OLD FORGE, Pa. — A strip club in Lackawanna County will soon be no more.
According to court paperwork, the owners of the Diamond Club along South Keyser Avenue in Old Forge have agreed to close the space and turn it into offices and storage units.
Plans for the racy Old Forge establishment and nearby after-hours nightclub, Club VIP, were noted in documents filed Monday in a court case brought by the county district attorney's office aimed at shuttering the place as a nuisance.
In the filings, the property owner and prosecutors agreed: "The public welfare, health, peace and morals of the Borough of Old Forge and surrounding communities are and will continue to be adversely affected if the Diamond Club VIP are permitted to remain open."
The district attorney's office went to court to close the place after a deadly shooting there in December.
Police accused Shamar Leggette of fatally shooting Khayree Abdurruzzaq, 34, of Plymouth, outside Club VIP on Dec. 3.
Leggette, a member of the Crips street gang, was also wanted in Providence, Rhode Island, for armed robbery and assault and in New York for armed robberies.
He was shot to death during a gunfight with U.S. Marshals who found him in a motel last week in South Brunswick, New Jersey.
The December shooting was the second outside of the Old Forge clubs in less than a year.
On New Year's Day in 2023, Jordan Allen, of Wilkes-Barre, allegedly shot into the parking lot while his girlfriend walked to a car.
Malika Bell was struck by a bullet and Allen was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. Bell survived, but suffered "life altering injuries," prosecutors said.
Allen, 24, awaits trial on the charges. Bell filed a lawsuit in April seeking damages.
Authorities sought a temporary injunction to shut the club on Dec. 20. In their complaint, prosecutors said Old Forge police responded to the property 51 times between July 3, 2022, and Dec. 3 for calls including homicide, aggravated assault and fighting.
Judge Michael J. Barrasse signed an order Dec. 20 temporarily shutting it down, pending a hearing.
Rather than fight it at a hearing, Greg Giaffes and Steven Krauss, officers of the property's ownership company, S.W. Krauss, LLC, agreed to shut the place down. They signed an agreement dated Monday.
The district attorney's office will drop its court action once the property obtains final approval for renovations, according to filings.
