The owners of a Columbus strip club that drew national attention after adult film actress Stormy Daniels' 2018 arrest there were taken into federal custody and ordered held until they pay nearly $250,000 in overdue settlement payments, interest and attorneys' fees tied to a long-running class-action lawsuit.
Michael and Francis Sharrak, both 58, and Jay Nelson, owners of Cleveland Ave. Restaurant Inc., the company that operates Sirens Gentlemen’s Club at 6190 Cleveland Ave., were ordered into federal custody Oct. 8 by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbus. They will remain jailed until they pay roughly $240,000 in overdue settlement obligations stemming from a class-action lawsuit brought by dancers who alleged unpaid wages and unlawful
entertainer contracts.
In addition to the unpaid settlement balance, the three defendants owed roughly $13,000 in accrued interest and more than $51,000 in plaintiffs' attorney fees and costs, according to federal court filings. A total $14,000 in cash and additional money was paid to the plaintiffs at the hearing, court records show.
Defense attorney Mark Trimble asked the court to extend the payment deadline until Oct. 14 to allow the trio more time to satisfy the judgment, court records show. Judge Marbley denied the request, noting that the defendants had been in contempt of court since July 1 for failing to comply with a previous court order.
Court filings show the defendants were ordered to remain incarcerated until they pay $240,891.60 and are currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals. It is unclear whether Sirens remains in business. Calls to the club's listed phone number were met with a recording indicating the number had been disconnected. The Dispatch also contacted the attorney representing the trio, but did not receive a response before publication.
The arrest comes more than a year after the defendants were ordered to make monthly $8,000 payments to the plaintiffs as part of a class-action settlement. Court records show the trio failed to comply, accumulating nearly $250,000 in unpaid settlement obligations by July. On July 1, Marbley found the three in civil contempt, citing the unpaid settlement balance as well as a $1,400 sanction for arriving late to a court hearing and a $2,000 retainer owed to a special collections counsel appointed by the court.
Sirens became famous after the arrest there of Stormy Daniels in July 2018 by members of the Columbus police Vice Unit during a performance at the club. Daniels and two other dancers were charged with a misdemeanor charge of illegally touching a customer. Within hours, a Franklin County judge dismissed the charges at the city's request.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued the city for $2 million and settled in 2019 for $450,000. Two other dancers arrested with her on the same charges by the vice unit were paid a total $150,000 to settle their suit.
The Sirens fiasco and criminal charges against longtime vice Detective Andrew Mitchell for fatally shooting Donna Castleberry during what he said was an undercover operation and later on federal charges of kidnapping women and forcing them into sex acts under threat of arrest led police to disband the Vice Unit in 2019. Mitchell was found not guilty at a second trial of the murder of Castleberry, a sex worker. However, in May 2024, Mitchell was sentenced in federal court today to 11 years in prison for his guilty plea in December 2023 to two counts of depriving sex workers of their civil rights while acting under color of law and one count of obstructing justice.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Owners of Sirens strip club arrested over $240K in unpaid settlement debt
