Pubdate: Fri, 24 May 2002
Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA)
Copyright: 2002 The Times-Picayune
Contact:  http://www.nola.com/t-p/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848
Author: James Gill
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

THIEVES GO FREE; HOOKERS DON'T

When a hooker reported something fishy about a client on Sept. 17 last 
year, Jeanette Maier, madam of the Canal Street brothel, set her mind at 
rest: "This is wartime. They are looking for terrorists, not this s - - -."

The FBI agent recording the conversation must have had quite a chuckle over 
that one. The feds might have failed to anticipate the attacks on the World 
Trade Center and the Pentagon and ignored anti-American tirades from Arabs 
enrolled in our flight schools, but a handful of prostitutes would be 
relentlessly pursued.

Before 9/11, on 9/11 and after 9/11 agents monitored every call. At any one 
time at least 10 of them were assigned to the task, which went on for four 
months and failed to uncover any crimes worthy of federal attention.

The feds, presumably embarrassed to have wasted an unknown, but obviously 
considerable, amount of money, did their best to hornswoggle us into 
thinking that this was a serious investigation by loading up the indictment 
with overblown charges.

They eventually dropped most of the counts against Maier and her mother, 
Tommie Taylor, in return for their help in prosecuting others involved in 
the New Orleans brothel and associated establishments in other states.

But Taylor was still required to plead guilty to money laundering, an 
offense normally associated with drug kingpins who use front companies to 
conceal the source of their millions. But, according to the U.S. Attorney's 
broad, and mean-spirited, reading of the statute, spending any money 
illegally made amounts to money laundering. Thus minor offenders can face 
serious prison time.

Taylor, according to the feds, was guilty of money-laundering when she 
invested a few hundred bucks in magazine advertisements for her brothel. 
The charge she wound up admitting in court was writing a rent check for $695.

Taylor and Maier also pleaded guilty to prostitution conspiracy, which 
carries a statutory maximum of five years.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and Ken Kaiser, FBI chief in New Orleans, greeted 
the guilty pleas with a press release that suggested they had brought off 
the greatest law enforcement coup in Louisiana since Bonnie and Clyde.

Letten and Kaiser noted that this must be a big deal since "one customer 
spent well in excess of $300,000 on prostitutes and illegal drugs between 
1994 and 1998."

The feds, in affidavits accompanying warrant applications, have struggled 
from the beginning to depict the brothel as a major drug den. But the best 
they could do was to extract a guilty plea from "Grandma" Loretta Mims, 62, 
for selling about five pounds of marijuana over a period of five years. 
That wouldn't raise an eyebrow at Tulane and Broad.

What the press release fails to mention is that the big-spending john with 
a drug habit was a federal snitch, a crooked doctor out of Ruston by the 
name of Howard Lippton.

When the feds discovered he had been defrauding Medicaid and Medicare, 
Lippton offered to rat out the cathouse in return for a lenient sentence. 
The investigation was launched and from then on the calls Lippton made to 
Canal Street were designed to ensnare the defendants. Such is the policy of 
your government; give the thief a break and punish the hookers with the 
utmost severity.

The feds, in support of warrant applications, suggested that the mob was 
running the brothel network, but that, too, was fantasy. On the first day 
of surveillance, the feds knew that tricks were being turned, and that's 
about all they knew after monitoring more than 5,000 calls.

If the investigation was a farce, the resulting charges were a mockery of 
justice, not only because they were too tough on the hookers but because 
the feds chose to let their customers off the hook. Letten has suggested 
that any prostitution charges should be brought by the state, although he 
has not handed over any of the evidence to District Attorney Harry Connick. 
In any case, defense attorneys say that, if Maier and Taylor were guilty of 
conspiracy, so were johns.

But fair play has nothing to do with this case. This was a high-end 
brothel, charging up to $300 an hour, and patronized by men of power and 
influence. Why the customers are being protected is a matter of conjecture, 
but the feds have shown so little interest in the customers that you almost 
get the feeling Osama bin Laden could have hung out on Canal Street with 
impunity.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom