Family’s Money Commingled Often, Fleiss’ Mother Testifies

Heidi Fleiss’ mother testified Friday that money changed hands freely and casually in her close-knit family and that it was common for one family member’s money to end up in another’s account.

“Sometimes we forget who owes what to whom,” Elissa Fleiss told the jury in her daughter’s federal tax evasion and money laundering trial in Los Angeles.

However, an Internal Revenue Service agent testified that it appeared that the convicted Hollywood madam had used her relatives’ bank accounts--even the account of her teen-age brother--to launder money.

IRS Special Agent Liza Shovar said the madam earned more than $160,000 in 1992 from prostitution. The money, Shovar said, was then funneled into a number of Fleiss family accounts.

One account, in the names of Fleiss’ father and sister, held deposits that were traced almost exclusively to three Fleiss clients: Mexican businessman Manuel Santos, former Denver Nuggets owner Sidney Shlenker and film star Charlie Sheen, the agent said.

Shovar said that when the balance in that account reached $50,000, the money was transferred to a second account in the name of Fleiss’ sister, Shana. It was from Shana’s account, Shovar added, that money for the down payment on Fleiss’ $1.6-million Benedict Canyon home was drawn.

Call girl money, she said, was even deposited in the bank account of Fleiss’ teen-age brother, Jesse. The agent said that a check for $10,000 was deposited into the boy’s certificate of deposit account, drawn on the checking account of Bob Crow, heir to the Trammell Crow Co. real estate fortune.

Crow, who has been identified by prosecutors as a john, later told authorities that he did not know anyone in the Fleiss family but Heidi, Shovar testified.

Shovar said she had analyzed Fleiss’ 1992 tax returns and bank records, and had found the convicted Hollywood madam had to have made at least $160,405 that year. Fleiss reported only $33,000 in income--$12,000 of which she said was from counseling, and $21,000 she said she earned as an employee in her father’s Los Feliz pediatrics practice.