THE GILLICHS

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I. THE FIRST FRAUD

In which a family adds a letter and gains an alibi

Before we begin, a spelling lesson.

Gilich. One L. The original family name. Mike Gilich Sr. — the patriarch. Andrew M. Gilich — who married Jacobina Sekul on April 9, 1946. Mary Gilich — a witness at that same wedding. One L. The name the family used for generations before the Strip, before the murders, before any of it.

Gillich. Two L's. Mike Gillich Jr. — the "underworld boss." Joey Gillich. Michael Gillich III. Tina Rose Gillich. The name on the federal indictments. The name the Fifth Circuit used when it called the patriarch an "underworld boss" (United States v. Sharpe, 995 F.2d 49, 5th Cir. 1993).

And here is where the fraud begins.

Mike Gillich Jr. added an L.

Not FoFo dropping a letter to hide. Mike Jr. adding a letter — changing the original family name from Gilich to Gillich when he built his criminal empire on the Strip. The newspaper record proves it. On April 9, 1946, the family was Gilich. One L. The marriage announcement in the paper shows "Andrew M. Gilich, son of Mr. and Mrs. Mike Gilich." The father. One L. The original.

Then came Mike Jr. And Mike Jr. became Gillich — two L's. The crime boss. The Strip operator. The man who ordered the assassination of a judge. He added a letter to the family name, and everyone who followed him into the criminal enterprise — Joey, Mike III, Tina Rose — used that spelling too.

But not everyone.

FoFo kept the original. Andrew "FoFo" Gilich. One L. The same spelling as his grandfather. The same spelling as his father. The original family name — the one that existed before the convictions, before the federal indictments, before the Sherry murders made "Gillich" synonymous with organized crime in Mississippi.

And now ask yourself the question that should keep the voters of Biloxi awake at night: was this the plan all along?

Mike Jr. adds an L. Builds his empire. Gets convicted. Goes to prison. Dies. And the whole time, the nephew — the one who built the computer systems for the prison extortion ring, the one who walked out of the federal grand jury, the one who would become Mayor — kept the original spelling. The clean spelling. The spelling that doesn't return "convicted" when you Google it.

The fraud isn't that FoFo dropped a letter to hide. The fraud is that Mike Jr. added a letter to the crime — and left the original spelling clean for the nephew who would need it later.

Confusion is profit. As long as one voter in Biloxi thinks Gilich and Gillich are different families, the scam is working. As long as one journalist doesn't bother to check, the distance holds. As long as one search engine treats them as separate results, the nephew floats free of the uncle's conviction.

One L.

The undersigned publishes under his full name — Yuri Petrini. His email is on every article: contact@peoplevsbiloxi.com. His address is on every federal filing: 929 Division Street, Biloxi, MS 39530. He calls the Mayor a project of a mafioso, documents bombs and murders on the Mayor's family street, and prints it all under a name that has never changed.

FoFo's name never changed either. He kept his grandfather's spelling. Mike Jr. was the one who changed it — who added the L that would carry all the convictions, all the indictments, all the prison sentences. And when the dust settled, the nephew emerged with the clean spelling.

Was it a plan? Was it an accident? Was Mike Jr. building a firewall for the family's political future when he added that second L to the crime boss brand?

We think he knew. Mike Jr. knew his past would affect FoFo. He knew that someday the convictions would catch up to the name — and when they did, the nephew needed a different spelling to run for office. So Mike Jr. took the L. He added it to his name, to his children's names, to the federal indictments and the prison sentences and the "underworld boss" citations. He branded the crime with Gillich. And he left Gilich — the original, the clean, the one-L grandfather's name — for FoFo.

The firewall was built into the spelling. The political career was planned before the prison sentence ended.

We know the result.

The undersigned doesn't hide. The Mayor hides behind a letter his uncle added.

Naturally.

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II. THE CORPSE WITH A POTATO

In which a critic offers a clean document from 1976 and we offer fifty years of convictions

There is a strategy that works on people who don't read past the first paragraph.

You take a story with a hundred facts — murders, convictions, federal indictments, bombings, prison sentences, three generations of the same family running the same buildings on the same street — and you find one fact that looks clean. One document. One certificate. One moment frozen in 1976 before any of it happened. And you hold it up and say: "See? They can't prove this."

You don't address the convictions. You don't address the twenty years or the eighteen years or the twelve years. You don't address the bomb between the buildings or the molotov cocktail at dawn or the computer systems built for a prison extortion ring. You don't address the federal grand jury or the locked office or the Mayor approving his cousin's zoning application on the family street.

You gaslight a small piece to argue the whole credibility. You take one thread from the corner of the tapestry — the one thread that doesn't have blood on it — and you pull. And you say: "Look. This thread is clean. Therefore the tapestry doesn't exist."

That's all they have. One clean thread from 1976. And they need you to stop looking at the tapestry.

You find the potato.

A man is lying dead on the floor with bullet holes in his chest, a knife in his back, and a bomb strapped to the building. But he's holding a potato. And the critic points at the potato and says: "See? He was a farmer. There's nothing here."

That is what the critic did. They produced a 1976 Certificate of Incorporation showing that Le Bistro was originally a restaurant owned by the Van Eerd and Mouyal families — clean hands, clean purpose, clean address. And they said: no Gillich. No crime. No connection.

They found the potato.

We found the body.

But we won't let them do it. Not this time. Not on this street. Not with this family. Because every time someone waves a clean document from 1976 and says "nothing to see here," we're going to walk them through 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1999, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2025 — year by year, charge by charge, body by body, conviction by conviction — until the potato is buried under the weight of the corpse it was sitting next to.

This is that walk.

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III. THE ARGUMENT THEY MADE

In which a 1976 certificate is offered as proof that 1985 didn't happen

A critic challenged our Part IV reporting on Le Bistro, producing the 1976 Certificate of Incorporation — Mississippi Secretary of State, signed Heber Ladner, November 19, 1976 — showing that Le Bistro, Incorporated was founded by Martin John Van Eerd, Sophie T. Van Eerd, Haim Mouyal, and Suzanne Mouyal. Address: 2801 Pass Road, Biloxi. Purpose: culinary endeavors, restaurants, delicatessens. No Gillich anywhere.

The Sun Herald confirmed it on November 28, 1976 — "Charters Issued" — Le Bistro Inc., 2801 Pass Road, Biloxi, Martin John Van Eerd and Sophie T. Van Eerd of 405 Keller St., Waveland, and Haim Mouyal and Suzanne Mouyal.

Their argument: Le Bistro was a restaurant on Pass Road, owned by the Van Eerd and Mouyal families. No Gillich. No Dixie Mafia. No smoke.

We agree — in 1976.

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IV. WHAT CHANGED IN 1981

In which a new entity appears at the exact address next to the Horseshoe

(A note on methodology: We do the best we can here. Records are hard to come by. We verify what we can, correct what we must, and keep digging.)

On July 21, 1981, a new corporation was filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State: LEBISTRO AT THE BEACH, INC. Different owners. Different location. Different everything from the 1976 Pass Road restaurant.

The registered agent: Larry Boyle, at 222 Pat Harrison Avenue, Biloxi, MS 39530.

The incorporators: David Howe and Rex D. Howe — both listed at 734 Royal Street, New Orleans, LA.

Rex Howe. Remember that name. He's the same Rex Howe who, eleven years later, would be charged with federal arson for firebombing Joey Gillich's competing bar — FoFo's first cousin's bar — and then going shopping for a $1,000 bomb from Florida when the fire didn't finish the job.

