Early Days
Take One’s name is inspired by Raley's work in TV. For years, he worked as the lighting director for The Jackie Gleason Show, which aired in Miami for most of its run. Raley intended it as a bar for his friends in the industry, featuring roast beef sandwiches, neon-blue martinis and dancers wearing nothing but tape over their nipples and transparent panties.
The joint’s first run-in with the law took place in 1977, when Raley was charged with violating the city’s anti-nude dancing ordinance. Instead of paying a fine, he convinced a court that the ordinance was a violation of his dancers’ First Amendment rights.
Tragedy Strikes
Raley had a good reputation. Though he left most of the operations to his managers, he made a point of being the only person who counted the money, doing so every morning at dawn for years. Neighbors knew him for his consistency.
He was also said to have treated the staff like family—and sometimes they were. In the summer of 2004, while one of Raley's employees was away in Haiti on vacation, he hired her brother-in-law, Marc Placide, as a janitor to fill in.
Placide conspired with two young men, Jean Mentor and Johnny Mesadieu, to rob Take One. Mentor and Mesadieu, along with a teenage boy who was not charged, returned in September 2004 to rob the establishment again. In that struggle, Raley was fatally shot with his own gun.
Raley “treated his employees, all of his employees, like family,” Joe Schillaci, the detective on the case, said at the time. “Here’s an individual that took advantage of that man’s kindness.”
A New Reputation
Between 2005 and 2010, police recorded 105 disputes, 31 assaults and 13 shootings, including two homicides, at Take One, according to the Miami New Times. They ranged from a dancer hitting another dance with a beer bottle to a shootout with bouncers after a group was denied entry.
“That establishment has been a nightmare for the city,” Schillaci told the outlet.
Those numbers don’t even include incidents that happened just outside the club. The most violent year might have been 2008, when three men were killed in a drive-by shooting after leaving the club. One of those men who died, Xaviein Bendross, was on probation for his role in the killing of a tourist at the same intersection 12 years earlier. Despite these events, the Miami New Times named Take One the best strip club that same year.
In 2011, a joint investigation with federal law enforcement began to seek out suspected gang activity at Take One. It was then that a detective shot two men during a traffic stop shortly after they left the club.
The last shooting at Take One occurred during the 2014 Super Bowl when a man named Alvin Jason Givens shot and injured three people. One of them, Lenroy James, sued Take One, accusing the managers of having known that Givens was a threat.
Becoming ONE
Despite the murders and assaults, Karen Raley, Robert’s wife, who inherited Take One, and her managers kept it going for 13 years after his death. Several lawsuits, including Lenroy’s, were financially constraining, and Take One permanently closed in 2016. Karen eventually sold it to Edgerrin, the former running back. He could not be reached for comment by A&E Crime + Investigation.
Edgerrin’s strip club, ONE Gentlemen’s Club, made a strong showing when it opened, with football players and rappers in attendance. But the club might not be able to fully shake its past. In September 2025, during a historic low for crime in the city, police responded to the sound of gunfire in the area. There, they found a man dead in the ONE’s parking lot.
