BUMPING AND GRINDING TO A HALT IN WALDORF

July 14, 2024

It's a slow night at Shooters, and inside, beyond the dark paint and worn carpet of the nightclub's entryway, the dancers nearly outnumber the handful of customers. Up on stage, a paunchy blonde, naked but for high heels and one stocking, is moving to jukebox music.

Nonalcoholic beer is the nearest thing to a drink that the house has to offer; desultory clapping is the closest thing to applause that the women hear at the end of their brief routines.

The Charles County go-go scene just isn't what it used to be.

Two arson fires, a murder, police raids and a legal onslaught have dimmed what luster once was claimed by clubs where hard-luck dancers displayed their all -- and sometimes did their all -- for a clientele that ranged from the meekly curious to undercover police officers to swaggering motorcycle gang members.

In the latest development, a Charles County grand jury alleged last week that the owner of Scandals, a defunct Waldorf club, and a co-conspirator enlisted two others to torch a rival club in 1992.

Tendrils from the case extend to Prince George's and Montgomery counties and possibly farther: The FBI says it is investigating, although it will not provide details.

Figuring in the new case and its predecessors are a former Prince George's police officer accused of twice trying to kill a Bethesda businessman; dancers with names such as Diamond, Snowie and Bam Bam; the former leader of the Phantoms, a Southern Maryland-based motorcycle gang; and an Italian immigrant given to weightlifting who is serving time for assaulting a dancer.

"It's complicated, and the magnitude is bigger than anything I've seen coming from down there, and I've been around here for 30 years," said Victor Houlon, of New Carroltown, an attorney for one of the defendants.

At the heart of the case are three nightclubs in Waldorf, a town known decades ago as a rough-edged haven for then-legal slot machines but one now rapidly transforming into a standardized suburb, a place marked by undistinguished tract housing, strip development and the inevitable shopping mall.

One of the clubs was Scandals, a dimly lighted place where dancers would permit customers to fondle their breasts and sometimes performed sex acts with them, according to Charles County police reports.

The club was a headache, with fights, drug violations and drinking infractions, said county and state police.

"A multitude of problems," said a county investigator who asked not to be named. "I know I didn't want to go in there to answer calls. You never know who's going to be in there or what's going to happen. It's just nothing but trouble."

Police raided Scandals in July 1993 and later brought charges against a number of people, including Marcello Buglisi, 33, described as the club's owner, and Ray A. Evans, an 18-year Prince George's police veteran who prosecutors said managed the club.

Buglisi was convicted last year of assaulting one of his dancers with intent to rob and was sentenced to four years in prison. The conviction arose from an argument with a dancer, apparently over a $25 "fine" Buglisi was seeking to extract, that ended with Buglisi pulling a pistol-grip, short-barrel shotgun from behind his desk, according to trial testimony.

The practice of levying fines, which appeared to have been common in Scandals, stemmed from the economics of the workplace. Dancers averaged $100 to $200 in earnings each night, solely from tips. There was no pay from the house, leaving the so-called fines as one of management's few influences over workers. Offenses included not wearing high heels on stage and failing to play the jukebox.

Evans, 39, the former police officer, was convicted of a "bawdy house" violation for his role at the club and is serving a six-month sentence in Charles County. Once that term is over, he is to be handed over to Montgomery County authorities, who have accused him of twice trying to kill Marvin Greenfield, who was shot at while traveling on Interstate 270 and again at the bottom of his driveway in Bethesda.

While undercover police were posing as customers at Scandals, its local rival, the Playhouse, was operating several miles away, on Route 5 along the outskirts of Waldorf. At least it was until November 1992, when it was destroyed in a fire that investigators laid to arson.

Indicted last week in the blaze, which injured nobody but caused $200,000 in damage, were Buglisi, now in a Hagerstown prison; Daniel W. Nucci, 39, of Crofton; Robert M. Kight, 45, also of Crofton; and John C. Fama, 31, of Camp Springs.

The Charles County indictments allege that Buglisi and Nucci "procured" Fama and Kight to torch the Playhouse. In telephone interviews, lawyers for Fama and Nucci said their clients were innocent. Kight could not be found for comment, and Buglisi's attorney did not return a call.

Authorities, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation, are tight-lipped about why the Playhouse was torched. But one person is not reticent about a possible motive.

"They wanted the business, that's why," said Peter J. Doukas, of Cobb Island, owner of the building that housed the Playhouse. "Our place was really rolling; it was the most popular around. The other place wasn't going so well."

Another defendant named in the indictments handed up Monday was Clyde D. Studds, of La Plata, the owner of Shooters and a business partner of Buglisi. Studds was not mentioned in connection with arson, but he was indicted on allegations that he lied about his relationship with Buglisi during a trial last year.

Studds, 54, is appealing a previous perjury conviction. In an interview last week, he maintained that he is innocent of both charges.

Studds acknowledged a complex business relationship with Buglisi. But he denied any hand in the troubled Scandals club, which Buglisi ran and which closed last year after Buglisi went to prison.

Studds, however, is no stranger to the perils of what he calls the go-go business. In May 1990, his long-standing Waldorf club, Reb's Fireplace Lounge, was burned to a hulk. William M. "Buster" Pruitt, head of the Phantoms motorcycle club, was convicted of arson.

Studds blames overzealous prosecutors and old-fashioned prejudice for the troubles that have befallen him and his partner, Buglisi, an Italian immigrant.

"Here's this Italian guy that's kind of flashy. So the first thing {people think is} he belongs to organized crime, he belongs to the Mafia," Studds said from a booth one recent night at Shooters as his dancers went through their paces.

Other troubles dogged Scandals and its owner. In February 1993, the club's night watchman was slain and $4,000 was taken from a floor safe. A Calvert County youth was convicted.

Ten months after that slaying, Buglisi was robbed at his home in Waldorf by three masked men who pistol-whipped him, leaving wounds that required 19 stitches. The attack jolted his quiet suburban neighborhood, neighbors said.

They recalled a quiet neighbor, one who could be seen in his yard playing with his five children or in his garage lifting weights.

Studds may face further legal problems in the form of pending legislation in the General Assembly that would ban nudity in public places in Charles County.

Another single-county law last year banned alcohol in Charles County clubs with nudity, and today Shooters, apparently the only nude club left in the county, is what is called a "juice bar," taking $15 at the door and serving non-beers, at $4.50 a pop, and other mild beverages.

Studds says he thinks the whole thing -- nudity on the one hand and efforts to proscribe it on the other -- has gone too far.

"I never wanted nude dancers in this county whatsoever," he said. "I have no other choice. I gotta have a gimmick to get them to come in here. If tomorrow they say, Clyde, here's your liquor license,' I say, Girls, put your bottoms on. We're going topless.' " CAPTION: Shooter's owner says he would ditch nude dancing if officials allowed him to have a liquor license. CAPTION: Shooters, in Waldorf, is apparently the only nude club left in Charles County; it is prohibited from serving alcohol.

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