Go Go owner enters innocent plea
By Elise Franco
Youngstown
Sebastian Rucci, owner of the Go Go Cabaret, has pleaded innocent to charges of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, promoting prostitution, perjury and money laundering.
Rucci appeared Friday for arraignment before Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Rucci and club employees Curtis “C.J.” Jones, Derrick L. Dozier, Wayne Penny and Peter E. Sciullo II were indicted on those charges this week by the county grand jury.
Robert Neill, former cabaret manager and the former sole shareholder, is indicted on a charge of promoting prostitution.
Gina Bricker, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, said video evidence taken from the club’s surveillance computers “depicted women engaging in sex acts for hire.” The computers were confiscated in a May 2009 raid of the club by Austintown police and the Mahoning County Drug Task Force.
County prosecutors requested that Rucci’s bond be set at $50,000 and asked that he surrender his passport.
Atty. Jim Vitullo said such a high bond was unnecessary and asked that Rucci be released under his own recognizance.
“Mr. Rucci lives in Poland, his law office is in Poland. ... He’s been fighting this battle in several different courts,” Vitullo said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
Judge Evans set Rucci’s bond at $25,000, required him to turn over his passport and said he needs permission from the court before he can leave the state. Rucci was booked into the Mahoning County jail, where he posted bond Friday.
Rucci said Vitullo represented him during the arraignment, but the club owner will represent himself from now on.
He will appear for a pretrial hearing at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney. The trial is set for June 7. Court dates are pending for the other five defendants.