Luster Says on Tape He Gave Woman Date-Rape Drug

The lawyer for Andrew Stuart Luster acknowledged Thursday that Ventura County authorities have a recorded telephone conversation of his client admitting that he gave an illegal sedative known as GHB to a woman whose assault allegation launched a serial rape case against the 36-year-old millionaire.

But lawyer Joel Isaacson told The Times that the conversation between Luster and the woman, recorded without Luster’s knowledge the day before his July 18 arrest, should help his client more than it hurts him.

“It’s probably the best thing going for us,” because it indicates that “he didn’t do what they’ve accused him of,” Isaacson said.

In the phone call, laid out by authorities in a 33-page transcript, the woman asked the Mussel Shoals man why and when he gave her the drug police also refer to as Liquid X, Isaacson said. Luster, an heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, tells the 21-year-old woman he did so at her request, and that he did not slip any of the substance into her drink at a Santa Barbara bar where they had met earlier that evening, Isaacson said.

“He does admit [that] later they took it together and partied,” Isaacson told The Times. “But not at the bar, absolutely not. And really, that’s the thrust of the case. If he was lurking around, slipping things into unsuspecting women’s drinks, that’s pretty bad. But he says he didn’t do it, he never did that.”

The transcript is not being made available to the public. Ventura County sheriff’s investigators and prosecutors have refused to discuss or even confirm the telephone call, although other court records refer to a call the woman made to Luster in the presence of detectives.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said Thursday that Isaacson “vastly understates the evidence in this case” and that indications that Luster drugged and assaulted at least three women remain strong.

Meanwhile, Luster’s mother appeared at a bail hearing Thursday to support him. Seated next to her was a woman whom Isaacson identified as Shannon Lethin, a friend of Luster’s with whom he was once romantically involved. “She’s not complaining, she’s supportive,” Isaacson said of the woman who appears in a videotape that authorities removed from Luster’s home.

“We believe he will certainly be exonerated of all the charges,” Elizabeth Luster told reporters after the hearing. “He’s a good son. He’s a good person.”

Lethin declined to be interviewed.

At Thursday’s hearing, Superior Court Judge Art Gutierrez declined to reduce Luster’s bail from $10 million to $1 million, as Isaacson and co-counsel James E. Blatt had requested.

Isaacson argued that Luster’s net worth was about $3 million, not $31 million as authorities have suggested, and that he will be unable to make bail at its current level.

“We’re not dealing with J. Paul Getty,” Blatt said.

Isaacson also told the judge that bail should be reduced because prosecutors have yet to back up their accusations against his client.

“They said he’s a serial rapist, a predator, that there’s going to be victims all over the world,” he said. “That has not happened. They’ve had almost a good three weeks to come up with new victims” and have not.

Investigators last month seized hundreds of videos and photographs from Luster’s home, many of which they say depict sexual encounters with unconscious women. Based on this evidence, police began searching for as many as 15 victims, and said the assaults could go back as early as 1992 and extend across several states and into Mexico.

But so far, the multiple rape charges that Luster faces involve just three women. One is an ex-girlfriend whom Luster had once taken to court to force her to pay him back money he had given her for dental work.

Luster also faces charges involving drugs, kidnapping, illegal videotaping and weapons possession.

Prosecutors said Isaacson is wrong to assume their case is fizzling out. Four women have come forward to be interviewed since the initial rape charges were filed, Corona said in court.

On Thursday, she filed 10 additional charges. Those involve weapons, drugs and the accusation that Luster also drugged a man who came back to his house with the 21-year-old woman. Authorities are not releasing the man’s name.

In all, Luster now faces 50 charges, Corona said. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

Isaacson told the judge that he was willing to house Luster at his own residence while the case proceeds, in order to ease fears that Luster would flee the country.

“I live in the county,” Isaacson said, adding that his home was gated. He said his client has two children whom he helps support and for that reason alone would not attempt to run from authorities.

Luster’s attorneys also submitted letters of support from one of their client’s neighbors and from a relative.

But Gutierrez was not persuaded. “I’m still at the same conclusion I was before,” he said, adding that there is reason to fear Luster “is a danger to women.”

A preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 7.