What do you think? Should officers take it all off?

Officers disrobe to uncover sex crime

HPD changed its policy to crack down on 'spas' fronting for prostitution

By ROBERT CROWE

Some Houston undercover vice officers have dropped their covers altogether, getting naked to make prostitution cases during a four-month sting operation that ended with 56 arrests in November, a Harris County prosecutor said.

Assistant District Attorney Ted Wilson said Police Chief Harold Hurtt has changed a long-standing, but unwritten Houston Police Department policy to allow undercover vice officers to disrobe to persuade suspected prostitutes to negotiate sex acts.

"Someone had to do something to shut these places down," Wilson said recently. "It was just so widespread. It had almost gotten in your face."

Hurtt and other Houston police officials refused to discuss the department's nudity policy.

"I'm not going to comment about the strategies and tactics that we use," Hurtt said last week.

The policy change is part of a stepped-up effort by HPD to crack down on the local "spa scene."

Another is a new strategy of going after the owners and operators of prostitution businesses on organized-crime charges.

Authorities agreed to drop prostitution charges against all but one of the 50 women arrested during the Nov. 16 raids in exchange for their testimony against the owners of the Wildflower Group and Escapes of Houston.

200 suspicious businesses
Police said the businesses were among some 200 across Houston that advertise themselves as "day spas," "stress relief clinics," "massage parlors" and "modeling studios," but are really fronts for prostitution.

Wildflower Group owners William Henry Costa and Mary Elizabeth Johnston are scheduled to be arraigned in a state district court this morning.

Escapes of Houston owner Randall Jones, a former golf teacher, is scheduled to appear in court later this month with co-owners and operators Charles Williams, Renee Hill and Rae Lynn Gandy.

By targeting two of the largest operators in Houston, police hope to send a message to other owners and patrons.

"We're absolutely gonna try to keep doing this," Vice Division Capt. Steve Jett said. "The community has asked us to clean it up."

Residents force studio out
Residents' complaints about prostitution have grown with the proliferation of so-called "day spas" and "stress clinics" in recent years.

"These businesses are in family-oriented areas, and they don't have a right to engage in illegal activity," said Melissa McGee. "It's a shame that these things are all over town."

With help from police and elected officials, McGee's west Houston neighborhood association drove the Asian West modeling studio out of a retail space at 10206 Westheimer in 2003, after residents learned an employee suspected of prostitution had been arrested.

Vice officers traditionally have targeted workers instead of the owners of the businesses where prostitution takes place, Jett said. Though a single spa sting operation might net a few arrests, the businesses would remain open.

Going after the owners required new tactics, authorities said.

Wilson said it had become almost impossible for vice officers to make arrests in those businesses because the workers, aware of prohibitions on police getting undressed, will not negotiate sex acts for money unless a man removes his clothes.

"The old street prostitution cases are easy, but the people running these massage parlors are sophisticated," he said.

Charlie Fuller, executive director of the Clarkrange, Tenn.-based International Association of Undercover Officers, said prostitutes "set the guidelines" for undercover strategies, forcing police to the limits of acceptable practices to make arrests.

"I can assure you that these undercover officers don't want to get naked, but they don't have a choice," Fuller said, adding that many large-city police departments allow officers to get nude to make arrests.

"I don't think it's a major issue if the public understands why," he said.



Policy hurt some cases
Nonetheless, the issue has been divisive in many communities, particularly in cases in which officers have allowed prostitutes to touch their genitals or have engaged in sex acts with prostitutes.



Charges against 60 people arrested in a 2003 raid on Maricopa County, Ariz., spas were thrown out after prosecutors learned that sheriff's investigators used nudity and sexual contact to make cases.


An investigation last year by The Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, Ky., found that during a five-year period, only a fraction of prostitution arrests by sheriff's deputies who used nudity and sexual contact resulted in convictions.


Wilson said he would not prosecute a local case if he found out officers had engaged in sex acts with suspected prostitutes.


