NY- Their voices dripping with disgust, two disillusioned lap dancers from a busted midtown strip club described the owner as a pervert who took a cut when he caught his employees having sex with clients.
They said lawyer Lou Posner merely paid lip service to the “No Sex” signs posted in the velvet environs of the Hot Lap Dance Club, which featured private booths perfect for such shenanigans.
“If Lou caught the girls having sex in the private room, he’d fine the girls,” one of the dancers said as Posner and his wife, Betty, were held on prostitution and money-laundering charges. “Isn’t that pimping?”
Vice cops raided the W. 38th St. loft last week, arresting the Posners and 19 others, including porn star Alexia Moore.
As the couple tried to come up with $150,000 bail each, the two dancers gave a revealing glimpse of the jiggle joint’s inner workings.
College students by day, they insisted they never had sex at the 7,000-square-foot club, but said Posner pressured his employees for sex.
“He tried to get the girls to do rooms with him,” said one dancer, a tall, thin brunette in a pencil skirt and tailored blouse.
She was referring to the club’s half-dozen curtained cubicles, each with a narrow bed, desk and a box of tissues.
There were also two suites – the Leopard Room and the Lavender Room – with king-sized beds and steel doors for bachelor parties and interludes with multiple girls.
Posner staged elaborate lesbian sex shows inside an open lounge area, stroking the women’s hair and handing them sex toys as the shows progressed, the women said.
“He treated the girls as if they were property,” said the other dancer, a New Jersey resident in a tube top and skirt.
“It was awful,” said her friend, who worked at the club for four months.
The pair estimated that 120 women worked there. Some were Americans who operated as independent contractors and paid $80 a night in “house fees;” others were Russians who worked to pay off debts to their handlers.
The two dancers said the house fees were waived if the girls agreed to go to a private room with Posner, who allegedly laundered his ill-gotten profits through a nonprofit voter registration organization.
“He had no respect for us,” said one of the women, a New Jersey resident who estimated she earned $1,000 a night giving lap dances to the “suit and tie guys.”
As evidence, her colleague pulled out her BlackBerry and read a July 14 e-mail she said was from Posner that criticized the quality of the club’s lap dancing.
“Managers and the more experienced lap dancers need to critique the newer dancers on the art of a lap dance,” the e-mail said. “Dancers should never refuse to give a lap dance to an owner or manager.”
At Posner’s E. 48th St. apartment building, where rents hit $10,000 a month, he didn’t get rave reviews, either. “He looked like a bum, always dressed sloppy,” said one building source. “He didn’t have a friend here, and never said thank you to any of the help.”