MIAMI, June 2 (UPI) -- A man convicted in a scam to overcharge the credit cards of drunk tourists in Miami using so-called "bar girls," was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.
Stanislav Pavlenko, 41, was sentenced Friday for his role in managing the credit-card transactions of one of the scam's five clubs, Caviar Bar, The Miami Herald reported Saturday.
In November, the scam's ringleader, admitted Russian mobster Alec Simchuk, 46, testified in federal court that he ran the "bar girls" scam out of several Russian-themed bars in Miami.
The scam involved young Eastern European women, called B-girls, picking up male tourists at their hotels and bringing them to clubs from which Simchuk worked. At the clubs, the women persuade the men to order bottles of alcohol without noticing the exorbitant prices.
Simchuk pleaded guilty to fraud and other charges and agreed to testify for the prosecution in the trial of Pavlenko; Albert Takhalov, 31; Siavash Zargari, 48, and Isaac Feldman, 52, who was defeated in a 2010 city commission election, and invested $25,000 in a club controlled by Simchuk and Takhalov, the Herald said.
Pavlenko, Takhalov and Feldman were found guilty in December of conspiracy, wire fraud and money-laundering charges.
Takhalov, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and Feldman was sentenced to more than eight years, the Herald reported. Zargari was acquitted.
