They got the money.”
When Melendez-Perez put al-Qahtani under oath, the Saudi national refused to answer questions. Legally, that was enough.
cont'd
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/09/10/orlando-airport-inspector-credited-with-denying-entry-to-the-20th-hijacker-of-911-terrorist-attacks/
“When I took him to the gate, he turned to me and another immigration officer and said, in English, something to the effect of, ‘I’ll be back.’
Five weeks later, when the first plane hit the first tower, that gut feeling came back. “We were watching as the second plane came crashing, and the first thing that I did was to call the airport. I call them and said, ‘Pull the file from al-Qahtani …and give it to the FBI.’”
Investigators now believe al-Qahtani was supposed to be among the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, the one destined for the U.S. Capitol.
Instead of hitting their target, however, the plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
While the other planes had five hijackers, Flight 93 only had four.
“That fifth person could have made a difference in power,” Melendez-Perez said, who did not even learn about the role he had played until 2004 when he was asked to testify before the 9/11 Commission.
“Your actions…may well have contributed to saving the Capitol or the White House, and all the people who were in those buildings,” 9/11 Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste said at the time, to applause from the crowd, which included families affected by the 9/11 attacks. “For that, we all owe you a debt of thanks and gratitude.”
20 years later, that moment still makes Melendez-Perez emotional.
“When I was at my deposition, I had no idea that is how the people were going to respond.”
Some might call him a saint. Others may call him a hero or a lifesaver, but Melendez-Perez calls it his purpose. “I was just doing my job.”
Today, when a Customs and Border Patrol employee does something outstanding, like thwarting a terrorist or helping to prevent an attack, they can receive an anti-terrorism award named in part after Inspector Jose Melendez-Perez.
Al-Qahtani was captured in the battle of Tora Bora and later detained at Guantanamo Bay. He has been cited as the first detainee to reveal the name or pseudonym of Osama bin Laden’s courier, who eventually led the CIA to bin Laden’s hideout roughly 10 years after the attacks.
Al-Qahtani was charged with war crimes related to the 9/11 attacks, but his charges were ultimately dropped after it was revealed al-Qahtani’s interrogators tortured the 20th hijacker. Al-Qahtani is still detained at Guantanamo Bay.
https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/09/10/orlando-airport-inspector-credited-with-denying-entry-to-the-20th-hijacker-of-911-terrorist-attacks/