They Finally Got Him: Frank Colacurcio, Pimp, Thug, and His Henchmen Indicted
Jul 3rd, 2009 by admin
Seattle Times archived photo of Frank Colacurcio Sr. (center) in 1958, waiting to be booked on charges of threatening rival jukebox operators. With him are his attorneys, Joseph Moschetto (left) and Thomas Keefe.
I remember hearing about Frank Colacurcio, above center, who is now 92, when I was a small girl in the ’50s and Colacurcio’s buddy, Al Rosellini, was governor of the State of Washington. Way back then, we ordinary citizens knew that Colacurcio was a criminal and sexual predator and that he had friends protecting him in the highest of places. His career as a criminal and sexual predator began in the 40s when he assaulted a 16-year-old girl.
Archived Seattle Times photo of Colacurcio alongside Washington Governor Al Rosellini.
Colacurcio opened the first topless joint in Seattle, the “Twilite Room,” in the 70s. He went on to create a strip joint empire — really a network of brothels — under the umbrella organization “Talents West,” where teenage girls and women would be invited to apply for “waitress” jobs. Women and girls who applied were mostly vulnerable– broke, single moms, women fleeing their batterers, women with substance abuse problems. Colacurcio charged them $130 a shift “rent” to strip and to be prostituted in his clubs. If they missed a shift, were given a bad shift, or for some other reason, they couldn’t pay, this “rent” became a debt they owed Colacurcio. Sometimes struggling dancers would also be offered loans, which added to their accumulating indebtedness to their “employer”. “Managers” would shadow the women, keeping track of how much money they made, paid and owed. Over time, trying to repay this money, the women would end up enslaved, trafficked from club to club between Seattle, cities north of Seattle, California and Alaska and eventually, throughout 10 western states.
I knew some of the women who worked at these places; I knew many who at some time or another considered “applying” to work at Talents West after seeing ads like the one above, which have run in newspapers here for decades. If you’re broke, it sounds like a heck of a deal– $200 a day to “serve beverages”. But that wasn’t the way things ever went down. In Washington, strip joints can’t serve alcohol, so the beverages served are soft drinks. No one is going to make bank serving soft drinks to pervs in strip clubsfor five bucks a pop. So, the pressure would be on for the waitresses to take off their clothes, dance and engage in acts of prostitution in private “VIP” rooms complete with condom machines. Colacurcio and his gang of thugs didn’t want to be directly told about the prostitution; they told the dancers not to tell them, in fact. If they learned about acts of prostitution some other way, they pretended to “discipline” the dancers by shipping them out to some other club in some other city or state, where they would continue, of course, to be prostituted.
…the women at the clubs were exploited by being forced to turn to prostitution to make enough money to pay club management back for exorbitant “rent” fees that were charged for permission to dance in the clubs.
Many dancers have agreed to cooperate in the case in return for immunity from prosecution, Sullivan said.
“All the girls indicated it was almost impossible” to make the “rent” by dancing alone, Sullivan said.
“These men made millions of dollars exploiting these young women in the Seattle and Tacoma areas.”
In fact, Sullivan said, the Colacurcio enterprise may be the largest organized prostitution operation in Western Washington. “I’m not aware of any bigger,” he said.
The women would also be regularly groped and assaulted by Frank Colacurcio and were continually pressured to have sex with him. A few years ago, at age 87, Colacurcio was sentenced to three months on “home monitoring” and fined $2,500 for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old waitress at one of his clubs,only the most recent assault over a lifetime of similar assaults. Colacurcio has served plenty of time behind bars, for sexual assault, racketeering, money laundering and filing false income tax returns, but it’s been nothing but a thing to him, just part of doing business. While he’s been in jail, his son, Frank, Jr., has taken over. When Frank, Sr. got out, he was in charge again.
Seattle Times photo of Colacurcio two years ago.
Last week both Colacurcios and three other men were indicted in Seattle. (Warning, indictment is disturbing and could be triggering.) Law enforcement officials had been able to obtain a court order that allowed them at last to install microphones and recording devices in clubs and Talents West offices, so that they finally were able to gather the evidence they needed to present to a grand jury. The testimony of women and girls over 70 years was never enough to stop this guy. The ongoing prostituting of women over 50 years wasn’t enough either. Repeated instances of Colacurcio assaulting and trafficking in girls and women? Not enough. They only got him now, at 92 years of age — after he and his henchmen have destroyed the lives of hundreds, probably thousands of girls and women. What’s disturbing is, in all of these news reports about Colacurcio, the women remain consistently little more than a footnote. All eyes are on this guy. Sometimes you pick up on an almost-palpable reverence and admiration for him. The lives of the girls and women he harmed just don’t really seem to be all that interesting to most people.
