Judge orders area strip club to close

DAYTON — The Harem, a Dayton adult entertainment club raided in September, has been ordered to close by a Montgomery County judge.

Judge Dennis Adkins granted a Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office injunction that the business close for 12 month because it’s considered a public nuisance. The local sheriff’s office will block off the business’ parking lot.

The prosecutor requested the injunction after a 9-month investigation alleged several acts of drug sales and soliciting for prostitution.

RELATED: The Harem shot down, 11 indicted on sex, drug, food stamp charges

The Harem strip club, located at 5825 N. Dixie Dr., was raided at the end of September, and 11 people were indicted on sex, drugs and food stamp charges.

During hearing Monday, an Ohio Investigative Unit enforcement agent detailed how he was propositioned by a dancer during an investigation of the business. In addition a dancer offered to go to a more private area and perform a specific sex act that other smaller girls didn’t want to do, the agent testified.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Michael Murray noted that most of the drugs and prostitution charges were against four women and that a couple of them were terminated during the January-September 2017 time frame of the investigation.

RELATED: What we know now about 3 Harrison Twp. strip clubs raided in drugs, sex crimes investigation

Many of Murray’s questions to the agent were about whether he or the other undercover agent ever made The Harem’s management aware of the illegal activity.

The prosecution rested just before 11 a.m. Monday. The defense called its first witness — Buckeye Association of Club Executives executive director Greg Flaig — at 11:20 a.m.

Over a defense objection, Adkins said he would give judicial notice to the criminal indictment against the club’s personnel. Adkins also denied a defense motion for a directed verdict in favor of the club.

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Heck’s office said criminal activity at the business at 5825 North Dixie Drive in Harrison Twp. between January and September 2017 included prostitution, drug trafficking and trading of food stamps for drugs or sex.

Prosecutors said undercover agents witnessed multiple liquor violations, prostitution, and felony drug trafficking, including marijuana, methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, carfentanil and Oxycodone.