[imagesource: Facebook / Sapphire New York]

Margaret O’Sullivan, a 19-year-old stripper working as Heidi at a joint that bills itself as New York City’s “finest strip club”, says the dark underbelly of the club caused her to have a “full mental breakdown”.

She is one of two former dancers named as plaintiffs in a $25 million class action suit filed against Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club and its owners by the labour attorneys Jon Norinsberg and Bennitta Joseph.

In the lawsuit, O’Sullivan details how she “was in pieces” after the “host”, Gino, forced her into a private room with a “loyal customer,” where she was expected to give him a blowjob or risk losing her job.

“I remember being scared,” O’Sullivan told The Daily Beast. “I was like, ‘Gino’s going to get mad at me.’”

This work situation ultimately left her hospitalised, one that the club management regularly turned a blind eye to, according to the lawsuit.

The club gave its hosts full impunity to do as they pleased, and they in turn “behaved like Gods”, allegedly manipulating dancers, pushing them to take drugs, drink to excess, and prostitute themselves, often against their better judgment:

If a performer resisted, she risked “retaliation, through threats, intimidation and physical assault”—if she wasn’t fired or frozen out first. Some, like O’Sullivan, crumbled under the pressure, with her mental health deteriorating to the point of collapse.

“It was the most evil place I could imagine being in,” O’Sullivan said.

While the attorney representing Sapphire, Jeff Kimmel, called the suit “a litany of false allegations solely designed to garner publicity”, Joseph and Norinsberg have asserted that their investigation had revealed the club’s “grave indifference to the safety and well-being” of its dancers:

“We are confident the truth will come to light through litigation, and that Sapphire will be held fully accountable for their unlawful and abhorrent conduct,” they added.

As the case unfolds, a dozen other former dancers have reached out to Joseph and Norinsberg, and since the club employs “8,000 lovely ladies,” there could very well be thousands of other “victims” of the club’s alleged misconduct.

Franchise managing partner Peter Feinstein described the club as a place for men “to escape and get away for a few hours, and then go back home and be a dad and a good husband”:

With velveted walls, bottle service, pounding music, and the chance to ogle celebrity clientele—which, prior to the pandemic, reportedly included the likes of Busta Rhymes, Travis Scott, Ice-T, and Rob Kardashian—Sapphire New York proved exceedingly popular with tourists and locals alike, some of whom were willing to spend a small fortune in a single night.

All blissfully unaware (or compliant) of the darker underworkings of the club.

In a separate Nevada case, three women alleged they had been sex trafficked through Sapphire, as well as several other clubs and businesses:

The judge wrote that one of the women, a Jane Doe, had “plausibly” alleged the club was “facilitating sexual abuse,” acknowledging her assertion that management could “‘see and hear all that occurred’” within its walls.

O’Sullivan also revealed how Gino took her “under his wing”, offering kindness and friendship as she tried to adjust to the environment and the other dancers until eventually, he tested her and her willingness to be “one of the good girls” and do what he asked her to do, AKA service men in the private rooms.

Slowly but surely, O’Sullivan started to unravel, disassociating and smoking marijuana every day to cope to the extent that she developed stomach problems and suicidal ideation.

Finally, she left one day and immediately checked herself into an in-patient mental health facility and has been “doing pretty good” since.

Elena, the female security guard, is also a plaintiff in the case, agreeing that  “Gino is…. a scumbag,” she said.

“He’s a creep. Of the hosts, Gino was the bottom of the barrel of them.”

She said she’s also involved in the lawsuit because she knows the truth and wants justice for the girls.

[source:dailybeast]