Read more at Yahoo News…

PA. prostitution case tossed over gov’t-funded sex

An appeals court has ruled Pennsylvania State Police botched a prostitution investigation in which troopers gave an informant money to pay for sex four times at a massage parlor, along with a total of $180 for the man’s trouble.

The Superior Court opinion issued Thursday upheld a Lehigh County judge’s ruling that threw out prostitution charges on the grounds that the government had acted outrageously.

The appeals court ruling described how the man first approached state police to say he had been solicited for sex at the Shiatsu Spa. Troopers then supplied the unnamed man with government money and sent him back four times to engage in what the county judge called “a smorgasbord of sexual activity” during June and July 2006.

Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg said the man’s subsequent visits did not advance the police investigation. He was given $360 total to pay for the services, plus the extra $180 for his time.

“The outrageous nature is it went beyond what was necessary to prove the prostitution charge,” said the defendant’s Chon’s lawyer, Maureen Coggins.

Read more at Petaluma360.com…

6 nabbed during sex sting at massage parlors

Six people were arrested last week for prostitution-related offenses during a sting operation by the Petaluma Police Department.

After receiving complaints from neighboring businesses, residents and some disgruntled customers during the past year, undercover police officers went to five local massage parlors on Thursday and Friday to find out if they were soliciting customers for sex. The officers were solicited for sex at three of them: Pine Tree Massage, Moon Light Massage, and at a private residence, said Lt. Tim Lyons.

The officers arrested Abby Dancer, 50, of Petaluma at the Second Street residence for solicitation of prostitution. Two Los Angeles residents were nabbed at Moon Light Massage: Mi R. Downing, 43, for residing in a house of prostitution, and Son C. Cho, 52, for solicitation of prostitution.

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Search warrants were served at the time of the arrests to obtain additional evidence. This enabled officers to obtain detailed customer lists, phone numbers and payment information, Lyons said.

All of the suspects were arrested, booked and released on a citation to appear in court. The police department’s code-enforcement officer will be following up on local ordinance violations, and will be contacting property owners, Lyons said.

“The city is experiencing an increase in massage businesses conducting illegal activity,” he added. “Three years ago, the department was aware of just one business conducting prostitution, (but) today there are at least seven that the department is investigating.”

Read the whole article at The Dallas Morning News…

Dallas police step up anti-prostitution efforts
by STEVE THOMPSON

This month, the Dallas city attorney’s office obtained an emergency order to shut down a northwest Dallas massage parlor accused of housing a prostitution ring involving underage girls.

The Golden Flower spa was the fifth massage parlor shut down this year, according to Dallas police. And while the others did not employ juveniles, police say prostitution in such businesses is a problem that has grown within the past year.

“Where we started out with one or two locations here and there, they started blossoming,” says vice squad Lt. Christina Smith. “We have a couple of areas in northwest Dallas where there are just multiple massage parlors within a couple of blocks of each other.”

Police say they have stepped up enforcement. This past week, Smith agreed to sit down for some questions about the effort.

Why is this a problem for Dallas?

We do get complaints from citizens, as well as surrounding businesses, that they don’t want this illegal activity in their neighborhoods. Prostitution is illegal, and we have women that are being prostituted. So this is a problem not just for the surrounding neighborhoods, but actually for the people that work in these locations. And because it is a criminal enterprise, there’s a possibility that there are other crimes that could take place that could jeopardize the safety of the people that are there.

When you suspect that there is prostitution in one of these businesses, what do you do to confirm that?

Without going into a lot of detail about our undercover operations, we do send undercover officers in. We talk to these women. They agree to a sex act for a fee, and the agreement is all that is needed to legally make a prostitution case.

Continue reading ‘Dallas police focus on massage parlors’ »

Read the whole story at UTV News…

Ex-cop on sex and trafficking charges

A 39-year-old former police officer and a Chinese woman, 33, have been charged with people trafficking and controlling prostitution after police raids in Northern Ireland and England.

Appearing separately in the dock of Belfast Magistrates Court, the duo were charged with two counts that on dates between 20 April and May 18 this year, they intentionally arranged or faciliated the arrival in the UK of another person knowing that “something would be done” which would involve a sexual offence.

They were also charged with two counts of controlling prostitution on the same dates “in the expectation of gain for themselves or for a third party”.

A PSNI detective told the court he believed he could connect both to the charges.

The charges arise after a PSNI led, UK wide investigation into a Chinese prostitution ring, resulting in numerous raids in Londonderry and Belfast last Thursday when six women, all believed to be Chinese, were rescued.

During a bail application the officer claimed that the rescued women had been duped into coming to Northern Ireland after they answered job advertisements in England.

Read the whole story at The Austin-American Statesman…

Authorities investigating prostitution ring they say used Asian immigrants
More thank $550K in cash deposits believed linked to business
By Steven Kreytak

An Austin woman and others are accused of running a prostitution ring that advertised in the Austin Chronicle and on Craigslist and employed a rotating corps of prostitutes, according to a federal search warrant affidavit filed this week.

The affidavit said authorities — concerned that the women were trafficked into the country to be prostitutes— have been watching the ads closely, along with a series of apartments, hotel rooms and storefronts around Austin that served as brothels.

A woman was arrested and charged with aggravated promotion of prostitution in state court this month; authorities said she and another woman offered undercover officers sex for money. They were working out of a storefront in a Research Boulevard shopping center, the affidavit said.

Since 2003, the woman has deposited more than $500,000 in cash into her bank accounts, and authorities think that she did not pay appropriate taxes, the affidavit said.

She has not been charged in federal court, but the search warrant affidavit accuses her and others of conspiring since 2004 to run brothels and of money laundering. They are also accused of conspiring to harbor or transport illegal immigrants, or cause them to be transported, into the United States for prostitution. The affidavit said more than once that the woman was driving with Asian women who were later found to be in the country illegally.