COURT VIEWS SEX TAPE MADE BY DEFENDANT

Bolstering charges that a Mussel Shoals millionaire sexually assaulted
three women, Ventura County prosecutors on Wednesday played a videotape in
court that showed Andrew Luster having sex with an unconscious 17-year-old
girl.

The woman, now 21, tearfully watched the 25-minute video, which captured
the sound of her snoring as Luster played rock music and occasionally spoke
into the camera.

"That's exactly what I like," Luster told the camera. "A passed-out,
beautiful girl."

The shaken woman reacted: "I'm angry and disgusted. I can't believe someone
would do that."

Wednesday was the first day of testimony in a hearing to determine if
prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try Luster on 88 counts of rape,
poisoning, sodomy, oral copulation, sexual battery and possession of a
deadly weapon.

Authorities allege that the 37-year-old Luster, great-grandson of cosmetics
giant Max Factor, used a date rape drug known as gamma hydroxybutrate, or
GHB, to knock out three women so he could sexually assault them.

Investigators found tapes of encounters with two of the women at Luster's
Mussel Shoals home, where he has been under house arrest after posting
$1-million bail in December.

"We have almost 60 minutes of images on videotape of the defendant sexually
assaulting women," Deputy Dist. Atty. John Blair told Judge James P.
Cloninger, who will decide if the case should proceed to trial.

Defense attorneys, however, argued that the women all agreed to take GHB, a
known party drug with a reputation, they say, as an aphrodisiac. And,
attorneys said, they were all willing sex partners. In the past, defense
attorneys have charged that the allegations are fueled by overly ambitious
prosecutors, scorned lovers with an ax to grind or young party girls
embarrassed by their behavior.

"Certainly there were sexual relations that occurred," said Joel Isaacson,
one of three attorneys representing Luster. "But this was a mutual
lifestyle type of event. There was no lack of consent. No void area where
people couldn't give consent."

From the stand, however, the first of three victims expected to testify in
the hearing said she did not agree to have sex with Luster and never knew
that any sexual activity had occurred until detectives told her so during
an investigation last summer.

The woman, an Orange County resident identified only as Shawna Doe, said
she was 16 when she and a female friend met Luster at a beach along the
Pacific Coast Highway. The three gathered a few times at Luster's house to
drink and hang out, she said. During one of those occasions, she said, she
"made out" with Luster.

But she did not have sex with him, she said. She felt uncomfortable because
of the large age gap.

"It was odd," Shawna said. "I was young and so were my friends."

It was nearly a year before Shawna agreed to see Luster at his house again,
this time by herself. She said they began drinking, but she soon felt
dizzy. And though it was only late afternoon, she said she felt very tired.
She lay down on his bed and woke up about midnight, she said.

"I just woke up kind of in a daze," Shawna said.

But as she slept, Blair said Wednesday, Luster set up a video camera and
began a 25-minute sexual assault against the teenager.

Over rock music, Luster's voice boomed from the small television screen:
"The most perfect gifts, I think, are a perfect surf and a beautiful blond
girl passed out on your bed, waiting for anything."

As the tape--shown with the screen facing only the judge, witness and
prosecutors--played, Shawna bowed her head and sobbed. At times, she
shielded her eyes from the screen, and at one point, Cloninger ordered a
break to give her time to compose herself.

Luster, dressed in a beige suit and tie, was expressionless as he viewed
the tape from the jury box. Listening from the audience was his mother,
Elizabeth Luster, and several friends and relatives.

During cross-examination, Isaacson got Shawna to acknowledge that she did
use drugs on occasion, including methamphetamine and, on at least two
occasions before she met Luster, GHB.

But Shawna said she did not agree to take GHB the night she was with Luster.

David Smith, a doctor with a specialty in addictive medicine with the
University of San Francisco, also viewed the tape and said Shawna appeared
to be in a drugged-induced slumber.

"To me," Smith said, "she was like an anesthetized patient on an operating
room table that could have benefited from intubation if she went a little
further."

Wednesday's proceedings began after prosecutors rejected a plea bargain
offer from the defense. Details of the proposal were not released.

Testimony continues in court today with a second alleged victim, a former
live-in girlfriend.