Luster’s Attorneys Seek to Bar Tapes

Lawyers for Andrew Luster, who is accused of rape, are asking a judge to suppress videotapes seized from his seaside home last year.

If the request is granted, it could significantly narrow the scope of the criminal case against Luster, because two of the three women he is accused of assaulting were identified solely by those tapes.

Luster, the 37-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, is accused of sexually assaulting the three women after giving them a date-rape drug known as GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate. He faces 87 criminal counts, including rape, sodomy, drug possession and poisoning.

The case was filed in the summer of 2000 after a Santa Barbara woman told authorities that Luster met her at a bar, rendered her unconscious with GHB and raped her at his home.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies obtained a warrant and searched Luster’s Mussel Shoals house. They seized five videotapes from a bedroom, which allegedly depict Luster having sex with two unconscious women.

Prosecutors filed rape charges on behalf of the Santa Barbara woman. They also showed the tapes to the two other women, who said the sex was not consensual, and additional rape charges were filed.

Defense attorneys Joel Isaacson and Roger Jon Diamond contend the tapes were illegally seized and should not be admitted as evidence. Furthermore, they want the criminal counts relating to the women shown on those tapes dismissed.

“The search warrant did not authorize the seizure of videotapes,” Diamond argued in his motion. The warrant did authorize deputies to seize “any developed or undeveloped still and/or motion photography film,” according to a copy of the document.

Diamond contended “motion photography film” and homemade videotapes are not the same.

But more important, he argued, law enforcement personnel had no probable cause to go after such evidence, because the original Santa Barbara woman never said anything about being videotaped by Luster.

“There was absolutely no reason to allow the sheriff to search for videotapes, to seize them and to allow their being viewed,” according to the brief.

A hearing on the motion that had been scheduled for Wednesday was postponed to Nov. 19.