Human trafficking is the equivalent of modern-day slavery and the people who engage in this activity belong in prison.
That doesn’t mean, however, we should blindly embrace the decisions made and tactics used by local law-enforcement agencies in the recent massage-spa prostitution sting, which has been marketed to the news media as a victory in the war against human trafficking.
The coverage by other papers, TV and bloggers has also been questionable in that much of it has blurred three separate investigations together.
The sting in Jupiter – which has gotten worldwide coverage because New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested there – and the sting in Martin County both arose independently, and were conducted separately from each other and from investigations in Indian River County.
Vero Beach Police Chief David Currey said the timing of the similar operations was just an odd coincidence.
Focusing just on the investigation here, the more we learn about it, the more reasons we have to question the process, if not the motives.
Think about it.
If the mission of local law-enforcement agencies was to break up a human-trafficking ring and rescue the supposed victims, why wait months to raid these places?
The local investigation began in September. Why didn’t the Vero Beach and Sebastian police departments, as well as the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, bust these spas soon afterward, instead of allowing the Chinese women to endure additional months of alleged sexual servitude?
How, in good conscience, could the people we pay to protect and serve our community continue to sit there and watch – for weeks – video of more than 160 local men engaging in unprotected sex with prostitutes?
There’s more.
If the goal of this investigation was to bust up a human trafficking ring, why has only one woman – Lanyun Ma, manager of the East Spa in downtown Vero Beach – been arrested for that crime, which authorities say is included in the racketeering charge filed against her?
Better yet: Why is there so much doubt in the local legal community as to whether our State Attorney’s Office will be able to make that charge stick? And where are all the cooperating witnesses that are needed?
Currey said his agency has one cooperating victim tucked away in a “safe space.” She’s a Chinese national who has been living in the United States after requesting political asylum and being granted permanent-residence status by the Department of Homeland Security.
Indian River County Sheriff’s Maj. Eric Flowers said another Chinese national is cooperating with his agency’s detectives, and she has been placed in a “secure facility.”
As of Monday, however, none of the alleged victims who worked at the spas was cooperating with authorities. Detectives have been unable to identify some of them. At least two have left the area.
Is that enough to make a winnable human-trafficking case?
Andy Metcalf, a Vero Beach attorney representing more than two dozen of the johns arrested for soliciting prostitution, questions the strength of the state’s case for the headline-grabbing charge.
“I want to see their direct evidence of human trafficking,” Metcalf said, adding that local law enforcement has “tried to link those (johns) charged with (prostitution) misdemeanors to something far more insidious.”
Certainly, the prostitution sting has created a buzz around town, which is exactly what law enforcement wanted, and most of the chatter has been about the men arrested for soliciting prostitution.
If convicted of a first-degree misdemeanor, these men face a $5,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, mandatory attendance at a prostitution and human trafficking awareness course, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and, at the judge’s discretion, probation.
Jail time is possible, but it’s extremely rare for first-time offenders.
Most of the men arrested are expected to negotiate plea deals with prosecutors rather than fight the charges and subject themselves to further public scrutiny and embarrassment – especially since authorities seem to have video evidence of prostitution.
Currey wouldn’t confirm that his agency had video of the johns’ actions, saying only that his detectives used “electronic and physical surveillance” at the East Spa on 14th Avenue, where arrests were made. But Metcalf said he “was told” police have video of every man they arrested.
Flowers said the Sheriff’s Office has video of every john arrested at the East Sea Spa, located north of Sebastian on U.S. 1. Sebastian Police Lt. Tim Wood said his agency made no arrests at AA Massage in his city because detectives didn’t have video evidence from inside the spa.
“Our undercover officers were equipped with recording devices when they went in, but we didn’t have anything installed inside the building,” Wood said. “We had video surveillance only from outside the spa. We saw people go in and out, and we made contact with people when they left.”
Both Currey and Flowers said their agencies obtained warrants from Circuit Judge Cynthia Cox in November to covertly install video cameras inside the East Spa and East Sea Spa, but neither would disclose how and when their detectives entered the building to set up the equipment.
“There are multiple ways for us to get into a location with a court order,” Flowers said, adding that law-enforcement officers may even “break in at night.”
Which raises another question: If the human-trafficking victims were forced to live in the spas, as law-enforcement officials have said, how did detectives not see them when installing the cameras?
And if the detectives did see these women, why didn’t they rescue them?
Whatever tactics were used to install the cameras, the surveillance of the spas lasted about six weeks and concluded in January. By then, apparently, detectives had watched enough video to get enough evidence to arrest enough johns to go in.
On the morning of Feb. 19, armed with search warrants, police officers and deputies from multiple agencies raided the spas and the homes of key suspects, such as Ma’s husband, Yongzhang Yan, the owner of the East Spa in Vero Beach, AA Massage in Sebastian and similar massage parlors in Winter Park and Orlando.
