Strippers perform for inmates of the 27-story federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago from the roof of a nearby parking garage, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. One evening, two nude women on the roof appeared to be performing sex acts for the inmates. Some days, the performances are strictly G-rated. Attorneys who represent clients in the jail say they’ve seen the tawdry shows from their law offices in the nearby Monadnock Building. They’ve been going on for decades, one federal source says.
The detainees arrange the shows to prove they’re the top dogs in the jail, a 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 garage, which is private property. 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. Jimenez says he didn’t pay for the dances. A woman stripping on the roof for him was simply “showing her love,” says Jimenez, who noted that she sometimes stood on the garage roof holding a sign that said “Free T.J.”