from www.gothamist.com – Strippers are on trial, so the tabloids are all over it. But the prosecution of two female employees at Big Daddy Lou’s Hot Lap Dance Club is turning out more baffling than bawdy. Earlier this week, lawyers for defendants Cassandra Malandri (aka porn star Alexia Moore) and topless dancer Falynn Rodriguez tried to get the case tossed because of what they said was a semantic error in the prosecution’s court filing. See, the prosecution wrote “engage, offer and agree” to prostitution, when the state’s penal code specifies “or,” not “and.”

(The judge wasn’t buying that.) But wait, it gets steamier stupider, and there’s a lesbian angle, too!

“One of their defenses may be that they’re lesbians,” Manhattan Assistant DA Daryl Reed said in court Wednesday. “We should be allowed to call her so-called fiancé to rebut her.” Apparently, the DA thinks Malandri may try to argue that she couldn’t possibly have sex with men for cash because she’s gay. “It doesn’t even make sense,” said defense lawyer Ikiesha Al-Shabazz, taking the words out of everyone’s mouths.

Prosecutors say Big Daddy Lou’s offered on-site cocaine sales, and private rooms with beds for $250 an hour. plus whatever customers gave “dancers” behind closed doors. An undercover officer claims the two women agreed to have a threesome with him for $5,000, off-site and at a later date. The defendants say they played along with the proposal but never took it seriously, and the ménage à trois never happened.

Moore and Rodriguez rejected a plea deal that would result in no jail, no probation, no community service, and no criminal record—provided they admitted to prostitution. It’s uncommon for a prostitution charge to go to trial; the women believe prosecutors are aggressively pursuing them so they can convict Lou Posner and his wife of running a brothel.