Hooker best known for Hugh Grant affair arrested after MGM Grand incident

Cathy Scott

Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown, caught in a compromising position last year with British actor Hugh Grant, has been arrested in Las Vegas.

Kicking and screaming while officers tried to subdue her, Brown, 25, was booked about 11:40 p.m. Sunday at the MGM Grand after soliciting two Metro Police undercover vice detectives for sex, vice Lt. Carlos Cordeiro said. She was charged with loitering, soliciting for prostitution and resisting arrest.

Brown, whose real name is Stella Marie Thompson and uses the aliases of Estelle Thompson and Brown, was released Monday night from the Clark County Detention Center.

Last year, Brown, from San Leandro, Calif., was sentenced for lewd conduct after a June 27, 1995, incident in which Grant was also arrested after police saw him pick up Brown in his BMW.

Undercover detectives in Las Vegas encountered Brown after she was introduced to them by another female prostitute at the MGM, Cordeiro said. The woman who introduced Brown was later arrested for soliciting prostitution.

"Ms. Brown was very, very cautious and concerned that our two undercover detectives were policemen," Cordeiro said. "Fortunately, they were convincing enough to ease her mind that they weren't policemen.

"After an extensive conversation with Ms. Brown, enough was said that they had enough to arrest her for loitering."

Brown resisted arrest, "pulled away and began screaming and caused a real scene," he said. "Our detectives and several MGM security officers had to escort her from the casino area to security where she was trespassed out of there."

At the time of her arrest, detectives didn't know she was an infamous prostitute, Cordeiro said.

Cordeiro said he believed Brown and other prostitutes came to town for the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight championship fight at the MGM.

"I have no doubt she was here to work the Tyson fight," he said. "We know that these types of events bring in a tremendous amount of activity. A lot of these people come in from out of town."

Over the fight weekend, 43 people were arrested on prostitution-related charges. Twenty of them were from out of state.

Brown