The 1976 entity was a restaurant on Pass Road — Van Eerd and Mouyal, culinary endeavors, delicatessens.

The 1981 entity was something else entirely — and this is where the story really begins. Rex Howe and David Howe built the Le Bistro brand. They incorporated LEBISTRO AT THE BEACH, INC. at 222 Pat Harrison Avenue — the exact address on the Strip, the exact address sharing a wall with the Horseshoe, the exact address where Layne v. State would document a gay bar in 1986. The Howes were the most well-known owners. They built it. They ran it. And Rex Howe would later prove willing to firebomb a competitor and shop for a $1,000 bomb when the fire didn't finish the job.

Then came June 24, 1984 — the Creech bomb, placed between Le Bistro and the Horseshoe. Think about the timing. Within months of a homophobic bombing attempt on the Strip, the Howe business would change hands.

In 1985, a new entity appeared: Le Bistro of Mississippi, Inc. The incorporators: Billy Slusser, Anthony Bahr, and Lisa Cecil — all at Gulf Towers.

At first glance, this looks like a sale. The Howes are out. New people are in. But the obituaries tell a different story.

Lisa Cecil was Lisa Howe Cecil — Rex Howe's daughter.

Anthony Bahr was Rex Howe's "longtime friend and companion."

The 1993 obituary for Rex D. Howe — published after his death on October 3, 1993, in Talladega, Alabama — lists his survivors: "a daughter, Lisa Howe Cecil of Gulfport" and "his longtime friend and companion, Tony Bahr of Biloxi."

Rex Howe didn't sell Le Bistro in 1985. He transferred it to his daughter and his companion. The "new owners" were his inner circle. The business stayed in the family — just restructured on paper.

And then the Sun Herald got it wrong.

The 1992 Sun Herald article identifies Rex Howe, 62, as the "owner of Le Bistro" at the time of his arrest for firebombing Joey's bar. But by 1992, Rex Howe's original corporation — LEBISTRO AT THE BEACH, INC. — was dissolved. The business records show it. He couldn't have owned it through that entity because that entity no longer existed.

The Sun Herald was simply wrong. They called him the "owner" because that's what everyone on the Strip knew him as — the man who built Le Bistro, the man whose daughter and companion now ran it, the man who firebombed a competitor when his daughter's business faced competition. But the corporate records don't support it. By 1992, the Howe corporation was dissolved, and the operating entity — Le Bistro of Mississippi, Inc. — was in his daughter's name.

Rex Howe died October 3, 1993 — just a year after his conviction for the arson. His obituary called him the "former owner." The records say the same. He built the brand, transferred it to his family, and died shortly after being convicted of firebombing the competition.

And here's the detail that should make you pause: Pete Halat was Mayor of Biloxi from 1989 to 1993. All of this — Joey's bar opening, the arson, Rex Howe's arrest, his conviction, his death — happened while the man who would later be convicted for his role in the Sherry murders was running the city. The same Pete Halat who defended the Creech bomber in 1984. The same Pete Halat who served eighteen years for conspiracy in the assassination of Judge Sherry and his wife.

The walls of the Strip have always had the same neighbors.

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V. 222 PAT HARRISON AVENUE

In which a gay bar shares a wall with the Dixie Mafia headquarters

The Mississippi Supreme Court documented Le Bistro's existence in Layne v. State, 542 So. 2d 237 (Miss. 1989). On February 3, 1986, two men entered "a cocktail lounge known as Le Bistro" in Biloxi. The Court described its clientele as "composed primarily of homosexual men" with "a reputation of being a 'gay bar.'"

A payphone directory placed Le Bistro at 222 Pat Harrison Avenue, Biloxi.

And here is where the geography becomes the story.

Pat Harrison Avenue and Veterans Avenue are the same road. The Biloxi Historical Society confirms: "Pat Harrison Avenue [Veterans Blvd]." Same street. Same stretch. The same corridor that locals have called "the Strip" for sixty years.

Le Bistro sat at 222. The Horseshoe sat at 143. The Biloxi Gentleman's Club would later sit at 153.

All on the same road. All within the same blocks.

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VI. THE MAN WHO RAN IT

In which a witness names the operator and the family tree confirms it

Angela Ward — who worked at the Horseshoe on Veterans Avenue, and who we will demonstrate in a forthcoming article is a reliable witness to everything that happened inside those walls — identified Le Bistro's operator without hesitation.

"That was Joe's. Mike III's brother."

Joey Gillich. Son of Mike Gillich Jr. — the man federal courts have called the "underworld boss" of Biloxi (United States v. Sharpe, 995 F.2d 49, 5th Cir. 1993). Brother of Mike Gillich III — now serving twelve years for child sexual abuse. First cousin of Andrew "FoFo" Gilich — the current Mayor of Biloxi. Angela saw FoFo at the clubs. She was there. She worked next door.

Joey was gay. We say this without judgment, without innuendo, and without the snickering tone that Biloxi's old guard used when they said it behind closed hands. Joey Gillich was a gay man in a city that didn't want him, in a family that built its empire on strip clubs and violence, in a decade when being gay in Mississippi was treated as a crime even when it wasn't one.

He ran a gay bar. On the Strip. In the shadow of the Horseshoe — his father's flagship.

And that detail alone tells you more about the Gillich family's grip on Veterans Avenue than any corporate filing ever could. Because a gay nightclub doesn't survive on the Strip in 1985 Biloxi without the Strip's landlord saying yes. And the Strip's landlord was Mike Gillich Jr.

Joey didn't rebel against the family business. He was a department within it.

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VII. THE WALL

In which a bomb is placed between two buildings and a convicted lawyer defends the bomber

On June 24, 1984, a man named Daniel Ray Creech built a homemade bomb and placed it on an air conditioning unit. Not just any air conditioning unit — the one that sat between Le Bistro Lounge and the Horseshoe Bar on Harrison Avenue.

Between them. The bomb sat in the gap between two buildings that shared a wall.

Think about what that means. Not that someone tried to bomb a gay bar — that is its own horror, its own headline. But that the bomb was placed in the physical space between Le Bistro and the Horseshoe. Between Joey's bar and his father's bar. Between the gay club and the Dixie Mafia headquarters. The two businesses were so close that a single explosive device threatened both.

They shared a wall. And more than that — Angela Ward's testimony tells us the buildings were connected through the back. Staff moved between them. The wall wasn't a barrier. It was a door. The Horseshoe and the bar next to it weren't separate businesses that happened to be neighbors. They were the same operation with different signs on the front.

The Sun Herald covered the trial. Creech's motive, according to prosecutors: Le Bistro "was frequented by homosexuals and Creech didn't like them." He wanted to blow it up.

Police found and defused the bomb. Creech was indicted. He was brought to trial in federal court, before U.S. District Judge Dan M. Russell Jr., under heavy security.

And his defense attorney?

Pete Halat.

Pete Halat served eighteen years in federal prison for his role in the Sherry murder conspiracy. He has paid his debt to society, and we are not here to re-prosecute a man who has already answered for his crimes. But the fact remains: the defense attorney who showed up to defend the man who bombed the wall between Le Bistro and the Horseshoe was the same attorney who was later convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret — murders arranged by Mike Gillich Jr., the man who owned the land under both bars.

Halat told the court that his client Creech was "a young business and family man" whose "world turned upside down."

We mention Halat not to condemn him further — he has served his time — but because his presence at the Creech trial is part of the architecture. The family's lawyer defended the family's bomber on the family's street. That is a connection. It doesn't require malice to recognize the pattern.

