Pole Dancing Around Lisa Ann Taylor's Arrest

JIM STINGL

Having your arrest show up on the news normally is poison for your career.

Unless you're an exotic dancer. It just makes the bad girl badder.

"A $10,000 a nite callgirl? That's what I was arrested for. You've seen me on the news, now have your picture taken with me," says the ad for Melissa Wolf at On the Border, the "gentlemen's club" where she'll be posing and performing all this week starting Monday.

The half-page ad ran last week in the Shepherd Express, and the pitch also appears on the club's Web site.

Wolf, whose off-stage name is Lisa Ann Taylor, has found a way to squeeze lemonade from the lemons tossed at her by police and the Gwinnett County district attorney in Georgia, where her million-dollar mansion in a gated community outside Atlanta was raided this month.

The former Penthouse centerfold and another woman were arrested on charges of prostitution, racketeering and procuring drugs for clients. Authorities are claiming the mansion was rocking till all hours of the night.

The ad capitalizes on that, too. Come see the performer that police called the "mansion madam."

Taylor has performed in Milwaukee many times over the years, which has fueled another little nugget of the investigation into her case. The police are poring over customer lists said to possibly include men from suburban Milwaukee.

"I'm booking her because she needs a shot," said Danny Hay, co-owner of On the Border, 10741 S. 27th St., Franklin. "I'm almost positive we'll do really well. I'm hoping you guys blow it way out of proportion."

Done.

He said Taylor has performed as Melissa Wolf at his clubs many times, going back to the 1980s at Hoops, the rock club turned strip joint that used to be on 26th and State.

If you're doing the math in your head, yes, that makes Taylor a non-traditional pole dancer. At age 42, she told me she had been planning to retire, but the arrest has sidetracked her real estate sales career and pushed her back on stage.

"I haven't been given much of a choice," Taylor said when I reached her Saturday on her cell phone as she shopped for earrings in Allentown, Pa., where her not-guilty tour stopped last week.

"Would you buy real estate from me?" she said. "Probably not."

Publicity from the arrest and sensational accusations has given her take-it-off dancing career a jolt. She says she needs the money to pay her mortgage and lawyer bills.

"And I can still do the splits, believe it or not," she said. "The fans have been coming out in droves, and they think it's BS what's been going on."

Taylor professes her innocence but doesn't want to talk in detail about the allegations for fear she'll make it worse. Her bondsman has given her permission to travel.

Hay said all he knows is that Melissa Wolf is his friend and she's always been able to fill his club with customers. If she's done anything illegal, he's not aware of it, he said.

"We live in America where we are innocent until proven guilty - or we used to be," Hay said.

In this instance, though, that whiff of guilt is Melissa Wolf's biggest draw.

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