Michelle Holden a Victim, Defense Lawyer Charges

The attorney for Michelle Holden, wife of Pasadena’s current mayor, said Friday that prosecutors have the wrong victim in a sensational statutory rape case that carries political overtones.

Lawyer Mark J. Geragos said he will show that his client, a 35-year-old mother of four, was the victim of a sexual assault by her two teenage accusers and not an instigator, as prosecutors have portrayed her. He described the teenagers as “gangbanger wannabes.”

His remarks followed a hearing at which a judge in Pasadena limited television coverage of Holden’s upcoming trial to protect the privacy of the young accusers.

Superior Court Judge Joseph F. DeVanon ruled that testimony in the salacious case will not be televised, although he will permit cameras in the courtroom during attorneys’ arguments and jury instructions.

The adverse ruling convinced CourtTV to pull out of covering the case.

Holden is scheduled to go on trial next week on six felony counts involving alleged unlawful sexual encounters with her baby-sitter’s 15-year-old brother in early 1998. She also is accused of misdemeanor charges of making sexual advances toward the boy and his friend, who also was under 16.

Holden and her family have denied the charges, which her husband, Pasadena Mayor Chris Holden, and his father, Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, say are politically motivated. They also allege that they were targeted for a shakedown.

The district attorney’s office investigated but was unable to substantiate the Holdens’ charges that a Los Angeles County sheriff’s employee sought a payoff to make the sex case “go away.”

Instead, a county grand jury charged Michelle Holden in July with eight sex-related counts in connection with intimate encounters that allegedly occurred between Jan. 1 and March 15, 1998.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tuppence McIntyre declined to comment on details of the case. She had opposed the cameras in the courtroom, saying the victims are juveniles who will testify in graphic detail about sexual matters. The defense did not oppose the cameras.

Media lawyers Karen N. Frederiksen, for CourtTV, and Royal F. Oakes, representing several local radio and television stations, argued that any individual privacy rights were superseded by the public’s right to know the business of the courts.

The best way for the public to follow the case, Frederiksen said, was through television. Otherwise, she added, the public receives only “third-hand accounts” of the proceedings filtered through reporters.

But DeVanon ruled against the broadcast--either live or videotaped--of any witness’ testimony. He said that pulling the plug on the cameras while the young men were testifying might influence jurors or mislead them about the significance of the testimony.

He banned cameras from the sixth-floor corridor of the Pasadena courthouse during Holden’s trial, which is expected to last two to three weeks.

Jury selection is set to begin Thursday.

These are difficult times for the Holden family. Chris Holden steps down as Pasadena’s mayor on May 3 after losing the city’s first mayoral election to former City Councilman Bill Bogaard. His father, meanwhile, has been forced into a runoff election for the Los Angeles City Council seat he has held since 1987.