Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Federal Agents Raid Famed Friars Club in Midtown East

By Noah Hurowitz | February 14, 2017 5:42pm
 Federal agents raided the Friars Club this week, according to news reports.
Federal agents raided the Friars Club this week, according to news reports.
View Full Caption
Creative Commons/Paterakis

MIDTOWN EAST — Federal investigators from the U.S. Postal Service raided the well-heeled Friars Club in Midtown East this week, according to a spokeswoman for the agency.

Agents from the Postal Inspection Service raided the exclusive club — a longtime hub for comedians and celebrities located at 57 E. 55th St. — pursuant to an investigation, the spokeswoman said.

The agents served a search warrant and carried away computers and boxes of files, according to sources who spoke with the New York Post, but the Postal Service spokeswoman declined to go into detail about what agents seized or what they were looking for.

A spokesman for the Friars Club did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Friars Club was founded in 1904, and has boasted a membership that has included luminaries like Frank Sinatra and Ed Sullivan, along with contemporary comedians like Jimmy Fallon. The club is famous for hosting celebrity roasts, and also includes a charitable wing, the Friars Foundation, that claims to fund performance arts education programs.

But the club has suffered negative press in recent years. In 2014 the Friars Foundation saw donations plunge from $676,216 in 2013 to just $47,198 in 2014, and donations went from $351,896 to $8,685, according to federal tax forms, a drop first reported by Showbiz411.

And in 2016, Bruce Charet — a television producer and member of the club — was charged with sexually harassing a receptionist at the club over the course of several years, according to court documents.