Strip club a drug house, police say
The owner of the Oklahoma City strip club Midway Island is being accused by police of allowing dancers there to openly sell cocaine, marijuana and other illegal drugs.
Heather Lane Billings, 43, was being sought Monday on a complaint of maintaining a drug house.
Police raided the strip club Friday, seizing property there and arresting two managers.
The undercover investigation of the club at 5215 NW 10 began in August 2016, according to a court affidavit. Police officers, posing as patrons, went inside close to 20 times.
Undercover officers during some visits purchased cocaine and marijuana from dancers, according to the affidavit.
A police informant sent into the club in March reported observing dancers “snorting lines of a white powdery substance, believed to be cocaine, near the main stage,” according to the affidavit. A manager at the bar “simply shrugged his shoulders in an act of approval.”
Dancers at times also offered to perform sex acts for pay, according to the affidavit. One dancer in January offered to have sex with two people “in exchange for $1,000.”
“In conversation with ... dancers, general conversation would quickly turn to the topic of sex,” a police detective wrote in the affidavit. “This may not be uncommon in a licensed gentleman’s club.
“However, the conversation progressing to an offer of a prostitution date is not a common occurrence.”
Police got an arrest warrant for Billings on Friday, two days after she and a partner were awarded $1 million in a civil case over another strip club, Fantasy Island, in Del City.
The timing of the issuance of the arrest warrant was a coincidence, authorities said.
In the civil case over Fantasy Island, jurors decided the Del City Urban Renewal Authority must pay $1,008,383 for taking the property by eminent domain for redevelopment purposes. The authority had wanted to pay only $497,928 for the land along Interstate 40 in Del City.
The club itself has been demolished.
Billings is the wife of Michael Billings, a former attorney who is serving 14 years in federal prison for repeated trips to Peru to have sex with children. He turned over his interest in Fantasy Island and Midway Island to his wife in 2015.
Her attorney in the civil case said Monday he could not comment at this time on the accusations about Midway Island.
The police detective who wrote the affidavit seeking Heather Billings’ arrest described the club
as a “drug house” under the law and called the conduct there pervasive and ongoing.
The detective wrote undercover officers during the Midway Island investigation “have been offered sexual acts in exchange for money, observed sexual acts being performed in the club, had sexual acts attempted on them and have been sold illegal narcotics.”
“The business has been notified both informally and formally of the violations occurring on their premise,” the detective wrote. “Immediately following each notice, the employees, contracted employees, agents and licensee of Midway Island have conducted themselves within accordance of the law until they were comfortable they were not being monitored by law enforcement.
“However, the illegal activity always returned.”