Woman Guilty of Prostitution at Party Staged by Police

A 26-year-old Lake Forest woman ran from the courtroom in tears Friday after a jury found her guilty of prostitution at a mock bachelor party staged last year by the Newport Beach Police Department.

“It’s not fair, it’s not fair,” she said.

Pamela Grace Weston, one of two women arrested at the party, contended that she had been paid $150 to dance nude and that any sexual contact with the undercover officers occurred only after they encouraged her.

After the verdict was announced in Harbor Municipal Court, several of the jurors questioned the propriety of police staging a party just to make a prostitution arrest. But the ethics of the event was not an issue before them.

Because Weston has a prior prostitution conviction, she faces an automatic sentence of 45 days in Orange County Jail.

Judge Margaret R. Anderson said she would consider allowing Weston to spend part of that time on a work-furlough program, but only if Weston could show that she had a legitimate job.

Weston’s attorney, Gregory W. Jones had argued to the jury that Weston and the second dancer arrested, Rhonda Linn Gary, 29, had been paid only to dance and that Weston had not accepted money for having sex with an officer.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans responded, “We all know what went on that night.”

The mock party included 16 police officers, some recruited from Santa Ana and Irvine, in a room at the Irvine Marriott Hotel on Aug. 14, 1986. Three officers were in an adjoining room.

According to witnesses, the dancers began taking off the shirt of an undercover officer who was supposed to be the bridegroom, and the two had oral sexual contact. The women were then arrested. A male colleague with them was detained but released.

Jones said outside of court that his client was the victim of a highly suspicious setup by the police.

Staging such a party to make a minor prostitution arrest, Jones said, is like “dropping an A-bomb on downtown Los Angeles to kill a Mediterranean fruit fly.”

Gary, 29, pleaded guilty and was fined $300 and placed on 18 months’ probation. Jones said Weston could have faced a similar penalty if she had pleaded guilty and was taking a chance going to trial because of her prior prostitution conviction. She did it anyway, Jones said, because “she doesn’t think she did anything wrong.”

Weston is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 12.