Sex, lies & a Ph.D.
Howard County - Brandy Britton doesn’t speak much on her home phone. Not since the incident.
In fact, she’s careful about talking anywhere in her house.
“I don’t want to talk in the living room,” she says, her voice hushed. “I think it’s bugged.”
Still, despite her fears of wiretaps and the adamant instructions of her attorney, Brandy Britton, the former University of Maryland, Baltimore County assistant professor accused of prostitution, can’t resist the urge that’s been with her since childhood — the urge to speak out.
She first contacted a reporter by phone about two weeks ago. Then she meets up at the courthouse and, last week, at a nearby Starbucks. Her car has broken down, and she asks the reporter to accompany her to visit her attorney Christopher Flohr in Severna Park, who breaks up the interview, postponing the conversation indefinitely.
He urges her not to talk.
She doesn’t care.
Then a few hours later there’s the 9:14 p.m. text message.
“just got home and ready 2 meet. give me a call if u still have the energy.”
At her $400,000 cul-de-sac home in Ellicott City at midnight, Britton, 43, spoke in an exclusive interview with The Examiner about her childhood, her “sexist” former employer, her abusive ex-husband, an “illegal” foreclosure on her home and the “false” criminal charges against her.
She’s careful not to come across as pushy or aggressive.
“Do you mind if I sit next to you?” she asks, before taking a seat on the couch.
Dressed in black knee-length high-heeled boots and a short black skirt, Britton most importantly wants to talk about police harassment. She even keeps a book of local newspaper clippings about police misconduct.
She says the authorities have unfairly singled her out, made up lies, mistreated, stalked and harassed her since Jan. 17, when a team of Howard County officers burst into her quiet suburban home and ransacked the place, breaking her belongings, upsetting her pets and arresting Britton on prostitution charges.
“It sounds paranoid, but they did really serious criminal stuff,” Britton says. “They’ve broken into my house 10 or 15 times. They’ve tapped my phones. They put a tail on me and follow me everywhere.”
Most egregious, Britton said, is a fictionalized statement by one officer saying Britton offered to sleep with him for money.
(For the record, Howard County police deny harassing Britton. “We have no record of any contact with Ms. Britton since her prostitution arrest,” Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said. “We also have no record of any complaints filed by Ms. Britton.”)
But officers don’t deny they raided Britton’s home in January, confiscating 150 condoms, nine bottles of lubricating substances and business records in Britton’s name that tied her to a Web site —
www.alexisangel.com — that police say solicited prostitution. According to the Web site, “Alexis” charged a minimum of $300 an hour for modeling and companionship, and her clientele included “high-level, visible executive or public-service positions.” Fees could go as high as $400 an hour if Alexis had to make an outcall.
The site said Alexis was “a sexy, sophisticated & educated escort in Howard County” with “long blonde hair, seductive green eyes and a toned yet curvaceous 38D-24-36 physique.”
A former women’s studies teacher, Britton views her case in large, philosophical terms: She’s the lone woman struggling against the odds, the feminist fighting a male-dominated world.
But to believe Britton, one must also see the police officers who arrested her as — at best — overzealous bumblers, or — at worst — corrupt villains.
Which leads anyone trying to understand the situation to ask one fundamental question: Is Brandy Britton the criminal or the victim?
To that question, Britton wants to make one point very clear.
She is not, and was not, a prostitute, she says.
“I don’t trade sex for money,” she said.
She’s so confident of her innocence that she even passed on State’s Attorney Timothy McCrone’s plea deal that would have allowed her to avoid a conviction and jail time as long as she admitted to prostitution.
But what about all the condoms police found?
“I always have fishbowls of condoms around. My studies were about HIV.”
How about the Web site?
“There’s nothing illegal on there.”
The lubricant?
“What? You’ve never had good sex?”
‘I USUALLY DON’T LET MEN IN THE HOUSE’
Britton lives with all women: Two pot-bellied pigs, Penelope and Stella; two cats, Ebony and Ivory; and a dog, Jasmine.
“I usually don’t let men in the house,” she says as a reporter enters her home.
She shows the reporter what she is most proud of — her curriculum vitae, which is impressive — a Ph.D., two bachelor’s degrees, founder of a women’s health institute, securer of million-dollar research grants.
