A lawyer for the strip club at which a federal judge is accused of buying illegal drugs and sex voiced concern Wednesday that federal investigators permitted their informant to commit illegal acts at the club.
Aubrey Villines, the lawyer for the Goldrush Showbar, said the illegal acts could put the club's license at risk.
"We have real concerns that they knew there was a felon in our club," he said. "We're trying to get to the bottom of this to make sure we don't have a felon in our club."
The FBI arrested senior U.S. District Court Judge Jack T. Camp Jr. on Friday on gun and drug charges. The judge was involved with an exotic dancer whom he had met last spring at the Goldrush Showbar and paid her for sex and bought cocaine and narcotic painkillers for her and from her, according to an FBI affidavit. The dancer also worked at another bar, Follies.
A day manager at Follies said the club had dismissed the dancer who managers believed was the one identified only by a code-name in the affidavit. She was dismissed for unrelated reasons, said Jim Reno, the Follies manager.
"It wasn't anything drug (or sex) related," he said. "It's been several weeks since she has been here."
The 67-year-old Camp, who had retired but still heard cases on a part-time basis, also faces charges that he brought two pistols to a drug transaction with an undercover federal agent in the parking lot of the Velvet Room on Chamblee Tucker Road near Doraville. FBI agents reported Camp had two loaded pistols and one was cocked when they arrested him minutes after the transaction.
Laura Sweeney, spokeswoman for the Justice Department in Washington D.C., which oversaw the investigation, declined to comment on Villines concerns. The affidavit does not make it clear when the informant began talking to investigators or how involved they were with her activities with Camp. However, it says she recorded some of her conversations with Camp at the FBI's direction.
Villines noted that Atlanta Police conduct background checks on all club employees, including dancers, before issuing them permits to work at the club. He said he was concerned that the informant, who reputedly had a felony conviction, had slipped through the screening process.
Atlanta Police spokesman Carlos Campos said the department only checks for state convictions. Also, a dancer can still get a permit if the conviction is more than three years old, he said.
But the club could lose its license if it knew about the federal conviction but didn't report it to the Atlanta police, Campos said.
Reno, the Follies manager, said he doubts his bar or Goldrush Showbar will face any licensing issues. He said police normally would revoke a license only if management was ignoring illegal behavior.
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