Stripper, Bodyguard Shot at on Freeway

A Glendale man was booked on suspicion of attempted murder Wednesday after he allegedly fired shots at a stripper and her bodyguard on a freeway after she refused to have sex with him, authorities said.

Although at least four bullets hit the car, no one was injured.

Steve Iskenderian, 21, is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail and will be arraigned Friday, said Det. Dan O’Hanian of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Van Nuys Division.

The stripper, a 22-year-old Riverside woman, was paid $150 to go to a room at the 777 Motor Inn in the 4700 block of Sepulveda Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. “She went in there and did her dance for the guy, but the guy expected more,” said Officer Dan Laubscher of the California Highway Patrol’s West Valley Bureau.

The dancer told police she told the customer she wouldn’t do what he asked. The customer tried to get a refund, but the dancer left with her bodyguard and driver, 38-year-old Curtis James Morris of Anaheim, O’Hanian said.

The customer chased them in his car, catching up to them about 12:45 a.m. on the Ventura Freeway just east of Sepulveda Boulevard, where he fired a small semiautomatic handgun at them, Laubscher said. One bullet hit Morris’ headrest, and other bullets flew through window glass on one side of the car and out the glass on the other side.

“Everyone was very lucky,” O’Hanian said.

LAPD officers traced Iskenderian’s address, and CHP and Glendale police officers arrested him about half a mile from his Glendale home. They found a handgun in Iskenderian’s car, Laubscher said.