Woman Accused of Lady Gaga Ticket Scam

Los Angeles - A Hermosa Beach woman arrested on suspicion of selling fake Lady Gaga concert tickets said today she was also a victim of an Internet scam, but police said they have a "very strong case."

Debra Louise Brass, 28, is accused of fraudulently selling 30 tickets to a sold-out Lady Gaga show at Staples Center Aug. 11. The story went around the world during a quiet holiday weekend news cycle.

Through her attorney, Allison Margolin, Brass said someone else sold the tickets, over and over again, after she decided not to go to the concert and sold her six tickets on Craigslist. She said she went to Hermosa Beach police after buyers began complaining to her about the fake tickets, but that they arrested her instead, parading her past her co-workers in handcuffs.

"She went in there on her own accord to rectify the situation, and then two weeks later she was was jailed and bruised by the police," said her lawyer, Allison Margolin. "She was treated like a common criminal."

Hermosa Beach police announced the arrest in a news release Friday night.

Today, Sgt. Robert Higgins said they have computer, phone and banking records that "support our case, and strongly indicate that we got the right person."

"This is a very strong case," he told City News Service. "It's got multiple victims, the suspect implicates herself through numerous inconsistent statements, and there is quite a bit of physical and electronic evidence against Ms. Brass."

Huggins said he "respectfully" suggests that Brass and her attorney wait to see the depth of the evidence against her before proclaiming her innocence.

"Please get your discovery squared away, and see all the evidence we have, before going to the news media and saying she is the victim of identity theft," Higgins said.

In her statement, Brass claims that her friends decided they did not want to go to the concert, so she sold her six tickets on Craigslist. Shortly before the show, people began contacting her to say they had purchased her tickets and they were duplicates.

Brass said she went to the Hermosa Beach police station the next morning to report that her name had been used by a person who had sold numerous copies of the tickets in her name. Her only mistake, Brass said in her statement, was that she accidentally sold one pair of duplicate tickets to one person, having accidentally deleted another pair from their e-mail.

Brass said she contacted that buyer, explained the error, and refunded the purchase. She made a total of three voluntary trips to the Hermosa Beach police station to explain the mistake, and the computerized fraud that was apparently being committed in her name, she said today.

Her attorney also contacted Hermosa Beach police and offered to surrender Brass at any time if police wanted to question or arrest her.

Margolin said in a statement that despite that offer, Hermosa Beach police arrested Brass at her workplace and "declined the opportunity to take Brass to the police vehicle through a side door of her office, instead preferring to parade her in handcuffs past 50 co-workers, humiliating her at her workplace." The officers also seized Brass's personal items there without a warrant.

Margolin accuses the Hermosa Beach police of taking credit for identifying and arresting Brass, when the woman had notified police in the first place and had offered to surrender. Those actions, the attorney said, are "appalling and discourage those who have made honest mistakes from cooperating with police investigations."

Brass, freed on $20,000 bail, is due in court in Torrance Oct. 13.