"Our job is to enforce the law," Hurtt said in response to questions about how far Houston officers would be permitted to go to make arrests. "We are not going to violate any laws."



Raids not enough?
Robyn Few, a former prostitute and director of Sex Workers Outreach Project USA, said vice officers are fighting a losing battle.



"It's everywhere. It's in every city. People need to recognize prostitution as a profession," she said.


Few's group has begun a largely unsuccessful movement to ease enforcement of prostitution laws in Berkeley, Calif.


Fuller said most communities will not tolerate the proliferation of prostitution.


That's why it's necessary for vice officers to shut down day spas, he said.


"If you don't do something about them, they'll get very organized and spread all over cities. I applaud what Houston's doing," he said.


Police departments in San Antonio, Dallas and Austin would not discuss their vice strategies.


In Phoenix, where Hurtt was chief before coming to Houston, officers are permitted to disrobe, but they must remain covered with a towel or underwear, said Sgt. Randy Forest, head of that city's police department vice division.


"A lot of major cities do allow full nudity, but we just don't," he said. "As far as we're concerned, that crosses the line."

John, you certainly deserve a TDCAA cap for making the earliest posts -- and it sort of gives away my usefulness(less-ness) in life, that I'm up reading your posts before the office comes to life. I need an appt with Dr. Cunningham, I guess -- at least I know he wouldn't declare me a future danger, heh, heh.

You know, I worked UC vice operations w/ HPD, but I never got barefoot-up-to-the-neck, as we banjo players say -- of course the part of town I worked wasn't known for a heavy concentration of female prostitutes, either.

We never had much trouble with prostitution here in Hays County, but I did handle one case involving a massage parlor where the police got word it was going on. They sent in an undercover, who engaged the services of the parlor. He went nude and allowed the pros to wash him and place her mouth on him before he gave the code word and the place was busted. At trial, he initially "left out" the part about the actual sexual contact, despite having told me about it in my office. When I finally had to drag it out of him, the defense attorney had a field day with his obvious reluctance to testify about it, since he appeared to believe what he had done was wrong. After cross, I asked him why he had clammed up like that, and he told the jury it was because he was married and was afraid it was going to get back to his wife. The defendant was convicted, but it did bring home to me how difficult it might be to prove these kinds of cases where the "massage parlor" relly knows its business. Given the fact that the officer will probably not talk to the actual "service provider" until after the deal is struck, and the madame may avoid speaking forthrightly to someone she doesn't know, it's hard to tell from the recorded conversations whether a meeting of the minds has actually taken place until the pros shows up and makes some sort of overtly sexual contact.

In Houston back in the mid-1980's, lower Westheimer was a mess of massage parlors. The way HPD got control of it was to get one of those properties and open "Lee's Modeling Studio."

For months johns came in the front door, were recorded making a deal for sex, and then were tricked into leaving out the back door by a claim the the cops were coming. It was a good operation.

Then warrants issued for about 400 guys for solicitation of prostitution. wow, did that impact those businesses.

So maybe they need to go after it from theother direction....

In the early 80's, then Harris County Attorney Mike Driscoll teamed up with the local vice divisions and attacked fronts for prostitution in civil courts, seeking declarations that the properties were public nuisances. Once so declared, the particular properties were padlocked for a year, as I recall.

That was not such a big hit on the various groups that tend to run these establishments, since most of the premises were rental properties, but the real effect was that the owners and operators and attendants were so busy dodging the deputy constables serving writs, restraining orders and subpoenas that their businesses took a big hit. It probably didn't help business that the uniformed deputy constables were making daily or multiple times daily visits to the establishments to serve the various papers and writs in the cases. Of course, many of the witnesses did not show up for court after being subpoenaed so then writs of attachment were issued and had to be executed, again, at the businesses.

While all this was going on, the vice divisions of HPD and HCSO had stepped up enforcement on the businesses, thus resulting in more frequent raids on the premises.

It didn't eliminate these establishments in Harris County but it did put a big dent in their business for a good while and closed many down ultimately.