Burbank Cops getting tough!  Read more at NBC Los Angeles…

Burbank Hookers, Beware
“The Burbank Police Department will not allow prostitutes and their customers to believe that they can use Burbank as their meeting place.”
By OLSEN EBRIGHT

Police in Burbank have issued a warning to pimps, prostitutes and anyone else benefiting from prostitution-related crimes.

“The Burbank Police Department will not allow prostitutes and their customers to believe that they can use Burbank as their meeting place,” Lt. Armen Dermenjian told the Burbank Leader.

The warning coincides with a beefed-up effort from cops to curb sex trade.

On Feb 23, police arrested three women at the Ramada Burbank Airport Hotel, said Burbank Police Sgt. Robert Quesada. On Feb. 16, a 19-year-old Poway woman and 26-year-old San Diego man were arrested on prostitution-related charges, according to police records.

Other recent incidents include the arrest of two Oakland men at the Extended StayAmerica Los Angeles-Burbank Airport on suspicion of pimping a minor under the age of 16, Quesada told the newspaper.

“We want these people to know that if they’re going to engage in this kind of conduct that the police and citizens won’t put up with it, and we’ll be out there targeting it,” Quesada said. “We don’t want to let them get comfortable.”

Read more at Bloomberg.com…

Craigslist Not Responsible for Sex-For-Hire Ads, Judge Rules
By Andrew M. Harris

Craigslist won dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, that accused the classified ads Web site of creating a public nuisance by providing a forum for prostitution services.

U.S. District Judge John F. Grady in Chicago threw out the lawsuit filed by Sheriff Tom Dart, finding that the site was only a conduit for others to publish the ads and wasn’t legally responsible for their content.

“Sheriff Dart may continue to use Craigslist’s website to identify and pursue individuals who post allegedly unlawful content,” Grady said in a 20-page decision posted on the court’s electronic docket yesterday. “But he cannot sue Craigslist for their conduct.”

An interesting article about the online pay-for-sex scene. Read more at redOrbit.com…

Internet Fuels Virtual Subculture For Sex Trade

The Internet has spawned a virtual subculture of “johns” who share information electronically about prostitution, potentially making them harder to catch, according to a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University criminologist.

The research by MSU’s Thomas Holt and Kristie Blevins of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte challenges the common perception that sex customers act alone and do not interact for fear of reprisal or scorn. The study appears in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

Holt, assistant professor of criminal justice, said today’s Web-savvy johns use the Internet to solicit prostitutes and to provide each other with warnings of prostitution hot zones and stings, which can hamper the efforts of law enforcement officials.

But the more police become familiar the johns’ Web activities, the more it can help them zero in on the perpetrators, Holt added.

“The growth of these deviant subcultures has made it more difficult for law enforcement,” said Holt, who has helped police devise prostitution stings. “On the other hand, it gives us a new opportunity to use the way the offenders communicate to better target their activities.”

The study analyzed prostitution Web forums in 10 U.S. cities with the highest rates of prostitution arrests: Atlanta; Baltimore; Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; Elizabeth, N.J.; Forth Worth, Texas; Hartford, Conn.; Inglewood, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Memphis, Tenn.

In the Web forums, the johns provide detailed information on the location of sexual services on the streets and indoors, as well as ways to identify specific providers, information on costs and personal experiences with providers.

The open nature of the forums led the johns to carefully disguise their discussions with a unique language, or argot, based largely on code and acronyms. This argot may help johns and sex workers to avoid legal sanctions and any social stigma associated with participating in the sex trade, the researchers said.

Read more at CBS8.com…

El Monte city manager cited in prostitution sting

Pomona police say they posed as prostitutes and johns to arrest 30 suspected streetwalkers and customers – including the city manager of nearby El Monte.

Police say 59-year-old James Mussenden was among 18 men issued citations for soliciting Thursday night. He was not jailed.