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VIII. THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONTROL

In which one family owns the land, the permits, the bars, and the wall between them

You don't need a confession to understand a family business. You need a floor plan.

Mike Gillich Jr. owned the land and the buildings on Veterans Avenue. That is not in dispute. Federal courts called him the "underworld boss" of Biloxi. He owned the Golden Nugget. He financed the operations. The real estate was in his name.

Jimmy Manning — Mike Jr.'s best friend — held the permits and liquor licenses. Manning's name appeared on the paperwork. Manning's name faced the regulators. Manning was the front.

Joey Gillich — Mike Jr.'s son — ran the gay club next door. Le Bistro at 222 Pat Harrison Avenue, sharing a wall with the Horseshoe at 143.

Our SOURCE described the structure:

"Jimmy Manning was Mike Gillich Jr.'s best friend. Mike owned the land and building while the club's permits were in Jimmy's name."

And when Mike Jr. died in 2012, that arrangement didn't die with him. Manning and Mike Gillich III continued operating together — same clubs, same wall, same permits-in-Manning's-name structure. The business model survived the boss. That's not a friendship. That's a franchise.

One family. One street. Two clubs. One wall.

And the wall is the point. Because the wall didn't just separate two buildings — it connected them. The Horseshoe was Mike Jr.'s operation, run through Manning. Le Bistro was Joey's operation, next door. Father and son, wall to wall, on the same stretch of Veterans Avenue that the Gillich family had controlled since the 1960s.

When Layne v. State documented a murder that began at Le Bistro in 1986, the court described the bar as having "a reputation of being a 'gay bar'" with clientele "composed primarily of homosexual men." When Creech planted his bomb between the two buildings that same decade, the physical proximity was made literal: you couldn't destroy one without threatening the other.

They were that close. They were always that close.

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IX. WHAT CAME AFTER

In which Le Bistro closes, Joey moves to Beach Boulevard, and a man is murdered outside

Le Bistro closed. The precise date is unclear, but by the early 1990s, the cocktail lounge at 222 Pat Harrison Avenue was no longer operating under that name.

Joey didn't disappear. On April 23, 1991, a new corporation was filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State: JOEY'S, INC. Nature of business: SIC 5813 — DRINKING PLACES. A bar.

And look who signed the paperwork.

President: MICHAEL JOSEPH GILLICH — Mike III.

Secretary: TINA ROSE GILLICH.

Treasurer: TINA ROSE GILLICH.

Registered Agent: TINA ROSE GILLICH.

Tina Rose Gillich wasn't just "supporting" the family business. She was an officer of the corporation. She held three titles: Secretary, Treasurer, and Registered Agent. Her brother Mike III was the President. This wasn't a loose family connection — this was a formal corporate structure with the kingpin's children running the show.

And the timing. April 1991 — the same year Rex Howe firebombed the competition. The Gillichs incorporated their new bar, and Rex Howe — whose daughter still ran Le Bistro — tried to burn it down.

Joey's On The Beach opened at 1226 Beach Boulevard — a gay nightclub that operated through the late 1990s. In 1999, a man named Jamie Ray Tolbert was abducted from outside Joey's On The Beach and murdered — a hate crime that the Equality Mississippi records documented as part of the broader pattern of violence against the LGBTQ community on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

And here's the punchline. 1708 Beach Boulevard — where Joey ran his gay nightclub — sits right next to 1606 Beach Boulevard. That address might sound familiar. It's the undersigned's property. The pool deck. The building permits. The code enforcement harassment that started all of this.

The Gillich family operated a gay bar next door to the property that would, decades later, become the target of the City of Biloxi's building code retaliation — the same city now run by the Gillich nephew, the same enforcement apparatus that Jerry Creel weaponized, the same legal machinery that Peter Abide profits from. The undersigned bought a property on Beach Boulevard and discovered he'd moved in next to six decades of Gillich history.

Naturally.

Joey eventually started a liquor store. Our SOURCE said the club "was starting to fizzle out" and "that's when Joe started the liquor store."

Joey lived at the St. Jude townhomes in Biloxi — closest to the water, an end unit at the front of the complex. His right-hand man was Brent Richard Amyot, who lived with him. Amyot is deceased. Our SOURCE described him as "fabulous" and a "10/10 human, gone way too soon."

Joey Gillich died in 2022.

But the buildings on Veterans Avenue didn't die with him. They didn't die with anyone. That's the point.

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X. THE SUCCESSION: SAME WALL, DIFFERENT DECADE

In which the buildings survive the boss and the family splits nude from alcohol

By 2010, the configuration had changed but the architecture hadn't. At 143 Veterans Avenue: the Lady Horseshoe. Nude dancers, no alcohol. At 153 Veterans Avenue: the Biloxi Bar and Gentleman's Club. Alcohol, no nude dancers.

Our SOURCE worked in both. From 2010 to 2011, she moved between these two establishments, which shared a wall and were connected through the back.

"I used to work for him and Jimmy Manning at Biloxi Bar and Gentleman's Club along with the Horseshoe next door. It was off Veteran Ave."

The regulatory structure was elegant in its cynicism. Mississippi law prohibited serving alcohol in a venue with nude entertainment. So the family split the operation: drink here, watch there. Two clubs, two licenses, two sets of permits — one owner.

Manning's name on the paperwork. Mike Jr.'s name on the deed. Mike Gillich III running the day-to-day.

This is the Gillich way. Laws are suggestions. Loopholes are intelligence. You don't break the rule — you split the building in half so the rule doesn't apply to either side. The same instinct that turned Gilich into Gillich with an added letter. The same instinct that puts the permits in Manning's name and the deed in Mike's. The same instinct the Mayor would later bring to City Hall — where building codes become weapons, zoning boards become rubber stamps, and the line between public office and private interest disappears behind a wall that connects through the back.

Angela Ward called it what it was: a closed-loop scheme.

"Horseshoe was nude club, but no booze."

"The other had booze but no nudes."

Same building. Same wall. Same family. Different decade.

The Horseshoe side — never renovated. Dark wood. Mirrors. Stage lights. "Old school 1970s-80s dark wood or gold framed chairs with faded red velvet" that smelled like "cigarettes, cigars, beer, moist money between the cracks." A horseshoe-shaped stage raised above the seating so dancers looked down at the audience. Private booths like "old school cigar parlor smoking room things."

The Gentleman's Club side — marginally newer. A bar. A jukebox they weren't allowed to plug in because Mike III "didn't want that to overpower the dancers' music." Two poles for go-go dancers. A curtain leading to the girls' bathroom and locker room. And off the locker room — an office. A locked office.

One bouncer — Rob — worked both clubs. "They were too greedy to pay anybody else."

The family didn't need to innovate. They just needed to persist.

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XI. "BUT THIS WAS ONLY MIKE JR."

In which a kingpin dies and the son files the LLC one year later

That's the argument. That Mike Gillich Jr. was one man — a convicted felon, yes, an "underworld boss," yes — but one man. The man who arranged the assassination of a sitting judge and his wife. The man whose nephew built the custom computer systems that made the extortion scheme possible — the same nephew who is now the Mayor of Biloxi. And when Mike Jr. died on April 28, 2012, at the age of 82, the empire died with him.

It didn't.

Mike Gillich Jr. died in 2012. One year later — one year — his son Mike Gillich III filed paperwork with the Mississippi Secretary of State to form Star Lounge LLC. Address: 176 Veterans Avenue, Biloxi. The Strip. The same corridor where his father ran the Golden Nugget, where his brother Joey ran Le Bistro, where Jimmy Manning fronted the Horseshoe, where the family had operated continuously since the 1960s.

