Hilton Head strip club owner heading to prison

A former Hilton Head Island strip club owner was sentenced to more than three years in prison this week for laundering money through his chain of businesses.

Michael Rose, who owned the Gold Club on Dunnagan’s Alley, was sentenced Tuesday to 40 months in prison on more than 100 federal counts of substantive money laundering and conspiring to distribute cocaine — charges he pleaded guilty to in January, according to the U.S. Attorney General’s office. He must also pay a $15,000 fine, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled.

Rose, who is free on bond, has one month to surrender to federal authorities to begin serving his time.

Also sentenced Tuesday was Vladimir Handl of Myrtle Beach, one of 10 other defendants pinned in the racketeering case. Between 2011 and 2015, the men accepted more than $2.3 million from an undercover FBI agent, thinking the cash was fraudulently diverted from bankruptcy court proceedings or came from a cocaine trafficking operation.

Rose was indicted in March 2015 and sold the Gold Club to his wife after pleading guilty to the felonies in San Francisco federal court. Stephanie Rose now owns and operates an adult entertainment club at the 1 Dunnagan’s Alley location, though the brand — Millennium Cabaret — is a recent creation of Michael Rose’s.

The Town of Hilton Head Island initially cited the new club for operating without a license, but it held its legal grand opening in mid-March.

In addition to Michael Rose’s prison term, he must face three years of supervised release.

He could have received a maximum fine of of $250,000 for each racketeering-related count and $500,000 for each count of money laundering, as well as up to 10 years in prison for each property offense and a maximum 20-year term for conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.

Still, the three-year prison sentence was much heavier than what Rose’s attorneys, Solomon Wisenberg and Dan McCoy of Washington, D.C., had sought from Alsup. They had asked the judge to waive any jail time, arguing there were no victims to Rose’s crimes and that he had already suffered from the situation by losing his businesses and being humiliated in his community.

Moreover, they said, Rose has young children who depend on him, including a newborn daughter.

“For over a decade, Mike has habitually contributed significant time and resources into serving the less fortunate in his community, and that community has expressed their gratitude and desire to help Mike in return,” Wisenberg and McCoy stated in his defense Tuesday, according to court records. “His incarceration will truly serve no useful purpose and will deprive the community, as well as his friends and family, of a force for good.”

Rose responded to an email Thursday but would not comment on his sentence.

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Hilton Head strip club owner heading to prison."