FOR OWNERS OF CLUB IN POLICE SHOOTING CASE, YEARS OF RAIDS AND SUITS

They were Sean Bell's final hours of bachelorhood, and in an enduring
rite of passage, he and his friends chose to celebrate at a strip
club, in this case Club Kalua in Jamaica, Queens.

Another group was also headed to the club on the evening of Nov. 24.
But they had a different objective: Shut the place down. They were
police officers, two of them undercover, pursuing reports of drugs and
prostitution behind the building's burnt-red facade and dingy portico.

Early the next morning, hours after they all arrived, the two groups
would intersect in a few flashing moments of confusion, fear, car
crashes and 50 police bullets -- leaving Mr. Bell dead, two of his
friends wounded, and a community enraged. In the days since, much of
Mr. Bell's life story, along with some of the life stories of the
police officers who shot him and his friends, has emerged.

But Club Kalua has its story, too. Of all the factors and coincidences
that brought the two groups together, the existence of the little
strip club must be seen as one of the most important. It was the
destination of both groups that fateful night.

And there is substantial evidence that it shouldn't have been
there.

Club Kalua was the latest of four sex-oriented operations in Jamaica
closely associated with a mother-and-son team who have remained in
business for nearly a decade despite repeated raids by police and
attempts by city and state officials to shut them down. Clubs owned by
the mother and son, Martina Duran, 53, and Roger Duran, 33, have been
repeatedly cited by various agencies for tempting men with
prostitutes, but always seemed to stay in business another night.

A review of court records and enforcement actions suggests that the
numerous city and state agencies that had looked into the Durans never
tied together the ample evidence of misconduct lurking within their
individual files. To consider that vast record in total is to wonder
how, had there been minimal contact between the agencies, Club Kalua
could have escaped being ordered closed long before Mr. Bell and his
buddies set out for their party. The review paints a portrait of the
Durans -- who have never been charged with a serious crime -- as
escaping the taint of their prior activities by trading ownerships and
licenses, as well as using different names. One law enforcement
official said that the Durans have stayed one step ahead of legal
authorities for a decade.

"It's a situation where they are smart and where they can get other
people to do these things for them," said the law enforcement
official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the
developing investigations. "And it's a matter of being lucky."

Before they opened Club Kalua, Martina and Roger Duran were accused of
operating bordellos or nightclubs that fostered prostitution at three
other locations within blocks of Jamaica Station, the busy commuter
terminal where the Long Island Rail Road, the AirTrain to Kennedy
International Airport and several subway lines meet.

One of those businesses operated across the street from a Metropolitan
Transportation Authority police station. At another, a city police
officer was arrested in 1999 on charges of procuring sex from
prostitutes while on duty. In all, the four locations or clubs owned
or operated by the Durans in Jamaica have been the sites of at least
29 arrests for prostitution and received several other citations for
gambling and selling liquor to minors.

Yet mother and son were twice able to obtain liquor licenses. The
second license, for Club Kalua, was issued in January 2003 to Roger
Duran, just as the state was wrapping up a revocation of the liquor
license held in his mother's name at a club across the tracks.

The Durans' mini-empire appears to have been cobbled together from
1993 to 1998; in that period, they acquired three buildings around
Jamaica Station, purchasing each property with a mortgage carried by
the sellers. All three buildings were on the north side of the tracks,
a bustling commercial strip with civic buildings, fast-food
restaurants and small shops.

The first prostitution arrests involved 147-16 Archer Avenue, a
property that Roger Duran bought from two dentists in January 1995. He
was 21. "He told us it was going to be a nightclub for Dominicans,"
recalled one of the sellers, Dr. Arthur B. Ebbin, whose dental office
was across the street.

Though Mr. Duran signed the deed, Ms. Duran listed herself as the
owner on a building permit filed in September 1995, one of many
indications that the business interests of her and her son were
intertwined.

By the following year, the police had determined that in the basement
there was a brothel.

In five investigations involving undercover officers between July and
October 1996, the police made a total of 12 arrests for
prostitution.

On each occasion, the undercover officers were introduced to "scantily
clad" women who offered to engage in sexual acts for $10 to $25,
lawyers for the Police Department later charged in court documents.

