Go figure. Several hours for the O.J. jury to arrive at a decision. Several days for the jury to mull over a pandering and prostitution trial. Except Jody Babydoll Gibson wasn't nearly as lucky as O.J.
On Friday, Gibson's jury after 7 days deliberation, found her guilty of three counts of felony pimping. However, the jury was deadlocked on four pandering counts and Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Lloyd M. Nash declared a mistrial on those charges.
Gibson, 41, faces a maximum sentence of eight years and eight months in prison. Had Gibson been convicted of all seven counts, she would have faced 14 years in prison.
Over the objection of Gibson's attorney, Gerald V. Scotti, Nash ordered Gibson to County Jail pending sentencing and set bail at $500,000.
"She has every opportunity to flee the jurisdiction," the judge said. "That is my concern." Gibson was accused of operating a high-priced international call girl ring catering to celebrities and wealthy professionals.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Walmark, who prosecuted the case, said he was pleased with the verdict. "It's a validation of the hard work of the Los Angeles Police Department in this investigation," Walmark said. "They did an excellent job in putting this case together."
He said prosecutors had not yet decided whether to retry Gibson on the pandering counts. Scotti called the case a waste of resources for D.A. Gil Garcetti's office and that it was not a victory for the prosecutors and police.
"The D.A.'s office thinks it's more important to investigate this case than to prosecute murders and gangs and robberies and real crimes." What Gibson did, he added, "is not a real crime."
Jurors said they did not discuss or consider the question of whether pimping and pandering should be illegal or prosecuted. "Pimping is illegal. That's it," said one juror, a United Parcel Service driver from Northridge. Jurors also said the prosecution presented a strong case.
Other jurors agreed that there was too much evidence in terms of the pimping and they couldn't come up with any other solution. Jurors overwhelmingly believed that Gibson was guilty of pandering, sayingthere was only one holdout on three counts and two on the remaining count. Several jurors said they were convinced of Gibson's guilt after hearing the testimony of three former prostitutes, who took the stand under immunity deals.
All three prostitutes testified that they worked for Gibsson and split the take 60-40. Jurors said the contents of several "trick books" introduced into evidence also convinced them that Gibson "was a madam." The books detailed prostitutes' names, prostitution appointments, money received and clients' names among whome were supposed to be doctors, lawyers, actors and celebrities.
"It was a melting pot of people," said one juror. And supposedly there were recognizable names among the client list that jurors wouldn't talk about. Although the defense contended that there was police misconduct, some jurors conceded police sloppiness but not enough to dismiss the investigation. For example, there were tapes that were missing from the preliminary hearing that suddenly were found in an officer's desk drawer before trial.
During trial, jurors heard in secretly recorded tapes how a woman named "Sasha" boasted to a male client that her escort service included "television stars" and even a winner of a state beauty pageant, and that her "girls" were as sophisticated as they were beautiful. "Sasha" was none other than Gibson, several witnesses said.
The male client, who she believed was a wealthy Middle Eastern businessman, offered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to fly prostitutes to Kuwait to help him close some deals. At a luxury Century City hotel where they were to meet in June 1999, the client turned out to be an undercover police investigator, and Gibson was promptly arrested.
Scotti contended that vice detectives had targeted Gibson but hadn't gone after the clients. "Is it fair to [Gibson] in a case like this, they don't bring in a single john?" Scotti asked Jurors said they were also bothered by the double standard but noted that the wording of the law didn't say you had to have a man to convict someone of pimping and pandering. To prove pimping, a prosecutor must show that a defendant knew someone was a prostitute and derived support, in whole or in part, from the earnings of that person's prostitution. To prove pandering, a prosecutor must show that someone has procured, encouraged, induced, caused or persuaded another person, or attempted to procure another person, to become a prostitute.
