DEA Agents Illegally Ran Strip Club: Prosecutors

David Polos of West Nyack, until recently an Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge with the Drug Enforcement Administration, is accused of lying to his bosses about running a strip club in South Hackensack, NJ.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara alleged Wednesday that Polos and Glen Glover, a DEA Information Technology Specialist, operated the Twins Plus Go-Go Lounge on the side—sometimes during their agency work hours. Glover was a part owner and Polos had an ownership stake in the club.

Their involvement was constant. Glover once chastised a bouncer at the club for being too aggressive about checking the stalls and interrupting lap dances, according to the complaint. Polos would text other club managers if he needed help covering all or part of his work shift—at one point joking about bringing President Obama, who was visiting New York, over to check out some of the dancers.

They are accused of lying on national security forms they signed as part of background checks. The form requires disclosure of outside jobs—in part due to concerns about certain types of employment, including proximity to crime and persons involved in crime.

“David Polos and Glen Glover had important and sensitive law enforcement jobs with the DEA,” Bharara said in a press release. “As alleged in the Complaint, they also had other secret jobs, which they concealed from DEA in order to maintain their national security clearance, betraying the oaths they had taken and creating needless risk for the agency they worked for.”

Officials said the club featured scantily clad and sometimes topless women dancers and offered private stalls for what were supposed to be limited-contact dances between dancers and their patrons. Many of the dancers—who at times engaged in sexual acts with club patrons and staff—were undocumented immigrants.

Glover and Polos worked regular shifts, officials alleged. They also hired, fired, and paid bartenders, dancers, and bouncers; advertised the club in local periodicals; manned a back office available only to employees; remotely monitored video camera feed from the club when not present; and generally tended to various club-related matters—sometimes during DEA work hours.

They frequently called the club to comment on what they were watching, according to the complaint.

Polos loaned bail money to one dancer—who was allowed to work double shifts to pay back the smugglers who brought her to the States from Brazil—after she was arrested during an altercation with someone from a local police department outside of Twins Plus.

According to the complaint, Polos “used his status as a law enforcement officer to facilitate the club’s operations, including displaying his firearm in connection with a dispute among those operating the club.”

Polos had been with the DEA for 20 years. He supervised the New York Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Strike Force. According to his Linked In page, he is a graduate of Clarkstown High School South and St. Thomas Aquinas College.

Polos, 51, and Glover, 45, of Lyndhurst, NJ, are each charged with one count of making false statements, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The two surrendered to the FBI in Manhattan this morning, and are scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox in Manhattan federal court later today.

Bharara praised the investigative work of the FBI and DOJ-OIG. He also thanked the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division for its assistance.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Martin S. Bell and Andrew D. Goldstein are in charge of the prosecution.

PHOTO: screengrab from Twins Plus Go Go Lounge website