Outcall boss Washington given 3-year sentence

Bill Gang

Tuesday, May 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Michael O. Washington, who has had to balance elements of fame and notoriety in his life, will now have to deal with a three-year prison term.

District Judge James Brennan gave Washington the sentence Monday to end -- at least temporarily -- years of pursuit by police and prosecutors over his notorious outcall service.

Metro Police vice officers for years have contended that his Swinging Suzy's Dancers and Entertainers outcall service was little more than a thinly veiled prostitution service.

It was a position Brennan embraced in court in imprisoning Washington.

"It appears he's been operating a bordello in the wrong county," Brennan said, referring to the laws that permit legal houses of prostitution in most Nevada counties.

While Washington was handcuffed and led off to jail, his stay behind bars may be short.

He already has spent 10 months in custody awaiting a resolution of his case, making him eligible almost immediately for parole.

The 46-year-old Washington was jailed in April 1995 after years of being pursued by law enforcement and couldn't afford to bail out until January. He relinquished his outcall kingpin crown in a plea bargain that resolves the 87 charges against him.

Washington, who gained an element of fame a decade ago when he received the transplanted heart of actor Jon-Erik Hexum, pleaded guilty to two felonies involving telephone and credit-card fraud and pleaded no contest to a gross misdemeanor count of pandering in the deal.

At his sentencing, Washington admitted he was wrong when he became involved with a man who could alter credit card strips and cellular telephone chips to defraud the companies.

But he continued to deny any wrongdoing in the operation of Swinging Suzy's.

But Brennan didn't buy the denial. He read an excerpt from a letter sent to the court by one of Washington's supporters describing the defendant as "a pimp and he was the best pimp."

In the deal, Washington escaped charges of solicitation to commit murder and other felonies that could have kept him behind bars for years. Those counts were dismissed Monday.

Washington's attorney, Herb Sachs, sought probation for the defendant, noting that his transplanted heart needs periodic testing to determine if it is functioning properly.

But Brennan determined the prison system was capable of dealing with Washington's medical needs.

Washington had been charged several years ago with numerous complaints of pandering and living off the earnings of prostitutes, but another district judge ruled at that time the charges should be dismissed due to the heart condition.

But Washington was arrested again as part of a law enforcement sting operation done with the cooperation of another outcall service operator, who had advertised his business in a publication printed and distributed by Washington.

The sting also included the murder solicitation charges that alleged Washington teamed with a man named Jeffrey Busby, whom he met while serving a 10-month federal prison term for tax fraud.

Supposedly, the February plot was to kill a California man who purportedly embezzled money from Busby's business associates.