Strip-club arson case gets seamy - UPDATED
Last week's federal conspiracy trial of strip-club careerist Boyd Smith felt like a crash course in two-bit criminality.
Arson. Black-market firearms. Cocaine trafficking. Armed robbery. Police extortion. Naked ladies.
Last week’s federal conspiracy trial of strip-club careerist Boyd Smith felt like a crash course in two-bit criminality, coupled with a seminar in sleaze.
Smith, the former manager of Platinum 21 on Cheshire Bridge Road, is charged with having schemed with two colleagues to torch the competing Club Onyx in early 2007. Each hour of court testimony peeled back a new layer of scuzz.
Boyd worked for Howard “Bit” Thrower, who oversaw Platinum 21 and Flashers in Sandy Springs on behalf of owner Harry “Mario” Freese. Thrower, a bear of a man who sounds like Kris Kristofferson with a mescal hangover, is an accused drug-runner-turned FBI informant who helped the feds nail two Fulton County police officers for shaking down Freese.