Deputies’ Handling of Vice Case Investigated : Sheriff’s Department: A lawman allowed a woman to perform a sex act before she was arrested, authorities say. The district attorney dropped prostitution charges against her.

Prostitution charges against a dancer were abruptly dropped by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office Tuesday because an undercover sheriff’s deputy allowed the woman to perform a sex act on him before she was arrested, authorities said.

Three vice investigators who were present during the incident have been reassigned pending an internal investigation, according to Assistant Los Angeles County Sheriff Jerry Harper.

The decision to drop the case was made by Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who said the deputies’ conduct in a Lancaster motel room was “unacceptable and indefensible,” according to Reiner spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

Reiner also said prosecutors in the Lancaster branch of the district attorney’s office should not have filed charges after reading arrest reports that outlined inappropriate conduct by deputies, Gibbons said.

“The filing showed incredibly poor judgment,” Gibbons said. She would not comment on whether any disciplinary action would be taken and there was no comment from prosecutors in the Lancaster office.

“On the surface of what I read in the arrest reports, I have a problem with what happened as far as departmental policy,” Harper said. Sheriff’s officials will also look at whether the deputies’ conduct may have violated the law, he said.

A prostitution charge had been filed against a 24-year-old woman on May 2 and the case had been set for trial in November.

According to the arrest report, a team of vice investigators acting on an informant’s tip set up an undercover operation targeting Unlimited Attractions, a Lancaster service that provides exotic dancers, and requested that a dancer be sent to a motel room for a $150, one-hour session.

The dancer was met at the room by Deputies M. Ward and J. Elliot and Sgt. Hilliard, none of whom Harper would identify further.

The woman danced and stripped for the deputies and also sprayed whipped cream on their chests and licked it off, the report said. She offered to masturbate each of them for $50 each and was given $150, according to the report.

The report states that Ward lay naked on the floor and that the woman climbed on top of him and “began masturbating him,” at which point the deputies identified themselves and arrested her.

The woman’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Rhonda Rucker, said the report showed the deputies went too far.

“Prostitution is a crime of words,” she said. “No act is necessary.”

Although Gibbons would not comment on the specific case, she said that generally prostitution arrests are made “after there is solicitation and money changes hands.”

Harper said the Sheriff’s Department’s policy prohibits vice investigators from engaging in sex acts. But he said investigation and prosecution of telephone services that commit prostitution under the guise of providing dancers is more difficult because the services are more sophisticated than street prostitution rings.

That the deputy allegedly removed his clothes is not necessarily improper, Harper said, noting that deputies investigating a massage parlor may also be required to remove their clothes.

For successful prosecution in such a case, investigators need “a verbal agreement and something in furtherance of the act itself,” Harper said. “The question is, where does one draw the line?”