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Witness says valet firm's rivals were scared off

A onetime Prestige Valet partner testifies on extortion tactics in a racketeering trial.

By CARRIE WEIMAR
Published November 7, 2006

TAMPA - When the call came, Louis "Duke" Mendel knew his partner would be angry.

Mendel, then president of Prestige Valet, was hoping to land the lucrative account of the Turtle Club, an 80,000-square-foot nightclub in Clearwater. When the owners telephoned to say they were hiring an out-of-town firm instead, Mendel's partner, John Alite, stepped in.

"He was not happy," Mendel testified Monday. "He was screaming and yelling."

As Mendel watched from a table at the Turtle Club, Alite made a phone call. Five minutes later, not only did Prestige have the account, the other company forfeited a $10,000 deposit and abandoned its equipment, Mendel said.

Alite is one of five people charged with racketeering for alleged ties to the Gambino crime family. While the others - including Ronald "Ronnie One Arm" Trucchio - stand trial in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Alite is in a Brazilian jail cell, fighting extradition.

But Alite's alleged attempts to extort and threaten rival valet companies in the Tampa Bay area took center stage Monday as Mendel took the witness stand.

Mendel, 40, was the night manager at Thee Doll House, a Tampa strip club, when Alite offered to make him a partner in his valet company in 1993.

Mendel, who was given immunity by prosecutors for his testimony, also told about an evening he spent with another defendant, Steven Catalano, searching for the owners of 717 Parking.

At Alite's request, Mendel, Catalano and a third person cruised Ybor City looking without success for the rival company's owners after they tried to take Prestige's account at Stingers nightclub in Tampa, Mendel said.

Alite later told Mendel what his companions planned to do if they had found the owners.

"He told me they were going to walk up to them and cut them from ear to mouth with a razor blade," Mendel said.

At its height, Prestige brought in between $4,000 and $5,000 a week, Mendel said. He kept the company afloat when Alite was sent to prison on gun charges in 1997, dropping his partner's name when he ran into trouble.

"Did you do that to intimidate people, sir?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Trezevant.

"Yes," answered Mendel.

But it wasn't long before he was the one threatened, Mendel said. He was pressured by Alite into turning over his share of Prestige's profits while Alite was in prison. Mendel agreed.

"John Alite is capable of doing some nasty things," he said.

Mendel said Alite forced him out of Prestige after he was released from prison in 1999, replacing him with Terry Scaglione, who is also on trial.

Mendel said he was relieved.

"I saw my opportunity to get out," he said. "And I took it."

Carrie Weimar can be reached at 813 226-3416 or cweimar@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 6, 2006, 23:59:25]