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RACHEL'S OWNER IS ARRESTED
Orlando Sentinel
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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