Mike III wasn't hiding. He wasn't using a shell company or a front man or a borrowed name. He filed under Gillich. On Veterans Avenue. For an adult entertainment venue. The year after his father — the convicted kingpin — died.

And nobody in city government said a word.

Because by 2013, the city government wasn't separate from the family. It was the family.

Andrew "FoFo" Gilich — Mike Jr.'s nephew, Mike III's first cousin — became Mayor of Biloxi in 2015. And in May 2018, the Biloxi Board of Zoning Adjustments approved the Star Lounge application — BZA Case 18-020 — under FoFo's administration.

The current Mayor of Biloxi approved a zoning application for his first cousin to open a new entertainment venue on the same street where their family has operated strip clubs, gay bars, and nude lounges for six decades.

FoFo said nothing. Raised no objection. Declared no conflict. The application sailed through.

When Cliff Kirkland — the man FoFo hired as Chief Innovation Officer — was arrested for nine counts of child molestation? FoFo said nothing. When his first cousin Mike Gillich III was arrested for credit card fraud and methamphetamine? FoFo said nothing. The pattern isn't silence — it's policy. FoFo says nothing because saying something would require acknowledging what he already knows.

Naturally.

And it wasn't just FoFo. Tina Rose Gillich — Mike Jr.'s daughter, Mike III's sister, Joey's sister — has been part of the family's bar operations since at least 1991. The Joey's Inc. corporate record shows her holding three officer positions: Secretary, Treasurer, and Registered Agent. Her brother Mike III was President. This wasn't occasional family support — this was formal corporate control. Tina, who grew up to be an attorney in Biloxi. Tina, who changed her name through marriages — Gillich to Peresich, then to Singletary — but never left the family business. When Star Lounge needed approval, the kingpin's daughter was there to support it, and the kingpin's nephew — the sitting Mayor — was there to approve it.

Let's name every chair at this table:

Mike Gillich Jr. — the father, the "underworld boss," convicted for the Sherry murders. Owned the land. Died 2012.

Joey Gillich — the son, ran Le Bistro (gay bar) on the Strip. Died 2022.

Mike Gillich III — the son, ran the Horseshoe and Gentleman's Club, filed Star Lounge LLC. Now serving twelve years for child sexual abuse.

Tina Rose Gillich — the daughter, Secretary/Treasurer of Joey's Inc. since 1991, Biloxi attorney, openly supported Star Lounge.

Andrew "FoFo" Gilich — the nephew, Mayor of Biloxi, approved Star Lounge under his administration.

Uncle. Cousins. Brother. Sister. Father. Son.

This wasn't one man's empire. This was a family business with a succession plan. When Mike Jr. went to prison, Manning kept the lights on. When Joey needed a corporate structure, Tina became the Secretary and Treasurer. When Mike Jr. died, Mike III filed the paperwork. When Mike III needed zoning approval, FoFo was already in the Mayor's office. When the application needed support, Tina — who had been an officer of the family's bar corporations since 1991 — was there to provide it.

The Strip wasn't Mike Jr.'s. The Strip was the Gillichs'.

Our SOURCE placed FoFo inside Mike III's operations — not as a distant relative, not as a political figure maintaining polite distance, but as a visitor to the locked office where Mike III kept illegal guns, drugs, and stolen items.

"FoFo been there several times. Came with different people. Would go into that locked office with Mike III. For a few minutes. To pick up something."

The Star Lounge never fully materialized. By December 2019, Mike III was arrested for credit card fraud and methamphetamine possession. By August 2025, he was convicted of sexually abusing a child — at the same 323 Oakridge Circle address where his father had died three years earlier.

But the attempt itself tells the story. Mike Jr. didn't need to be alive for the Strip to keep running. He had built something that survived him: a family infrastructure where the son files the LLC, the daughter provides legal support, the nephew approves it from City Hall, and the buildings on Veterans Avenue — the same buildings, the same walls — wait patiently for the next generation to turn the lights back on.

That's not a one-man operation. That's a dynasty.

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XII. THE NEPHEW WHO BUILT THE MACHINE

In which FoFo builds computer systems for a prison extortion ring and walks into the Mayor's office

We've established the son, the daughter, and the brother. Now the nephew.

Andrew "FoFo" Gilich didn't just approve the Star Lounge from the Mayor's office. His involvement with the family's operations on the Strip predates his political career by decades — and it's not us saying it. It's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. And a federal grand jury.

In 1994, journalist Edward Humes published Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia. On page 166, Humes documented FoFo's role in the extortion scheme that ultimately got Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret murdered:

"In time, Nix eliminated the need for an accomplice to assist in patching through three-ways by buying personal computers with custom-made voice-mail and telephone switching programs — crafted by Mike Gillich's computer-expert nephew, Andrew Gilich."

Read that again.

Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. ran the "Lonely Hearts" scam from inside Angola Prison. The scam targeted homosexual men through fake personal ads — the same community that Joey Gillich's Le Bistro served on the Strip. Nix would call from prison to his lawyer, Pete Halat, under the cover of attorney-client privilege. Those calls were then three-wayed to the next victim using computer switching systems.

FoFo built those systems.

The computer-expert nephew of the "underworld boss" crafted the custom voice-mail and telephone switching programs that allowed a convicted killer to extort gay men from behind bars. The proceeds flowed through Pete Halat. When $100,000 went missing, Halat blamed Judge Sherry. Nix ordered the hit. Mike Gillich Jr. arranged it. On September 14, 1987, Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret were assassinated in their home.

The Lonely Hearts scam got the Sherrys killed. FoFo built the technology that made the scam possible.

A note on Halat. We have a photograph — published, on the record — of FoFo and Pete Halat embracing. Not a handshake at a fundraiser. An embrace. And while Halat served his eighteen years and by all accounts lives a quiet, distant life today — sources report no further involvement in any misconduct, no return to the legal profession, no schemes — FoFo never stopped. Halat paid his debt and disappeared. FoFo paid nothing and became Mayor. The man who built the software that enabled the scheme that got the judge killed is still in office. The lawyer who facilitated the scheme is living quietly in retirement. One of these men answered for his role. The other is running a city.

And the federal government knew it. In November 1990, FoFo walked out of a federal grand jury — the same grand jury investigating the Sherry murders. The newspaper photographed him leaving. The caption: "Andrew Gillich Jr., nephew of Biloxi strip-joint owner Mike Gillich, leaves Thursday."

He was questioned about it. Under oath. In front of a grand jury convened to investigate the murder of a judge and his wife — murders triggered by a scheme that FoFo's own computer systems had enabled.

FoFo was not indicted. He was not charged. He walked out of that grand jury room and, over the next three decades, built a political career that carried him to the Mayor's office in 2015.

And from that office — the same man who built computer systems for a prison extortion ring that targeted gay men, the same man who was questioned by a federal grand jury about the Sherry murders, the same man who was photographed leaving that grand jury and identified in the newspaper as the nephew of a "strip-joint owner" — that man approved his cousin's application to reopen an adult entertainment venue on the same Strip where the family had operated for sixty years.

FoFo didn't just know about the family business. He was the family's engineer. He built the infrastructure that let the scam run. The scam generated the money. The money dispute triggered the murders. The murders sent his uncle to prison for twenty years and Pete Halat for eighteen. And when the dust settled — when the convictions were served and the prison terms completed and the patriarch died — FoFo was sitting in the Mayor's chair, approving zoning applications for the next generation.

