‘Babydol’ Convicted on Three Counts Involving International Call Girl Ring

Ending a chapter in a tale of illicit sex, money, betrayal and intrigue, accused Hollywood madam Jody Babydol Gibson was found guilty Friday of three counts of felony pimping.

But after seven days of deliberation, the jury deadlocked on four pandering counts. 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, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. 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 insisted that the outcome “is not a victory at all” for prosecutors and the police and suggested that it was taxpayers, not his client, who had lost.

“This case is a waste of resources for Mr. Garcetti’s office,” Scotti said. “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 Lisa Fair, a United Parcel Service driver from Northridge.

Jurors also said the prosecution presented a strong case.

“There was too much evidence in terms of the pimping. There was no way we could have come up with any other solution,” said juror Ronnie Berkovics, a social worker and psychotherapist from North Hollywood.

Jurors overwhelmingly believed that Gibson was guilty of pandering, saying there 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 eleventh-hour immunity deals.

All three testified that they worked for Gibson, had sex with clients she sent them to and gave her 40% of what they were paid.

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.

Many of the clients’ names in those books were those of doctors, lawyers, actors and celebrities, jurors said.

“It was a melting pot of people,” said juror Nick Markou, a freight conductor from Burbank.

“There were names we recognized,” Fair added with a laugh, but jurors declined to reveal them.

The defense had contended that there had been police misconduct in the case.

A couple of jurors said it appeared that there was some “police sloppiness,” but not enough for them to dismiss the entire 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.

The defense also had contended that vice detectives targeted Gibson and female prostitutes but hadn’t gone after any of the male clients--even though they had date books listing customers’ names and phone numbers. “Is it fair to [Gibson] in a case like this, they don’t bring in a single john?” Scotti asked at one point.

That “double standard” bothered some jurors. “There is culpability” for the men who were clients, said jury foreman Russell Breeding of Mission Hills. But jurors looked at the wording of the law “and it didn’t say you had to have a man” to convict someone of pimping and pandering, he added.

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.