[1] Former Washington state governor Al Rosellini assisted the Colacurcios by lobbying six members of the Seattle City Council and raising funds for three of the politicians.
At the same time, the Colacurcios were seeking to expand parking at Rick's, their strip club in the Lake City neighborhood of Seattle.
As the scandal blew up in the press, Seattle P-I writer Lewis Kamb first reported that City Hall insiders were referring to it as "StripperGate" during a July 26, 2003 profile of the elder Colacurcio and his family's notorious past.
The name is back in newsprint again, enmeshed in what some city insiders call tongue-in-cheek 'StripperGate'—but what Colacurcio dismisses as nothing more than a trumped-up scandal not worth the two-bits that decades ago fed the jukeboxes and pinball machines that helped spawn an adult entertainment empire.
And officially, it's political donations by Frank Jr. and his associates that are raising eyebrows these days: at least $31,000 split among City Council members Judy Nicastro, Heidi Wills and Jim Compton.
[1] In order to circumvent campaign finance laws, the Colacurcios had given $36,000 to their associates with instructions to contribute the funds to Nicastro, Compton and Wills.