Todd Spitzer is the Orange County District Attorney. Last September, he penned an op-ed declaring that hate had “no place” in Orange County, California. Then, three months later, his office tried turning an innocent gay man into a lifelong sex offender after he was targeted by police during a homophobic sting operation.
It all started in January 2017. Tri Phan, who until then had no criminal record, stopped into Romantix, an adult bookstore in Garden Grove, California. He went into the bookstore’s private arcade area, a popular cruising spot for men, where he met Detective Erick Leyva, an undercover decoy leading a lewd conduct sting operation.
You can guess what happened next.
Phan was arrested, taken away in handcuffs, and thrown into a jail cell. He was charged with lewd conduct.
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“This is a bag-a-fag arrest,” one of Phan’s attorneys, Stephanie Loftin, tells Q Voice News. “The Garden Grove police need to stop filing these arrests. There isn’t a good undercover decoy arrest for lewd conduct. They’re all false arrests.”
But it gets worse.
In addition to lewd conduct, Spitzer slapped Phan with an additional indecent exposure charge. If found guilty, he would be branded a sex offender for life.
Phan’s trial kicked off in December 2019. During his testimony, Phan finally had an opportunity to explain his side of the story.
He told the court that, after paying to get into the adult bookstore, he went to the private arcade in the back, where men hang out in peep show-style booths watching gay porn.
Detective Leyva was hanging out in one of the booths. He made eye contact with Phan several times and eventually enticed him to come over. With his own hand on his crotch, Leyva encouraged Phan to show him his penis.
Prosector Adam Zamora, who was assigned to the case by Spitzer’s office, argued that it was in the public’s best interest to make Phan a lifelong sex offender. When asked by reporters outside the courthouse why the DA felt this way, Zamora wouldn’t say.
“To hit a person with a lifetime registration as a sex offender for something as innocuous as showing his equipment to another man when he got signals from the decoy that he was interested is horrendously vicious,” Phan’s attorney Bruce Nickerson argued.
Q Voice News reports:
According to the state Supreme Court, if the conduct takes place in a public place, and the defendant has a reasonable belief that nobody would be offended, it’s not lewd conduct, and the state has no interest in prosecuting the case.
In other words, it’s not illegal. That’s been the law for more than 40 years, since 1979, when the California Supreme Court made its ruling in the case Pryor vs. Municipal Court.
Phan’s trial lasted five days and ultimately resulted in the 12-person jury finding him not guilty of any of the charges.
Loftin tells Q Voice News he hopes the Garden Grove Police Department gets “the message from this jury and stops making these arrests. I hope this verdict shows them the error in their ways.”
When asked why his office prosecuted a gay as a sex offender in a lewd conduct case manufactured by police, Spitzer declined to comment. But his spokesperson, Kimberley Edds, said “the defendant’s sexual orientation and lifestyle choices had no impact on the filing decision of the prosecution of this case.”
Ironically, Spitzer himself is no stranger to sex scandals. In 2017, taxpayers forked over $150,000 for him to pay for a settlement with ex Playboy Playmate Christine Richters, who accused the him of harassment.
Spitzer’s most recent rating with Equality California is a 10 out of a possible 100.
Cam
If the cop beckoned him over and was fondling himself that sounds more like entrapment. If Phan had walked over to the cop in a public place and whipped it out, then that would be different but it sounds like they needed to up their arrest numbers and sent out a decoy to do that.
Mack
Back in the early 80’s a similar thing happened to me in Bell Gardens. I went to a porn arcade and went into a stall. While I was sitting there the guy in the next stall was motioning through a glory hole for me to put my penis there. He kept on so finally I did it. He touch and groped me. Then when I was leaving he arrested me. Eventually the charges was thrown out.
Now days with computers I really can’t see people going to “arcades” except for physical contact. Orange County is still a “hotbed” of conservatives even though it voted blue last election.
sonic_source
This was clearly entrapment and I thought entrapment was illegal. I guess it isn’t if a cop is the one entraping you.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
What an absolute repugnant smcubag. He is charged with a sex crime. He stroking his micropenis attempted to hit on a woman beyond way out of his leauge with that disturbingly unattractive deformed face tries to completely ruin a man’s life…
Smith David
He should visit the small pee pee app.
GayEGO
I had this happen to me when I was in the Navy, but I went by the rule – Never mix business with pleasure, so I walked away from any sailor who flirted with me. I had a friend who was dishonorably discharged just for the suspicion he was gay.
Tempus
How can you say his sexual orientation had no impact on the charges they decided to file? Clearly they were seeking to entrap gay men considering the “bait” they used as well as the venue so it’s hard to believe homophobia played no part in this, I’m just thankful he didn’t have the bad luck of a homophobic jury as I can’t believe this even made it to trial. It’s just ridiculous and depressing to see something like this still goes on though it’s not that surprising.
ass eater
This DA Todd Spitzer may be gay himself.
Cam
He has a scorching case of gayface……and probably herpes.
GREATGLORYHOLER
My Question is This Guy went into Romantix’s Private Arcade ” PRIVATE ” and he went into a Booth. He was not walking around the Retail part of the Store with his penis out He was in a Private Area. BIG TIME ENTRAPMENT !!!
dhmonarch89
when the spokesperson said…’lifestyle choices’ you knew without a shadow of doubt- they are homophobes!
MusicBoi74
Didn’t this same thing or something very similar happen to Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman)?
MrMichaelJ
Yeah, I hate it when female cops do the same to straight men.
/s
Felecia
I never thought I was stupid, but I’m just not ‘getting the point’ of arresting gays for stuff like this. WE GET LEGALLY MARRIED NOW….assuming that LGBT couples also consummate their vows just like straights do, WHERE is the crime…??? Which I also must ask when some ignorant hetero demands that we refrain from public displays of affection. Never mind that having to watch men slobber all over women makes ME want to puke, lol…over 50 yrs ago, mixed-race heterosexual couples were called ‘disgusting’ with PDA that actually could get them arrested in the south, even AFTER their unions were legally performed. Now, it’s so common it doesn’t matter and no one but the SkinHeads and other racist groups give a sh*t….yet those dumbasses know better than to fu*k with these couples, and have to settle for beer-and-angst-driven ‘meetings’ about how pissed they are while squatting in Mommy’s basement, lol….give it time, people. Much will change……it always does, when talking about common sense and freedoms in America. Ignore the Orange Clown and his Old White Guys trying hard to keep Straight, White, WASPY-Privileged America RELEVANT and at the controls, lol….