On Oct. 15, 1996, a man working the door at the Archer Avenue address
told an officer patrolling the neighborhood that "Gladys" held the
keys to the vacant space on the ground floor. The officer knew Gladys
as the "madam" of the reputed "house of prostitution," the documents
show. Whether it was the same woman can't be known. But Gladys is a
first name that Martina Duran, in other court documents, has listed as
a name she was also known by.

Ms. Duran could not be reached for this article. Her son was contacted
on his cellphone but abruptly ended the call. Many calls last week to
lawyers who have represented the Durans over the years were not returned.

Also in October 1996, lawyers for the city sued Mr. Duran under the
city's public nuisance code, charging a pattern of prostitution. But
the action, which sought to close his business for a year, appears to
have languished.

Dean Emmanuelli, a Bronx lawyer, represented Mr. Duran for a time in
that case but said last week that he did not meet him until years
later, while handling a collection case for him. "He's a very nice
guy," Mr. Emmanuelli said. "Very well spoken, very well behaved. He
had very meticulous manners, almost like an Englishman, and I think he
said his father was an Englishman."

In the spring of 1999, during another undercover operation, Damian
Conlon, a police officer who patrolled the 103rd Precinct on a
bicycle, was arrested after the police said he twice entered the
brothel and procured free sex from prostitutes.

He was allowed to plead guilty to a single charge of official
misconduct, on the condition that he resign from the department and
pay a $1,000 fine.

One of the dentists who sold Mr. Duran the building, Dr. Ebbin,
recalls his daughter calling him into the living room to watch
television news reports of police engaging prostitutes at his old property.

"I became famous with my daughter as the man who once owned the police
brothel," said Dr. Ebbin, who has since retired.

Around that time, Mr. Duran stopped paying the $175,000 mortgage that
Dr. Ebbin and his partner were carrying on the building. The dentists
foreclosed on the note.

But in June 1999, Mr. Duran deeded the property to his mother, in what
was recorded as an intra-family transaction.

Four months later, Ms. Duran filed for bankruptcy protection,
effectively locking up the property dispute for two years. In the
bankruptcy proceeding, the trustee identified Roger as Martina's son.

Ms. Duran also owned property at 147-14 Archer Avenue, which she
bought in 1993. The addresses are listed separately in property
records, but from the street appear to be different entrances to the
same building.

In October 1998, she applied for a liquor license for a business at
the new address, the Executive Manor Inn.

The police raided the Executive Manor Inn in early 2001, hoping to
catch Ms. Duran running the operation, said a law enforcement official
who has been involved in tracking the Durans' activities.

After arresting a man who identified himself as her boyfriend, they
spotted Ms. Duran in the crowd gathered outside -- just beyond legal
jeopardy. "We came that close," the official said.

On Feb. 13, 2002, police lawyers filed another public nuisance
complaint against Ms. Duran, citing 14 arrests at the Executive Manor
Inn from the previous March to December. The court file shows no
activity after a preliminary conference in February 2003.

The Durans' third property was two blocks away on 146th Street. It was
a two-story brick building, across from the transportation authority
police office, that housed a church and a thrift shop. Ms. Duran
bought it in 1998.

The following year, police lawyers charged, an investigation found the
same pattern as at the Archer Avenue addresses: Twice in July 1999,
undercover officers entered the basement and said they were offered
sex with "scantily clad females" for $25. They made three arrests.

Later that summer, a Buildings Department inspector cited Ms. Duran
for illegally dividing the basement with plywood walls to create a
"brothel" with a waiting area and cubicles that "are being used as
bedrooms for prostitution."

"People knew," said a nearby business owner, who asked not to be
identified for fear of retaliation. "You'd see a bunch of pretty girls
in skimpy clothing standing outside smoking, and a bunch of guys
coming through. Then all of a sudden everyone disappeared."

The city again filed a public nuisance lawsuit, seeking to seize
assets and close the operation for one year, naming Ms. Duran as a
defendant. "The subject premise is being used solely to conduct
prostitution activities," lawyers for the city charged in court papers
filed on Sept. 1, 1999. The court file shows no further activity on
the case.

