SUMMERFIELD, N.C. — An undercover police officer was taken to an upstairs bedroom that contained a television, a VCR, a desk and a mattress on the floor, according to a search warrant released Thursday in the case of a Rockingham County woman accused of running a brothel out of her home located in the posh Greensboro National Golf Club neighborhood, deputies said.
Deputies said Wednesday that Elaine Casey Tipton, 42, who referred to herself on a Web site as “Deverie,” was arrested and charged with solicitation for prostitution and maintaining a place for prostitution. Her husband, William Harvey Tipton, 43, was also charged with maintaining a place for prostitution.
According to deputies, Tipton was advertising herself as a former adult pornography star and Penthouse magazine model, then exchanging money for sex.
But the Tiptons’ attorney, Locke Clifford, said that what the couple was doing wasn’t prostitution, but rather exotic dancing where no sex actually happened — perfectly legal under North Carolina law.
“The detective who arrested my clients may have fantasized and may have even expected that he would have sexual intercourse with Mrs. Tipton but he would have been sadly disappointed when his expectations were not fulfilled,” Clifford said in a statement released to WXII12 News. “Mrs. Tipton never offered to have sexual intercourse with the detective, never intended to have sexual intercourse with the detective and never touched the detective in any way. The detective who made these charges is the only person saying that he was paying for sexual intercourse.”
Deputies, along with assistance from undercover Greensboro vice narcotics officers, set up an appointment with Tipton for Tuesday afternoon at the couple’s home at the Greensboro National Golf Club.
Rockingham County Sheriff’s spokesman Dean Venable said the officers followed specific instructions from Tipton that included the exchange of sex for money.
Once the undercover officer entered the house, an arrest warrant was drawn up charging the couple, Venable said.
According to the search warrant, a computer, thumb drive, multiple cameras and videos, and adult entertainment items were all seized from the Tiptons’ home.
Clifford said the couple have been in a stable marriage since 1989, and have lived in their home in the upscale subdivision since 2001.
“They are hard workers and good parents who are intent on furthering their educations,” he said. “They are in their 40s and neither has any prior criminal record.”