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Arrests of exotic dancers hold firm
By CARY DAVIS, Times Staff Writer
NEW PORT RICHEY -- Undercover sheriff's deputies can go into local adult entertainment clubs, pose as customers and arrest exotic dancers for lewd conduct, a judge ruled Wednesday. The ruling by Senior Judge Radford Smith came in the case of 11 exotic dancers, whose lawyers argued that lewd conduct charges against the women should be dismissed for lack of an offended victim. In refusing to dismiss the charges, the judge upheld the longtime practice of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office to rely on undercover deputies to regulate the activity of dancers in adult entertainment clubs. Smith, a retired Pinellas County judge who is temporarily presiding over misdemeanor cases in west Pasco, said whether the dancers are guilty of lewd conduct is "ultimately a jury question." At the same time, the judge acknowledged the "confusing" nature of the legal questions at hand. The matter is not dead yet. Tampa lawyer Luke Lirot, who represents many of the 30 dancers arrested during an October raid by the Sheriff's Office, will try again in two weeks to have the arrests declared illegal. That hearing, before Pasco County Judge Marc Salton, is scheduled for April 23. The Sheriff's Office has said that no women charged in the October raid were arrested for giving lap dances, with minimal contact, to undercover deputies. According to arrest reports, some women were arrested for simulating sex acts on customers and each other. Others exposed themselves for undercover deputies, who placed money in the dancers' G-strings, reports said. At the heart of Lirot's argument is a 1991 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that established a key element necessary to prove lewdness. Namely, the court held that somebody must be offended. And that somebody, Lirot argued Tuesday, cannot be a law enforcement officer. There must be somebody else, he said, an unsuspecting member of the public who does not want to be exposed to the act in question. "They have no witnesses," Lirot said of the prosecution's cases against the accused dancers. Lirot cited two recent rulings by Florida trial judges, including one last month in a Hillsborough County case, that square with his argument. But those rulings, which were not reviewed by appeals courts, are not binding in Pasco County. Assistant State Attorney Lenny Cagan, who argued the prosecution's case Tuesday, said Lirot's logic defies common sense. No exotic dancers would ever be arrested for lewd conduct if an undercover officer could not serve as the prosecution's sole witness, Cagan argued. Without officers, there would be no witnesses. Customers of adult entertainment clubs, he said, certainly are not offended by what goes on inside. A ruling in favor of the dancers "would render prosecution in these types of cases impossible," Cagan said. Lirot said higher courts need to take up the issue and clarify once and for all whether police agencies can rely on undercover officers to make lewd cases against exotic dancers. "It's nebulous," he said. "It needs definition." But Lirot said it is unlikely he will appeal Tuesday's ruling to a higher court. Such a move would require the dancers to plead to the charges, and that's not something the women are willing to do, he said. He said he would prepare to take the cases to trial in hopes that Pasco jurors will side with the dancers.
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