Mussenden’s office was closed Friday and a call seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Officer Richard Martinez says undercover vice officers conducted a sting operation from about 6 p.m. to midnight Thursday in a Pomona neighborhood that has been the focus of complaints about solicitation.

In addition to the men, police booked and jailed a dozen women on suspicion of prostitution.

The long arm of the law catches up with some sex traffickers in California. Read more at KCOY.com…

5 sentenced for forcing women into prostitution

Five people who lured Guatemalan women to Los Angeles where they were beaten and forced into prostitution have been sentenced to federal prison terms of 30 to 40 years.

The ringleader, Gladys Vasquez-Valenzuela, got 40 years in prison Monday in U.S. District Court.

Her sister and two nieces got 30 years each. 1 of her niece’s boyfriends got 35 years.

The five were found guilty in February of dozens of counts, including conspiracy and sex trafficking by force and fraud.

The judge said the scheme forced girls as young as 13 to prostitute themselves. Some women saw as many as 30 men per day.

Read the entire article at The Los Angeles Daily News…

Showing prostitutes a way off the streets
HELP: Van Nuys center offers them counseling and the opportunity to learn new skills.
By Susan Abram

The bright yellow fliers posted along Sepulveda Boulevard dare street walkers to try a new path.

Some take up the offer, though the women are suspicious as they enter the air-conditioned office building in Van Nuys.

What’s the catch? Will I be arrested? They ask these questions as they rest on couches and listen to music while someone offers them low-calorie snacks, travel-size toiletries and free condoms.

But this is no trick.

The prostitutes who visit the Mary Magdalene Project’s drop-in center find a place to catch their breath, escape a pimp and, maybe, leave behind “the life,” for good.

“It’s hard to get people to care about prostitutes,” conceded Martin McCombs, executive director of The Mary Magdalene Project, a 30-year-old agency that provides long-term shelter in a Reseda home for women who want to leave prostitution.

“People don’t want them in their neighborhoods, but we see it differently,” McCombs said. “We see them as victims. Some of these women have horrific pasts.”

The recently opened drop-in center on Haskell Avenue is the first of its kind in Los Angeles. Its purpose is to offer a bridge between the pimp-controlled streets and the residential home, where prostitutes seeking a new life can receive counseling and learn new skills, McCombs said.

According to the Mary Magdalene Project, 85 percent of female prostitutes were sexually abused as children. Nearly 80 percent have mental health issues and abuse drugs. And many women who work as prostitutes have three or more children.

…

Dianne Amato, the program director for the Mary Magdalene Project, named for the biblical disciple who for centuries was miscast as a prostitute, notes “It’s such a population that is ignored.”

Amato became a prostitute at 15, even working Sepulveda Boulevard, before deciding at age 35 that she’d had enough. But there were no such centers, no one to talk to. On her own, she enrolled in college, sought counseling, and eventually earned a bachelor’s degree.

“I think people look at it as a choice, but what they don’t realize is a lot of women who have hit the streets at 13 years old have been kicked out of their homes,” Amato said.

Older women are less resistant to leave prostitution but are more difficult to help because of deep-rooted psychological problems, including post traumatic stress disorder, a result of “crazy clients, and beatings from pimps,” Amato said.

“If you do anything long enough, it becomes normalized,” she said. “But you’re also in a state of battle-ready all the time.”

Read more developments at The Daily Breeze…

Massage businesses face new rules
By Nick Green

Torrance is poised to adopt a strict new ordinance Tuesday aimed at regulating massage parlors and related businesses that have proved literal hotbeds of crime and lewd activity.

The ordinance going before the City Council dovetails with new state legislation that takes effect Sept. 1.

“There are a number of businesses that are in fact operating as fronts for prostitution that advertise in the `adult services’ section of Craigslist.com and other `adults only’ sections of print and electronic advertising media,” said a city statement justifying the ordinance.

“In addition, many of these illicit massage businesses are owned and operated by human trafficking organizations. Many of these traffickers charge women tens of thousands of dollars to smuggle them into the country and then force them to work off debts in erotic massage parlors.”

It’s unclear whether evidence of such trafficking operations were found in Torrance.

Among the provisions of the new municipal ordinance are:

• A requirement that a record of the dates and hours of each treatment or service, as well as the name, address and date of birth of the patron, is kept.
• A requirement that advertisements for massage parlors include a state certificate number.
• Restricting hours of operation from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• An immediate suspension of a business license to operate for violations of the ordinance with a provision for a subsequent hearing on the issue.

Read this update from News.com Down Under…

Madam’s arrest ‘will shock’ Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD gossip mags are honing in on a court case against a Florida woman said to watch over a list of clients and “A-list” call girls that will “shock” onlookers.

Michelle Braun has been alleged to have presided over a 70-strong stable of “the most expensive call girls in the world” commanding up to $60,000 a night out of her base in Boca Raton, Florida.

The case echoes that of infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who in the ’90s named A-list stars such as Charlie Sheen among clientele that paid up to $14,000 a night for access to her girls.

Braun was caught by the FBI after flying a girl from Los Angeles to New York to meet an undercover agent.

She is believed to have banked more than $10 million since filling the void left by Fleiss’s arrest in 1997.

She charged clients $2000 to sign up for online memberships to her company, Global Travel Network, to which her call girls would charge up to $10,000 a day for “travel expenses”.

Braun’s phone records and computers have been seized and details from them are likely to be aired at her court hearing set down for October.

Braun has already entered a plea deal which should see her avoid jail, but her arrest has sent a “wave of panic” thorugh Hollywood, according to reports.

“Let’s just say you’d be shocked,” her lawyer Marc Nurik told the Daily Mail when asked who was among her clientele.

Read the whole story at The Orange County Register…

Woman guilty in prostitution ring that charged $50,000 a night
Michelle Braun hired 71 women from southern California. She will be sentenced in October.
By RACHANEE SRISAVASDI

A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to charges relating to operating a multimillion-dollar online prostitution ring that offered up pornography stars and fashion models.

Michelle Braun pleaded guilty Friday to money laundering and transporting an individual from Orange County to New York City for the purposes of prostitution. She changed her plea at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney.

Braun, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., is accused of running the company, Global Travel Network Inc., as a front for prostitution, according to court records.

Braun’s prostitutes were advertised to be adult film stars, top professional fashion models, centerfolds and actresses, prosecutors said. Clients would pay more than $50,000 for a night of services, they said.

Seventy-one women worked for Braun, prosecutors said. They mostly lived in Los Angeles, though two resided here in Orange County.

Craigslist has closed it’s ‘erotic services’ section, after a bit of scrutiny from law enforcement. But it looks like the racy ads have migrated to the new ‘adult’ section. Progress? See what ABC News says…

Craigslist Clean-Up: Is it Really Working?
Conn. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal: ‘We’re Not Going Away’

It’s been nearly a month since Craigslist promised improvements to clean the Web site of prostitution and graphic images, and while attorney general watchdogs report some progress it still takes just seconds to find illegal activities advertised on the site.

ABCNews.com looked at advertisements in eight cities and almost immediately found posts that were both lewd and illegal in markets that included Hartford, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Salt Lake City and Columbia, S.C.

The ads have ranged from a lusty “Hey fellaz” with hourly rates to raunchy photos, and even an offer to trade drugs for sex.

“It’s very much a continuing battle,” Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told ABCNews.com. “So far, Craigslist has failed to do enough and that’s why we’re asking the questions.”

Craigslist, which told ABCNews.com that it was being unfairly targeted, was hit with a fresh round of questions on May 26 from the attorneys general of seven states, requesting more information about the site’s screening process and criteria for banning certain posts among other details.

The Web site has yet to respond to the AGs’ letter sent to Craigslist attorney Edward Wes, but Blumenthal said further action would be determined, in part, by the answers to those questions.