Queen Lingerie Owners Ordered to Stand Trial : Morals: Brea prosecutors refile 288 charges after boutique they call ‘peep show’ doesn’t close as promised. Owners plan to win case and then have ‘grand opening.’

Two months of negotiations between the city of Brea and the owners of a lingerie boutique went asunder Thursday when a judge ordered the shopkeepers to stand trial on charges that they run an illegal peep show featuring scantily clad women.

Judge Stephen J. Sundvold ordered Hassan Halabi and Nabil Abouriche to return to Municipal Court in Fullerton on Monday to stand trial on 288 criminal misdemeanor counts.

City prosecutors allege that the men operate Queen Lingerie as an adult modeling studio, a public dance hall and a place for public entertainment without city permits. The number of counts represent one count a day since the shop opened last Nov. 7, city prosecutors said.

The defendants’ attorney, Laurence A. Young, said his clients “have a license to sell and model lingerie and swimsuits, (yet) that’s exactly what they’re charged with.”

“We intend to go to trial, win and have a grand opening,” Young said Thursday.

Queen Lingerie at 113 S. Kraemer Blvd. almost immediately drew the ire of residents of one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods.

Deputy City Prosecutor Gregory P. Palmer said undercover male police officers have gone into the boutique several times to buy lingerie only to be led into a back room by saleswomen. There, models clad in “sheer” negligees posed and danced around the room, he said.

The performance “would cost $40 and (customers) would leave without lingerie,” Palmer said Thursday.

In February, the city filed the misdemeanor criminal complaint. According to Palmer, in several verbal agreements with the city, the owners had promised to close the business by 4 p.m. Wednesday and to pay the city’s $750 court cost to have the charges dropped.

Palmer refiled the charges Thursday morning when the boutique remained open past the deadline.

Young, however, said Halabi and Abouriche are willing to close their business but do not want to pay the city’s litigation expenses.

“They don’t think they should have to pay money to have their business shut down,” he said.