DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — It’s called a “sneak and peak warrant,” and before Dunwoody police installed cameras inside of a Perimeter Mall area apartment to capture alleged prostitutes having sex with alleged johns, nobody else in Georgia had ever obtained one before, a judge heard Tuesday.
But, attorneys for the more than two dozen customers of two high-end escort services argued police and prosecutors overstepped their bounds in recording hours of sexual liaisons to build their case against the complex organization and they want that evidence tossed.
When the investigation concluded, prosecutors sought and obtained indictments against 62 people, including a Cobb County couple, Sam and Darliene Crenshaw, accused of running “Gold Club” and “Lipstick and Shoes,” along with a call-taker who set appointments, the accused customers and prostitutes, making it one of the largest-volume cases to ever come through Dekalb Superior Court.
“We wanted to catch the entire organization,” the lead detective on the case testified Tuesday. We aren’t identifying him because he works undercover.
That detective testified when conventional methods didn’t yield the evidence they were seeking to dismantle the organization, their research led them to Florida, where he testified “sneak and peak” warrants are somewhat common.
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“We wanted to get the whole scope of this enterprise,” he testified. “To ensure we caught on camera.”
The detective testified the cameras captured only video and no audio.
“It wasn't a normal search warrant,” said attorney Noah Pines, who is representing Christopher Quinn, a former Gwinnett County assistant prosecutor arrested in the sting operation. “An application is supposed to be signed by the DA.”
Former District Attorney Robert James testified he never heard of that kind of warrant before, and said he never signed the warrant in question. One of his assistants did.
But, James conceded because the warrant was not a pure “wiretap,” he doesn’t believe the law required him to sign it.
Pines argued the law required Dunwoody police to notify all of the men caught on camera that they had been filmed without their knowledge, but he said police never did that.
“Would you agree that it was less intrusive to have audio rather than actual video?” Pines asked the detective about a breach of privacy.
“I think that the video is less intrusive than the audio,” the detective testified.
Pines pointed out that his client and others were captured on camera, but that no exchange of money was witnessed, which is what would make it a crime for the sex to take place.
“Really, everything recorded was just sex?” he asked.
“That's correct,” the detective testified.
Judge Gail Flake told both sides she would take the arguments under advisement and rule on the motion to suppress at a later date.
Cox Media Group
