Transcript of interview with Christopher Phipps by Dennis McBride, November 6, 1998

7 S-b essr pitr An Oral History Interview with Christopher Phipps 199? University of Nevada, Las Vegas James R. Dickinson Library Special Collections Department 4505 South Maryland Parkway Las Vegas, NV 89154 LAS VEGAS GAY ARCHIVES ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Use Agreement We, and hereby give to the Las Vegas Gay Archives Oral History Project for scholarly and educational use by the public, the following tape-recorded interview recorded on hi cn g e£•. ifrcyft , as an unrestricted gift. This agreement grants the University of Nevada, Las Vegas legal title and all literary property rights to this interview including copyright. However, it is understood that we or our heirs are freely allowed to use the information in this recording. Dlti £ LAC. ^°l.\n 1 Narrator's address hlaviewL^^- io 1 c t h Interviewer's signature igP7 Avjp_- f cjgv- d> L-j hlv 8^003 Interviewer's address Accepted for trie University of Nevada, Las Vegas by H^cfof Special Collections James R. Dickinson Library 1 - n - f / C Date Las Vegae Gay Archives Oral History Project Interview with Christopher Phipps conducted by Dennis McBride Movember 6, 199£ Today is Friday, November 6, 1998, about eight in the morning. I'm with attorney Christopher Phipps in his office at 3900 South Paradise Road and we're going to be talking a little bit about the Apollo Spa and Healh Club and its association with the Cunanan spree killing case, and Torsten Reineck who was the manager of the club. 1 First, Chris, if you could just give me very briefly a bit of your background: when you were born, where you were born, where you got your law degree and when you came to Las Vegas. OK, I was born November 1, 1959 in Honolulu, Hawaii. My father was in the foreign trade business so I grew up traveling throughout southeast Asia. I went to British schools overseas. I was tutored privately by my mother and through the State Department educational system until 1971 when I went to boarding school in New England. Eaglebrook School and Hotchkiss. The time I was at Eaglebrook King Hussein's two sons, the crown princes of Jordan, were in attendance, so, I mean, that's why I remember that. And Hotchkiss ... . Let's see, I graduated in '77, then I moved to California, went to junior college and then basically that's when 1 came out |as gay], discovered what was going on, discovered LA, stopped going to school for a few years and got my social life caught up. I was kind of behind the times. And ended up getting my bachelor's degree from the University of Utah in 1986. In what1 In political science. Only because I was in the ten-year undergraduate program [laughs] and my classes were getting old. Most of my training was in physics and biology. I worked for Carl Sagan for awhile as a research assistant during the project SETIB—extraterrestrial was big in the late '70s. I worked for Sagan—I'd met him at the hotel in Hawaii where I worked on vacations. And so I'm really more knowledgeable in physics and the sciences than I am political science, but that was the least structured degree. And our professor convinced me to stay on for law school. And I was recruited to Las Vegas by a law firm in 19... . It was snowing Christmas Day when I moved here so that would have been 1988. Christmas Day '88. What law firm was it? Vargas and Bartlett. Which is now Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner and Renshaw. There was a major split a few years afterwards. I was brought down to do the Pepcon disaster case. 3 Specifically? Um,hm. I did nothing but that one case for about three years. Our firm represented the insurance companies as plaintiffs who were trying to get the money to pay out in home owners' claims and I worked against Morton Thiokol. When the Challenger blew up, the space shuttle flights stopped, yet all the t ontracts to make the rocket fuel were still ongoing. So they didn't know what to do with the stuff and they just stuck it out at the plant and there was a fire and then it ignited and it basically blew up. You were associated with Kevin Kelly's4 firm briefly about 1995? Yeah. What happened is Kevin and I had come to know each other. When I was working for Vargas and Bartlett I was not at all in the social scene. And I forget how I first met Kevin. But once [my lover] Tod got sick—Tod passed away—I wanted to be able to spend more time with him. And so I decided to leave the firm I was then working at and open up my own firm so I could work around hours and schedules. When I did that I was given an office space by a prominent Vegas attorney who had lost a partner and I needed to make other arrangements. And I thought with my defense background and Kevin's criminal background we could come together and make a well-rounded firm. But we were never able to put together something financially feasible for both of us. So I ended up renting office space from him for awhile and then when Toddy got really sick I started working out of the house and basically stopped practicing for awhile. And then you came to work here? Actually, then after Tod died I worked for two small firms doing construction defect litigation. Then I went in with partners of a law student friend of mine—I worked for Scottsdale Insurance Company, I was their lead defense counsel. Then, because