Heart
I think they do this purposely. Let them live out their lives, free, enjoying the money they raised on slavery, then as a gesture so they can say they did uphold the law, slap them with something minor as they are about to die.
I was at a ‘family’ event (not my family, but…) recently where I had to listen to sexist jokes from men about rape, pornography–this just part of the conversation–intermingled with calls for more food, last-minute half-hearted warnings to children (at their wives urging), banter about baseball and specifics of the new camper van. All out in the open. Really, it’s entertainment, not rape, or sexual abuse. This type of business in your post is your average male Canadian (or American) idea of entertainment. None of the people I had to tolerate that day would get your post Heart. Fine, upstanding, hard-working, keep their property nice, volunteer for the community hockey team etc average Canadians.
And yes, the media makes heroes out of men like Colacurcio. Next up; a tv movie of the week.
Amazing how long it takes to get these guys, and all the damage they do. I have never met one man who ever volunarily even gives lip service to anti-protitution, anti-porn, anti-strip club anything.
Men just feel entitled to exploiting women any way they can get away with it. It is so natural for men to exploit women that they don’t even know what exploitation is. It’s like asking men, “Why do your breathe, why do you eat?” Sexism is so natural to men, that they are rarely can see themselves being sexist. Every social event I go to when men are present, I get to observe male sexist behavior, and all the women who pretend to not see it. Maybe it’s invisible to a lot of straight women too. Must be.
Let’s set the basics down:
1. No legitimate job in America pays $1000 a day (it used to be $200 adjusted for inflation) for completely unskilled work, unless it involves some sort of criminality.
2. Clubs are never safe places for women to work.
3. Even being a waitress at a restaurant that men come to is not safe for women to work at, unless the management is very vigilent.
4. The entertainment industry, modeling, being photographed by men etc. is not safe. Just ask the recent Miss California.
5. We need to work hard so that women have access to trades, jobs, whatever to get work in safe professions.
6. Women need to get very serious about money and learn about it
7. Marriage to men and raising children is about exploitation.
8. Marriage to men is not safe for women.
9. Women have been groomed since time immemorial to do “unpaid’ work.
10. All major religions groom women for servitude.
11. If you are a hetero woman you are actually at extra risk, because you will waste your time marrying or being with men.
12. Women learn the hard way, no matter what info is available.
13. We need to keep trying to get this point across
14. Radical feminism needs to focus on building things that serve women, not reacting to disaster feminism all the time.
15. Radical feminism has to start creating the world it thinks is best for women in every way.
I don’t see this happening in radical feminism, I see women not creating jobs for women is what I see.
Had radical feminism focused on job creation to the advantage of women? Why is feminist centered job creation such a problem for radical feminists? We’ve been talking about all of this for 30 years and it still feels like square one to me.
Wow. First off I started working at Ricks after legal actions had already happened and things for women around the country got a lot safer for lady models, dancers, entertainers and yes, even strippers.
1Sis:
I do agree that law enforcement did “let these things happen” and had waited until now to prosecute them, however things were different in different times and for whatever crappy reasons it took our legal system this long to fix it.
FROM THE ARTICLE
**Waitresses did make from $95-200+ dollars a night in 2006-09. Without being prostituted
**It is illegal for the waitresses to get naked in waitress contests.
-With the fact that waitresses get paid wages plus tips from “pervs in strip clubs” and get to do the waitress contest (where they don’t take their cloths off) they make more money than some “strippers” do on slow nights
2Satsuma:
POINT #5. So we women are going to conform our lives to find “safe” jobs for us delicate women to work at? What!?
POINT #1 & 6: Strippers are very smart, make similar money to that of a house/ car sales man or women, and actually can may be less dirty.