That is not a bystander. That is a participant who graduated to management.

But think about it, dear Reader. Step back from the names and the dates and the buildings for a moment and ask the question that nobody in Biloxi seems willing to ask out loud: whose grand idea was it to let a strip club family run a city?

This is a family whose patriarch was convicted of arranging the assassination of a judge. A family whose business model was nude dancers, narcotics, and extortion rings run from inside Angola Prison. A family whose members — in living memory — firebombed competitors, celebrated murders, trafficked methamphetamine, and sexually abused children. A family whose name appears in federal indictments the way other families' names appear on Christmas cards.

And the voters of Biloxi handed them the keys to City Hall.

Not because they didn't know. Because they didn't check. Because one added L was enough. Because "Gillich" didn't Google the same as "Gilich" and nobody at the Sun Herald thought to point that out before election day. Because a city that spent sixty years watching this family operate strip clubs on Veterans Avenue somehow convinced itself that the nephew — the one who built the computer systems, the one who walked out of the grand jury, the one in the photograph being embraced by the convicted co-conspirator — was a different kind of Gillich.

He's not. He's the same kind. His uncle just added one for the crimes.

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XIII. THE GIFT THE CRITIC GAVE US

In which a newspaper article offered as defense proves the prosecution

The critic didn't just produce a 1976 certificate of incorporation. They produced something else — a Sun Herald article from January 9, 1992, written by Anita Lee, under the headline: "Police: Competition the motive in Joey's fire."

They offered it as proof that Le Bistro's owners were enemies of the Gillich family. That Rex Howe — the man who owned Le Bistro — tried to burn down Joey Gillich's competing bar. Joey — FoFo's first cousin, Mike Jr.'s son. That Le Bistro and the Gillichs were on opposite sides.

We read it differently. Because the article doesn't clear Le Bistro. It convicts it. Look at the kind of people who owned and operated businesses on this street. Rex Howe — federal arson defendant who bought bombs to eliminate competition. Jimmy Manning — convicted in the Sherry murders, his son and grandson arrested for methamphetamine, three generations of drug trafficking. Mike Gillich III — methamphetamine, credit card fraud, child sexual abuse. These aren't business owners. These are the tenants and operators of a criminal corridor. And the critic wants us to believe the street was clean because Howe and the Gillichs fought? They fought the way rival gangs fight — not because one side was legitimate, but because both sides were criminal and the territory was profitable.

Here is what the Sun Herald reported:

Rex Howe, 62, owner of Le Bistro, and his son Paul Howe, 23, bar manager, were arrested on three federal charges — conspiring to commit arson, aiding and abetting arson, and arson — by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Biloxi Police Department, and the State Fire Marshal's office. Three agencies. One indictment.

The target: Joey's — a new bar "owned by Michael J. 'Joey' Gillich," which "opened this summer" on U.S. 90, less than a mile from Le Bistro. The motive, according to ATF Special Agent J.B. Rideout: "One bar has more clientele than the other. That's our theory. This is a crime of violence. We treat it seriously."

And then the sentence that matters most:

"Before Joey's opened, Le Bistro was the only homosexual bar in Harrison County. Le Bistro is on Veterans Avenue."

There it is. In the Sun Herald. Under the byline of the paper's most respected reporter. Le Bistro — on Veterans Avenue — was the only homosexual bar in the county. Sitting on land owned by Mike Gillich Jr. Sharing a wall with the Horseshoe. The sole gay nightclub in Harrison County, operating in the shadow of the Dixie Mafia's headquarters.

Now look at what Rex Howe did when competition arrived.

Around November 12, the Howes began planning to burn down Joey's. On November 22, Paul Howe bought a one-gallon can of Coleman fuel at Wal-Mart in Biloxi. At 4:30 a.m. on November 23, Paul Howe broke into the entrance of Joey's, threw gasoline into the doorway, and pitched a molotov cocktail. The fire department contained the damage after a witness reported the fire.

That wasn't enough for the Howes. Paul Howe then plotted to buy a bomb to destroy Joey's — negotiating a price of $1,000 from an unnamed individual traveling from Florida to the Coast. On December 30, Paul Howe negotiated the purchase. Rex Howe conspired with his son and aided him, according to the indictment.

Molotov cocktails. Then a bomb. To destroy the competition. From the man who owned the bar that shared a wall with the Horseshoe on Veterans Avenue.

The critic offered this article to show that Le Bistro's owner was an enemy of the Gillichs. What it actually shows is that Le Bistro's owner was a federal arson defendant who escalated from firebombing to purchasing explosives when arson wasn't enough. The man running the bar on Gillich land, sharing Gillich walls, on the Gillich Strip — was the kind of man who bought bombs to solve business disputes.

That's not a clean hand. That's a rap sheet.

And consider what the escalation itself reveals. A competitor opened a bar less than a mile away. The response: a molotov cocktail at 4:30 a.m.. When that didn't work — a bomb. Negotiated for $1,000 from someone traveling from Florida. Rex Howe didn't lower his drink prices. He didn't run a promotion. He didn't hire a better DJ. He burned the competition's building and then tried to blow it up.

That is the business culture of Veterans Avenue. That is what "competition" meant on the Strip. Not market forces. Not customer service. Arson. Then explosives. Then the ATF, the police department, and the State Fire Marshal standing in your bar asking questions.

And ask yourself: competition for what, exactly? You don't firebomb a building at dawn and then negotiate a $1,000 bomb from Florida because you're losing customers at the gay social club. You don't escalate from molotov cocktails to explosives over drink specials and karaoke nights. That kind of violence protects a revenue stream that justifies the risk — and on the Strip, in the 1980s, that revenue stream had a name. The Strip was synonymous with drugs. The federal courts documented it. The arrest records confirm it. Manning: drugs. Mike III: drugs. Mike Jr.'s entire operation: drugs. When a bar owner firebombs his competitor and then goes shopping for a bomb, he's not protecting a cocktail menu. He's protecting a distribution point.

The article confirms every claim we've made: Le Bistro was on Veterans Avenue. Le Bistro was a gay bar. Le Bistro was the only gay bar in the county before Joey opened his own. Joey Gillich owned his own bar, named after himself. The competition between them was real. And when the owner of Le Bistro felt threatened, he didn't file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. He firebombed his competitor's entrance at dawn and then went shopping for a bomb.

This is the establishment that shared a wall with the Horseshoe. This is the bar that sat on Mike Gillich Jr.'s land. This is what the critic offered as evidence of innocence.

And then ask yourself the question the critic didn't.

What happened to Le Bistro after Rex Howe was indicted?

January 1992: Rex Howe and Paul Howe face federal arson charges — up to twenty years and $250,000 each. Their bar — Le Bistro, on Veterans Avenue, sharing a wall with the Horseshoe — is suddenly without its owner and manager.

The bar sat on Gillich land. Mike Gillich Jr. owned the buildings. The Howes were tenants — tenants who had just been charged with firebombing the landlord's son's bar and attempting to bomb it again. And now those tenants were facing federal prosecution.

Le Bistro didn't survive the 1990s. The space on Veterans Avenue — the buildings, the wall, the same addresses — later became the Lady Horseshoe and the Biloxi Bar and Gentleman's Club, both operated by Mike Gillich III with Jimmy Manning on the permits.