of my health, I had to basically stop practicing for awhile. I actually got disenchanted with law and I was looking to go work for an insurance company as a claims manager, something like that. And I was unemployed, or I wasn't working, for about a year and half while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And then a consulting group that does medical malpractice cases brought me in. And I basically do a majority of their medical malpractice cases. I'm a separate company but they help me and assist me and bankroll my cases and I work exclusively for plaintiffs, patients injured or killed as a result of medical malpractice. Give a little bit of background on what the Apollo Spa and Health Club is. OK. The concept came from the people who first put the club together. [They] were German. There was a group—a consortium's probably the best way of describing it of, as I recall, three or four German individuals. I can't mention the names because of the attorney/client privilege. Although there are some court files which, with research, you could discover them. They were running brothels in Germany which is a legal enterprise there. Doc^ claimed credit for ... . Doc was sort of the next level down under these guys. He ran some of the operations (in Germany]. He came to Miami and he wanted to work something in the U. S. And what his concept was was to have a chain of gay men's health spas in different major cities—I think we were looking at Seattle next and then Houston and San Francisco—where it wasn't a bath house, but yet it was a place where men could go and .... Let's say a step between a bath house and just a regular old work­out gym that has gay clientele. We were trying to find an upscale in-between. That was the concept. And to make it work well, instead of building the club from scratch which was very expensive, we would search cities for clubs that were going under in bankruptcy and buy at the bankruptcy sale. The pool's already installed, the jacuzzi's there, and bascially just run it and market it. And it s actually a very good concept and someday someone'll pick up the ball and run with that and be very wealthy. Well, that was the concept. The Apollo here was the first one and we were getting ready to look at a second one in Seattle about when all the shit hit the fan. Were you involved, then, from the beginningl No. I came in after the club had been open for about a year. This was during the period I was technically not practicing. I believe Kevin [Kelly] had referred the club to me. I came in and was basically told the concept by Doc. And he saw that he'd need a lawyer to do things and the concept was I would become part of the corporation. The corporation was incorporated in Florida. It's actually a Florida corporation, I believe. And the records I think show Torsten Reineck as the actual president. For the sake of chronology, the Apollo opened September 9, 1996. And they were in possession of [the building] for about four months prior to that doing the build-out, doing the modifications. It had been the Venus Club, 1 believe, before that. It was a women's spa. Originally the Golden Venus in the '60s. So the pool was in and all that. They had to do the rooms. There was space to the left of the main entrance of the club which had formerly been a breezeway which had now been enclosed and the concept was that was gonna be a restaurant-slash- bar. So you could go to the Apollo, you could work out, you could sit by the pool, you could get a suntan, you could relax in the rooms, or you could have a bite to eat. And, actually, Doc's concept was to have it be sort of interactive entertainment. It would be a night club sort of thing with, you know, the hoity-toity waiters. Something like what Free Zone*3 is doing now [but] with a spa connected to it. That didn't happen,though. I was brought in when there started to be a falling out between the landlord and the club. The landlord, for whether it be money reasons or whether he really cared—I believe the landlord knew it was gay club when he signed the lease. I think Doc had been pretty open about that. Rut the landlord tried to evict the club. And so I was brought in to try and keep the doors open and the concept was if we put the club into bankruptcy the automatic stay of the bankruptcy code would halt the eviction. And [the landlord was] doing a lockout. Basically they had already gotten the three-day notice [and] we had twenty-four hours to keep the club open. If it closed, potentially it'd be much harder to get it re-opened with the landlord than if we could just keep the landlord away. What period was that7 Right in the fall [of 1996], I think. Around October, November if memory serves me right. If you search the Apollo down at the bankruptcy court on the system it'll give you the date of the filing. Do you know anything about an attempted raid on the Apollo on November 14, 19967 Sort of. It wasn't really a raid. I was called in on that. I'd just become connected with the club. We had young guys working the front desk and depending on the interpretation of the county codes—and I wasn't involved [in] or repsonsible for this part of the legal operations of the club. I was basically brought in originally just to keep the landlord from evicting 'em. Adult movies were being shown. We had a closed-circuit television system which showed a promotional