Fleiss Targeted by Rogue Sting, Lawyer Says

Heidi Fleiss was targeted by a rogue sting operation marked by lies and governed by desperation, her attorney said Monday in opening statements at the alleged Hollywood madam’s trial.

The police undercover operation was “a baloney story . . . shrewdly calculated by the police to slowly and surely entice our client into committing a criminal act,” Fleiss’ attorney, Donald Marks, said in his opening statement to a Superior Court jury.

The deception that led to her pandering arrest included policemen claiming to be business titans and asking that an alleged Fleiss prostitute bring the undercover officers cocaine, Marks said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Carter, after a brief opening statement, called to the stand Sammy Lee, an undercover Beverly Hills police officer. He played for the jury a videotape in which Lee met with Fleiss and alleged prostitute Peggy Schinke to arrange for four girls to entertain Lee’s fictitious business associates.

“In the history of this business, in one year, no one has ever been able to do what I do,” Fleiss says on the videotape. “I know 1%, the wealthiest people . . . and of all the girls that I select that are gonna work for me, maybe I meet 100 girls, maybe in two weeks, and I only pick one.”

According to the tape, Fleiss arranged for four prostitutes, each of whom would be paid $1,500.

Lee, posing as Hawaiian businessman Miko Akai, asks, “And for $1,500, what are we talking?”

Fleiss responds on the tape, “We’re talking about everyone’s gonna have a good time.”

Fleiss goes on to say she is a “firm believer in condoms” and “some guys like two girls to be together,” and it can be arranged.

The defense told the seven-man, five-woman jury that the police operation lured Fleiss to the videotaped meeting with a series of deceptions.

The officers “created a crime when one didn’t exist,” Marks said.

Over several months in repeated telephone calls, police deceived Fleiss and led her to break the state’s pandering laws, which prohibit procuring women for prostitution, the defense maintained.

The sting operation was flawed, Marks said, because it was “so focused on arresting our client that they pursued her.”