The Gillichs didn't lose Le Bistro. They absorbed it. The Howes attacked Joey's bar, got themselves arrested, and the family reclaimed the space. Whether that was a plan or an opportunity doesn't matter. What matters is the result: the tenants who fought the family were removed by the federal government, and the family's buildings on the Strip continued operating under new names, new permits, and the same old wall.

The critic offered this article to prove separation. It proves succession.

Thank you.

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XIV. THE ROLL CALL

In which we count the bodies, the charges, and the combined eighty-five years of prison

Let's count the bodies and the charges. Every person connected to this stretch of Veterans Avenue — the buildings, the wall, the family, the bars on either side of it.

The Dead:

Judge Vincent Sherry and Margaret Sherry — assassinated in their home on September 14, 1987. The murders were ordered by Kirksey Nix through Pete Halat and arranged by Mike Gillich Jr. — the man who owned the land under the Horseshoe, under Le Bistro, under the entire Strip. The motive: money stolen from the Lonely Hearts scam, which ran on computer systems built by FoFo Gilich.

George Edwards — the victim in Layne v. State, 542 So. 2d 237 (Miss. 1989). On February 3, 1986, two men entered Le Bistro — the gay bar on Veterans Avenue, sharing a wall with the Horseshoe — and the events that followed ended in Edwards' death. The Mississippi Supreme Court documented the murder.

Jamie Ray Tolbert — abducted from outside Joey's On The Beach in 1999 and murdered. A hate crime. The bar was owned by Joey Gillich — Mike Jr.'s son, the same man who ran Le Bistro on the Strip.

The Convicted:

Mike Gillich Jr. — "underworld boss" of Biloxi. Owner of the land and buildings on Veterans Avenue. Convicted of conspiracy in the Sherry murders. Twenty years in federal prison.

Jimmy Manning Sr. — Mike Jr.'s best friend. Front man for the Horseshoe. Held the permits and liquor licenses. Convicted in connection with the Sherry murders. The man who brought Mike Jr. a newspaper about the Sherry house being demolished in 2010 — and watched him celebrate: "They deserved it. They got what was coming to them."

Pete Halat — former law partner to Judge Sherry. Convicted of conspiracy in the Sherry murders. Eighteen years. Has served his time and paid his debt to society. Before his conviction, he was the defense attorney for Daniel Ray Creech — the man who bombed the wall between Le Bistro and the Horseshoe.

Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. — convicted killer serving life at Angola. Mastermind of the Lonely Hearts scam that targeted homosexual men — the same community Joey's Le Bistro served. Ordered the Sherry hit.

Mike Gillich III — Mike Jr.'s son. Ran the Horseshoe and Biloxi Gentleman's Club. Filed Star Lounge LLC in 2013. Arrested December 13, 2019 for credit card fraud and methamphetamine. Convicted August 2025 of child sexual abuse. Twelve years.

Cliff Kirkland — FoFo's Chief Innovation Officer. Previously served under Pete Halat's administration in the 1990s. Arrested December 17, 2019 — four days after Mike III — for child molestation. Expanded to nine counts. Convicted May 2022. Thirty-five years.

Jimmy Manning Jr. — Manning Sr.'s son. Convicted drug trafficker, five or more felonies. Delivery of controlled substances. Possession of methamphetamine. Arrested June 24, 2021 alongside his own son, James Manning IV, in what appears to be the same drug bust.

Rex Howe — owner of Le Bistro on Veterans Avenue. Charged with federal arson, conspiracy to commit arson, and aiding and abetting arson after firebombing Joey Gillich's competing bar and attempting to purchase a bomb for $1,000. The man who ran the bar that shared a wall with the Horseshoe.

Paul Howe — Rex's son, bar manager at Le Bistro. Same charges. The man who threw the molotov cocktail at 4:30 a.m. and then went shopping for explosives.

Daniel Ray Creech — built a homemade bomb and placed it on the air conditioning unit between Le Bistro and the Horseshoe. Defended by Pete Halat. Tried in federal court under heavy security.

The Charged:

James Manning IV — grandson of Manning Sr., son of Manning Jr. Arrested June 24, 2021 for possession of methamphetamine. Same date, same charges as his father. Three generations of Mannings. The permits stayed in the family.

That's the ledger. Three people dead. Two judges' careers destroyed. Over eighty-five combined years of prison sentences. Federal arson. Bombings. Child sexual abuse. Drug trafficking across three generations. Methamphetamine. Molotov cocktails. A bomb purchased from Florida. An extortion ring targeting gay men run from inside Angola Prison on computer systems built by the Mayor's nephew.

All of it connected to the same stretch of Veterans Avenue. The same buildings. The same wall. The same family.

And Andrew "FoFo" Gilich — the nephew who built the computer systems that enabled the scam that got the Sherrys killed, the man photographed leaving a federal grand jury investigating those murders, the Mayor who approved his cousin's zoning application to reopen the family business on the family street, the man who hired Cliff Kirkland (thirty-five years for child molestation), the man our SOURCE placed inside the locked office with Mike III —

FoFo has never been charged with anything.

The Mayor who can't get a carpet installed right. The reincarnation of incompetence. The man who runs a city that can't pave a road, can't issue a permit without a lawsuit, can't keep its own building officials from committing perjury — but who somehow built custom computer switching systems for a convicted killer's prison extortion ring when he was in his twenties. Incompetent at everything except the one thing that mattered to the family.

What we characterize as the heir to the criminal enterprise — wearing a suit and a title and a smile.

And the company he keeps. Cliff Kirkland — the man FoFo hired as Chief Innovation Officer — convicted of nine counts of child molestation. Thirty-five years. His cousin Mike Gillich III — the man FoFo visited in the locked office, the man whose Star Lounge application FoFo approved — convicted of child sexual abuse. Twelve years.

Two men in FoFo's closest orbit. Two convictions for crimes against children. The man he hired and the cousin he grew up with — both doing the same thing. Both convicted. Both sentenced to decades.

We don't know what FoFo knew. We don't know what happened in the locked office. We don't know what was discussed when the Mayor of Biloxi walked into the back of his cousin's strip club for three minutes and walked out.

But we know who he hired. And we know who he approved. And we know what they did.

And we're waiting, FoFo. We dream of the day you say this is a lie. We dream of the day you point at this article and say "that never happened" — because the moment you open your mouth, you open a door. Sue us. Call a press conference. Issue a statement. Tell Biloxi that your uncle wasn't an underworld boss, that you didn't build computer systems for a prison extortion ring, that you weren't photographed leaving a federal grand jury, that your cousin isn't serving twelve years, that your hire isn't serving thirty-five. Tell them. We'll wait.

But you won't. Because the Gillichs got smarter. The old generation was impulsive — they firebombed buildings at dawn, celebrated murders in front of witnesses, built bombs and got caught. They made mistakes because they couldn't help themselves. The new generation learned the one lesson the old generation never could: keep quiet. Say nothing. Approve the application without comment. Hire the man without a background check. Walk into the locked office and walk out. Never respond. Never deny. Never confirm. Let the silence do the work.

We miss the old days, FoFo. At least when they were impulsive, we got indictments. Like Jerry Creel, who couldn't even file the perjured affidavits before the summons — we baited them, and they showed their hand every time. It didn't take much. A public records request here. An email there. The Currie Johnson boys used to fight us over emails — actual emails, on the record, preserving every admission. We thought all the cold fish were in the water. Turns out, some of them learned to stop biting.

The silence is louder now. No responses. No denials. No angry letters from defense counsel demanding retractions. Just quiet. The kind of quiet that sounds like a lawyer whispering "don't engage" into the Mayor's ear. The kind of quiet that costs $400 an hour.

