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Bond director in sex rap
03/02/2006 07:58 - (SA)
Los Angeles - James Bond director Lee Tamahori, has been arrested in a Hollywood prostitution sting while dressed in drag, police said on Thursday.
Tamahori, 55, who directed Die Another Day, was arrested on January 8 when he allegedly sought sex with an undercover policeman while clad in women's clothes, according to a criminal complaint filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
"Mr Tamahori was arrested for soliciting. I can confirm he was dressed in women's clothing at the time of the arrest," officer Jason Lee of the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Wanted sex with an officer
Prosecutors confirmed they had filed two misdemeanour charges against the Hollywood filmmaker: agreeing to engage in an act of prostitution and unlawfully loitering on Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard.
"He was arrested after approaching an undercover officer who was sitting in his car and offering to perform a sex act," Frank Mateljan of the Los Angeles city attorney's office.
"The defendant was dressed in drag, loitering on the sidewalk," the spokesperson said.
Tamahori also directed last year's action adventure XXX: State of the Union with Samuel L Jackson and Willem Dafoe and 2001's Along Came a Spider with Morgan Freeman.
Worked his way through the ranks
He is due to appear in court in Los Angeles on February 24 to be arraigned on the two charges. He is free on $2 000 bail, according to the city attorney's office.
Tamahori's lawyer, celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, did not immediately return calls for comment on the arrest of the filmmaker.
He started out as a commercial artist and photographer in New Zealand, before entering the film industry in the late 1970 as a boom microphone operator, going on to become an assistant director.
Tamahori got his break in Hollywood directing an episode of the hit television series The Sopranos in 2000 and went on do Spider the following year, before making Die Another Day starring Piece Brosnan and Oscar-winning Bond girl Halle Berry in 2002.
- AFP
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South Africa
