Club had glamour and trouble

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JULY 2, 2006
Club had glamour and trouble
Moda drew celebrities and complaints, but a founder’s drug dealing did it in
Mike Tobin
Plain Dealer Reporter
Moda, the nightclub that promised
to bring sexy South Beach to the rust
belt, will spin its last record and serve
its last cocktail this week.
Neighborhood groups initially
praised the West 25th Street club for
helping revitalize the area a few
blocks from the West Side Market.
But surrounding businesses and resi-
NEWS
MINUTE
dents eventually came to despise
Moda. The club will be stripped of its
liquor license this week when one of
its founders is sentenced in U.S. District Court.
Emad Silmi, 31, pleaded guilty last
year to selling cocaine and marijuana
and using the profits to purchase and
open Moda, U.S. Attorney Greg White
said. Silmi continued to disguise the
drug profits by laundering $1.1 million through the club.
Silmi faces between five and seven
years in prison when he is sentenced
by Judge Kathleen O’Malley Wednesday. Silmi’s sentencing has been delayed for more than a year as federal
prosecutors, city officials and Moda’s
management haggled over the club’s
future.
In a town full of shot-and-a-beer
joints, Moda aspired to bring glamour to Cleveland when it opened in
October 2002. The club offered VIP
areas, a plush lounge and a compressed liquid-nitrogen system that
cooled the dance floor in seconds. Celebrities including LeBron James and
Shaquille O’Neal partied there.
But Moda’s future is bleak because
Silmi used the club as part of his
criminal conspiracy. That gives prosecutors the right to seize the club’s liquor license and furnishings, right
down to the last champagne flute.
see MODA A10
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ANGELO LONARDO
Emad Silmi, right, parties with Moda’s director
of operations, Michael Van Uum, and basketball
superstar Shaquille O’Neal at the West 25th
Street club. Silmi laundered $1.1 million in drug
profits through Moda.
RACE IN THE LAKE
SUNDAY ARTS
The creation
of a museum
masterpiece
We take a look inside the
construction fence to see how the
Cleveland Museum of Art will
operate over the next few
years. Details, J1, J4-J5
WORLD
Market bombing
kills 62 in Iraq
A car bomb blasts a street market
in Baghdad’s Sadr City Shiite
slum, killing at least 62 people,
while a Sunni Arab member of
the new Parliament and eight of
her bodyguards are abducted by
militiamen. Details, A16
FORUM:
Dear
America
An Ohio soldier
penned a letter
to the nation
shortly before
he was killed
by a roadside
bomb in Iraq. Staff Sgt. Omer
Details, H1
Thomas Hawkins Jr.
WORLD
SCOTT SHAW
Israel fights
to free soldier
Israeli military aircraft destroy
the Gaza City offices of
Palestinian Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh, the highestranking official in the Hamas-led
government, in the latest phase
of a military effort to force the
release of a captured Israeli
soldier. Details, A16
WORLD
White House replies
to bin Laden
The White House counters a
threatening message from
Osama bin Laden by accusing the
terrorist leader of using the
media to justify sectarian
strife. Details, A17
NATION
Shuttle will
try again today
NASA scrubs the launching of
the shuttle Discovery minutes
before its scheduled liftoff as
threatening clouds encroached
on the Kennedy Space Center.
Details, A6
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Coventry Street Arts Fair & Farmers’ Market
w/Blue Lunch. Over 60 vendors and NE Ohio
farmers. FREE July 20. 6-9 p.m. Funding provided in part by the citizens of Cuyahoga Cnty.
Adv’t.
THE PLAIN DEALER
Keeping cool will be one of the big priorities this July Fourth weekend and Katie Campbell of Firestone Akron Swim Team (No. 26) splashes into the holiday spirit
in Vacationland Swim Club’s Annual Open Water Challenge on Saturday in Sandusky. More than 150 youngsters from Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia
registered for the event at Cedar Point Beach, where swimmers raced up to 3,000 meters in Lake Erie. For a list of other weekend activities, see B6.
RETIRE AT YOUR OWN RISK
Pension safety net is getting tattered
Federal agency could run out of money as bankruptcies mount
Alison Grant
Plain Dealer Reporter
S
teven Schanes searched
in the private sector 30
years ago for someone to
insure the pensions of
American workers.
Bankers said they couldn’t do
it — they were too bound by state
regulations.
The insurance industry said
no — there were limitations on
how much it could underwrite.
Lloyd’s of London — the king
of high-risk insurance — also
took a pass. It was not inclined
to vouch for the future profitability of the American enterprise
system, the British underwriting
association explained. Lloyd’s
called the risk uninsurable.
That was Schanes’ last attempt
as a Commerce Department administrator to pitch the idea of
pension insurance to the private
sector.
Congress accepted the unenvied job in 1974, establishing the
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
— paid for by corporations, regulated by Washington and, day by
day, falling deeper in debt.
see PENSION
A14
Follow this series online at
www. cleveland.com/retirement
Rockers get an early start
Ohio shaken, stirred
to action on quakes
The minor earthquake that rumbled
through Northeast Ohio June 20 rattled
more than windows. It set a record for
the most in a single year — 13.
And seismologists believe there’s a lot
at stake with every quake in a state with a
surprisingly violent seismic past.
In fact, Ohio Department of Natural
Resources geologists are scrambling to
map the soils upon which our homes,
schools, offices and other buildings rest.
The reason: In an earthquake, a house
built on rock will stand, but one atop anything less stable will likely fall.
“If we ever do get that big one, look
Even the worst-case scenario
says the PBGC — which today insures the defined-benefit pensions of 44 million U.S. workers
and retirees — won’t run out of
money until 2022. But its deficit
— the sum of its total, long-range
obligations — is growing. And so
is the specter of a taxpayer bailout.
Weeklong camp in South Euclid for stars in training
Dami an G. Guevara
Plain Dealer Reporter
Sout h Eu clid
ROADELL HICKMAN
THE PLAIN DEALER
Glenn Larsen, with the Ohio
Department of Natural Resources,
analyzes data from 48 underground
microphones in Montville Township.
out,” said Mac Swinford of ODNR’s Division of Geological Survey. See graphic, A8
— Michael Scott
— For every starryeyed teenager who poses with a Flying V
guitar in front of the mirror.
For every youngster who pounds air
drums to his favorite heavy-metal song.
For every kid with even the smallest
dream of commanding an audience and
being a rock god — your time has come.
A novel summer camp last week in
staid South Euclid transformed young
musicians from dreamers to stage-savvy
headbangers. More than 30 would-be
rockers, with guitars or sticks in hand,
emerged from their garages, basements,
bedrooms — and their shells — for
Greater Cleveland’s first Camp Jam.
At Friday night’s climax, 11 bands,
formed by amateurs who met only Monday, blazed through hard-rock and
metal anthems in a loud, thrashing concert for their parents and relatives at Regina High School.
see JAM A3
Deacon’s Jeep Grand Opening. Mayfield’s Newest
Jeep Superstore. 5930 Mayfield Rd. 440-449-JEEP
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