We feel so lonely, FoFo. Come back to us.

You walk into a church and two nurses are praying. The third nurse sits down beside them. What does she do? She prays.

You walk into a bar and two girls are using. The third friend walks in. What does your intuition tell you?

You walk into a Mayor's office and the man he hired is serving thirty-five years for child molestation. The cousin he approved is serving twelve years for child sexual abuse. The Mayor sits between them.

What does your intuition tell you, dear reader?

And the drugs. Jimmy Manning Jr. — convicted drug trafficker, five or more felonies, delivery of controlled substances, arrested again in 2021 for methamphetamine alongside his own son. Mike Gillich III — arrested for methamphetamine possession in December 2019. Mike Gillich Jr. — the patriarch, the "underworld boss," whose Strip was synonymous with narcotics for four decades. The entire corridor reeked of it. Our SOURCE described it. The federal courts documented it. The arrest records confirm it.

The Strip was known for drugs the way a bakery is known for bread. It wasn't a side effect. It was the product. Gay clubs and drugs are pizza and beer — they go together, and everyone on Veterans Avenue knew it, and everyone who operated on Veterans Avenue profited from it.

Manning: drugs. Mike III: drugs. Mike Jr.: drugs. The Strip: drugs.

FoFo? Clean.

The man who built computer systems for a prison extortion ring. The man who visited the locked office where our SOURCE says guns, drugs, and stolen property were kept. The man whose hire got thirty-five years and whose cousin got twelve. The man who grew up on the Strip, whose uncle was the Strip, whose family name is the Strip.

Clean.

We should be asking FoFo more difficult questions.

FoFo has never been charged with anything. In Mississippi.

We should note — because we believe in transparency — that we have identified sealed records in Florida bearing FoFo's name. We don't know what's in them. That's what sealed means. But we have someone working on it.

Chill, FoFo.

The critic wanted to prove that FoFo is innocent by showing us a newspaper article about Rex Howe's arson charges. "See? Le Bistro's owner was an enemy of the Gillichs. They're not connected."

What they actually showed us is that the man who owned the bar on Gillich land — the bar sharing the Horseshoe's wall — was a federal arson defendant who built bombs when he lost customers. And FoFo? FoFo built computer systems for a prison extortion ring, walked out of a grand jury, became Mayor, approved the family's next club, hired a man who got thirty-five years for child molestation, and visited a locked office where his cousin kept guns, drugs, and stolen property.

But FoFo is innocent. His mention in Mississippi Mud was surely an accident. The grand jury was a misunderstanding. The Star Lounge approval was a coincidence. The locked office visits were social calls. Cliff Kirkland was just a bad hire.

Coincidentally.

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XV. THE LAW OF THE WALL

In which the Supreme Court explains why circumstantial evidence is enough

A critic might read everything above and say: but you haven't proved Le Bistro was criminal. No wiretaps. No indictments. No cooperating witness wearing a wire inside Joey's bar.

Fine. We don't need one.

The United States Supreme Court settled the question of circumstantial evidence in 1954. In Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, the Court held that circumstantial evidence is "intrinsically no different from testimonial evidence" — and that a conviction may rest entirely upon it so long as the evidence, taken as a whole, satisfies the standard of proof. The Court was explicit: "Circumstantial evidence in this respect is intrinsically no different from testimonial evidence." There is no discount. There is no asterisk. The wall between direct evidence and circumstantial evidence is a wall the Supreme Court demolished seventy years ago.

The Fifth Circuit — the court that governs Mississippi — applied this principle directly to criminal enterprises. In United States v. Elliott, 571 F.2d 880 (5th Cir. 1978), the court confronted a sprawling racketeering operation involving separate participants running separate schemes — gambling, narcotics, intimidation, theft — and asked whether these constituted one enterprise or many.

The court used an analogy that could have been written for Veterans Avenue:

"The enterprise is not the 'pattern of racketeering activity'; it is an entity separate and apart from the pattern of activity in which it engages. One might say that the 'enterprise' is the vehicle through which the unlawful 'pattern of racketeering activity' is committed."

Elliott established that you don't need every participant to know every other participant. You don't need every operation to be identical. You need a structure — a vehicle — through which the operations run. The court upheld RICO convictions for participants who never met each other, never discussed each other's crimes, and operated in different cities. What connected them was the enterprise itself.

The Supreme Court reinforced this in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), holding that RICO applies to enterprises that are entirely criminal — not just legitimate businesses infiltrated by crime. A family that exists solely to operate illegal businesses on a single street is precisely the kind of enterprise Turkette contemplated.

And in United States v. Marable, 578 F.2d 151 (5th Cir. 1978), the Fifth Circuit held that multiple interrelated criminal operations — even those run by different individuals at different times — can constitute a single conspiracy when they share common participants, common objectives, and common infrastructure.

Now apply these standards to the wall on Veterans Avenue.

The Horseshoe was proved criminal. Mike Gillich Jr. was convicted of racketeering. Federal courts called him the "underworld boss" of Biloxi. Jimmy Manning — who held the Horseshoe's permits — was convicted of the Sherry murders. The Horseshoe was not a bar that happened to have criminals inside it. It was the headquarters of the enterprise.

Le Bistro shared a wall with the Horseshoe. It sat on land owned by the same man — Mike Gillich Jr. It was operated by that man's son — Joey Gillich. When someone tried to bomb it, the family's own lawyer — Pete Halat, later convicted for his role in the Sherry murders — defended the bomber. The bar served the same community that Kirksey Nix's Lonely Hearts scam targeted from inside Angola Prison — a scam facilitated by Mike Jr.'s nephew FoFo.

Under Holland, circumstantial evidence carries the same weight as direct testimony. Under Elliott, an enterprise can be proved through the structure connecting its parts — not confessions from each participant. Under Turkette, a wholly criminal family operation qualifies as a RICO enterprise. Under Marable, the operations don't need to be identical — they need to share infrastructure, participants, and objectives.

Le Bistro shared a wall with the Horseshoe. It shared an owner. It shared a street. It shared a family. It shared a lawyer. And it shared the proceeds of an extortion scheme that targeted the very men who walked through its front door.

The critic asks us to prove that Le Bistro was criminal. The law asks a different question: given everything the Horseshoe was proved to be, and given that Le Bistro shared its wall, its land, its family, and its lawyer — what is the reasonable alternative explanation?

We're listening.

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XVI. THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL ARCHITECTURE

In which we walk year by year from 1976 to 2025 and the pattern becomes undeniable

No single fact in this article proves what we allege: that the Gillich family operated a continuous criminal enterprise on Veterans Avenue from the 1960s to the 2020s. But the law doesn't require a single fact. It requires a pattern — and the pattern is the architecture itself.

Here is the room:

1976: Le Bistro, Inc. — a restaurant on Pass Road, owned by the Van Eerd and Mouyal families. Clean hands. No Gillich.

1985: Le Bistro of Mississippi, Inc. — a new entity filed for bars, lounges, nightclubs, and entertainment. Different people. Different purpose. Same name.

1986: Le Bistro is a cocktail lounge on Pat Harrison Avenue (Veterans Avenue) with primarily homosexual clientele. It shares a wall with the Horseshoe Bar. A man plants a bomb between the two buildings. Pete Halat defends the bomber.

1987: Pete Halat's co-conspirator Mike Gillich Jr. — the man who owns the land the Horseshoe sits on — orchestrates the assassination of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret through the same Lonely Hearts scam that targeted gay men. The scam ran on computer systems built by FoFo Gilich — Mike Jr.'s nephew (Mississippi Mud, p. 166).