channel for adult films which at one point the club was gonna be like Video West^ and [you'd] be able to rent video tapes. A one-stop place. Unfortunately the zoning and licensing for that didn't permit it. But the TVs had already been put in and the problem is, depending on how you look at the statutes, even though you re showing regular television in addition to promotional channels, if you're showing adult stuff you need to be zoned in a light industrial area. So the word got out. A disgruntled employee told Metro, "They're showing dirty movies there. And there's sex going on, public sex." Which were violations of the Nevada code. So, actually there were two occasions. But this one you're referring to were two officers [doing] business license checks. What had happened is because of the bankruptcy the fee for the business license renewal had not been paid. Because the club was in bankruptcy and wasn't allowed to write checks without the trustee's permission. At two minutes after midnight upon expiration of the business license Metro knocked on the front door [and] wanted to see the business license. And, of course, it was invalid. So at that point they said, "Now we're going to make an inspection to see if the club is in compliance with its licensing. Let us in." And the kid at the front door panicked. He said, "I can't do that." And so there was a big scene at the front door and the cop said, "You don't let us in, we 11 shut the place down and I take you to jail." And the kid didn't know what to do. Basically, I was called and I got the officers on the phone—I think I knew them from other work—and I only lived a few blocks away. They explained what they wanted to do and I said, "You know, we have a scared kid here." Then when I got down there we made a walk through the club. It wasn't a raid as such. It was a business license check. They were cited for not having a valid business license. We showed the payments had been sent but were being held by the bankruptcy trustee so they didn't lock us out or shut us up. No one was arrested. There were two citations, I think, for the business license. Was there another incident close to that time where Torsten Reineck faced Metro down at the door? The time I'd been there I think [Metro'd] come by once before but I think they didn't actually get in. They came back a few days later and we still hadn't gotten the receipt for the paid business license yet. And [Reineck] was panicking. So he just didn't know what to do. He didn't want to let 'em in till I got there and they basically said, "We can come in at any time." The police, I think, were concerned that stuff they weren't supposed to see was going on and this was a stalling tactic. And really, I mean, Doc was just panicking. Nothing was being done while the cops were being held, but that was the showdown. [Reineck] has a hot temper and he pissed the cops off. But he wasn't arrested or cited or anything. An interesting aside about that—when Metro was questioned—not by me but by someone in the media who I turned on to the incidents—they denied ever even having heard of the Apollo or what goes on there. The club is licensed as a health spa. And given the activities ... . If someone were to just walk in and walk through the club—and there was a time when the front door was not closed at night. The outer door was closed but there's an innner door from the desk to the back and there were times in the middle of the week when only one person would be there. People, before we improved the security, could literally walk in sometimes, follow someone else through the door and if the guy [at the desk] wasn't paying attention ... . You wouldn't see anything unusual except people wearing towels, walking around in towels. It was all men so people'd swim nude in the pool like you'd see in any other club. If people engaged in some sort of sexual activity they would be told by the staff, "You can't do that here. You need to do it somewhere else." And the signs were all posted, only one person in a room. They were not cabanas, they were changing rooms. And some of 'em had televisions for people who wanted to watch the news or watch the promotional channels. How, then, did the Apollo become involved in the Cunanan/Versace case initially? Depending on who you talk to. And I have been unable to determine whether [Andrew] Cunanan was ever in the club. I made a search of records because the media wanted to know and the police wanted to know if Cunanan had a membership. We made a diligent search of all the records and there was no membership under the name Cunanan. There was a lady who was making curtains for the club when it first opened, prior to opening, who claims that she saw Cunanan at the club. There is a Las Vegas resident, a Filipino man, who looks very much like Cunanan. I forget his name. He had been stopped so many times during the search for Cunanan that he actually carried [a] letter from Metro saying, "I am not Cunanan." Because he'd go into restaurants and it's, "Cunanan's herel" and the cops'd pull up and he was taken downtown like five or six times. So he had this letter and they all knew who he was. He was Filipino and, of course, Cunanan was part Filipino. So whether he was actually the one or whether the lady was seeing this other Las Vegas person, I don't know. I wasn't around for that. As far as we can tell Cunanan