2 Officers Open Defense Against ‘Hot Tub’ Charges

Los Angeles’ most prolific team of ticket-writing police officers--Kelly (Clickety) Klatt and his partner, John Nichols--launched their defense Tuesday before a board of rights hearing into allegations that they were soaking nude in a hot tub with two young women while they were on duty.

Defense representatives spent five hours examining the LAPD’s star witness, Laura Ann Bisho, 24, in an attempt to question her credibility and indicated that they will continue to hammer away at the accuracy of her statements.

The Torrance woman has testified that she had sexual relations with the two officers while they were supposed to be on the job and for several months after she allegedly met them. Bisho claims to have first encountered the team when she was stopped for a speeding violation. Turning an on-duty contact into an off-duty relationship is against LAPD regulations and is one of the charges facing the officers.

But in questioning of the central witness, defense representatives were able to call into question the accuracy and truth of a wide range of Bisho’s statements.

The defense introduced evidence that Bisho failed a lie detector test after she filed battery charges against Nichols. Bisho confirmed that she often made false entries on her calendar-diary, which had been a key source of evidence for the prosecution.

It was also revealed that Bisho was found guilty in a Long Beach court last month of telephone harassment for obscene and threatening calls she had made to Nichols. Earlier she was convicted by a Fullerton court of impersonating a social worker and of harassing Nichols’ son. Both convictions, Bisho said, will be appealed.

Defense representatives--police officers who are not attorneys, but specialize in representing fellow officers accused of wrongdoing--also raised doubts about Bisho’s educational background, employment history, the identity of potential witnesses, and even the vehicles she claims to own.

Education References

Under oath, Bisho claimed to have taken courses at UCLA and in some resumes said she graduated from there with a degree in engineering. The defense produced a statement from the university that said it had no record of Bisho.

A San Diego employment agency that Bisho said arranged about six jobs for her said it never got her any work.

One of the more unusual twists came as Bisho said she gave birth to a premature 6-pound, 3 ounce boy in May as a surrogate mother. She would not identify the adoptive parents or the hospital where the birth allegedly took place. The defense said that a search of state records showed no record of the birth.

Throughout the testimony, Bisho told a bizarre tale of sexual encounters in parks, hot tubs and hotels with a series of police officers and one forest ranger. The defense said it plans to call up to 35 uniformed law enforcement officers to counter these claims.

Police Official Unfazed

Still, the LAPD’s chief representative on the case, Sgt. Steven Warren, said that the day’s testimony has not hurt the department’s case--although he admitted that most of the information that came out was new to him.

“I’d say she came off as a very credible witness, based on her description of (Nichols’) house,” Warren said.

Defense representative Sgt. Harry Ryan said Bisho could not identify anything that could not be seen through a window.

Klatt gained notoriety earlier this year when it was reported that he wrote more traffic tickets than any other LAPD motor officer. Klatt doesn’t take coffee breaks and paid $950 for his own radar gun. He and Nichols set a department record by handing out 61 jaywalking tickets near the USC campus in one six-hour period.