Club Madonna, South Beach's infamous and only fully nude strip club, is in damage control after three people were arrested for allegedly forcing a 13-year-old runaway to dance there. The club's lawyers say they have no record of the girl having danced at the club, but owner Leroy Griffith told Local 10 he heard that the girl may have indeed worked there.
The girl, known in court records as D.J., apparently used the name Peaches while dancing. She made more than $1,000 after working at the club for less than a month.
"We have no record of her signing in," the club's attorney Richard Wolfe told the Miami Herald. "We have no payroll record of her working. All the other girls signed contracts. We have no contract from this girl."
"I was surprised by the things they were saying in the search warrant," owner Leroy Griffith told Local 10. "She must have walked in with a friend without signing in or going to the manager and stuff like that. Whether she -- I don't even know if she performed here or not, through I hear that she did."
One of the three people arrested in the case was Marlene San Vincente, who also worked at the club as a dancer.
D.J. ran away from home with two friends on December 10 and soon got connected to the three suspects, Vincente, Vilbert Jean, and DeWayne Ward. After agreeing to prostitute herself for $80 in order to cover "rent money," the girl refused to continue doing so after she didn't get her promised 50 percent cut.
She stayed home babysitting San Vincente's child one night while San Vincente went to work at Club Madonna. The next day San Vincente told D.J. she could get her a job at the club.
The club suggests that San Vincente must have walked the girl in and bypassed club management.
"You know, there are 40 or 50 girls walking in and out of the club," Leroy told the Miami Herald.
Meanwhile, the three plied D.J. with alcohol and marijuana, and threatened her by showing her firearms. One night when D.J. didn't bring in enough money, she was poked with a fork. D.J. was eventually found by her mother on January 6 and led police to her pimps.
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