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Image / Brenda Allen talks to County Grand Jury, "Vice Queen" pandering trial

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Title
Brenda Allen talks to County Grand Jury, "Vice Queen" pandering trial
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection
Date Created and/or Issued
1949
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.
Ann Forst (true name Almerdell Forrester, but known to the newspapers as the “Black Widow”) ran a large white slave ring in prewar Southern California. She had a falling-out with her police and political protection in 1940, when a young prostitute named Brenda Allen Burns blew the whistle on her operation. After the “Black Widow” was sentenced to five years at Tehachapi, Brenda Allen (aka Marie Mitchell, probably the same person as Brenda Allen Burns) developed a similar call-girl setup, with the twist of catering to a higher class clientele. By 1948, she was taking out display ads in Hollywood trade papers for her “escort service,” which featured over a hundred girls. Seeing an opportunity to protect her business, she became romantically involved with a Hollywood vice cop, LAPD Sgt. Elmer V. Jackson, who soon became her business partner, paying him $500 (current dollars) a week per woman employed. She could easily afford this, as her women brought in about $80,000 (current dollars) a day. Allen took half the top, a third went to corrupt cops, doctors, lawyers, judges, and bail bondsmen, and the rest was divided amongst the girls. Her customers included 250 entertainment industry figures, politicians, and gangsters. Allen and Jackson's empire came crashing down in 1948 after an LAPD phone tap proved extensive police involvement with the prostitution ring. This set off a series of events that ultimately led to the resignation, and subsequent perjury indictment, of LAPD Chief Clemence Horrall in 1949. Allen was found guilty of attempted pandering after she tried to recruit an undercover policewoman. At her trial, Allen testified about the protection payoffs she made to police, naming her lover Sgt. E. V. Jackson and Hollywood vice squad Sgt. Charles Stoker as the main recipients of the money. Brenda Allen was sentenced to only one year in prison, serving just eight months, with five years’ probation. Somehow, Jackson continued with the LAPD until his retirement in the 1960s, but Stoker was thrown off the force due to what he claimed was a trumped-up burglary charge (his 1949 trial resulted in a hung jury). Brenda Allen’s last appearance in the newspapers was in 1961 when, amidst accusations of domestic violence, she divorced former Navy pilot Robert H. Cash whom she had married a few months previously.
Photograph caption dated June 16, 1949 reads, "'Red Light Gal' Gets Green Light, 'Sings' To Jury - Brenda Allen, the "red light gal," got the green light today and strode before the County Grand Jury, where she began to "sing" her story of a police-vice hookup. Above, wearing dark glasses, she steps from an auto during a tour of deposit box vaults, where she collected sizzling records to substantiate her charges of police payoffs for protection."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;26 x 21 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00095128
Herald Examiner Collection
HE box 1266
CARL0005032637
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/29568
Subject
Allen, Brenda--Trials, litigation, etc
Trials (Prostitution)--California--Los Angeles
Procuresses--California--Los Angeles
Prostitution--California--Los Angeles
Women--California--Los Angeles
Trials--California--Los Angeles
Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs
Herald-Examiner Collection photographs

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