DEA Agents Accused Of Running N.J. Strip Club Where Prostitution Allegedly Occurred
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents were arrested Wednesday, on charges that they had a side business running a strip club in New Jersey where prostitution allegedly happened.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, a criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan named agents David Polos and Glen Glover as owners of the Twins Plus Go-Go Lounge in South Hackensack.
The club offers scantily clad and sometimes topless dancers -- most of them workers from Brazil or Russia in the country illegally -- and private rooms for lap dances, the complaint said.
On video recovered during a search of Twins Go-Go Lounge, including from inside the private rooms, ``there appear to be multiple instances of sexual contact between dancers and patrons, with money exchanged afterward,'' the complaint said.
Bank records for an account controlled by Glover showed a series of large cash deposits totaling $600,000 from 2011 to 2014, according to the complaint.
At the DEA, Polos held the post of assistant special agent-in-charge. Officials said that until he retired last month, he ran a task force consisting of agents from multiple agencies that targeted major drug-trafficking organizations.
He and Glover, who was also assigned to the DEA's Manhattan office, surrendered to face charges they falsified national security forms and lied during background-check interviews by failing to disclose outside employment that could put them ``in proximity to crime'' and at risk for getting blackmailed.
When it came time to renew their National Security clearance – required for their most sensitive and important jobs – Polos and Glover allegedly neglected to report that they owned and operated the club.
Polos, 51, of West Nyack, and Glover, 45, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, were released without bail at a brief court appearance. Neither commented as they left court; their lawyers denied the charges.
The case comes amid the fallout from a scathing government watchdog report detailing allegations that DEA agents attended sex parties with prostitutes on government-leased property while stationed overseas.
The defendants ``had important and sensitive law enforcement jobs with the DEA,'' U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. ``As alleged in the complaint, they also had other secret jobs, which they concealed from DEA in order to maintain their national security clearance, betraying the oaths they had taken and creating needless risk for the agency they worked for.''
According to the complaint, Glover and Polos often moonlighted as supervisors at the club. Polos, it says, used his law enforcement status to intimidate people. It cited an argument with a club associate where he allegedly pointed to a gun in an ankle-holster and said, ``This is the boss. I am the boss.''
An unidentified dancer from Brazil told investigators that Polos once loaned her money to bail herself out of jail following an arrest on charges she was involved in an altercation with a local police officer outside the club. The complaint said the dancer, who now works at another club, was allowed by Polos and others to work double shifts because they knew she was in the U.S. without documentation and needed money to pay back smugglers who brought her into the country.
Evidence includes text messages from the defendants' work cellphones to managers at the club, court papers say.
In one 2011 text, Glover wrote, ``I'm coming with two state troopers. They don't know I own the bar,'' the papers say. A manager responded by saying he would alert another employee.
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