Arguments End in Gibson Case

Renewing allegations of police misconduct, the attorney for Jody Babydol Gibson on Wednesday denounced the LAPD’s investigation of the alleged Hollywood madam as “disgraceful” and “full of cockroaches,” and cited it as a reason that the jury should acquit her.

In his closing argument, defense attorney Gerald V. Scotti also quoted passages from a manuscript written by Gibson, which Scotti described as “a work of fiction.” In it, Gibson described an affair with a police detective and claimed to have rejected Heidi Fleiss, who later became a madam herself, as a prospective employee because she wasn’t attractive enough.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard F. Walmark said the manuscript amounted to an admission of alleged pimping and pandering activities, for which Gibson is on trial. A handwritten copy of the manuscript was found by police in Gibson’s home and a typed copy was discovered in a hotel room after her arrest.

Walmark recounted a long list of evidence that he said pointed to Gibson’s guilt, including testimony from three former prostitutes, who said they worked for Gibson, and numerous vice officers, several of whom had posed as clients and one of whom had approached Gibson as a prospective employee.

There were also investigators’ secretly taped conversations with Gibson and notebooks in which Gibson recorded her business activities, Walmark told the jury of seven women and five men in the Van Nuys courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash.

In contrast to the parade of people who testified for the prosecution, Gibson’s defense presented no witnesses during the trial that lasted more than three weeks, resting on the contention that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.

Facing the jury at all times Wednesday as the two attorneys took turns speaking, Gibson looked grave. Earlier during trial, she was often animated, taking notes in neat handwriting or turning to confer with Scotti or whisper to his assistant. On Wednesday, she was quiet and sat perfectly still.

In the manuscript, Gibson wrote that she was “tired” of how the Los Angeles Police Department has grown increasingly intolerant of prostitution activities. “They should just tax it. Give 1% to the homeless,” said the manuscript, as read aloud to the jurors by Scotti. Gibson also promised its reader a tale of “kinky sexual preferences,” “celebrities,” “espionage” and “danger.”

“You see, the escorting business is a ruthless one,” Gibson wrote, referring to former rival Fleiss. In 1990, Fleiss sought Gibson out to work for her service, according to the manuscript. “She wasn’t very pretty. I passed. She always hated me for that,” Gibson wrote, adding that Fleiss later tried to take clients away from her by offering lower prices.

In the text, Gibson also mentioned her “affair with the arresting detective with the Beverly Hills Police Department” and how she “received immunity.”

“The irony for me, though, is I was just trying to be a pop star. I had created my service simply to finance my recording career,” Gibson wrote. The service began, according to the manuscript, when she had a “talent agency” that included Playboy playmates. Women in her agency asked if she knew “sugar daddy” types, and men she knew clamored to be set up with beautiful women.

“It just came together and fell on my lap,” Scotti read aloud from the manuscript.

Scotti also argued that much of the prosecution’s evidence was untrustworthy.

The prostitutes who testified received immunity deals from prosecutors that amounted to “you tell us what we want to hear on Ms. Gibson or you’re going to jail,” Scotti said. The women were thus “coerced” into telling “falsehoods” about Gibson, he added.

The police investigation was also “sloppy,” Scotti said, pointing out that no handwriting analysis was done on an alleged prostitution appointment book and the manuscript. “What evidence do you have before you that she even wrote those?”

He also pointed out inconsistencies in the testimony of an LAPD officer who had approached Gibson about working as a prostitute.

“How can you believe or accept a single word she said?” Scotti said, of the officer, who testified at the preliminary hearing and at the trial. At one point, he referred to the same officer, who secretly recorded conversations with Gibson, as “Linda Tripp.”

“This was a shameful investigation, a disgraceful investigation,” Scotti said. “This is a case full of cockroaches.”

“Sloppy police work . . . when it’s not checked . . . it breeds further sloppiness and it breeds corruption,” Scotti said. “You know what we have next--we have Rampart.”

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Urging jurors to “stick to the facts at hand,” prosecutor Walmark said Scotti’s “boilerplate” remarks on the Rampart scandal “is the standard response now when you have the Los Angeles Police Department on cases.”

Errors may have been made by police, Walmark told the jury, but “there’s not one item in front of you that constitutes misconduct in this case.”

Jurors will begin deliberation today.