The Insider, 9-13-07, Mansion Madam 1, property of www.artharris.com, all rights reserved
By Art Harris, ©www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

Lawrenceville, Ga., Sept. 23–Accused “Mansion Madam” Lisa Taylor, awaiting trial for allegedly running a brothel out of her million dollar home in this conservative Atlanta suburb, is behind bars again, charged with felony drug possession after a patrol officer pulled over a truck she was riding in Friday and found tranquilizers, an anti-depressant and cocaine.She did not appear at a magistrate’s hearing Sunday morning inside the Gwinnett County Detention Center, where a judge denied her bond request and set October 3 in Superior court as a date when he can ask again.Her attorney, Max Richardson, said she would plead not guilty, and prepared to fight what he expects will be a request from the Gwinnett County district attorney to have her $27,000 bond revovoked in the brothel case, which also include drug possession charges.Housed in the medical unit, Taylor was also fighting a jailhouse move to shave her head over hair extensions some considered a “security risk,” But Richardson insisted a shaved head would irreparably harm her entertainment career as a “dancer,” and the judge barred the jailhouse makeover for now.
The Insider, 9-14-07, Mansion Madam 2, property of www.artharris.com, all rights reservedA former Penthouse centerfold, Taylor told me her hair extensions are glued on, not attached with wire, like some women. A budding realtor, Taylor has framed her Georgia real estate license and hung it in an upstairs office. As an exit strategy from the adult biz, Taylor says she was trying to launch a new career in real estate, and counts two home sales before she was busted in January, lost her job and hit the road again as a “feature entertainer,” as she calls it, or star stripper.“She’s not doing well,” said attorney Max Richardson, who denied she was on suicide watch at the jail.He described Taylor as depressed and stressed from a recent boyfriend breakup, putting her mansion on the market and her return to the strip club circuit at 43, dancing with women half her age, to pay for her criminal defense as she girds for trial in the brothel case. A hearing on a defense motion to suppress wiretape evidence is scheduled for November 9.In an exclusive interview with The Bald Truth, Richardson said the Friday night driver, a friend Taylor nicknamed “Cowboy, was not arrested. Her frequent sidekick and stage partner, “Naughty Nikki” Probert, also charged in January’s bust with Taylor on prostitution, drug possession and racketeering, was not with her Friday night, and remains free on bond.At an impromptu press conference, one reporter asked her lawyer, “Was she set up?”“That’s one of the things we’ll be looking at,” he said. “I need more information about what happened.”Danny Porter, the district attorney, in a recent interview said flat out that Taylor and Probert were prostitutes who were “engaged in sexual activity for money,” and that a number of husbands in the fancy Sugarloaf Country Club ‘hood were dropping $600-700 a week on the hookers unbeknownst to their wives. “I’ve had men, with nervous laughter ask me, if they’re in her book, and wives, quite seriously, ask if their husbands are in the book.”My sources tell me Taylor rejected his plea offer on the brothel case, where deal discussions included one scenario where she would plead guilty to prostitution and pay a $250,000 fine. In return, Porter might drop the racketeering and drug charges, sources said.Richardson called such a fine exorbitant and estimated her home was worth in excess of $1 million; with perhaps $700,000 in equity.Taylor told me she aimed to go to trial if necessary–before her Friday arrest, which gives the DA more leverage. Still, her lawyer says she has prescriptions for valium (4 pills found) two and a half tablets of xanex–both charged as felonies–and 29 pills of the anti-depressant, ecitaliparm oxalate. “Anyone might be depressed going through what she’s been through,” he told me Sunday, flipping through a copy of the arrest reports as he waited to accompany the magistrate to the medical wing, where he held a private hearing and denied her bond.In an exclusive interview with me that aired on the CBS show, The Insider, Taylor vowed to fight the earlier charges, and Richardson said she would plead not guilty to these. “I’ll never give up,” she told me last month. “Did Rocky give up?”  

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 4:01 pm and is filed under ART HARRIS REPORTS, CELEBRITIES, HUMAN INTEREST, LISA TAYLOR, MANSION MADAM, MAX RICHARDSON. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.