TAMPA — from www.tampabay.com – The mother of a 16-year-old girl who ran away from home and worked as an adult dancer has filed a lawsuit against the club and a magazine that printed bikini-clad images of her.

Valorie Duran filed a lawsuit this month against Emperors Gentlemen’s Club and Paul Allen [pictured], publisher of Nightmoves, a magazine about the adult industry.

“I don’t think there is any legal defense at all,” said Joe Bryant, Duran’s attorney.

Luke Lirot, who has represented adult business owners and dancers, is Allen’s attorney.

“I think that any rush to judgment that any of the defendants did anything wrong would be an error,” Lirot said.

According to the suit, Duran’s daughter ran away Oct. 13. Soon after, Duran filed a missing person report with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

During an unrelated investigation at Emperors on Adamo Drive in January, an undercover officer recognized the teen. Photos of her also appeared in a January issue of Nightmoves promoting live dancing at the club.

Officers returned the girl to her mother. “Then she promptly ran away,” Bryant said.

She had been missing for more than five months until a recent phone call home. She turned herself in to the Los Angeles police, Bryant said. She will be sent back to Florida.

Lirot said that the teen showed an identification card to the magazine indicating she was 18.

“The release was signed by the same name appearing on the ID,” Lirot said. “The photograph certainly looks to be the young lady photographed.”

The suit seeks more than $15,000. Bryant said, though, the court could award up to $150,000 under a state law dealing with exploitation of minors.

“It’s unfortunate this has caused such a deep tragedy, but I don’t think it’s my client’s responsibility for her upbringing or the nature of her character,” Lirot said.

TAMPA – from www.myfoxtampabay.com – A Bay Area woman has filed a lawsuit against a Hillsborough County strip club, saying it allowed her underage, 16-year-old daughter to work there as a nude dancer.

The club named in the lawsuit is Emperors at 5718 East Adamo Drive.

A representative of the club denied the allegations.

The lawsuit alleges that the 16 year old was employed as a nude dancer at the club after running away from home last year.

Valorie Duran filed the lawsuit, and said her daughter was victimized, and she was shocked to see her in an ad for a Tampa strip club.

“There are places and people out there,” Duran says, “who will exploit your children and not blink an eye about it. And as a community, we have to do something to stop this.”

Duran’s lawsuit says an undercover sheriff’s deputy took the 16-year-old out of the club back in January because she was underage.

A manager at Emperors who would only identify himself as “Jim” said the club doesn’t hire 16 year olds. He said women can’t dance if they can’t prove they are over the age of 18. He showed an extensive employment application.

“Copy of their ID goes right here, they fill out this whole friggin’ packet, right down to a W-9 bro, it’s all there,” the manager said.

Duran and her lawyers just found out that the runaway daughter is safely in the hands of Los Angeles Police. She’s spent five months searching the internet, desperate for word.

“I did not know where she was, and that’s the worst feeling any parent can go through in the world, it’s just not knowing that your child is safe, especially when it’s a young girl,” Duran said.

Attorney Greg Jones is handling a part of the lawsuit aimed at Night Moves, a Tampa Adult Entertainment Magazine.

“They put her in an ad,” Jones says, “in the embrace of somebody at least three times her age, and they promised customers of the ad that they would allow them in the back of the club for more intimate time with this person and others like her.”

But Paul Allen [pictured], publisher of Night Moves, denies it.

“In my 24 years of doing Night Moves, my reputation precedes me. I’ve never been involved with minor ladies, and I’m not starting now,” Allen said.

The suit also goes after the club itself, charging sexual exploitation under a new state statute, according to Attorney Joe Bryant.

“I know what will stop it—when a defendant gets hit for a $150,000-plus judgment,” Bryant said.

In the meantime, Duran says her daughter is being returned by Los Angeles Police to Tampa, where she faces an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court on a shoplifting charge. She wants to warn other parents.

“If it’s not my child, then it’s going to be someone else’s child,” she said.