Word: kaplan
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...rises as steamy claims of other broken rules are revealed in the racketeering trial that is riveting this city with tales of prostitution, fraud, the Mafia, and the off-the-court lives of several high-profile NBA stars. At the center of the trial is Gold Club owner Steven Kaplan, who has been indicted along with 16 others, including one former and one active Atlanta police officer and two dancers named "Diva" and "Frederique." Each is charged with enriching a criminal enterprise run by Kaplan. He, in turn, according to prosecutors, paid the Mafia's Gambino family for protection. Charges...
...federal racketeering trial is expected to last 12 weeks, just like a visiting summer show. Kaplan, a pale, balding, pug-nosed 41-year-old with increasingly dark circles around his eyes, sits attentively in court as a cast of witnesses describe the shadier side of what he and his defense lawyers insist is a legitimate business. John Givens, an admitted mobster turned government witness, recently told of how he once sliced off a man's ear and slit another's nostrils to insert lit cigars...
...When testimony turned to oral sex, orgies and lesbian sex shows, a flushed bailiff joked that the thermostat might need adjusting. Former Gold Club manager Thomas Cicignano - nicknamed Ziggy - charged that Kaplan over several years "orchestrated" a series of sexual events involving professional athletes and other favored customers. With jurors and spectators leaning forward and journalists scribbling madly, Ziggy recounted a 1997 visit to the club by New York Knick Patrick Ewing and a couple of unnamed teammates. Kaplan took the players into a private room with "six to ten" dancers. "The girls were having a good time jumping...
...athletes challenge the veracity of Ziggy's testimony. Ziggy told the jury that in 1997, the Indiana Pacers stayed at the Swissotel in Atlanta. He says he and Kaplan took three entertainers - Yolanda, Kat, and Nikko - to the hotel. At Kaplan's direction, Ziggy knocked on doors and asked players if they wanted the women to come in. Mark Jackson said, "No, thank you. I'm married," Ziggy recalls. But he claims Reggie Miller took Nikko into his room and Antonio Davis requested two women. Both Miller and Davis deny this. A team spokesman says the team didn't even...
...wowed young audiences for Bruckheimer as director of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon. "I felt the time was right for him to make a spectacular movie," says Bruckheimer, who is known for his loyalty. "Michael is his generation's Spielberg or Lucas." (Pearl Harbor's costume designer, Michael Kaplan, is the same guy who cut up sweat shirts for Bruckheimer's 1983 Flashdance.) With screenwriter Randall Wallace (Braveheart), they took a cue from the Titanic playbook and composed a central fictional love story. Two strapping pilots (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett), friends since boyhood, fall for a hot nurse...