One day last May, three undercover cops from the vice squad arrested Frances Monica Franson on charges of prostitution. Franson and one of the cops had sequestered themselves in a private north-side apartment. The cop asked for services, Franson stated her price, and money exchanged hands. “[Franson was] arrested after she offered to perform an act of sexual penetration (oral copulation) with [the arresting officer] for the sum of $400,” the police report reads. It looked like a simple case.
What may be one of the most unusual false arrest cases the city has ever faced is made even more interesting by the fact that Franson was once an undercover cop. According to letters of recommendation from past employers, one Frances Issari (Franson’s maiden name) worked as a federal narcotics officer in the Virgin Islands, and later as an Alaska state trooper.
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“I was good at undercover work, I liked the excitement,” says Franson. “The key to good undercover work is to have a very vivid imagination.”
“I make no judgments about my clients,” says Franson. “They are motivated to do things for reasons of their own, and I ask no questions. Most of them hold very successful supervisory positions and they spend their day telling other people what to do–until they come to me. When they come to me, I’m the mistress and I control the situation. For whatever reason, they feel a need to be dominated, and I service that need.”
Finally there are those who seek public humiliation. “We’ll go to a restaurant,” says Franson. “When the waiter comes over, they’ll start to order, and I’ll say, ‘Shut up, stupid. You’ll eat what I tell you. Haven’t you learned who’s in charge?’ We’ve done this in some of the finest restaurants.”
At that point, Franson says, two men and a woman burst into the room. It turned out Breezy was an undercover cop, the men his partners, and the woman a defendant from another case on her way to central lockup.
Franson says she is pressing on with her suit so that her name will be cleared. “I never made any deals with them to have the charges dropped, just like I never offered him oral copulation,” she says. “I’ve read the law, and I know there’s nothing illegal about what I do. The police may not like it, but that’s no reason to arrest me.”
