NEW YORK (AP) – An owner of the Scores topless clubs and two corporations pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to filing bogus tax returns.

Richard K. Goldring, of Watchung, N.J., pleaded guilty in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court to offering a false instrument for filing. He admitted that in March 2004 he filed a tax return that he knew contained false information.

Goldring was one of three Scores officials indicted in February along with five companies on charges of evading taxes on $3.1 million income. All three officials faced up to four years in prison if they had been convicted after trial.

Under terms of his plea deal, Goldring, part owner of the two Scores clubs in Manhattan, will be required to pay whatever taxes, penalties and fines are demanded by state and federal tax officials and he will be on probation for five years.

Goldring’s lawyer, Edward McDonald, said his client will give up ownership in the publicly traded holding company that franchises Scores clubs, but he added that “nothing in the plea agreement prevents him from operating those (two) clubs (in Manhattan).” He also said Goldring’s plea “has no effect on Scores at all.”

Prosecutors said customer complaints of overcharges at Scores had led to the investigation and arrests. They said the investigation into overcharges was stymied because the customers were reluctant to cooperate.

Meanwhile, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said, investigators found “a massive tax evasion scheme by managers and owners of the nightclub.”

Morgenthau said the scam, “simple and corrupt,” involved the payment of money by Scores to dummy companies as business expenses and the dummy companies’ payment of the personal expenses of Goldring and others.

Two companies, DDM Management Corp. and Interactive Business Concepts Inc., pleaded guilty through their lawyer Norman Bloch to filing false state tax returns for 2001. Prosecutors said the companies will be fined $5,000 each. The case of a third company, 333 East 60th Street Inc., was dismissed.

Cheryl Osher, a Scores bookkeeper who signed DDM’s tax returns, appeared in court but under terms of an agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office she did not plead guilty. Instead, her case was adjourned until April 4, 2007.

Bloch said that if Osher, of Brooklyn, lives up to the conditions of the agreement her case will be dismissed next year. He said the principal condition is that she pay whatever taxes that state and federal officials say she owes.

Osher is the niece of defendant Harvey Osher and daughter of Eliot Osher, another owner of the clubs. Eliot Osher was not charged in this case. The clubs are on East 60th Street and West 28th Street.

Harvey Osher, of Matawan, N.J., is expected in court Friday for a resolution of his case and the case of two of the indicted companies.

At least three patrons have sued Scores in the past two years, saying their credit cards were overcharged by tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. One patron sued the club after he got a $28,000 bill, and another disputed $129,000 in charges.

The most notorious case involved Robert McCormick, former CEO of St. Louis-based Savvis Inc., who said Scores charged him $241,000 for one night’s entertainment after he had run up a tab of about $18,000 to $19,000. A confidential settlement was reached in that case.

AP-ES-03-29-06 1816EST

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