Nye County judge dismisses ex-madam Heidi Fleiss’ drug case

A former Hollywood madam’s three-year-old drug case involving a marijuana grow operation at her Pahrump home was dismissed Friday after a Nye County judge ruled that the woman was unlawfully arrested.

Nye County sheriff’s deputies were searching for a person with a felony arrest warrant out of Utah in August 2013 when they knocked on Heidi Fleiss’ door and discovered nearly 400 marijuana plants.

According to the sheriff’s office, a deputy arrived at Fleiss’ residence and knocked on the open front door. When no one answered, the deputy walked to the backyard, where he found some of the plants growing in pots.

Fleiss said the deputy told her she could either let him search the rest of the property or he would return later with a search warrant, so she let him continue to poke around.

Deputies found 234 plants growing in the back portion of the house and 158 growing in the backyard, for a total of 392 plants.

Authorities said Fleiss told them she was growing marijuana to supply a cooperative in Las Vegas, but she could not produce documents to support that claim.

District Judge Kim Wanker dismissed the case against Fleiss, saying the deputy who found the plants did not follow proper law enforcement procedures.

Even though the woman broke the law by possessing the plants, Fleiss’ arrest was unjustified because the deputy did not have a search warrant, Wanker said.

Fleiss’ attorney, Jason Earnest, agreed that the deputy made a “bad arrest.”

“I want to give praise to Judge Wanker,” Earnest said. “It was an unlawful search, and she should not have been arrested, and she should not have been charged.”

Fleiss, too, hailed Wanker’s ruling.

“I have a lot of experience in the courtroom, and she was very thorough,” Fleiss said. “It is so nice to be in front of a judge who does her homework.”

Fleiss said she is taking the proper steps to get her life back together after the entire ordeal.

“I’m trying so hard to clean up my life and get all of this craziness behind me,” she said. “I have such a wreckage in my past, and it’s a real process to clean it up. This is just one step closer to getting eventually all cleaned up.”

Nye County Deputy District Attorney Michael Vieta-Kabell said the state will appeal Wanker’s decision.

Review-Journal writer Kimber Laux contributed to this report. Contact Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com or 775-727-5102.