POINT # 1-4. “Stripping” and “Entertainment” are legitimate jobs. Some nights are slow, some aren’t. With out being touched or being a hooker I did make $900 in one night (as an a amateur dancer at Ricks). I went home with $50 on others. It wasn’t till after the raids happened (I was there that night, not arrested but held in a small area by the police not allowed to get dressed. Only one female officer was present and they made us let them take photos of us in our outfits. I even had to take off a layer of my outfit because the police said that I was “covering up my uniform” and “if I wanted to argue with them it would only waste mine and every one else time!”) that my money got crappy, but I still didn’t turn to prostitution! However funny that the king county raids would have been the one to inconvenience a dancers money and “force” her to prostitute, btw in earlier years rent was only $80. That is four dances or maybe back then it was only $10 a dance but I doubt it. Mabe Frank was a dirty bastard that impregnated his own daughter (who was a dancer he didn’t realize that as he was doing her), but I don’t believe he forced girls into prostitution. Mabe the mob followed dancers around the country who knows? Please fill me in!) On bad nights yes I would have “back rent” just like any other entertainer who books a venue and at the end of the night can’t pay out because they had no audience. I never prostituted to pay off my back rent! After the raids started happening, the prostitutes, most of them who enjoy there job (thou they could really find a whore house instead of infesting Rick’s) were there and yes generated a lot of money for the entertainers; because of ricks reputation “jons” would come in for these hookers but first enjoy entertainment from DANCERS. This has been going on for CENTURIES with out forcible action around the world. There was a lot of illegal kidnapping/ selling for prostitution etc. of women in the 70’s but thanks to law enforcement and regulations things are much safER now than they were (however there is something wrong with Wa state officers!! One lady officer was there for the raid and I am just horrified by them after that night! Even if they took a lot of prostitutes out of the club I was treated unjustly, never accused of anything but very unjustly, and the whole raid was very illegal! I do not like what I see and THEY HAVE TAKEN “protect and serve” OFF THE SIDE OF THERE VEHICALS. I do not agree with my tax dollars (I am a tax paying dancer) paying for an officer to drive around in a car that does not state that they are officers that are here to protect and serve!).
Some dancers are still illegal, and some clubs do still promote it. I have not witnesses a dancer being threatened or killed for not paying out rent (not to say that back in the day it didn’t happen in earlier years). I have seen them tell a dancer that she will have to work at a slower club with less customers. That is bad for her money and, if she so chooses and SHE STILL WANTS TO WORK FOR THE TALENTS WEST CHAIN she might prostitute at that point. However she dosent have to! She can go to another club or get another job!
*People who let the asshole criminals give a bad name to stripping as a form of income are very naive and wrong for preaching that opinion.
POINT #6. Smart dancers are serious about money and learn about it! We are the best business women in the world! It is not only a job of entertainment but mental therapy (for some customers who need advice, friends, etc), sales, and acting! Not prostitution! And yes some days you can help out/ entertain enough customers to make $1000, but don’t think that you aren’t breaking your mind and body (stages and lap dances aren’t easy/ lazy things to do!)! Most dancers will punch a customer in there face if they try and touch them (not so dramatic in Wa BECAUSE OF KING COUNTY LAWS!! JACK ASS KING COUNTY MADE BEING IN 4 FEET OF THE STAGE ILLEGAL MEANING YOU DON’T REALLY HUSTLE STAGE TIPS! YOU HAVE TO HUSTLE LAP DANCES! IF YOU COULD HUSTLE MORE TIPS THERE WOULD BE LESS LAP DANCING OCCURRING AND IN TURN LESS OPPORTUNITY TO PROSTITUTE!! HELLO!!) HAVE ANY STRIP CLUB HATERS EVER BEEN IN A STRIP CLUB!? HOW ABOUT CLEANER STRIP CLUBS IN TEXAS WHERE IT IS NOT SO TABOO.)
POINT 7-11: I am all for women power, but we don’t need to be just like the man and slander them.
POINT 12: Really now? Are you serious?
POINT #14 &15: How about every human being being equal finally. We are just about there in feminist and shovaneists would get there “head out there ass”
So what women jobs are you looking for? Should we all be making tampons and baby equipment? Is that not what the male dominated society wants?
Radical feminism needs to organize around the work that hordes of women do for low wages: caregiving. Caregiving should be as well paid as auto mechanics. And cooking, cleaning, all of the low paid work that women do.
We have enormous power as consumers and workers in this country and we could organize around this.