FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WTVF) — Controversial Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson insisted she was being transparent when she took to social media Tuesday night to admit to having been arrested back in the 90s for promoting prostitution.
Hanson — who's running a campaign with a morality-based, anti-LGBTQ message — posted the video hours after NewsChannel 5 Investigates texted her and asked her for comment on her criminal history.
But a NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered there appears to be a lot she left out of the story she chose to share with her followers — including suggestions that she was much more heavily involved with a Dallas escort service that police even knew her as having an alias.
Hanson's version was that she was a naive young woman who took a job answering phone calls for what she thought was a modeling agency.
"I answered the phone. I took a name, I took a number and a date. At the end of my work session, I would call the owners and give them that information," the Franklin alderman said in the video.
She claimed that, as far as she knew, it was "a modeling and casting company who was placing ads in J.C. Penney, various commercials."
Hanson insisted she never realized that she was actually dispatching call girls for hook-ups with johns.
"So a little over a year on that job, one day the police came knocking at my door. Little did I know that they had also been operating a very lucrative casting couch. I was shocked. I was devastated."
And that's how, according to her account, an innocent, 30-year-old college student ended up taking a plea deal to a single count of promoting prostitution — even though she didn't know she was doing anything illegal.
"Nor did the police know the level of my activity until they interviewed me and realized that I had not handled any administrative duties. I had simply answered the phone," she added.
We showed the video to legal analyst Nick Leonardo.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked: "If she were an innocent victim who was just answering the phones unknowingly, would police have typically charged such a person or used such a person?"
"No," Leonardo said, "They would typically use such an individual to try to get folks who are higher up the ladder."
In fact, commercial databases captured what appear to be two separate sets of charges filed against Laraine Gabrielle Bush, as she was known at the time.
One charge was for money laundering with an offense date of April 1, 1993.
There was a second round of charges for promoting prostitution and engaging in organized criminal activity, with an offense date of March 8, 1995.
NewsChannel 5 asked Leonardo: "When you look at those charges and you hear her story that she was just answering the telephone, does it add up?"
"It doesn't add up, frankly," the legal analyst said.
A hit from the Texas Department of Public Safety, provided to NewsChannel 5 Investigates, shows that Hanson also had an alias of "Julie Newhouse."
We asked Leonardo: "Is that a red flag?"
"Well, typically victims don't have an alias. Typically, victims go by their real names," Leonardo noted. "So the fact that there is an alias certainly doesn't lend credence to her story that she was simply answering the phone."
In her social media video, Hanson said she took a plea deal — that required her to stay out of Dallas for two years — because she couldn't afford an attorney.
But our investigation discovered that, a year earlier, Hanson and her parents had bought a beachfront condo in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
At that address was a business, J. Neuhaus & Associates. It was a different spelling for Newhouse, but it was in Laraine Gabrielle Bush's name.
Hanson hasn't responded to NewsChannel 5's questions asking for an explanation.
All of this follows questions about her claiming on social media that the women in this photo were supporters — they told us that wasn't true — and questions about where she and her husband really live.
In this case, the records related to the prostitution charges appear to be sealed, meaning only Gabrielle Hanson can decide if the public ever knows the whole story.
"She could sign something to try to get those records if she wanted to be completely transparent, if the records are still available," Leonardo said.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates reached out to Ms. Hanson more than 24 hours ago before this story aired, asking if she would talk to us. On Wednesday afternoon, we texted her asking her to explain the discrepancies that we uncovered, to tell us, for example, why she has a listed alias if she was just a college student answering the phones.
But, as we've experienced before, we never heard back.
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