Out of jail, Ian Bick wants to get back in the nightclub business

Ian Bick, on the day he was released from prison, Jan. 29, 2019. Ian Bick, on the day he was released from prison, Jan. 29, 2019. Photo: Ian Bick Photo: Ian Bick Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Out of jail, Ian Bick wants to get back in the nightclub business 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Ian Bick wants to get back into the nightclub business, but he’s got some things to take care of first.

His first goal is to get out of the halfway house where he’s been living since getting out of jail on Jan. 29.

After that, he’s got court-ordered restitution to pay, about $450,000 to the investors he was convicted of bilking, plus another $100,000 or so he feels obligated to pay back to friends and family.

“I had mishandled money,” Bick said during a recent interview. “We were kids. You give a kid a million bucks he’s not going to go buy jet skis and take a couple trips?”

Bick was 21 when he was convicted on six counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, but he might have avoided prison time if he hadn’t violated conditions of bail and jaunted off to a casino in New York.

“I was desperate because I wanted to make Tuxedo Junction work so bad,” he said. “I was able to turn $500 to $20,000 at the baccarat table. I don’t regret that.”

Bick was owner and operator of the Tuxedo Junction nightclub in 2014 at age 19, and then a second club a year later. By 2016 he was convicted and heading off to prison. Former inmate number 22765014 will turn 24 in May.

Bick said prison is “not like what you see on TV.” He was moved around a few times, starting at a low-security prison at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

Then to Danbury, where he spent five months in solitary confinement — technically the SHU, segregated housing unit, which he pronounced “shoe” — “in there 23 hours a day.”

“Man, it sucked,” he said, though being in Danbury had its perks. “I got to see my family once a week because I was so close to home.”

Bick did get to understand what he called “prison politics.” On the West Coast, he said, inmates form “cars” — “They call it a car because it’s all the people riding together” — based on race, but not so on the East Coast.

“The Connecticut guys will ride together,” he said. “On the East Coast you might have a white guy and a black guy is his best friend.”

But Bick said he didn’t associate with anyone, and was friendly with everyone, which helped him stay out of trouble.

He said most inmates are left alone, “If you’re not a sex offender and you didn’t rat on your case,” facts inmates will find out about the newbies. “The guards will tell them if there’s a snitch around or if there’s a sex offender.”

Eventually, Bick was moved to a prison camp in Wisconsin, where he said security was laughable, particularly during the government shutdown.

He described inmates running through the woods to spend a few hours in a hotel with their wives and girlfriends, returning with bags of fast food.

“It’s very laid back at a camp. You’ve got one guard per 130 inmates,” he said. “But when the government was shut down it was a free-for-all.”

During the shutdown guards “would barely walk,” he said. “They knew a lot of stuff there that they turned a blind eye to.”

More than two years of prison confinement later, Bick has lost some weight and gained some muscle, and some perspective. He knows who he can count on — his mom, his dad, some close friends.

“Those are friendships and relationships I can cherish for my entire life because they’ve been through the worst,” he said.

Bick does want to get back into the nightclub business, though not as an owner. But he has to pay back what he owes, first.

“My main priority right now is, I’m working on a book deal,” he said. “I’ve had several producers interested in a possible TV show or movie.”

Jordan Fenster is the digital products editor for Hearst Connecticut Media.

jordan.fenster@hearstmediact.com