Posted on 09/17/2003 10:19:50 AM PDT by chance33_98
Cops Raid Couple-Swapping Sex Club
More Arrests Expected
POSTED: 11:46 a.m. EDT September 17, 2003
BERLIN, Conn. -- A Berlin club featuring couple-swapping for the past eight months has been shut down by local authorities.
Police said "Mingles," a swingers club, violated the town's ordinance on sexually oriented businesses.
Sheri Rahaim, 33, and Theodore Rahaim, 34, both of Plainville, were charged with 14 counts of violating the town's ordinance on sexually oriented businesses. William Buganski, 28, of Southington, the club's bouncer and food server, was charged with two counts, police said.
Officers took down the names of all patrons in the club during the raid at about 4 a.m. Saturday. More arrests are expected, including the club's owners, whom police would not identify.
Swapping married partners is not illegal, but charging a fee for admission is. The club charged $60 per couple, police said.
Mingles also violated a Berlin ordinance by operating without a license and allowing sex acts, officials said. The bring-your-own-booze club allowed alcohol, featured enclosed booths and rooms, and lacked outdoor signs that identified it as a swingers club for adults only. All are violations of Berlin's ordinance.
Police were alerted after several nearby businesses reported that the parking lot at what appeared to be a vacant building was filled with cars at night, Capt. Larry Schubert said. The investigation was helped by information about the club on the Internet.
Police were surprised to learn of the club, Schubert said.
"We've had our dance clubs out on the highway, but nothing of this nature before," he said.
A handwritten sign on Mingles' door says the club is "closed due to an unexpected emergency."
Think about the Wash DC police competence as demonstrated my Moose and you won't have any trouble believing it.
To us here in Washington State, Connecticut is "over there...":)
Dang gummint! They just can't leave free trade alone. Maybe if there were a tax....
Swingers arrested in '99 raids sue Broward sheriff, deputies
February 16 2003
Embarrassed swingers have swung back with federal lawsuits four years after the Broward County Sheriff's Office's notorious raids on their clubs.
Eight people arrested in the swingers' club busts in 1999 at Athena's Forum in Pompano Beach and Trapeze II near Tamarac have filed four separate lawsuits against either the Sheriff's Office or the deputies who arrested them.
They argue they never should have been arrested and have endured humiliation and stress after the raids exposed their private lives.Among those suing are a Fort Lauderdale police officer and a former Deerfield High School math teacher who resigned rather than fight the Broward School Board to keep her job.
Each plaintiff had been charged with a misdemeanor count of lewdness, but their cases were either dropped by the Broward State Attorney's Office or dismissed by a judge.
Last week marked the end of the four-year window in which people arrested in the Feb. 7, 1999, Trapeze II raid could sue. The statute of limitations for filing suit over the Athena's Forum bust ran out last month. Trapeze II is still in business as a swingers club, while Athena's Forum has since been through several changes and bills itself as a private club.
The swingers club crackdown attracted national media attention, becoming titillating fodder for daytime talk shows. More than 50 people were arrested -- many either married or part of a couple -- and had paid fees to join the clubs so they could either watch or take part in consensual sex.
The clubs were raided after undercover deputies staked out the establishments following reports of illicit sexual activity. Deputies said they raided Trapeze II because of anonymous complaints from neighbors. Most of the criminal cases didn't stand up. At least five judges ruled that for prosecutors to secure convictions on the lewdness charges, they needed to prove that someone other than police officers were offended by the sex acts inside the clubs.
Two married couples -- Raymon and Lynette Hall and Allen and Mary Ann Silvers -- filed separate lawsuits last week over the Trapeze II raid. They admitted they had sex in the club's back room, but argued that what they did was legal. Raymon Hall is a Fort Lauderdale police officer; his wife has worked as a police dispatcher.
After prosecutors dropped about 20 of the swingers club cases in July 2000, the Halls said their arrests had exposed a part of their lives they wanted to keep confidential from family, friends and colleagues.
"I got arrested for making love to my wife in private, behind closed doors in front of no one who was offended but [sheriff's] deputies," Raymon Hall said. "We have no private life anymore. [The Sheriff's Office] made sure of that."
Two other couples arrested on Jan. 17, 1999, at Athena's Forum have filed lawsuits in which they argue they weren't having sex at the club before the raid.
Yeah, it operates for 8 months. The parking lot is full and police had no idea it was there.
The way the waiter served donuts should have made them suspicious.
Darn. Bad timing. I just warned the little woman last night while she was washing dishes, that if she didn't stop acting like the Worlds Fair, (keeps getting bigger and better every year), and loose 20 pounds by next week, I was going to look for a place like this. :o
If I went to one of these club and didn't get laid, I'd sue too.
With credit to George Carlin.
So they can change it to a cover charge and they're OK?
I think that's what they were doing- the authorities are probably just trying to use every technicality they can find to try and shut this place down. At the end of the day, this is about other people dissaproving of how this group of consenting adults chooses to have a good time.
You've a point, there.
Or if the spouse was swapped for an Indian here on an H-1B. (If you don't allow H-1B swapping, the marriage will just be outsourced anyway).
Hmmm..., or maybe how the barmaid was handling the customers' tips....
I told my wife that when she reached 40 I was going to trade her in for 2 twenties. She told me that I wasn't even wired for one 10.
LOL!! That's excellent!
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