Axiardis faces new prostitution charges at Club 35 Sayreville

✖ Police say prostitution, illegal liquor running at NJ strip club

✖ NJ family faces 21-count indictment

✖ Nearly $1 million in cash, gold, silver found in two NJ homes

A family accused of running an illegal brothel out of a Sayreville strip club has been hit with new charges including fraud.

A state grand jury has returned a 21-count indictment against 59-year-old Anthony Acciardi Sr., 56-year-old Doreen Acciardi and 26-year-old Stephen Acciardi — all of Freehold Township — as well as the 30-year-old. Anthony Acciardi Jr. of Old Bridge.

Both the parents and their adult sons have worked as owners or managers at Club 35 along Route 9.

Club 35 in Sayreville (Google Maps) Acciardi family arrested in prostitution case

Other relatives facing charges include Doreen Acciardi’s sister, Jeannine Nichols, and Nichols’ husband, Jason Portes, both club managers.

Club employee Jennifer Hecker was a dancer accused of soliciting undercover detectives for commercial sex acts.

An investigation of the strip club along Route 35 revealed that it doubled as a prostitution den, generating millions of dollars in illegal revenue.

Inside the seedy sex club

Investigators found that customers paid a fee to the business to enter the VIP area for private dances, then had the option to pay additional money directly to the dancers for sex.

Some of that activity was captured in hundreds of hours of video surveillance footage from security cameras throughout the club.

During a search of the club, a large bag containing approximately 700 condoms was found. Condoms were also placed in a vending machine in the club’s locker room.

Lubricants and sex toys were also among the evidence seized in the search of the club.

The club has also been accused of illegally selling alcohol on the premises, despite state regulations for business as BYOB.

According to prosecutors, a variety of liquor was hidden in a shed at the back of the property.

On Monday, the grand jury indicted four Axiardis, three other employees and three corporate entities – 35 Club, AxiBoys, LLC, which owned the ATMs, and Alana, Inc. Voted to file criminal charges against.

“Our investigation revealed that the operators of Club XXXV were using a variety of illegal methods to turn their club into a multimillion-dollar racket,” state Attorney General Platkin said in a written release Friday.

“We allege that these defendants unlawfully enriched themselves, concealed their illicit sources of income, and created numerous quality of life problems for residents of their communities.”

In response, Jeffrey Bronster, one of Doreen Acciardi’s defense attorneys, said that Platkin’s statement to the news media “went beyond reasonable comment on a pending case and violated two of New Jersey’s Rules of Professional Conduct.”

On Friday evening, Bronster was seeking an emergency hearing to request a restraining order against the Attorney General’s Office.

Nearly $1 million in cash, gold, silver found in two homes in NJ Acciardi

At the time of their initial arrest last year, police seized approximately $720,000 from the home of Doreen Acciardi and Anthony Acciardi Sr. – $140,000 in cash, $283,000 in gold and $297,000 in silver.

Another $225,000 were found at the residence of Anthony Acciardi Jr. – $117,000 in cash, $61,000 silver and $47,000 gold.

Bank records show that since 2017, more than $10 million has been deposited and withdrawn from both personal and business accounts linked to several businesses, including Club 35 and AxeBoys.

Some defendants have been accused of “substantially” underreporting their income on state tax returns in an effort to avoid taxes and conceal the proceeds of criminal activities.

In May 2021, Nichols, Portes, and Hecker were all arrested on charges of promoting prostitution. Hecker was also charged with soliciting prostitution and money laundering.

Sayreville police, along with officers from the Middlesex County Guns, Gangs and Drugs Task Force and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, executed a search warrant at Club 35 last year, following multiple reports of prostitution there between 2019 and 2021.

The case was then taken over by the State Office of Public Integrity and Accountability Anti-Corruption Bureau.

The club reopened for business last month amid charges previously announced by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

In September, money laundering charges against another adult child of Acciardi were dismissed.

Club 35 (Google Maps)

Anthony Acciardi Sr., 59, of Freehold Township

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ First-Degree Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (3 counts)
◾ Promoting organized street crime of the second order
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution
◾ Misconduct of the second degree by a corporate officer.
◾ Filing a third-degree fraudulent tax return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay income tax
◾ Third Degree Failure to File Tax Return
◾ Maintaining a fourth-degree nuisance
◾ Maintaining a sexually-oriented business of the fourth degree
◾ Fourth-degree false records

Doreen (Livingston) Acciardi, 56, of Freehold Township

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ First-Degree Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (3 counts)
◾ Promoting organized street crime of the second order
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution
◾ Maintaining a sexually-oriented business of the fourth degree
◾ Misconduct of the second degree by a corporate officer.
◾ Filing a third-degree fraudulent tax return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay income tax
◾ Third Degree Failure to File Tax Return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay business income taxes
◾ Maintaining a fourth-degree nuisance
◾ Fourth-degree false records
◾ Filing third-degree fraudulent business tax returns

Anthony Acciardi Jr., 30, of Old Bridge

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ First-Degree Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (3 counts)
◾ Promoting organized street crime of the second order
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution
◾ Maintaining a fourth-degree nuisance
◾ Maintaining a sexually-oriented business of the fourth degree
◾ Misconduct of the second degree by a corporate officer.

Stephen Acciardi, 26, of Freehold

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ First-Degree Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity (3 counts)
◾ Promoting organized street crime of the second order
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution
◾ Maintaining a fourth-degree nuisance
◾ Maintaining a sexually-oriented business of the fourth degree
◾ Second-degree misconduct by a corporate officer (2 counts)
◾ Filing a third-degree fraudulent tax return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay income tax
◾ Third Degree Failure to File Tax Return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay business income taxes
◾ Fourth-degree false records
◾ Filing third-degree fraudulent business tax returns

Jason Portes, 41, of South Amboy

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution

Jeanine Nichols, 59, of South Amboy

◾ First-degree racketeering
◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ Promoting third-degree prostitution

Jennifer Hecker, 45, of Parlin

◾ Second degree conspiracy
◾ Financial Facilitation of Second Degree Criminal Activity
third-degree theft by deception
◾ Filing a third-degree fraudulent tax return
◾ Third-degree failure to pay income tax

Each of the three companies – Exyboys, 35 Club and Alana – also faced charges of first-degree racketeering, second-degree conspiracy and third-degree promoting prostitution.

Acciboys and 35 Club were also charged with first-degree financial facilitation of criminal activity and three counts of filing third-degree fraudulent business tax returns.

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