Topless-bar death inquiry deepens

Police seize videotapes, say investigation of drugs and prostitution at Van Buren Twp.'s Leggs Lounge could take months

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
News Staff Reporter

It started out as an investigation into what some believe was a deadly delay between the time a patron at a topless bar suffered a heart attack April 21 and the time someone called for help.

Since last week, witnesses have come forward to tell investigators they believe the call for help was delayed while evidence of drug dealing and prostitution was cleaned up inside Leggs Lounge east of Ypsilanti in Wayne County's Van Buren Township.

Police looking for videotapes that might prove if there really was a delay in the call for help have confiscated hundreds of surveillance tapes and $1.6 million in cash from the owner of the bar on East Michigan Avenue.

Van Buren Township Detective Marc Abdilla believes the full investigation could take months. And, he said, the IRS is now involved, trying to determine whether the bar owner, John Hamilton, claimed the money on his tax returns.

The 45-year-old bar patron, whose name has not been released because his family doesn't know the circumstances of his death, collapsed in the lounge during a private lap dance. According to Van Buren Township Public Safety Director Christopher Elg, the man had no illegal drugs in his system and his death was ruled to be of natural causes.

Police had nothing to investigate, according to Abdilla, until the middle of last week, when several witnesses told police there was a significant delay between the time the man collapsed and the time someone called for help. They also said the bar was cleaned up during that delay.

Elg said the delay could have been anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours.

He said informants told detectives that dancers at the bar have sex with clients in upstairs rooms at the bar, that the sex is videotaped, and that there is drug dealing at the bar as well as other illegal activity.

The informants said the bar keeps cameras trained on the exterior of the bar to monitor the approach of police, and that a strobe light in the bar and the private rooms warns clients and employees.

They told police live video feeds are run from the bar to a house behind the bar, also owned by Hamilton, where the lounge manager lives and monitors activities, and that Hamilton's nephew, who lives in Wayne, was involved.

Looking for information that might show criminal negligence in waiting to make the call for help, Abdilla and Detective Louis Keele obtained search warrants for the bar; for the home behind the bar where the manager lives; and for the Wayne home of Hamilton's nephew., who police informants also said was involved in the business. Officers raided all three last Friday.

Police found condoms on the floor of the bar; lounge manager's Bob Martin's guns and several ounces of marijuana in the house behind the lounge; and several more ounces of marijuana, 300-500 videotapes and a 5-foot safe at a home in Wayne.

Martin, Hamilton's nephew, said hundreds of the tapes were children's tapes belonging to Hamilton's nephew, but Abdilla said he has found no children's tapes among those seized.

Abdilla said police asked Hamilton for the combination to the safe after he told them there was $1.4 million in the safe. When he refused to hand it over and police seized the safe.

Van Buren Township firefighters used the Jaws of Life to pry the safe open the next day. What they found inside was more than $1.6 million in cash, stuffed into two black bags. Abdilla said Hamilton told him the money had been earned at horse race tracks. He told television reporters the money came from his business.

Hamilton said this morning the cash is legitimately earned income he keeps on hand ever since he had a run-in with the IRS in 1990. He said that between his real estate investments, four bars and a shopping center, he earns $2 million-$3 million a year. He said he paid taxes on the money.

He also said Van Buren Township police aren't after any evidence about the man's death.

Hamilton said police are after tapes they believe exist that show police officers at the bar in the off-hours, doing things that could get them fired. He said Martin drunkenly told an intoxicated, off-duty officer several weeks ago that such tapes existed. Hamilton said they don't.

He said the search warrant made no mention of the man's death.

Hamilton and the township have been battling over a new ordinance that forbids topless dancing in a bar that serves liquor, and he said police are using this death to try another way to close him down.

As proof there's nothing wrong at the bar, he said, with the search warrants, "there were 20 police in there, not one found anything to write a ticket for."

Martin denied Tuesday that there was any delay in calling for help. He said there was a 35-minute delay before an ambulance arrived after the call.

Huron Valley Ambulance spokesman Rob Dormire said paramedics were on the scene 10 minutes after the call came in at 5:05 p.m. They performed CPR on the man for 25 minutes, but could not revive him.

Martin also said Hamilton, of Northville, makes too much money legally at Leggs and three other lounges he owns to risk the business on drug dealing and prostitution.

Martin pointed at signs posted on the doors warning patrons against drug use at the bar, and said the estimated 1,200 dancers whose contracts are on file with the bar include signed agreements that they won't sell sex there.

The private lap-dance rooms are monitored by video camera for the safety of the women, Martin said, but he denied they are videotaped. He denied Abdilla's statement that the rooms have mattresses, but Elg said the mattresses appear on at least some of the confiscated tapes.

Martin also said cameras monitor the cash registers and the parking lots, for security reasons. He said the strobe light in the main bar is activated by the club DJ with a remote-control device if there is trouble in the parking lot as he walks dancers to their cars. He denied there are warning strobes in the private dance rooms.

Neither Hamilton nor his attorney returned calls from The News Tuesday.

Elg said police have not yet found a tape of what happened inside the lounge on the day the man died.

[From The Ann Arbor News, 8 May 2002]