Over the years, the Durans have both claimed residences at the same
addresses in Queens and in the Nassau County village of Farmingdale,
near the border with Suffolk County. In Farmingdale, neighbors of the
ranch-style home in a tree-shrouded cul-de-sac where they used to live
remember Ms. Duran, on the rare instances when they saw her, as being
about 5 feet 4 inches tall, stocky, wearing a lot of makeup and
favoring tight clothes.

In several property records, Mr. Duran noted that he was also known as
Roger Arias.

A man arrested on July 26, 2000, on a misdemeanor charge of promoting
prostitution gave police the name of Roger Arias and claimed the same
Farmingdale, Long Island, address that both Durans used, according to
computerized state court records. The arrest occurred in the same
police precinct, the 103rd in Queens, where the Durans' businesses
were located. The charge was later reduced to disorderly conduct, a
violation, and Mr. Arias was fined $250.

By the late 1990s, all three of the Durans' commercial properties --
the two on Archer Avenue, and the one on 146th Street -- had gone into
foreclosure. They were sold off in early 2001 by a bankruptcy trustee,
but at least one, the Executive Manor Inn, apparently stayed open.

In March 2003, the State Liquor Authority revoked Ms. Duran's liquor
license for the Executive Manor Inn, citing a record of prostitution.
But by then, the Durans had a new venture under way.

The previous June, they both signed a lease for the space in the same
building as the Van Wyck Auto Diagnostic Center on 94th Street, said
Juan Escobar, an owner of the building. It was to be their first
business on the south side of the railroad tracks, which has a mix of
light industry, auto body shops and single- and multiple-family homes.

In January 2003, the state granted Mr. Duran a liquor license for the
location, which would soon be Club Kalua. Officials of the Liquor
Authority were not aware of his connection to Martina Duran, said
William Crowley, an agency spokesman, because Mr. Duran had filed a
document showing himself as the sole leaseholder.

But Ms. Duran, in a lawsuit she filed against the building owners,
submitted an affidavit saying her name was on the lease; that matches
Mr. Escobar's account.

Mr. Crowley added that the Liquor Authority might have viewed the
application differently had it known of the various nuisance abatement
actions that the city had filed against the Durans.

Neighbors of Club Kalua recalled last week that on summer afternoons,
scantily clad women would linger outside the club talking to men. The
inside, according to former patrons, was a dimly lighted room with
topless dancers hustling drinks and tips from customers.

"It was just like a regular strip club, sometimes they'd have private
parties," said Junee, a 21-year-old student who had visited the club
and who asked that his last name not be used. "Sometimes people would
get drunk and rowdy, but most of the time it was decent."

Club Kalua allowed pimps to bring in prostitutes to solicit patrons,
according to the law enforcement official familiar with the
investigation.

"They even had a pimp rule: no more than three pimps in the club at a
time," the official said.

Between June and October 2004, the club was cited three times for
serving alcohol to minors, which led city lawyers to file a nuisance
abatement complaint in February 2005, the fourth to name a Duran business.

That July, acting on the city complaint, a judge ordered the club shut
for two months. It was allowed to reopen on several conditions, one of
which was that Mr. Duran would eliminate small rooms that
investigators said had been used for acts of prostitution.

While the nuisance abatement law has proved a powerful tool for
shutting down illegal activities by holding landlords accountable, it
is not intended to stop illegal undertakings by the same people at
several locations, said Robert F. Messner, an assistant police
commissioner in the Civil Enforcement Unit of the department's Legal
Bureau.

In October 2005, the club was cited by the Liquor Authority for
allowing prostitutes to solicit patrons on the preceding March 12.

This March, Queens vice officers raided the club as part of a
crackdown on prostitution. A bartender was arrested on a weapons
charge and another person was arrested on a drug charge. In addition,
the Liquor Authority cited the club for employing a convicted felon.

In June, the Liquor Authority moved to revoke Mr. Duran's license, its
third attempt in two years. A decision is pending.

But the trouble continued.

On Nov. 21, two women were arrested at the club for prostitution and
possession of crack cocaine, a law enforcement official said.

And in the early morning of Nov. 25, undercover officers were back
inside the strip club, building yet another public nuisance case
against the newest Duran family business.

There, too, were Sean Bell and his friends, to celebrate.