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Manager of dance studio arrested
By ED QUIOCO, Times Staff Writer
Here's what it took to find and arrest him: a dogged investigator and the kind of good luck that comes from hard work. The 73-year-old Spring Hill man was caught Tuesday while pumping gas into his silver Mercedes at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Port Richey, officials said. Andrews was wanted on charges that he helped fleece elderly customers at Dance Place in Safety Harbor out of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. "He was just playing with investigators," said Sheryl Goodman-Lord, director of the Pinellas County Department of Consumer Protection. "But I guess the game's over." Officials credit a veteran investigator with the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office for the arrest. Robert Clark, who specializes in elder abuse cases, put in extra hours working leads and was able to narrow down the areas where "he knew Andrews was frequenting around," Goodman-Lord said. That paid off about 10 p.m. Tuesday when Clark, who was driving around one of the areas he believed Andrews frequented, saw a silver Mercedes at the Wal-Mart on 8701 U.S. 19. Clark pulled in and found Andrews at the pump. He detained Andrews until Port Richey police Officer Pat Woodward arrived to make the arrest. The case against Andrews, who was the general manager of the studio, and Dance Place owner Michael Pasquarelli was triggered by a St. Petersburg Times story in January. Since then, investigators reviewed the files belonging to 30 students at Pasquarelli's studios in Safety Harbor, Clearwater and Oldsmar. Those 30 customers had been talked into signing 328 sales contracts totaling $3.5-million, according to records. Investigators say the studio used high-pressure sales to coerce elderly customers into expensive contracts. Pasquarelli's comments in the Times also showed his "attitude and disdain" toward the elderly, McCabe said. In one story, Pasquarelli suggested that the reason some customers were complaining could be because "maybe some of these students went on these trips and didn't get laid," Pasquarelli said. "That even ticked me off," McCabe said. "That's not the kind of thing you ought to say about older folks." On June 28, Andrews and Pasquarelli were charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, also known as RICO. Officials were able to arrest Pasquarelli but Andrews was tipped off that they were coming and slipped away, Goodman-Lord said. Investigators placed his home in Spring Hill under surveillance and interviewed his friends. They even spoke to Andrews on the telephone and during those conversations, Andrews said he was going to turn himself in. "He said he would, but he never did," Goodman-Lord said. On Wednesday, wearing a jail-issued blue jumpsuit, Andrews appeared at his first advisory hearing through a teleconference hookup with Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb. Andrews, who is facing a RICO charge and a violation of probation, was held in the Pasco County jail in Land O'Lakes without bail. Andrews was convicted in 1995 of preying on elderly dance club patrons at Aragon World Dance Studio in Port Richey. He served several years in prison and is on 20 years' probation for those charges. When the Department of Corrections got a letter from the State Attorney's Office on July 2 indicating that Andrews had been charged with racketeering, it issued an arrest warrant for violation of probation. -- Times staff writer Chase Squires contributed to this report.
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From today's Hernando Times Letters |
