The Sun-Times has uncovered an impromptu strip club that takes place on top of a parking garage directly across the street from Chicago’s Jailhouse.
The detainees arrange the shows to prove they’re the top dogs in the jail, another source says. Often, the women will flash money — as well as skin — to show how rich and powerful their boyfriends are, he says.
It doesn’t appear that anyone has been arrested in connection with the jailhouse strip club.
Prison authorities say they can’t do anything about what’s going on at the parking garage.
Asked about the performances, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs the jail, says: “We are aware of the situation and have notified the owner of the property, but because it is private property, the Bureau of Prisons has no authority to remove people from the property.”
An executive for the company that runs the garage says he doesn’t know anything about the nude displays. A security guard was stationed atop the garage this past week, though.
Thaddeus “T.J.” Jimenez, a well-known Chicago gang leader who was held at the federal jail downtown, says some of the garage-top shows were for him.
In a brief interview, Jimenez says he didn’t pay for the dances. A woman stripping on the roof for him was simply “showing her love,” according to Jimenez, who says she sometimes would stand on the roof of the garage holding a sign that said “Free T.J.”
photo courtesy of Rich Hein / Sun-Times
