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 KCBA.com…

6 held for alleged SoCal prostitution ring

Police have arrested six people they claim ran a multimillion-dollar prostitution ring out of luxury apartments in Pasadena and Irvine.

A Pasadena police statement Wednesday says officers acting on an anonymous tip worked with federal immigration agents to make the arrests last month following a 2-year investigation.

Read more at The Daily Mail…

Tiger Woods’ ‘group sex’ with prostitutes: Golfer spent tens of thousands on escort girls, claims Hollywood madam
By David Gardner

Tiger Woods was accused last night of spending tens of thousands of pounds on high-priced escort girls when he was away from home playing in golf tournaments.

The shamed golfer reportedly sometimes bedded two at a time, according to a notorious Hollywood madam who claimed she knew he had paid around £37,000 for call girls.

Michelle Braun told the New York Post she sent at least four escorts on pay-for-sex dates with the married father-of-two six times in 2006 and 2007.

‘He liked girl-on-girl. He had sex with them together,’ she said.

The tawdry twist comes as Tiger Woods last night admitted he was a love cheat as he announced he was taking an ‘indefinite break’ from golf.’

Read more at kcoy.com…

Prostitution Sting In Five Cities

The Pismo Beach and Grover Beach Police Departments conducted a prostitution sting in their respective cities.

Officers went online and ultimately made several arrests.

It started when officers found an online poll saying Pismo Beach was an easy place to get away with prostitution.

They took that as a challenge and got to work.

Undercover officers from the Pismo Beach and Grover Beach Police Departments set up their sting at two un-named hotels Sunday.

Their mission was to lure in the people they suspected were involved in prostitution. “Each location was also equipped with audio and video surveillance and the subjects that were arrested responded to the hotel,” says Detective Chris Trimble of the Pismo Beach Police Department.

Officers used phone numbers found in advertisements on Craigslist and in some newspaper ads.

Detective Trimble says in most cases they were disguised as ads for massages or companionship.

Four women were arrested for solicitation of prostitution.

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.

Former TV personality is trolling around for publicity for her new book. First, she alleged that she had a sexual relationship with her dad, ‘Papa’ John Phillips. Now, ‘an unnamed friend’ wants us to believe she was a high priced escort. Take a few grains of salt and read more at Contact Music…

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS WORKED AS PREGNANT PROSTITUTE?

Shamed actress MACKENZIE PHILLIPS once sold her body while she was pregnant to help fund her spiralling drug habit, according to a sensational new tabloid report.

The former child star stunned fans and family last month (Sep09) by going public with news of a 10-year incestuous relationship she had with her late father John, a singer with The Mamas & The Papas.

She details the incident in her new book High on Arrival, but according to a longtime family friend, that’s not all of Phillips’ secrets – she reportedly also worked as a high-class call girl to bring in the cash to pay for her drug habit.

The un-named insider tells the National Enquirer, “There’s a period in her life Mackenzie completely glossed over in her book. Drugs led her down the path to prostitution.

“Mackenzie fell into a friendship with a Hollywood madam and quickly found work as a jet-setting call girl. She was in her late 20s and pregnant with her son Shane.

“She was shooting cocaine and so strung out she couldn’t get work acting or singing, so she connected with a well-known Hollywood madam. Her clients were extremely high-end and extremely discreet. They’d take her on trips to exotic places. She was arm candy for them.

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.”