Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990                   TAG: 9003152377
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEEN CLUB OWNER'S SENTENCE REINSTATED

Akers, 33, already is serving a 12-year sentence for secretly videotaping girls in the restroom of his now-defunct Club 19.

Because the offenses happened while Akers was on probation for sex offenses involving a 13-year-old girl in Roanoke County, authorities asked that a 15-year sentence that was suspended in 1983 be reinstated.

At a hearing Wednesday in Roanoke County Circuit Court, Judge Kenneth Trabue imposed the 15-year sentence but ordered that it run concurrently with the 12-year term - in effect giving Akers an extra three years to serve.

When court officials learned in 1988 that Akers planned to open a teen nightclub while still on probation, they asked for a hearing in which Trabue expressed concerns about the idea.

Although there was nothing illegal about Akers' plans to open a teen club, court officials worried about a setting that would put a sex offender in close proximity with teen-agers.

"That's like putting a fox in a chicken coop," Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Burkart said.

Since Akers was arrested last May, Roanoke City Council has adopted an ordinance that bars sex offenders and other felons from operating teen nightclubs.

Akers has maintained that he rigged a video camera in the ceiling of the girls' restroom at Club 19 for security reasons - not out of sexual deviance - after he became concerned about possible drug use in the restroom.

But in testimony Wednesday, Akers said he hopes to receive counseling for his problems - the closest he has come to an admission in court.

After Akers serves his time on the videotaping charges, he will still face a 20-year suspended sentence while on probation for six years. That suspended sentence is the remaining portion of the 32-year sentence he got in the videotaping case.

In 1983, Akers was convicted of statutory rape, sodomy and taking sexually explicit photographs of a 13-year-old during a relationship he had with the girl. He received a 20-year sentence with all but five years suspended.

Akers still was on probation when he opened Club 19 and, less than a year later, secretly rigged the video camera in the ceiling. Videotapes seized from Akers showed more than 100 girls who were filmed using the restroom or changing their clothes.

"He's not a bad person," Akers' grandmother testified Wednesday. "He's not the person that's being portrayed in the press."