Estelle Carey was a photographer's model and dice girl in a Rush Street nightclub. Her boyfriend, Nick Circella, alias Nick Dean, owned the club. Carey was employed to entice customers who played low stakes legal gambling games to try the more expensive high stakes games offered on the club's second floor. Estelle also slept with some of the men who patronized the establishment, using a third floor suite. After Circella was indicted on a movie extortion case in 1941, many of his friends turned on Estelle Carey. They believed she had provided authorities with the information they needed to arrest him.