1989: The Mississippi Supreme Court documents Le Bistro's existence in Layne v. State.

1990, November: FoFo Gilich walks out of a federal grand jury investigating the Sherry murders. The newspaper photographs him and identifies him as "nephew of Biloxi strip-joint owner Mike Gillich."

1991: Mike Gillich Jr. convicted. Twenty years.

1997: Pete Halat convicted. Eighteen years.

1999: Jamie Ray Tolbert abducted from Joey's On The Beach and murdered.

2010: The buildings on Veterans Avenue are still operating — now as the Lady Horseshoe and the Biloxi Bar and Gentleman's Club. Still sharing a wall. Still splitting nude entertainment from alcohol to circumvent regulations. Mike Gillich III running the operation. Jimmy Manning still on the permits. Our SOURCE inside.

2010, September 26: Mike Gillich Jr. — freshly released from prison — visits the club. Jimmy Manning brings him a newspaper about the Sherry house being demolished. Mike Jr. reads it and celebrates. "They deserved it. They got what was coming to them."

2012: Mike Gillich Jr. dies at 82. The "underworld boss" is gone. The empire should be over.

2013: One year later, Mike III forms Star Lounge LLC. 176 Veterans Avenue. Same Strip. Same family. The son picks up where the father left off.

2015: FoFo Gilich — Mike Jr.'s nephew — becomes Mayor of Biloxi.

2018: Star Lounge approved by BZA under Mayor FoFo. His sister Tina Rose Gillich — Biloxi attorney — openly supports the application. The nephew approves it. The sister endorses it. The brother filed it. The father's land underneath it.

2019: Mike III arrested. Four days later, Cliff Kirkland — the man FoFo hired as CAO, the same position Pete Halat's CAO held in the 1990s — arrested for crimes against children.

2025: Mike III convicted. Twelve years. At the same address — 323 Oakridge Circle — where his father died.

That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a family tree with a business plan. One family. One street. Six decades. Same wall.

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XVII. JOEY

In which a gay man runs a gay bar in the shadow of his father's empire and nobody protects him

We want to end on Joey. Not the criminal architecture. Not the zoning applications. Not the bombs or the murders or the twelve-year sentences.

Joey.

Because Joey Gillich was a gay man who ran a gay bar on the Strip in 1985. In Biloxi, Mississippi. In a decade when a man named Daniel Ray Creech could build a homemade bomb because a bar was "frequented by homosexuals and Creech didn't like them" — and Pete Halat would show up to defend the bomber and call him "a young business and family man."

Joey was Mike Jr.'s son. Mike Jr. — the man who ran the Lonely Hearts scam from Angola Prison, which targeted homosexual men through fake personal ads. The man who financed an extortion ring that preyed on the exact community his own son belonged to.

Think about that architecture for a moment.

The father ran a scam that victimized gay men. The son ran a gay bar next door to the father's strip club. The bar shared a wall with the club. The family owned the land under both. And when someone tried to bomb the gay bar, the family's own lawyer showed up — not to protect the bar, but to defend the bomber.

Joey wasn't an outsider rebelling against the family. He wasn't a black sheep. He was a Gillich, operating a Gillich business, on Gillich land, behind a wall he shared with his father's Gillich operation. The fact that his bar catered to gay men didn't change the family's relationship to it. It just added another line item to the empire.

The critic went back to 1976 to find clean hands. We went to 1985, 1986, 1989, 2010, 2013, and 2018.

The Van Eerds started a restaurant. The Gillichs turned it into something else. And when someone tried to blow it up, Pete Halat showed up to defend the bomber.

That's not a coincidence.

That's infrastructure.

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XVIII. SOURCES

#	Claim	Source
1	Le Bistro Inc. 1976 — Van Eerd/Mouyal, 2801 Pass Rd	Certificate of Incorporation (Nov 19, 1976); Sun Herald (Nov 28, 1976)
2	Le Bistro of Mississippi Inc. 1985 — different entity	Certificate of Incorporation (May 6, 1985)
3	Le Bistro was gay bar in Biloxi (Feb 1986)	Layne v. State, 542 So. 2d 237 (Miss. 1989)
4	Le Bistro at 222 Pat Harrison Ave	Payphone directory; SOURCE identification
5	Pat Harrison Ave = Veterans Ave	Biloxi Historical Society
6	Le Bistro & Horseshoe shared wall	Creech bombing (bomb between buildings); SOURCE testimony
7	Pete Halat defended Creech	Sun Herald trial coverage
8	Joey Gillich ran Le Bistro	Angela Ward (worked at Horseshoe): "That was Joe's. Mike III's brother"
9	Mike Jr. = "underworld boss"	United States v. Sharpe, 995 F.2d 49 (5th Cir. 1993)
10	Horseshoe/BGC shared wall, closed-loop scheme	SOURCE testimony; Mississippi ABC regulations
11	Star Lounge LLC formed 2013	MS Secretary of State
12	Star Lounge BZA approved May 2018	BZA Case 18-020
13	Mike III convicted child sexual abuse 2025	Fox10 TV (Aug 25, 2025); WLOX (Sept 10, 2025)
14	FoFo visited locked office	SOURCE testimony (Shield Law protected)
15	Mike Jr. celebrated Sherry house demolition	SOURCE testimony (Sept 26, 2010)
16	Mike Jr. died April 28, 2012	Find A Grave; MS Link obituary
17	Tina Rose Gillich = Mike Jr.'s daughter, Biloxi atty	SOURCE testimony; MS Bar records; Lawyers.com listing
18	Tina openly supported Star Lounge application	BZA Case 18-020 proceedings
19	Mike III arrested at 323 Oakridge Circle	SOURCE testimony; criminal records
20	Tina name changes: Gillich to Peresich to Singletary	SOURCE testimony; public records
21	FoFo built computer systems for Lonely Hearts scam	Edward Humes, Mississippi Mud (1994), p. 166
22	FoFo at federal grand jury, November 1990	Newspaper photograph; Part IV exhibit (fofo-grand-jury-1990.jpeg)
23	Lonely Hearts scam to Sherry murders causation	United States v. Sharpe, 995 F.2d 49; 193 F.3d 852 (5th Cir.)
24	Rex Howe owned Le Bistro; Le Bistro on Veterans Ave	Sun Herald (Jan 9, 1992), Anita Lee; ATF indictment
25	Le Bistro = "only homosexual bar in Harrison County"	Sun Herald (Jan 9, 1992), Anita Lee
26	Howes charged: arson, conspiracy, molotov, bomb plot	Sun Herald (Jan 9, 1992); ATF/Biloxi PD/Fire Marshal investigation
27	Joey Gillich owned "Joey's" on U.S. 90 (summer 1991)	Sun Herald (Jan 9, 1992), Anita Lee
28	Circumstantial evidence = testimonial evidence	Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121 (1954)
29	RICO enterprise through structure, not confessions	United States v. Elliott, 571 F.2d 880 (5th Cir. 1978)
30	RICO applies to wholly criminal enterprises	United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981)
31	Multiple operations = single conspiracy	United States v. Marable, 578 F.2d 151 (5th Cir. 1978)

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Witness testimony from Angela Ward and additional protected source testimony documented under Mississippi Shield Law § 13-1-253. All government records cited are matters of public record. Court citations verified.

Have information about the Gillich family's operations on Veterans Avenue? Contact us: tips@peoplevsbiloxi.com

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