One of the things she’s most proud of is a left-wing opinion column she wrote for her high school newspaper. The title? “Brandy Bears It.”
Her children went to Centennial High School, perhaps the best school in the best public-school district in the state, and everything seemed well for the academic, who was gaining national recognition in her field.
But then, somehow, things began to fall apart.
In 1999, she resigned amid controversy from UMBC. Howard County police began to rack up visits to Britton’s residence — 27 in all — for complaints for assaults, domestic disputes, disorderly conduct and “animal complaints.”
Britton knows who she blames for the turmoil in her life: Her second husband, Isamu Tubyangye.
They met online in 2002, were quickly married and quickly filed for divorce.
The early bliss of their relationship turned to domestic horror. Britton alleges he beat her repeatedly. She filed 10 different charges of domestic violence against him. Most were dropped, but two stuck.
Tubyangye pleaded guilty on Aug. 30, 2004, and again Aug. 31, 2005, to second-degree assault against Britton. In the second case, he was sentenced to three months in jail and 18 months probation and ordered to have no contact with Britton. A judge even banned him from the state of Maryland. He did not return repeated calls from his Florida home.
Through it all, her strength has impressed her civil attorney, Robert Grossbart.
“She’s had quite a lot going on in her world,” he said. “She’s a strong woman. She’s doing the best she can.”
But with Tubyangye’s income gone and Britton without a full-time job, the former professor was faced with a dilemma. The bank was foreclosing on her home. She needed more money than her freelance academic work could provide to support her two children and to make up her mortgage payments. But how?
THE RAID
Britton remembers the police raid of Jan. 17 in great detail. That day, she became a Howard County celebrity with television crews following her every move and camping out at her house. Camera men even tried to jump over her fence to catch a glimpse of the former professor.
“I counted 11 officers at one point,” Britton says. “They were armed. Their faces were covered. They had automatic weapons, and they were shouting, ‘Down! Clear!’ They dumped out every drawer, everywhere. I was visibly shaken because there were 10 guys with machine guns.
“They started taking dishes and just throwing them on the floor and destroying them. They said, ‘Are you going to tell us that you’re a prostitute?’ I said, ‘I’m not, and I want an attorney.’ ”
Indeed,
www.alexisangel.com made that point emphatically in a disclaimer at the bottom of its home page.
“Money exchanged in legal adult personal services for modeling is simply for my time and companionship. ... This is not an offer of prostitution.”
Her next-door neighbor Bonnie Sorak recalls seeing expensive cars pulling up to Britton’s house frequently before her arrest. What about those cars — the BMWs and the Jaguars? Who were these men? Doctors? Judges? Politicians?
Britton declines to name names. “I don’t want to ruin people’s lives,” she says, but claims her companions were all of the above.
Beverly Hills attorney Darren Kavinoky, who provides legal commentary on high-profile celebrity cases on such shows as “Larry King Live” and
“Today,” says the details of Britton’s case should make for a strong legal defense.
“She has a compelling argument and a compelling defense,” he said. “She’s a competent escort. She’s a good conversationalist. There are certainly a lot of people out there who pay for companionship, for good conversation. And if sex between two consenting adults happens, it’s certainly legal and permissible.”
As Britton prepares for her defense, she returns to her Ellicott City home and sits amid a clutter of court documents and newspaper articles, her blond hair dropping to one side.
She has no car. She has no job. Soon, she very well may have no home.
Is she the criminal or the victim?
Britton knows how she answers the question. She’s hoping a jury will see the case the same way.
In court
» Britton is scheduled to go to trial on four counts of prostitution Tuesday in Howard County Circuit Court. Each count carries a maximum penalty of year in jail and a $500 fine.
» In a different civil matter, a judge is expected to ratify a bank’s sale of Britton’s home on Wednesday.
Brandy Britton’s resume
» Bachelors in sociology, biology from Oregon State University. Minor in women’s studies. 1988.
» Doctorate in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco. 1993.
» Sociology instructor, University of California, Berkeley. 1992.
» Assistant professor of sociology, anthropology and women’s studies and principal investigator, Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com
