Witness testifies that Hecht paid him for sex
SEAN ROBINSON; The News Tribune
It was sex for money, Joe Pfeiffer said Monday.
Sex with Pierce County Superior Court Judge Michael Hecht, then a downtown lawyer, in Hecht’s office. Eight or 10 times, Pfeiffer said.
The testimony from Pfeiffer, who turned 21 in June, is the basis for a charge against Hecht of patronizing a prostitute. The judge also faces a charge of felony harassment. He is denying the charges.
Pfeiffer spent more than two hours on the witness stand, sometimes fidgeting, his voice rarely rising beyond a monotone. His testimony was explicit, often cringe-inducing. He admitted prostituting himself for drug money, and working the blocks along Tacoma’s Antique Row with other young men. He said he met Hecht shortly after moving to Tacoma in 2006.
Assistant attorney general John Hillman set a quick pace, reinforced by Pfeiffer’s short answers.
“Were you ever picked up and paid for sex by anybody who’s in the courtroom today?” Hillman asked.
“Yes.”
Pfeiffer pointed at Hecht. The judge, 58, sat impassively in a blue shirt with a bow tie, taking notes, not looking up.
The first encounter had been in Hecht’s office, Pfeiffer said. He looked at pictures of the office. Yes, this was the location, he said. The first time and every time.
They had talked money that first day, Pfeiffer said. That was the only time. After that, it was understood.
Masturbation and oral, he remembered. There was a jar of petroleum jelly in the bathroom.
“Do you remember how much you were paid the first time you had sex with him?”
“Twenty-five bucks,” Pfeiffer said.
“Did you ask for that or was that what was given to you?”
“That’s what was given to me,” Pfeiffer said, adding that he was paid a little later, just before getting out of Hecht’s car, getting dropped off by Antique Row.
He was hopeless with dates. He thought Hecht had been elected in 2007 (it was 2008). He couldn’t remember the last time he had sex with him, but he thought it was before the election. He couldn’t remember the date of his deposition (he gave it in September).
Pfeiffer wanted to ask a question. Hillman wouldn’t let him. Neither would James Cayce, the visiting King County judge presiding over the case. Pfeiffer blurted that he wanted to know if he had immunity. After some paper-shuffling and a few minutes of courtroom chatter, he was reminded that he did.
Hillman waded into a pool of contention.
In March, after publication of a News Tribune story that named Pfeiffer and quoted his statements regarding paid sex with Hecht, Pfeiffer had changed his story.
He met with Wayne Fricke, Hecht’s attorney, and signed an affidavit that partially recanted his statements to Tacoma police, a state investigator and The News Tribune. There had been sex, the affidavit said, and money had been exchanged, but it wasn’t money for sex.
Pfeiffer was embarrassed by the news story, he said. His name had appeared, and his family had seen it. His grandmother, his aunt, his father had seen his stupidity. He had signed the affidavit.
“Did you state in the document that you had sex with the defendant in the past?” Hillman asked.
“Yes,” Pfeiffer said.
“Was that true?”
“Yes.”
“Did you state that the defendant had paid you money in the past?”
“Yes.”
“In that document did you say that the sex and the money were not in exchange for each other?”
“Yes.”
“Was that part true?”
“No.”
“Why did you put that part in there?”
“So people wouldn’t be so upset with me.”
Pfeiffer said two of Hecht’s friends, including his bartender, Leonard Nigro, had chided him about the news story.
“Did they want you to do something?” Hillman asked.
“Give the defendant’s attorney a different story to make him look better,” Pfeiffer said.
“Did you try to do that?”
“Yes.”
Fricke launched into cross-examination. He pounced on Pfeiffer’s poor memory, punching holes in the chronology, repeatedly highlighting times and dates Pfeiffer couldn’t remember.
Using phone records, he tried to establish that Pfeiffer had initiated contact with Hecht’s friends and Hecht himself, via text message. Hecht had not responded.
The suggestion was plain: When Pfeiffer faced jail time, he would say he had sex with Hecht. When he was free, the story would change.
“When you’re in custody you say you had sex with him,” Fricke said. “Or when you’re looking at the possibility of getting penalized, you say you had sex with him, right?”
“Yes,” Pfeiffer said.
“When you talk with police,” Fricke said, and Pfeiffer interrupted.
“I feel kind of under pressure, should just say what I know, I guess,” he said.
Fricke tackled the other charge against Hecht – an alleged threat against another man, John Joseph Hesketh IV. Pfeiffer had ridden in Hecht’s car at the time of the alleged incident. Pfeiffer said he heard no threat.
At 4:15 p.m., it was over. Pfeiffer left the stand while the attorneys and the judge discussed the next day’s schedule – he hung around a little, and his attorney in the back row of the courtroom waved to the judge. Was the witness excused?
Cayce looked over and said yes.
“Now I’m completely done dealing with this, right?” Pfeiffer asked. His attorney nodded. Pfeiffer left the courtroom in a hurry.
Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486
sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com
