Fleiss to Ask for Dismissal of All Charges : Defense: Alleged madam will argue that LAPD officers unfairly target women and do not prosecute male customers. Prosecutors may ask for a delay in next week’s hearing.
Reputed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss will seek next week to have pandering charges against her dismissed on the grounds that Los Angeles Police Department vice officers unfairly target women in prostitution cases while allowing their male customers to escape punishment.
In court papers made public Friday, Fleiss’ lawyer, Anthony Brooklier, also contended that Fleiss cannot be guilty of pandering because police set her up in a sting operation. The most his client should be charged with under those conditions is attempted pandering, Brooklier said in an interview.
The second motion is intended as a stopgap if the first fails.
Assistant Dist. Atty. Alan Carter, who is handling the case against Fleiss, said he had not had a chance to read the motion papers closely and preferred not to comment.
Carter said he may ask for a delay in a hearing scheduled for next Friday so that he has time to respond to Brooklier’s contentions. Fleiss’ trial date is scheduled to be set at that hearing and Brooklier’s motions could be heard as well.
Brooklier said in the discriminatory prosecution motion that Capt. Glenn Ackerman, as head of the LAPD’s administrative vice unit, “has publicly announced . . . that the Los Angeles Police Department has no intention of prosecuting the male customers of Ms. Fleiss.â€
“This official position, while certainly comforting to males who would otherwise be prosecuted, smacks of a ‘boys club’ mentality which can have no place if equal protection of the law is to have real meaning.â€
Ackerman has been forbidden to discuss the case publicly and did not return calls to his office.
Brooklier’s motion also accused police administrators of condoning Ackerman’s alleged policy.
Fleiss, 27, is accused of operating a pricey call-girl ring that catered to prominent Hollywood figures. She was indicted two months ago on five counts of pandering and a single count of supplying cocaine to a vice officer.
Those charges were the result of a multiple-agency sting operation in which vice officers posed as Hawaiian and Japanese businessmen looking for prostitutes during trips to Los Angeles. Fleiss is accused of supplying them.
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