Secret Service agents seized one of the world’s most luxurious cars, a sleek 2017 Bentley Musanne that cost $175,590 used, from the Amherst home of a man who owns two adult video stores.
Federal authorities gave their first public explanation of why they took the vehicle 14 months ago in a document they recently filed in federal court.
According to prosecutors, David B. Scrivani – the owner of two local strip clubs and two adult video stores that show X-rated sex films – purchased the Bentley using money he illegally obtained from federal Covid-19 aid programs. No criminal charges have been filed against Scrivani, 65, but a document filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Clare Kane said the car was seized in connection with an ongoing investigation into money laundering, wire fraud and bank fraud.
Scrivani runs a company that “operates a lingerie store and two adult XXX-rated theaters which play movies of a pornographic or prurient sexual nature,” Kane said in court papers.
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Under the 2020 federal law that created the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, businesses that present entertainment of a “prurient sexual nature” are barred from receiving Covid-19 relief money, Kane stated.
Reached on his cellphone Thursday, Scrivani asked a Buffalo News reporter to contact one of his attorneys, Paul J. Cambria, a nationally recognized expert on legal issues surrounding freedom of speech.It’s not fair for the government to refuse coronavirus aid to adult entertainment businesses when the government has given hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to other businesses, Cambria and his associate, Justin D. Ginter, told The News.
“My client’s businesses have employees, and they pay taxes,” Cambria said. “When the government wants to collect money from these companies, they recognize them as legitimate businesses. When it comes time for the government to distribute money, they don’t recognize them. It’s a double standard. In the real world, the door should swing both ways.”
Scrivani, whose Bentley is still in the possession of federal agents, is not the only person in the adult entertainment world who has been fighting this legal battle.
“I’ve been involved in at least six of these cases in several different states. One of the cases involved 52 adult entertainment businesses,” said Brad Shafer, an attorney in Lansing, Mich. “The rulings we’ve had have been diverse. We’ve prevailed in some and lost others. I’ve been dealing with this issue since 2020.”
Many owners of adult entertainment businesses feel that the government has trampled on their First Amendment rights by singling them out to be barred from receiving Covid-19 relief funds, Cambria and Shafer said.
No one from the Small Business Administration, Secret Service or U.S. Attorney’s office in Buffalo was willing to speak with The News about Scrivani’s case.
Federal officials have maintained in court that banning adult education businesses from receiving the loans is not illegal and is not a violation of First Amendment rights.
The government ban discriminates against an $8 billion industry that includes thousands of strip clubs and more than 57,000 employees across the country, lawyers for strip clubs argued in a lawsuit in Flint, Mich.
The federal government created the Payroll Protection Program in 2020 to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in financial help to companies harmed by the Covid-19 pandemic. But the Small Business Administration prohibited certain businesses – including those presenting live shows “of a prurient sexual nature” – from participating in the program.
Court papers filed by prosecutors in Buffalo last month identify Scrivani as the owner of adult video stores in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, but do not mention that he also runs two strip clubs in the region. State Liquor Authority records list Scrivani as president of Tiffany’s Cabaret in Cheektowaga and NY Showgirls in the Town of Tonawanda. The News reported in 2011 that he had purchased Tiffany’s for $750,000.
The Scrivani companies that own the video stores were the ones that prosecutors say obtained the Covid relief loans.
His attorneys said Scrivani’s businesses employ about “50 to 70” people.
In court papers that Buffalo prosecutors filed last month, Kane and a Secret Service agent said two companies owned by Scrivani received $197,100 in Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster funding in March and April 2020.
Some of the government money was improperly “commingled” in Scrivani’s bank accounts with other money, and in June 2020, Scrivani used some of the commingled money to buy his $175,590 car from a Bentley dealer in North Carolina, Kane said in court papers.
When agents seized his car June 29, 2022, Scrivani told them he “didn’t want to go to jail” and offered to pay the money back, the prosecutor said in court papers.
“At this point, all the money (Scrivani) received from the government has either been paid back or accounted for as being used in the right way,” Ginter said.
Federal officials declined to comment on Ginter’s assertion.
2nd strip club owner charged
While the government’s seizure of Scrivani’s luxury car is not a criminal case, one local strip club owner does face criminal charges in a case involving federal Covid-19 relief funds.
In June, prosecutors filed felony charges of wire fraud against Peter Gerace Jr., owner of the Pharaohs Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga.
Gerace is accused of making false representations in loan documents about his criminal record and about whether there were live sex performances at Pharaohs.
Gerace “made several material false statements that resulted ultimately in him acquiring $2 million from the Small Business Administration, based upon material misrepresentations that are in this application,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said during a court hearing.
Defense attorney Eric Soehnlein said Gerace denies the wire fraud charges. Gerace has also pleaded not guilty to charges of sex-trafficking, drug-trafficking and bribery of a federal drug investigator.