Apprentice Candidate’s Scandalous Past Revealed

Remember in my preview article for the fourth season of The Apprentice when I wondered which of the candidates is the former stripper? Well, I need wonder no more – the fine folks at The Smoking Gun dug that little tidbit up. But being an ex-stripper is only one of the things that gives candidate Alla Wartenberg a… colorful past.

In addition to running some very successful spas in Las Vegas, Alla also once worked at The Palomino Club as an “entertainer.” In court documents dug up by The Smoking Gun, Alla testified that “There’s only one kind of entertainer in Palomino, a dancer.” She then clarified that she was, in fact, a nude dancer. Calling herself Ecstasy (or “X” for short), Alla did lap dances for $40.

Among Alla’s customers was California businessman Robert Acremant. Robert regularly paid between $500 and $1,500 a night to spend an evening with Alla in the club’s private Lipstick Lounge. The two occasionally went out for dinner together, and at one point he bought her a pair of diamond earrings.

Eventually, Robert apparently had trouble paying his favorite stripper, and investigators contend that in 1995, he plotted the robbery of two women in Oregon. He wound up murdering the two women, then in a later robbery attempt, killed a man named Scott George. Robert was found guilty of all three murders and is currently sentenced to death in both Oregon and California.

During the trial, Robert considered Alla his girlfriend, but she didn’t see it the same way. She testified that their relationship was platonic, and that she just liked him as a customer. In Robert’s last visit to Las Vegas, the two argued about their relationship. He was upset, saying that she just used him for money, then pulled a gun and stun gun on her. Alla was unharmed, but said in court that she was “scarred for life.”

What does all of this mean for Alla’s chances on The Apprentice? Who knows, but it will definitely make viewers look at her a little differently than they otherwise would have.

Betsy Wasser is the Associate Editor of Reality News Online. She can be reached with any comments at betsywasser@gmail.com

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