For years, businessman Perry Mandera ran a topless bar on the Near North Side, at times with help from reputed organized crime associates, including the late “mob cop” Fred Pascente.
These days, Mandera is involved in a much different kind of stage — the political stage, where he, family members and their businesses are contributing heavily to the campaign fund benefiting Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias.
With Giannoulias a potential but yet-unannounced candidate for Chicago mayor, companies affiliated with Mandera have contributed at least $80,000 to Citizens for Giannoulias since 2022. That’s the year Giannoulias won his current elected post, replacing retiring incumbent Jesse White to oversee a government agency responsible for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations.
Beyond that, Mandera and his family have collectively given nearly $30,000 more over the last five years.
That includes a $6,900 “in-kind” contribution to Giannoulias from Mandera in 2024 in the form of a Cubs suite for a fundraiser, according to Illinois State Board of Elections records.
Giannoulias and Mandera declined to comment.
Mandera’s company and family have donated to another potential mayoral candidate, 34th Ward Ald. Bill Conway, giving $20,000 to his campaign since 2022, records show.
Starting in the 1990s, Mandera ran the topless club under several names, from Thee Dollhouse to VIP’s, A Gentlemen’s Club, to The Crazy Horse Too.
Pascente, a former Chicago cop known to associate with the late mobster Anthony Spilotro, was listed in a 1997 Chicago Crime Commission report on the Chicago mob as a known member or associate of organized crime.
Nevada gambling regulators banned Pascente from stepping foot in any casinos there, calling him “an associate of the Chicago organized crime family.”
Pascente died in 2014, not long before his autobiography was released. Titled “Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department,” the book includes passages about Mandera.
Pascente wrote: “We opened Thee Dollhouse in February of ’93. The owner was Perry Mandera. I was the main guy.”
“I used to give Perry $25,000 a week. I controlled the money. Every night I counted the money. So I know, badda-bing.”
Mandera also brought in Rick Rizzolo to help with the club at one point. Rizzolo had been running a Las Vegas strip club that employed reputed mob figure Rocco Lombardo, brother of the late mob boss Joey “The Clown” Lombardo. Rizzolo had alleged ties to others in organized crime in Chicago and New York, according to published accounts.
Rizzolo’s Las Vegas club has been described in a court case involving a patron who was beaten and paralyzed there in 2001 as “infested by a rogues' gallery of thugs, thieves, drug pushers and corrupt ex-cops. Most, if not all, have well documented ties to organized crime figures.”
Rizzolo couldn’t be reached for comment.
Mandera eventually sold his Chicago club, which had been involved in a long legal battle with City Hall over its liquor license and how much skin was allowed to be shown by female dancers.
Another legal fight came in 2002 when a Mandera trucking firm called the Custom Companies was hit with a sexual harassment complaint from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which alleged that women working at the business were made to bring clients to Mandera’s strip club and subjected to a “sexually charged” workplace.
Mandera’s Custom Companies has also contributed money to a trade group representing the trucking industry that in turn has given campaign money to Giannoulias, whose agency licenses and regulates truckers in Illinois. The group previously gave to White’s campaign.
Mandera’s business portfolio has also included an interest in legalized marijuana, starting with medical weed and eventually getting into recreational sales.
Mandera and individuals and businesses affiliated with him have been prolific campaign givers over the years to a variety of other candidates and causes, from President Donald Trump, a Republican, to outgoing U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, an Illinois Democrat. Custom Companies gave more than $600,000 over the years to state and local campaigns, records show.
Mandera also has been a donor to charities that have included Loyola Academy, a Catholic high school in Wilmette.
Two decades ago while Giannoulias was running for Illinois treasurer, questions emerged about loans made by his family’s business, the now-shuttered Broadway Bank where he worked, to reputed crime figures.
Giannoulias initially defended one of the loans and the borrower — reputed mob figure Michael “Jaws” Giorango — in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. He later walked that back, telling the Chicago Sun-Times: “I should have taken more time to look at their background.”
"While we did our job as bankers to make sure that they were creditworthy borrowers and the value of the collateral was adequate, I probably should have looked into it more."
