Dancer’s prostitution conviction overturned

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 8:51 a.m.

A judge overturned a strip club dancer's conviction of soliciting prostitution on Friday, which might clear the way for Treasures' fight to regain its city licensing.

District Judge Stewart Bell said city prosecutors failed to show dancer Jessica Crockett intended to have sex with an undercover Metro Police officer for money and that Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge Cedric Kearns erred in finding her guilty of the offense.

Crockett's attorney, Ross Goodman, who also represents the now closed Treasures club, said Bell's ruling gives the embattled strip club a leg up in its efforts to regain its licensing.

The club has been closed since mid-September when the Las Vegas City Council voted against giving the club's owners a permanent liquor license, and their temporary liquor license expired. The council's decision was based largely on the August conviction of a Treasures dancer for soliciting prostitution.

The club currently has a federal lawsuit pending seeking to overturn the council's action.

Before granting the club's owners a temporary liquor license in 2001, one of their attorneys had promised the club would operate 100 percent above the law and would not even contest any city efforts to revoke the license if there was one prostitution conviction arising from activity at the club.

Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown on Friday allowed that this most recent verdict in Crockett's case could change things.

But, Brown added: "I really don't know what the impacts might be until I talk to (City Attorney) Brad (Jerbic)."

Jerbic did not return the Sun's telephone messages left at his office on Friday.

In his ruling, Bell said Kearns convicted Crockett even though in Kearns' ruling he said "she didn't intend to commit the crime."

The judge gave Deputy City Attorney Edward Poleski a chance to win the appeal telling the attorney if he could answer the question: "What crime did she (Crockett) intend to commit?" the judge would rule in the city's failure.

Poleski answered incorrectly when he said Crockett was "obtaining money under false pretenses."

Goodman said Crockett's actions, which amounted to a "mere utterance," were not a crime.

The utterance in question was Crockett saying, "It won't be anymore than that" after the undercover officer said, "I don't want to spend more than my $700 in gambling money."

Bell said "you have to have intent" for the conviction to stand.

"Unless the intent was to have him (the officer) come up to (to a room) to give her money for more legal stuff," Bell said.

The judge equated the situation to a dancer perhaps telling a patron they are "handsome, and 'I love you,' intending to get more money from them, even if he's not handsome and she (the dancer) doesn't love him."

Bell's ruling marks the second time in two months that a dancer from Treasures has been cleared of solicitation of prostitution charges.

On Dec. 14 Municipal Judge Dayvid Figler found former Treasures dancer Angela Wise not guilty on two counts of soliciting prostitution for allegedly agreeing to perform sex acts with two undercover Metro detectives at Treasures' VIP area.

One other Treasures' dancer was found not guilty of soliciting prostitution in 2004.

Bell also dismissed a violation of the erotic dance code charge against Crockett, saying District Judge Sally Loehrer found the law unconstitutional in her ruling on Jan. 21.

In her ruling Loehrer said the city's law preventing erotic dancers from "fondling and caressing" patrons during lap dances was "too vague" and failed to define what kind of touching was and wasn't legal.

Her ruling overturned 13 convictions of dancers who work at the controversial Crazy Horse Too.