Sordid case of sex, drugs may end in plea bargain
Attorney’s question could lead to deal
By the time prosecutors were done charging Bradford Harrington last year, he almost seemed to need a tabloid nickname to convey the sordid, predatory nature of the accusations.
Detectives say Harrington, 50, of Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood, would search online for women jailed on charges of prostitution or drugs and cultivate favor by sending money to their jail accounts. Once they got out, he would help them get drugs like heroin and ultimately hire them for sex at hotels or his home on S. Quincy Ave., detectives say. Typically, Harrington would photograph or record them injecting heroin and having sex with him.
From January to June, in six separate cases, the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office filed more than 50 counts, mostly felonies, ranging from soliciting prostitution and secretly recording sex acts, to sexual assault, drug delivery and possession of child porn.
A judge granted the state’s motion to combine all six cases into one big trial focused on Harrington’s alleged exploitation of desperate, addicted women.
But then defense attorney Craig Mastantuono raised a big question:
Did a detective mislead the judge who granted a search warrant for Harrington’s house and garage that led to the only real physical evidence?
A key claim in the detective’s affidavit was that one of the women, a 26year-old with several convictions for theft and fraud, said she had never agreed to be filmed having sex or to have the video posted on the internet. She described Harrington driving her to buy heroin, asking to watch her make the purchase, and giving her Xanax and wearing a gun in an ankle holster during sex.
But the woman later told a defense investigator she lied about Harrington assaulting her and videotaping her without consent only because she felt angry toward him after the detective told her Harrington had posted the video on the internet.
But that, too, was a lie. There is no evidence Harrington made the video public. That led Mastantuono to argue that all the charges must be dismissed, since they all depended on evidence discovered only after the search warrant granted on the basis of an untruthful affidavit.
Before Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner ever ruled on the motion, it led to more plea bargaining and finally an agreement in which Harrington would plead to three lower-level felonies.
According to the complaints, about 10 women made accusations against Harrington after investigators found their identities among items taken from his home pursuant to the challenged search warrant.
One told detectives Harrington would look for women arrested on prostitution charges and deposit money in their jail accounts so they would feel obligated to him after getting out. Jail officials noticed inmates made hundreds of calls to his cell phone.
Some of the women told detectives they were too high during sex to consent to being recorded, but Harrington insisted all of them, all adults, willingly had sex for money and knew he was recording because he was holding a camera during sex.
Hidden cameras, Narcan
But Harrington also had some hidden cameras in his garage, and at least one woman seen in photos inside the garage said she did not realize she was being photographed and would not have allowed it. Other women told investigators they charged Harrington extra to record their sexual encounters.
One complaint indicated that Harrington admitted keeping Narcan — a drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdose — at his house and in his car because he “doesn’t want a dead girlfriend on his hands.”
Another case charged Harrington with manufacturing designer drugs and keeping a drug house, based on the presence of eight salvia plants and some dried salvia in his home. He told detectives he grew the plants because they were “on the edge of naughty,” but neither used nor sold the dried salvia.
A woman told police that Harrington told her he kept the salvia around for whoever might want some at his home. The plant, a member of the sage family, can produce hallucinogenic effects when smoked. It is not regulated by federal law but is illegal in some states.
The same complaint also listed in great detail the guns and ammunition found at Harrington’s home, though he was never charged with any firearms offenses. Police seized all the firearms.
In court Friday, Mastantuono told Wagner that Harrington had agreed to plead guilty to two counts from one complaint — soliciting a prostitute and capturing an image of nudity without consent — and keeping a drug house.
At a sentencing still to be scheduled, the defense and prosecution will jointly recommend three years of prison and three years of extended supervision, according to the plea agreement.
The state, in turn, would dismiss the dozens of other counts. At the last minute in Friday’s hearing, confusion arose as to whether the child pornography counts would be “read in” as part of sentencing, or dismissed outright, and the hearing was reset for Tuesday.
Having the counts dismissed but “read in” as part of sentencing would actually be to Harrington’s benefit, because it means the charges couldn’t later be refiled if prosecutors found ways to prove the charges that didn’t depend on the challenged search warrant.
Soliciting carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison and three years of supervision. Capturing a nude image without consent and maintaining a drug trafficking place have maximum penalties of 18 months in prison, plus two years of supervision. The original charges carried a collective maximum prison time of about 700 years.