KITTERY – The corporation that owns the Danish Health Club must be dissolved within six months under a judge’s order.
The order by U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby in Portland that abolished Kittery Health Club Inc. came Tuesday as part of the sentence on prostitution and money laundering charges against the corporate arm of the Danish Health Club.
The corporation was one of several co-defendants charged in the criminal case of Gary H. Reiner, the former Town Council chairman and health club lawyer who was convicted of money laundering and of operating a brothel.
Susan Lehrer, who became the corporation’s sole director and shareholder after her husband’s death, authorized defense lawyer Richard S. Berne to enter a guilty plea on the corporation’s behalf earlier this year.
Lehrer did not attend any of the court proceedings relevant to the case, and has not been charged as an individual. Prosecutors said Lehrer did not profit substantially from the club’s criminal enterprise.
The bulk of the illegal money went to Mary Ann Manzoli of Lynnfield, Mass., who became the sole beneficiary to K&D Realty Trust, through which the bulk of the illegal profits were funneled, prosecutors said.
Manzoli had previously been ordered to forfeit nearly $4 million in prostitution-generated profits as part of a separate civil case, prosecutors said.
Reiner, the 54-year-old former chairman of the Kittery Town Council, faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 when he’s sentenced.
Reiner contends he was simply the lawyer for the Danish Health Club, but prosecutors say he negotiated with pimps, wrote ads for an adult entertainment guide, and even worked at the front desk on occasion.
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