Scottie Ewing fiasco draws attention to "Carl Bernstein of the shady Denver nightclub beat"

Local pro-skier-turned-swinger-magnate Scottie Ewing grabbed headlines after federal charges were filed against him last week for allegedly failing to pay taxes on the Denver Sugars and Denver Players Club, a high-end prostitution service he owned and sold in 2005. Along the way, attention is being drawn to former Westword staffer...

By Joel Warner

June 3, 2010

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Local pro-skier-turned-swinger-magnate Scottie Ewing grabbed headlines after federal charges were filed against him last week for allegedly failing to pay taxes on the Denver Sugars and Denver Players Club, a high-end prostitution service he owned and sold in 2005. Along the way, attention is being drawn to former Westword staffer Jared Jacang Maher's extensive coverage of Ewing's involvement in the local swingers scene.

The national sports blog Deadspin seems especially enamored of Maher's coverage of Ewing.

In the evocatively-titled post, "The Strange Saga Of Denver's Freestyle-Skiing, Group-Sexing Alleged Pimp," the site says Maher's epic writing on the subject is worth the long read, thanks to his vivid descriptions of Denver's kink scene, his dogged sleuthing into suggestions that Ewing was a slopeside pimp and his colorful use of phrases like "bristly mustaches" and "shabby hotel bathrooms filled with septuagenarians."

In short, Deadspin labels Maher, who now works at the local political news site Face the State, the "Carl Bernstein of the shady Denver nightclub beat." How funny: We've been calling Maher that for years.

Curious what all the fuss is about? Check out examples of Jared's Ewing oeuvre here and here. In the meantime, here's a classy commercial for Ewing's latest venture, a swingers club called the Sugar House:

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Joel Warner is a former staff writer for Westword and International Business Times. He's also written for WIRED, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, Slate, Grantland and many other publications. He's co-author of the 2014 book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, published by Simon & Schuster.

Contact: Joel Warner