U.S. Judge Won’t Bar Tracys’ Surveillance
A federal judge on Monday refused to issue a court order barring Los Angeles police and the city attorney from investigating or prosecuting a Canyon Country couple who include sex acts in what they say are ancient religious rites.
Will and Mary Ellen Tracy, convicted this month of misdemeanor prostitution charges, had sought a temporary restraining order to end what they claimed was harassment by the Los Angeles Police Department and the city attorney’s office.
A temporary restraining order would not overturn their recent conviction but would spare the couple further harassment, Will Tracy said. The couple charged that undercover police loiter near their new headquarters in Glendale.
“I believe we are under constant threat and surveillance,” Mary Ellen Tracy told U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr.
Byrne said it was unclear whether he could issue a temporary restraining order because the Tracys have related cases pending in state courts.
Tracy, 47, is the self-proclaimed high priestess of the Church of the Most High Goddess and claims to have had sex with more than 2,000 men in the name of religion. In the Tracys’ church, women act as priests who absolve the sins of men through sexual rites.
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