I WAS $TRIPPED OFF
'Drugged & robbed' in 'Hustlers'-style scam at M'hatta clubs: suit
A New Jersey man was taken for thousands of dollars after being drugged at a Manhattan strip club in a caper reminiscent of the recent Jennifer Lopez film “Hustlers,” according to a $1 million lawsuit.
Scott White claims he had a few drinks at Hoops Cabaret and Sports Bar on West 33rd Street at about 9 p.m. on Sept. 11, but as he was leaving, a stranger came up asking him to go to Vivid Cabaret on West 37th Street.
White declined, but the next thing he knew, he was in the guy’s car on the way to the jiggle joint, he said.
“I leave and this is where it gets fuzzy. I believe he drugged me,” White told The Post.
Fast-forward to the next day, when White realized he had blown more than $6,000 the night before — despite remembering nothing of the second stop.
The 41-year-old tech consultant says he only later pieced together what happened through credit-card receipts and by speaking with a manager, who told him the “driver was compensated to bring patrons there and they [drivers] get a 10 percent cut,” White said.
“I told him what happened and he offered to give me a free drink,” he said.
He showed the manager the names of two dancers to whom he had apparently “transferred” money, and the manager confirmed they worked at the club, adding, “If it happens again I’ll definitely get rid of them,” White recounted.
White said he didn’t report the incident to police because he hoped to work it out with the clubs, but “nobody was really listening to me.”
“They didn’t care,” he said. “There is incentive to drug [patrons], and to bus them around from place to place and take things from them.”
White added that this could be happening to others.
And it has — New Jersey cardiologist Dr. Zyad Kivarkis Younan racked up a $135,000 bill from notorious Manhattan flesh palace Scores in November 2013 after he was drugged by dancers there.
That tale inspired this year’s “Hustlers,” based on a true story that follows a group of exotic dancers who fleece club patrons.
White is suing the strip clubs’ owner, RCI Management Services, as well as nearly two dozen John and Jane Does, for $1 million.
But RCI said White was on surveillance video at Vivid and did not appear drugged.
“We don’t normally comment on litigation, but in this case, we’d like you to understand the facts,” said company rep Ed Anakar, noting RCI has surveillance footage of White signing a $574 tab at Hoops and a $5,912 bill at Vivid.
“In the video, Mr. White is coherent and there is no indication that he is impaired in any manner.
“The tape also shows him shaking the manager’s hand and talking to another person with him.
“If he was drugged, as he claims, the NYPD has yet to come to us asking for the videotape, even though Mr. White’s visit occurred more than two months ago.”