Sun, Mar 22, 2015

FLORENCE — Three Grand Strand area businessmen and a former Myrtle Beach police officer are facing charges in connection with federal racketeering, money-laundering, and drug trafficking-related crimes and appeared in U.S. District Court Thursday.

The four are charged in a seven-person indictment that involves millions of dollars fraudulently diverted from bankruptcy proceeding or “constituted proceeds from drug trafficking,” according to a press release from the U.S. District Attorneys Office in Northern California. The charges also carry maximum sentences that could add up to thousands of years for some of those charged.

Michael Rose, owner of the former gentleman’s club The Gold Club and Broadway at the Beach’s Rodeo Bar and Grill; Vladimir Handl, owner of Heat Ultra Lounge; Peter Scalise, owner of Zest restaurant, which burned in the Front Street fire in Georgetown in 2013; and David Gaither, a former Myrtle Beach police officer who was fired in 2009 following a report he exposed himself on the Intracoastal Waterway, all are among those charged and appeared in federal court Thursday to have their bonds set.

U.S. District Judge Kaymani West set an unsecured bail of $500,000 for Rose, Gaither and Scalise on Thursday in Florence. All three are expected to appear at 9:30 a.m. Monday in a San Francisco federal court in front of Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James. Handl did not have a receive a bond Thursday.

According to the indictment, Handl, Rose, Scalise, and Gaither conspired to conduct the affairs of a business through a pattern of racketeering involving money laundering, bank fraud, and drug trafficking.

Between 2011 through the present, the defendants knowingly accepted more than $2.3 million that they believed either had been fraudulently diverted from a bankruptcy court proceeding or constituted proceeds from drug trafficking, and then laundered the money through their businesses, including Rose’s The Gold Clubs, according to a press release issued by the U.S Attorney’s Office.

The indictment further alleges that as part of their laundering scheme, the defendants created fraudulent invoices, contracts, and other business records to make it appear that the money they received and “cleaned” was for legitimate business transactions, according to the release. The defendants also sought to acquire cocaine to sell, the release states.

Handl, Rose, Scalise, Gaither, and PML Clubs, Inc. — the parent of The Gold Clubs, all are charged with racketeering conspiracy, while Handl, Rose, Scalise, and PML Clubs, Inc., also are charged with substantive racketeering.

Handl, Rose, Scalise, and PML Clubs, Inc., are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, and Handl and Scalise are each charged with 118 counts of substantive money laundering, according to U.S. District Attorneys Office in Northern California.

Rose and PML Clubs, Inc., are each charged with 105 counts of substantive money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The U.S attorney’s office said the three other defendants also were arrested — Richard Leyland, of Pennsylvania, and Edwin Hetherton and Paul Fink, both of California, according to the U.S Attorney’s office.

Leyland and Hetherton also charged with a money laundering. Leyland is charged with four counts of substantive money laundering and Hetherton is changed with three counts of substantive money laundering. Both Leyland and Hetherton also are charged with theft of United States property. Details of their charges were not immediately available Thursday night.

Handl and Fink also are charged with conspiring to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.

If convicted, the corporate defendant PML Clubs, Inc., could face a maximum fine of $250,000 for each of the two racketeering-related counts, and $500,000 for each count of the 106 money laundering-related counts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The individual defendants face a maximum 20-year term of imprisonment for each racketeering-related count and each money laundering-related count. Further, the individual defendants face a maximum 10-year term of imprisonment for each theft of United States property count, and a maximum 20-year term of imprisonment for the conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.

If convicted, Handl faces a maximum of 2,440 years in prison, Rose faces a maximum of 2,160 years in prison, Scalise faces a maximum of 2,420 years, and Gaither faces 40 years.

Attorneys argued Thursday each man has strong ties to the area and are not flight risks — Scalise runs Zest, Gaither lived in Myrtle Beach for 15 years and Rose has more than 200 local employees among his businesses, and also takes care of his mother, his fiance, a pre-teen son, a 10-week-old baby and he is expecting another child.

Rose and Gaither had been released on bail early Thursday from the Dillon County Jail, where federal inmates are sometimes housed. The status of Scalise and Handl were not known Thursday.

In July 2009, Gaither lost his job as a Myrtle Beach police officer after he and another man exposed themselves in front of families on the Intracoastal Waterway in an unrelated incident, according to an incident report.

Rose has been embroiled in a battle with Horry County over The Gold Club and his second proposed business, The Gold Club 2, for several years now.

The case of whether to grant Horry County a motion for summary judgment in The Gold Club case is under advisement by Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks.