Results tagged “marquee”

There have been too many headlines penned about crimes against women in the city's clubs. Inside Edition has now gone undercover, placing hidden cameras inside what they dub the "trendiest clubs" here. Their investigation lasted a month, during which time they also surveyed women on their safety. They report back that "42% of women surveyed have felt threatened by men inside or outside a bar or nightclub." The show obtained the below footage taken from Marquee's surveillance camera about five months ago, showing a female's limp body being dragged out of the club by a man, who kidnapped and raped her.

The nighclub Marquee is back in the news after a Queens construction worker was indicted today for kidnapping a passed-out woman at the club, taking her home and raping her. In March, Luiz Zambrano, 39, allegedly found the inebriated 23-year-old passed out on a couch in the Chelsea hotspot where DA Robert Morgenthau says, "(He) approached the woman and began kissing her." He added that Zambrano then began dragging her and dropped the woman where she "fell headfirst into a wall and crumpled on the floor," but no one at Marquee assisted her. Zambrano put her in a cab that took them to his car and then drove to his College Point apartment, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her twice. During the second assault, the woman regained consciousness; the victim was able to lead the cops to Zambrano's house. The police also found that DNA left on the victim matched the "DNA found on another woman who said she'd been assaulted (at Marquee)." Zambrano, who was convicted of harassing a woman last year, pleaded not guilty and is out on $30,000 bail. Marquee was in the news last year when a woman disappeared after leaving there with a convicted sex offender.

How has Chelsea hotspot Marquee thrived for over five years when the average lifespan of a nightclub is 18 months? A Harvard business class that got an inside look at the inner workings of the club says that much of Marquee's success comes from tightening their velvet rope. Anita Elverse used the sometimes infamous nightclub as a case study for her Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries MBA class. She said, "When you've invested a few million just launching a club, it's tempting to say, 'OK, we might not be around for a long time. We have to get high-paying customers in.' But that's the easiest way to ruin the brand of a club." The associate professor acknowledged that a 1,300 percent markup on a bottle of vodka doesn't hurt either. Elverse's class was split down the middle on whether Marquee should cash in the chips in the current economic climate—for all its success, it made just $2.4 million in profit in 2007.

The crumbling of Clubville continues, Guest of a Guest has it that "Marquee is closing! They are apparently transferring its license from its 27th street outpost to the old Earth space." Does this sounds like a Scientology newsletter to anyone else? They also note that "Marquee, the flagship of the Strategic Group’s vast empire, has defied odds by sticking around for over 5 years!" Marquee was most recently making headlines for a summertime narcotics bust and for being the club that 25-year-old Laura Garza was last seen. UPDATE: Just kidding! Lots of annoying techno beats and club kidnappings to come! GoaG now says, "The rumor to this is NOT TRUE."

The State Police are still working hard to find Laura Garza, a Brooklyn woman who has been missing since early this month. Investigators suspect that a convicted sex offender, Michael Mele, she met at Marquee may have killed her, after they found blood in his car and noticed a piece of carpet in his apartment was missing (it was later found, bleached, off a highway). Divers broke through 4 inches of ice on Lake Echo in upstate Orange County (it's close to Mele's Wallkill apartment) and took turns searching its depths. The police also searched his apartment again. Mele is in jail, held on parole violations.

As the search continues for missing Brooklyn woman Laura Garza, police say they have found a bleached section of carpet along Route 17 in Bloomingburg that appears to be the same one that was missing from Michael Mele’s apartment in nearby Wallkill. While police wait for it to be tested, a spokesman said, “It is anticipated that it will be significant.” The discovery came a few days after police questioned Mele’s girlfriend, who had allegedly helped him remove the carpet the day after Garza disappeared.

In case there has been any ambiguity up until this point, Michael Mele is not a nice person. One of his employees at the Quizno's he manages in Orange County recounted to the Post today about how her boss berated her, screaming into the phone at her for revealing to police where he lived when they came by investigating the disappearance of Laura Garza.

Bail for Michael Mele, a convicted sex offender, was raised to $150,000, as he remains the sole suspect in the disappearance of Laura Garza. Garza, a Brooklyn resident who had recently moved from Texas, was last seen in a SUV with Mele, who she apparently met at Marquee nightclub last Wednesday. Mele's friend told state police he last saw the Mele and Garza in a McDonald's parking lot in Newburgh. The Daily News reports that the state police are also trying to use Mele's cellphone records to "trace his steps...When a cell phone is on, it frequently 'pings' off the closest tower, and that information can be used to create a road map of the user's movements." Mele's lawyer points out that his client hasn't been charged in Garza's disappearance, in spite of the police searching his apartment and finding blood in his car (Mele is being held on a probation violation).

After the State Police asked women to come forward with any information about a man suspected in the disappearance of missing Brooklyn woman Laura Garza, "stories of creepy run-ins" with Michael Mele are emerging. According the Daily News, the 23-year-old, "in most of the attacks...followed women to their cars and then masturbated in front of them." He was convicted of doing that in NY State and may face charges in NJ and Connecticut. Garza was last seen with Mele, apparently meeting him at nightclub Marquee. Investigators found blood in Mele's car and there's a large piece of carpet missing from his apartment in Wallkill. Mele has not been charged yet—he's being held on a probation violation.

Police are looking for witnesses who may have seen the silver Infiniti SUV "any time after early Wednesday morning," because that's the vehicle a missing Brooklyn woman was last seen in. Laura Garza left the Manhattan nightclub Marquee early Wednesday morning with Michael Mele (pictured), a convicted sex offender, and hasn't been heard from since. State police investigated Mele's upstate apartment, finding a woman's shoe near a dumpster and a large piece of his home's carpet missing.

As the investigation continues for the missing body of Laura Garza, the 25-year-old last seen leaving the nightclub Marquee early Wednesday morning, the details that have come in are not very pretty. Police are still searching around the Wallkill home of Michael Mele, the Quizno's franchise owner and convicted sex offender Garza was last spotted leaving the club with. Yesterday they found a woman's shoe near Mele's apartment in the dumpster he was seen scouring through in recent days, a piece of cloth resembling women's undergarments in a nearby shrub and bite marks and scratches on Mele himself.

Police are investigating the disappearance of a 25-year-old Brooklyn woman who was out clubbing well into Wednesday morning and they suspect was murdered by a man she was seen leaving with. Laura Garza, who had just recently moved to Bay Ridge, spent the night dancing at Chelsea hot spot Marquee before taking off at 4 a.m. with the man she had been hanging around, 23 year-old registered sex offender Michael Mele. Mele turned himself into state police in yesterday in Newburgh, not far from his Wallkill apartment where they believe he may have committed a violent assault on Garza.