was never in the club. Doc claims to never have known Cunanan and Idon't know if that's true or not. I never saw Cunanan at the club although I think the Western bar across the lot... . Badlands? & At the Badlands. I think it's Jeff, the head bartender, said Cunanan had come in there a long time ago back when the Apollo first opened, about that period, and he had served him drinks. Again, now, is it really Cunanan or is it this other Las Vegas guy? Jeff seems to know the Las Vegas guy and he was pretty sure that it was the real Cunanan. So we really don't know. I never saw 'im there. What was the connection that brought the Apollo into the spotlight over the Cunanan case? What happened was someone tips off Miami Beach police that someone resembling Cunanan is residing on this houseboat—and I forget what the address is. It's a famous area in Miami. The houseboats there cannot be moved. They're grandfathered in along that road but the idea is getting rid of 'em. So it's a permanent houseboat. It was Doc's houseboat. That was Doc's residence—he was working, I think, in North Beach or Miami Beach—before coming to las Vegas to do the Apollo. The German business people, one of their members maintains a permanent office in Miami Beach for whatever their American business was. And that's where Doc kind of got into the bar circuit and Doc ... . Whoever Torsten is. And Cunanan was found on his houseboat. When I learned of it I was under the impression from Doc and everyone else that [Cunanan's presence on the houseboat] was a complete surprise. When Doc saw his houseboat on TV and saw everyone storming in his question is, "They're ruining my houseboat! Who's gonna pay for the tear gas and the blood and all the other stuff?" I he associate who maintained an office in Miami, was that Frank Mathias Ruehl? That I can't comment on because when we did the bankruptcy I didn't actually represent the club. I represented the creditors to the club because that way 1 controlled the Chapter 11. And so the backers of the club were my clients and so I can't confirm or deny clients' identities. But it was someone other than Doc, the person who I knew as Doc. The houseboat was a separate residence from the other business person. They didn't share the houseboat. What was the confusion over Reineck's name when he came to Las Vegas? I knew Doc as Doc Ruehl. And everyone called 'im Doc. I'd once asked him, "What kind of doctor are you?" And he said, "Ear, nose, and throat. An ontolaryngologist." In later discussions he had told other people—and in case anyone listens to this tape these were discussions outside of the attorney/client privilege. These were over dinners and other people around, so it's nothing confidential. He had told other people he had a doctor's degree in economics and all that. I'd been unable to confirm whether he really has a doctorate degree at all, or what we would consider an accredited degree. Doc's identity ... . I never really thought much, and I was a little lax, probably, in the beginning—he appeared to be who he said he was. I had seen a driver's license on one occasion—but I did not photocopy it—that identified him ... . He had several [aliases], Torsten Mathias "Doc" Ruehl, Torsten Reineck. One of the names he used ... . It turns out officially in the EI. S. he was Torsten Reineck. There is a different gentleman who I have met who is actually Doc Ruehl. And I believe he has a doctorate in engineering. I met him on two separate occasions. There was confusion a long time ago as to which one was what and people called Doc "Doc," and he never bothered to clear it up. I came to find later from the reporter at the Miami Herald who was covering the Cunanan case, that Doc had two different driver's licenses with the same photo with both names. One under Torsten Reineck and one under Ruehl. Which is a Class E felony, I think, in Elorida. And why that was of import was when Doc was in hiding there were no pending American charges against him. He was kind of in hiding because of the media blitz. But he had committed no crime. I mean, he didn't shoot Cunanan. Cunanan happened to be on his houseboat. I think they were fearful that Doc may .... I know that the FBI wanted to chat with him to see exactly what his role was in 10 it. And he was obviously wary to do that and now I understand it probably was because [of] the identity question. I come to find later—and it's, I think, a matter of public record—that he was very good at manufacturing German passports. I had heard a rumor, 1 have not been able to confirm it, that he made West German passports for East Germans during the Cold War. And that he had all those implements necessary for doing that present with him in Las Vegas. It has been speculated that he was making papers for Cunanan—if you believe he knew him in advance and it [wasn't] just circumstance. One of the theories—and, again, I can't confirm or deny—[is that] Cunanan, after the Versace incident—and there's a version of it where Versace is a mafia hit, essentially. He's backed by German money and if you look, we have German backers for the [Apollo] club, it certainly looks that way and all of a sudden Cunanan shows up on the houseboat of a German counterfeiter who makes passports it would appear that maybe papers were being prepared so that Cunanan could leave under a different identity. That's speculation, a