Mayor Denies Wrongdoing by Newport Police at Parties

Newport Beach Mayor John C. Cox Jr. denied Tuesday that police officers from his city acted improperly during two prostitution sting operations in which exotic dancers were invited to stag parties.

“This has gotten totally blown out of proportion,” Cox said after council members were briefed by two police administrators during a council study session. “This wasn’t a case of police going around holding parties for no reason.”

A Westminster attorney who represented one of the dancers said in a phone interview Tuesday that he has urged an investigation of the Newport Beach police force. His client received $17,500 in a settlement of a lawsuit against the cities whose police officers were involved in her arrest.

“How come these officers didn’t use a videotape on any of these so-called sting operations?” John R. Cogorno asked. “Other than the police officers’ statements, where’s the evidence?”

Newport Beach council members were told by police administrators that the sting operations were conducted because of complaints by residents concerned about prostitution, Cox said.

In the first, police officers from Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley, as well as Newport Beach, staged a party at the Huntington Beach Inn on Sept. 4, 1985. Marie Lucero, who was hired to dance, later was arrested on prostitution charges.

After she was acquitted by a jury, Newport Beach and other cities agreed to an out-of-court settlement of the lawsuit for wrongful arrest that the 24-year-old Lucero had filed against them

Cogorno, who represented Lucero, said she was hired through a company doing business as a striptease mailgram service for $200 a performance.

“She went in, did her striptease mailgram, got an extra $43 in tips. She got dressed and was on her way out when she was solicited by an officer. The jury found reasonable doubt whether or not she solicited him,” Cogorno said.

In the other sting operation, officers from Santa Ana, Irvine and Newport Beach staged a party at the Irvine Marriott Hotel and invited two dancers on Aug. 14, 1986.

The women were arrested after they danced and one of them allegedly performed oral copulation on a Newport Beach undercover officer posing as a bridegroom.

One of the female defendants has pleaded guilty, and the other is due in court for trial on June 2.

Cox said the council “didn’t get into physical aspects” of the case.

Cox said the issue wasn’t whether an officer crossed that “fine line” of wrongful conduct but whether prostitution was taking place and what the police intended to do about it.