Jury deliberations begin Monday in high-profile trial for Pharaoh’s strip club owner

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The fate of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club owner Peter Gerace Jr. will soon be in the hands of the jury.

Federal prosecutors and Gerace’s attorneys rested their cases Wednesday afternoon after nearly two months of testimony from more than 40 government witnesses.

Gerace’s indictment charged him with nine crimes, including conspiracies to commit drug and sex trafficking, maintaining Pharaoh’s as a drug-involved business, and bribing his childhood friend, former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni, over a 10-year span in exchange for sensitive information and cover from law enforcement investigations.

A jury convicted Bongiovanni in October of seven of 11 charges, including conspiracy to distribute drugs and defrauding the United States. He faces 20 years in prison. He was not convicted of the bribery charge.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Tripi, Nicholas Cooper and Casey Chalbeck put over a dozen former Pharaoh’s dancers on the stand, who described a club where drug use and drug dealing was obvious and widespread.

Most of the dancers became addicted to cocaine, pain pills and heroin. Prosecutors accused Gerace of dangling these drugs in front of the dancers to coerce them into sex acts with himself, his friends and wealthy patrons.

Some of the dancers with the worst addictions said they feared withdrawal symptoms and were willing to do anything to avoid them.

They said Gerace provided drugs and directed them to known drug dealers and wealthy patrons in the club. Prosecutors and federal agents said most of the dancers had to be subpoenaed to testify because they feared Gerace, his long list of connections with law enforcement, and his affiliation with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Tripi said in his nearly two-hour-long opening statement in November that Gerace’s business model at Pharaoh’s was to push financially strapped exotic dancers deep in the throes of addiction to gain control over them.

Gerace’s attorneys Eric Soehnlein and Mark Foti accused the government of using conjecture and speculation without direct evidence that Gerace was involved in organized crime with a host of people, including some of his childhood friends.

Soehnlein said in his opening statement that the dancers made conscious decisions to use drugs and engage in sex acts, and those choices can have consequences. But the government wouldn’t show any evidence of Gerace coercing them into any illegal acts.

Gerace decided Wednesday that he would not testify in his trial and his attorneys declined to put any witnesses on the stand.

On Thursday, jurors will hear up to seven hours of closing arguments before they begin their deliberations.

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