theory that may work. There was only one article that I ran across that actually got into the [German mob connection]. Someone from 20/20 interviewed me about that. I'd mentioned that that was one of the theories I'd heard. Actually [the article was from] a tabloid, the National Examiner, September 2, 1 997. The only story that actually spoke about the whole situation as a mob hit. There are two German papers who were offering people a thousand dollars for an interview. Springer, which is a German tabloid magazine, and I think Der Spiegal or Stern was here. They actually had three people scouring basically anyone who'd talk to 'em—they'd give a thousand dollars to. And which was tempting to some of the employees, I think. I have doubts whether Doc is even Torsten Reineck. That may be yet another alias for who he really is. He had discussed—and it wasn't said in confidence so I don't think it hurts to mention it—he had mentioned that during World War II he'd been draft age. He made it sound like he came from a very privileged background, family. From what I see he put on the appearance of being wealthy, well-to-do, and having assets. What I think comes to be revealed is a lot of that is show. He is very much an operator. He would set up business deals very astutely- I think he's an astute businessman. He'd buy an interest in something, already have it pre-sold to you at a higher price and basically it never costs him anything out of pocket. Your money pays off the original thing and he gets a cut. So, I mean, he had a way of never having his money on the line. And things like that. So he had the appearance of being wealthy and having a lot of money and the Versace shirts and all that, but I think a lot of that is image. He claims he never met Versace, did not know im, only [knew] Versace's press secretary. Why would he have known Versace's press secretary? From Miami. Just socially? Yeah. Going out to the clubs. I think at one point Doc did work for one of the hotels in [Las Vegas]. Under which identity I don't know 'cause he would need a sheriffs card and I don't know if there's a sheriff's card under either name. There was an occasion when I visited his home when he wasn't staying around at the Rio [Hotel] or at the club. He had friends who spoke German there but they were friends ... . Apparently his first job [in Las Vegas] was working at one of the casinos. So if he was really well-to-do he wouldn't be working in the casino. I went to the grand opening night and I think I told you about the three German men I saw there. Was one very overweight? There were three of them. Two of them were tall, very large. A third one a little bit younger, but also rather stout.9 I ve only ever met one of the other ones in person. I've had notarized correspondence from the others which was necessary to represent them in the case. It was so long ago I'd probably recognize 'em but I couldn't describe 'em. But 1 know that they were curious to see how their investment was going. I think they 12 all came for the grand opening. As far as I know only one-the one who lived in Miami-was the only one who came back on, on a regular basis and still does. All the months before the Cunanan case broke that you were involved with the Apollo and with Torsten Reineck ... Doc. Doc. Had yon been aware at all of any of his background as it came out afterwards? The only thing that gave me pause was his car and the license plates. He was known to drive a Zephyr, I think it's called. It looks like the Excalibur but it's a little nicer. It's not a kit car. And he had Prinicipality of Sealand license plates. And he had a diplomatic UNCC sticker-U. N. Counselor Corps. He also had Counselor Corps identification which he would show you very quickly and kind of ... . You would never get it out of his hand. I'm told by members of the police department that he claimed diplomatic immunity for traffic tickets, parking citations and all that. And that basically he had been successful prior to me coming on the scene of pulling that. I can't say whether it's genuine or not. I don't know where the Principality of Sealand is. I am told it's an oil platform in the English Channel. So whether the U. N. stuff was authentic or not, I don't know. Rut if he made passports I imagine he can make U. N. papers as well. What was your personal assessment of Doc1 Doc had an astute business sense. He could smell a dollar everywhere. He could structure deals. There was a time when he was going to do the Kenny Kerr show, BoylesqueA 0 And there were negotiations about possibly doing that. I think Kenny may have some idea—and, again, I represented Kenny at one point, too, so I need to be careful. I'm not divulging anything ... . It was relatively common knowledge in those circles that Doc wanted to produce a show. Doc also wanted to do Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I know Bruce Taylor's now doing, or trying to do with Onstage. Doc admitted that he did not have the rights to it. He wanted to do something ... . There's a club in Paris where the waiters come down on roller skates. He claimed to have operated that nightclub in Paris for three or four years and he wanted to do a similar thing with the Apollo and the space next door. He wanted to make his name in production. Kenny |Kerrl was in a difficult time at Debbie Reynolds' [Hollywood Museum and