{"id":359643,"date":"2026-08-01T03:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359643\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T03:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:46:10","slug":"former-orlando-nightclub-owner-sentenced-14-years-after-guilty-plea-in-child-sex-crimes-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/359643\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Orlando nightclub owner sentenced 14 years after guilty plea in child sex crimes case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Orlando nightclub owner sentenced 14 years after guilty plea in child sex crimes case<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785555970_307_author_avatar.png\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Default author avatar\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">Richard Kowalczyk, former owner of the Southern Nights nightclub in Orlando, has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to attempted coercion and enticement of a minor. <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">When charges were filed against Kowalczyk in 2025, he transferred ownership and stepped away entirely from Southern Nights and District Dive. <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"2\">Eric Patrick, another defendant in the case, also pleaded guilty to a similar charge and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">The indictment traced years of SMS communication between Kowalczyk and Patrick, in which officials said the two discussed their desire to have &#8220;sexual relations with teenage boys,&#8221; their desire to &#8220;find new teenage boys with whom to have sexual relations,&#8221; and frequently shared &#8220;sexual images&#8221; back and forth of the people they met on online dating sites. According to court records, some of these individuals were under 18. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Orlando nightclub owner sentenced 14 years after guilty plea in child sex crimes case ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1330,146563,146560,146562,146556,32137,146555,9875,19243,139,141,140,146554,146559,146561,146557,146558,164],"class_list":["post-359643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-charge","tag-child-sex-crime-case","tag-desire","tag-district-dive","tag-eric-patrick","tag-federal-prison","tag-former-orlando-nightclub-owner","tag-indictment","tag-minor","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-richard-kowalczyk","tag-sexual-relation","tag-sms-communication","tag-southern-nights-nightclub","tag-teenage-boy","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}