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Special: MBI Vice Agents Abusing Power?

POSTED: Tuesday, February 25, 2003
UPDATED: 4:16 pm EST February 27, 2003

An exclusive Problem Solvers report questioned whether local vice investigations costing $190,000 to uncover drugs and prostitution in strip clubs has wasted taxpayer money.

Special: Are Vice Agents Abusing Power?

The Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation is a $2.7 million task force with agents from law enforcement in Orange and Osceola counties. Five of MBI's 40 agents are paid to find vice or organized crime, according to the report. However, three years and $190,000 in taxpayer money later, employees of their target, Rachel's night club, have not gone to state prison. MBI's largest vice case in recent history involved Rachel's adult nightclubs in Orange and Seminole counties where agents arrested 30 people after an undercover operation. Three years later, Rachel's club owner Jim Veigle faces trail on criminal racketeering charges. Authorities said that he profited from drug and prostitution crimes committed by his employees and their associates. However, based in part on MBI's own undercover videos, Veigle's attorneys are seeking a dismissal based on police misconduct. The Problem Solvers obtained the MBI videos and aired them on Local 6 News. The tapes show agents spending $3,000 in tax dollars in one night at Rachel's for tips, drinks, drugs and a limousine sex show allegedly primed by the date rape drug GHB. The video shows two of Rachel's dancers consuming the illegal drug in front of MBI undercover agents. "Hey we never have done this before, OK?" a dancer said on video. "I want you guys to know that, alright? The agent said, "You what?" "You've never done this? "We're not like this," A dancer said. Local 6 News was unable to show much of the video of the two women "doing things even the Playboy channel might resist showing." MBI Agent Paul Winsett, who was one of the agents involved in the Rachel's investigation, was with the girls in a limousine. "You know self control has never been a strong point for me," Winsett is heard saying on the MBI tape. Winsett was also filmed stuffing dollar bills into a dancer's garter and apparently rubbing the leg of a dancer. But Winsett denied rubbing the dancer under oath. A prosecutor asked, "Were you just rubbing her legs there?" "No, I was not," Winsett said. Local 6 News also showed other undercover video of Winsett interacting with dancers. "And she has great legs which she has let me touch and that's a benefit," Winsett said on tape. Defense attorneys in the Rachel's case claim misconduct on the part of the agents.

The report said that attorneys point to tape of Winsett paying $100 to a dancer, getting a kiss and then leaning over to a colleague and saying, "I think I'm going to end up ****ing this girl, if not here, somewhere else." Local 6 News reported that Winsett did not have sex with the prostitute. However, less than a year earlier, MBI learned that agent Ray Peters apparently had sex with a prostitute in 1986. The woman said they had sex while he was on duty, according to the report. Peters admitted to the sex when confronted with the allegations in 1999 but said that it was free, off-duty and he did not know she was a prostitute. Local 6 News reported that she said he did know she was a prostitute. The woman reportedly had 10 prostitution arrests at the time of incident. An internal investigation cleared Peters and six months later, he was made the lead agent in the Rachel's adult club investigation. MBI said that since Peters was cleared, there was no reason he should not have been given the Rachel's assignment. Rachel's attorneys have requested his internal investigation. Local 6 News also reported that Peters wasn't the only vice agent on the Rachel's case to have a relationship with a woman accused of prostitution. A key witness against club owner Veigle, dancer Jennifer Lethig, has admitted that she had intimate encounters with the vice agent who arrested her, Jay Laney, according to the report. Laney was demoted and suspended for his conduct. MBI's director said that agents are just pretending to have a good time. "If any of that is true, certainly that is not something that we would approve of, certainly not," MBI Director Bill Lutz said. Lutz also defended the $190,000 spent investigating and prosecuting the Rachel's case. He said that to get sex and drugs, you had to be a high-roller. "We had information on what the tips were before we went in there," Lutz said. Problem Solver reporter Tony Pipitone asked, "and some touching of dancers is necessary?" "We try and do as limited of touching as we can possibly do, certainly no sexual touching," Lutz said. "But, yeah, there occasionally will be touching." Pipitone also questioned Lutz on the agent's comments of tape. "You're gonna hear banter from guys when they're undercover and some of the banter is occurring when another stripper is just off camera and she can hear what they're saying," Lutz said. Local 6 News reported that MBI also spent $35,000 and failed last month to convict an escort service operator of racketeering. In November, they charged a 75-year-old woman with racketeering for selling two adult videos MBI claimed were obscene. Watch Local 6 News Tuesday night for more on this investigation.

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