Operator of Harvey strip club hit with federal tax charges

The owner of an infamous south suburban strip club has been charged with filing false tax returns for the business over a fiveyear period.

Alicia Arnold, 51, proprietor of Arnie’s Idle Hour, was charged in a six-count federal indictment with filing false tax returns from 2012 to 2017 that vastly understated the club’s income.

Arnold, formerly of Homer Glen, now lives in Las Vegas, records show. She’s scheduled to appear via teleconference for an arraignment at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Wednesday.

Lawyer David Chesnoff said Arnold intends to “vigorously

fight” the charges, which were made public Monday, and had no further comment.

Arnie’s Idle Hour, 14701 S. Wood St., which billed itself as the “No. 1 Strip Club on the South Side,” was at the center of a bombshell federal corruption investigation in Harvey that allegedly involved relatives of then-Mayor Eric Kellogg.

According to a criminal complaint filed in 2019, the club’s owner had been making biweekly payments of $3,000 and later $6,000 to Kellogg’s relatives for years to protect a prostitution racket being run out of the business.

Employees would use code words such as “pizza” money and “rent” money to refer to the regular payoffs, authorities alleged.

Rommell Kellogg, the mayor’s brother, and Corey Johnson, the mayor’s cousin, were charged in connection with the alleged strip club shakedown, which allegedly continued until at least 2018.

The mayor’s brother and cousin are scheduled to go on trial in October, records show. Arnold was not named in those charges.

Controversy continued to dog the club in 2019 when the son of a Harvey police officer was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting inside and in the parking lot of the establishment, which had changed its name to Boogie Nights.