Fairfax County Police Watch: Fairfax cops arrest stripper for stripping and then drop the charges

The Washington Post

September 12, 1985, Thursday, Final Edition

Fairfax County Drops Case Against Stripper;

Woman Alleged Police Entrapment

BYLINE: By Patricia Davis, Washington Post Staff Writer

SECTION: Metro; D8

LENGTH: 336 words

Fairfax County prosecutors yesterday unexpectedly dropped a charge of indecent exposure against a professional stripper who said she had been entrapped by a group of county police officers.

"I don't know what this means," said George D. Varoutsos, attorney for Linda Barnett, the stripper. "I guess it means you can take your clothes off in a motel room."

Barnett, 33, was arrested on the misdemeanor charge May 8 at the Tysons Corner Holiday Inn by Fairfax County police officers. The D.C. resident, who runs a business called "Have Fun, Will Travel," has said she went to the motel to entertain a group of men she believed were giving a bachelor party.

"We do live, theatrical scenarios in the spirit of burlesque," Barnett explained yesterday as she nervously awaited her court appearance in Fairfax County General District Court. "In the course of a 20-minute show . . . the performer is naked for seven to eight minutes."

Barnett acknowledges that she performed for the group of eight men, all of whom turned out to be police officers, but she steadfastly maintains that she was entrapped.

She said the man who made the appointment said that the bachelor party was for "kind of a wild bunch."

Barnett said she went to the motel, performed her routine and was nude for seven to eight minutes.

The officers had rented two $88-a-night rooms at the motel and furnished them with liquor and snacks to look like a party. After she finished her performance, she said, the men "tried to get me to prostitute myself." She said she refused and never got her $150 fee.

"The procedures leading up to her arrest were correct," said police spokesman Warren R. Carmichael, adding that the action that led to the arrest came from a citizen's complaint.

Under Virginia law, anyone who makes an obscene display of his or her body in a public place or in any place where others are present, can be found guilty of indecent exposure. The charge carries a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and 12 months in jail.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.