Hotel] and he needed a producer. And Doc was going to basically ... . There was a corporation called Boylesque of Las Vegas. And the idea was that people would ... . Just to have a stock certificate that says, "look! 1 own part of a Us Vegas show!" Boylesque of Us Vegas. They'd probably pay $50 to have that framed. So we can actually make money on ... . It was a little bit like when the Chicken Ranch 11 was going public and they were gonna sell the certificates. This way people could come in and buy for $50 a share that's probably worth only $10. Get outside money. There'd be a chunk of money which Kenny needed to make a bigger production—and yet the control would stay with a few major investors. But Doc would have sold his interest out already, collecting a fee. And that was gonna start money. That feed of money would then fund the Rocky Horror Show. Is that the point at which Kenny lost the rights to the name Boylesque? No. Kenny had—and this is public record again so I'm not violating confidences if you run Kenny's name through the bankruptcy court records he had had three prior filings of bankruptcies under three different production companies. The bankruptcies were not completed in the proper fashion. Kenny was again facing financial trouble and asked me—bankruptcy was my speciality at that point. And since I'd kept the Apollo open Kenny thought, "Maybe he can help me out." And I did yet one more bankruptcy. My bankruptcy was completed properly. In one of the prior bankruptcies Kenny had listed the named Boylesque as an asset of the bankruptcy estate. So, the trustee then sells all the assets for money. Kenny didn't have money to buy his name back at the bankruptcy sale so it was sold to somebody else. And the court records reveal who that was. I think Kenny holds some animosity towards me thinking that I filed bankruptcy and he lost the name. That was actually because of actions of previous lawyers. Rut shortly after that point I think is when Doc was gonna come in and it didn't work out. So bascially we parted ways because I wasn't making money on the matter. The bankruptcy part had finished and I don't do entertainment. But, so he didn't lose it.... Kenny will tell it differently. But a look at the bankruptcy record would show that. A friend of [Kenny's] actually owned—I think his name was Roger Caldwell— actually owned the rights to the trademark, Boylesque. Trademark and the name. Roger had assigned those to Kenny, but Kenny loses that in bankruptcy. 14 After the Cunanan thing was done the Apollo published a newsletter called Boylesque of Las Vegas. Remember I told you Doc was gonna have that entertainment company? Here's the interesting thing. When a bankruptcy court sells an asset they sell it free and clear of all liens. However, it's like a quitclaim deed, not a warranty deed. We're selling you whatever it is but we don't warrant that it's still good. Essentially the bankruptcy court sold to the purchasers—I think the price was $30,000—the name and good will of Boylesque. Kenny's production company at one point was called Boylesque, Inc. That's a corporate name. The trade name Boylesque and the logo were separately registered service marks and trademarks by Roger Caldwell. Anyway, those have to be renewed every five years. He had one registered in Nevada and one in New Jersey. There's no renewal of the filing at the time the bankruptcy sells them. So Doc thought, "If no one's renewed it, it's up for grabs!" So he goes and forms a corporation—I didn't do it for 'im—called Boylesque of Las Vegas, Inc. The Secretary of State did not kick it out as a deceptively similar name because Boylesque was now a defunct corporation. So his thing was it's Boylesque—written big—of Ins Vegas—written small. Kenny never challenged that because Kenny didn't own the name to challenge it. Actually, during his bankruptcy case he kept introducing and using things from Boylesque in the show and the bankruptcy trustee basically said, "You're using my name and if you do that anymore I'll shut you down." And so Kenny then became the Kenny Kerr Show. And he's gotten around it by, like, "Formerly of Boylesque, or Formerly the Star of Boylesque." He's starting to creep back using the name a little bit more and more. It was Star of Boylesque written big, the Kenny Kerr Show written small. I don't do intellectual property. I don't know if that's proper or not. I hat s whv > ou have [Doc's] Boylesque of Las Vegas, Inc. And since he had the corporation and the name, the newsletter, he wanted to have it be a separate c ompan\ from the Apollo. But kind of a subsidiary. So I think Doc held all that stock but the idea was that the holders of the Apollo ... . The Apollo would buy that out as a corporation. Was this association of Doc with the Boylesque thing going on before the Cunanan easel Yes. Not long before? Not long before. The idea was the club was starting ... . Jack Barker came in as Docs right-hand man dunng most of this. Jack had started kind of on the periphery. And Doc was getting involved in so many other things and Doc liked going on and doing the party [thing]. He wanted a day-to-day manager. So Doc basically ran the theory and handled the money and Jack Barker started running the club and became the club's general manager. Doc was president of the corporation but Jack was around there practically twenty hours a day in the