genderberg.com - Young stripper trips up club

BY NANCY DILLON and GREG GITTRICH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
New York Daily News

Cops arrested the manager of a Brooklyn topless bar for allegedly hiring an underage dancer and were investigating charges by the teen that she was raped , authorities said yesterday.

Michael Arab, 40, was busted Saturday night after cops raided the Sweet Cherry club at 42nd St. and Second Ave. in Sunset Park, police said.

The Virginia teen who touched off the police probe said she was raped by employees shortly after she began dancing at the bar. Authorities did not give the girl's age other than to say she was under 18.

No rape charges had been filed as of last night, and the bar remained open for business yesterday.

Asked whether the teen had been raped, Arab, of Canarsie, said: "Absolutely not."

Arab was arraigned yesterday on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful dealings with a child, according to a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office.

After being released on his own recognizance, he denied knowing any dancers were too young to work at Sweet Cherry.

"We ask every person for ID, and we keep the IDs on file," he said. "The police saw her ID. It was from Virginia. If it was fraudulent, I didn't know."

He said he didn't know how the unidentified girl made her way from Virginia to work in the narrow, mirror-filled Brooklyn joint.

"Nobody goes to high school and says, 'When I graduate I want to work in a topless bar,'" he said. "Usually something happens in these girls' lives. With her, I'm not sure what happened."

Originally published on October 4, 2004