As of Monday, Yan hadn’t been arrested, but Currey said Vero Beach detectives continue to investigate his role in the businesses.
Ma was arrested, though, along with four women – Liyan Zhang of Pompano Beach, Junhua Dong of Vero Beach, Yan Xu and Yaping Ren – and one man, Kenneth Zullo of Sebastian.
Zhang, manager of the East Sea Spa, was charged with racketeering, operating a house of prostitution and 30 counts of engaging in prostitution. Flowers said detectives also hope to add a human-trafficking charge.
Ma was charged with human trafficking, racketeering, unlawful transportation for the purpose of prostitution, deriving supports from proceeds of prostitution and engaging in prostitution.
Their spas have been closed, but the investigation continues. Detectives are preparing the evidence – that includes video surveillance footage, bank receipts, passports, citizenship documents, tax forms and information obtained from smartphones, computers and digital storage devices – for prosecutors to use in building their cases.
They’re also hoping more of the Chinese women arrested for prostitution eventually will choose to cooperate. “We’d rather have some of these people as victims, rather than as defendants,” Currey said.
As you’d expect, local law-enforcement officials defended their investigations, saying their goal went beyond shutting down the massage spas and arresting johns.
They said they wanted to gather enough evidence to charge the spas’ owners and managers with human trafficking, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
“We could’ve gone in and shut them down – gotten a few prostitution arrests, busted a few johns for solicitation – and been done with it in a week,” Currey said. “The problem is, if you do that, they just move on. So, if you really want to stop it, you have to go after the people at the top.
“We wanted to get the people who were orchestrating the operation and bringing these women to Vero Beach,” he added. “We didn’t want these people to simply relocate somewhere else in Florida or in some other state. We wanted to put them away.
“That meant we needed to be committed, be patient and use the resources we had to see this investigation through.”
Flowers echoed Currey’s explanation, saying a more in-depth investigation was necessary to take down the people running the human-trafficking operation.
“It’s like a drug investigation,” Flowers said. “Do you want the guy who’s going to sell you an ounce, or the guy who can sell you a kilo? You want the people at the top, but, to get them, you need to gather evidence.”
Vero Beach police launched their investigation in September, after receiving complaints from anonymous citizens about the East Spa in late August. Initial surveillance by detectives revealed most of the business’ customers were men.
Currey said an undercover officer twice visited the spa in September, and both times the masseuses offered to perform sex acts for money, with prices ranging from $40 to $200.
During their investigation, Vero Beach detectives also learned that Sebastian police had received a tip in September from a county health department worker who, during a routine inspection of the AA Massage spa on U.S. 1, became suspicious that people might be living there.
Authorities said they believe some of the Chinese women lived in the spas – in small rooms equipped with mattresses, makeshift showers and unsanitary cooking areas.
They said the women, most of who didn’t speak English well or at all, were not allowed to leave the premises unless accompanied by Ma or one of her underlings.
Ma’s arrest warrant, in fact, states that detectives watched her and her husband transport multiple women with suitcases to and from the Vero Beach spa “for the purpose of sexual servitude.”
And according to Zullo’s arrest warrant, detectives had placed a tracking device on his vehicle, which he used to transport women between the Vero Beach and Sebastian spas, as well as to other locations, including Orlando International Airport.
It wasn’t until October that the Sheriff’s Office, prompted by another health department complaint, began investigating possible prostitution and human-trafficking activity at the East Sea Spa, which had no business connections to the massage parlors in Vero Beach and Sebastian.
Both Currey and Sheriff Deryl Loar said their surveillance revealed that nearly all of the customers at the now-closed spas in our county were men who paid for more than massages.
“These johns either knowingly or unknowingly were supplying the funds to perpetuate human trafficking and sex trafficking,” Loar said, adding “if this can happen in Indian River County, where else can it happen?”
Most local news media outlets have reported the story as described by police, as a human-trafficking crackdown – despite only one woman being arrested on that charge – and have been eager to embarrass the men arrested for solicitation.
Not only have these men already been convicted in the court of public opinion, but they’ve already been punished, too – their names and mugshots digitally paraded through the town square on news media websites and social media pages, and left there for all to see.
On Monday, nearly three weeks after the arrests, the local daily still had photos of 132 men prominently displayed on its website under the headline: “Human trafficking investigation: Prostitution arrests begin in Indian River County.”
These mugshots are the equivalent of a scarlet letter, especially in a community as small as ours, and they are there for one reason – to publicly shame these men, none of whom has yet been convicted in a court of law.
These men, if convicted in court, deserve the legal penalties for their crime.
They also deserve whatever personal consequences they might suffer as a result of their behavior.
But do they deserve to be held up to this kind of extended public ridicule, and treated worse than people who commit felonies?
The law-enforcement agencies welcome this type of publicity because they believe it serves as a deterrent and discourages others from committing the same crime.
What’s the news media’s excuse?
That’s easy: Sex sells, and not only in massage spas.
