The Wichita Eagle, July 15, 2016
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article89928787.html
By Kelsey Ryan
It’s a mild February evening and an undercover vice detective with Wichita police goes into a white house at 357 N. Hillside.
Inside, a woman named Angel greets him and tells him that a half-hour massage is $50.
Not long after it starts, she grabs his genitals.
The undercover detective asks if she gives “extras.”
But she just laughs. So he says he might come back tomorrow.
That’s just one of several encounters that Wichita police have with Angel, a woman they say is a victim of sex trafficking in one of Wichita’s many massage parlors.
The sting, like many others, has been documented in federal court affidavits.
Women charged more often
Kansas is one of a handful of states that doesn’t regulate massage businesses. No licensing, no inspections.
Wichita police say that human traffickers have told them that they come to Kansas and to Wichita because there are no regulations.
In response, the Wichita City Council approved regulations recently that backers hope will lessen human trafficking within massage businesses. The ordinance puts in place fines, permits and required education for massage therapists.
To investigate the parlors, Wichita police go undercover as patrons, sometimes multiple times before a sting. Police say up to 30 massage parlors in Wichita may be fronts for prostitution and human trafficking.
In some cases, traffickers are charged in federal court.
But an Eagle analysis of the police and court data show that massage parlor investigations often lead to charges against the women in municipal court.
Advocates for trafficking victims say that law enforcement should not use stings to arrest the women because it leads to more trauma.
In Wichita Municipal Court, more than twice as many women than men have been charged with “crimes of moral turpitude” in the past five years overall. “Crimes of moral turpitude” include sale of sexual relations, buying sexual relations, soliciting for immoral purposes, loitering for the purpose of soliciting and offenses in an anti-sex trafficking area.
Those women have higher conviction rates overall, although total charges for crimes of moral turpitude have decreased over time.
Over the past five years, in cases that were decided in Municipal Court, women were found guilty of selling sexual relations nearly 10 times more than men were found guilty of buying sex.
In 2014 and 2015, no one was found guilty of buying sexual relations by the city of Wichita.
Wichita Deputy Police Chief Hassan Ramzah said it can be difficult to target johns, or the men buying sex.
Racial and ethnic minorities also are disproportionately charged, making up at least 46 percent of those charged with the sale of sexual relations. In Wichita, minorities make up about 20 percent of the population. Municipal Court and Census data combines Hispanics of any race with non-Hispanic whites.
Data also shows that police in particular charged more Asians in 2015. Last year, 17 Asians were charged with sale of sexual relations in Wichita – the largest demographic – according to court data.
Who is Angel?
Angel isn’t her real name. But that’s what some men in Wichita call her.
She came to the United States in February 2015 on a B1/B2 travel visa that expired a year ago.
She’s moved around a lot since coming to Wichita. Before the white house on Hillside, Angel worked at GiGi’s Elite Massage, 6611 E. Central.
Before that, she worked at JJ’s Massage Parlor, where she had a customer named Samir Elias.
At the white house on Hillside, he was her boss, a federal court affidavit says.
Elias’ lawyers would not comment for this story, and federal investigators said they would not comment on an ongoing investigation.
Angel worked almost every day, but sometimes Samir gave her Sundays off.
She lived at the white house but sometimes stayed at his house.
Elias got $10 of the $40 for half-hour massages, and $20 of the $60 for hour massages, according to the affidavit.
Angel got to keep the rest, plus tips.
Undercover investigations
Police have conducted a series of undercover investigations in massage parlors over the past few years, posing as patrons. Several of the investigations, like the encounters with Angel, are detailed in federal court affidavits.
Wichita police would not allow The Eagle to interview vice detectives.
The city would not disclose documents showing how much taxpayer money it has spent on these undercover investigations over the past five years, saying that releasing the financial records would jeopardize the identity of undercover officers.
$1,250Amount Wichita police have spent on massage parlor stings since 2015
However, City Attorney Jennifer Magana said the Police Department spent $600 in 2016 and $650 in 2015 at massage businesses.
In the case on Hillside, undercover officers visited three separate times. Before that, a separate sting had been conducted at a previous parlor where Angel worked and she was arrested.
How far will vice detectives go in these stings? Police would not disclose specifics.
Criminals research police tactics, said Wichita police Capt. Kevin Mears, so if too many details are released about stings, then police have to change tactics.
“No investigation is worth your reputation. If talking any type of sex, we’re not going to have sex and we’re not going to have oral sex. I have no problem saying that,” Mears said.
“You have to approach it ethically and with scrutiny. … Everything you do in that investigation is going to be brought up in court, up on that stand, and (you have to) tell judge and jury what you did.”
Both victims and criminals
Police say it’s difficult to find out what’s really going on inside the massage businesses unless they have someone inside for a sting.
Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay refused to comment, and referred questions to Ramzah.
It’s difficult to target johns, the deputy police chief said. When a police officer goes undercover in a sting operation, he has a first-hand account of an illegal activity.
But when johns go into massage parlors, the only witnesses are the johns themselves and the woman behind closed doors, which makes it difficult to have probable cause.
“99.9 percent of the time they’re not going to admit they did (something illegal),” Ramzah said. “Unless you know really what’s going on, it’s more difficult to prosecute.”
And if the trafficker isn’t present during the sting, it’s difficult to build a case against him. In most cases, the victim won’t identify the trafficker, Ramzah said.
There have been at least four cases for human trafficking related to massage parlors that have been presented to the U.S. attorney’s office since 2011.
“Best-case scenario is you eliminate the trafficking,” Ramzah said. “On a lower scale, you disrupt or delay. … We know something illegal is going on, but the goal is to get to the root cause. You need the trafficker to complete that puzzle.”
It’s not entirely clear why women are charged and found guilty at higher rates than men for crimes of moral turpitude. One possibility could be that police have more encounters with some of the women who are arrested, Ramzah said.
“Based on that lifestyle, there could be repeat offenders, unfortunately,” he said.
Are the arrested women in these massage parlor cases victims or criminals?
“Really, they’re both in these situations,” Ramzah said. “You have to look at each incident on a case-by-case basis in making that determination.”
After the arrest, the women who police think are victims are referred to groups that help sexual assault and trafficking victims.
But there can be cultural and language barriers that prevent follow-through, he said.
Prior to the new city ordinance regulating massage businesses, police couldn’t go in and check that individual providers were licensed or that fire and health codes were being followed.
“It takes us out of the sting business and now we can go in under different auspices,” Ramzah said. “It’s a different avenue to approach it, which I think advocates will be more appreciative of.”
Ramzah said the department will continue its stings of massage parlors, but to a much lesser extent.
“We can use that in situations where all other options are ineffective,” he said.
‘We won’t be competing’
Janna Akins has owned Body and Soul Massage School next door to the white house on Hillside for more than 15 years.
The house has been vacant for much of that time, until last fall, when Elias came over to introduce himself. He told Akins he was opening up a new massage business next door.
“He was over here being ‘Good Neighbor Sam,’” Akins said. “He told us ‘Don’t worry, we won’t be competing. We have doctors and lawyers.’ His words.”
Last November, Elias brought Angel to Body and Soul Massage to see about getting her enrolled in classes.
Angel’s English was not good enough to take the classes, Akins told him. Elias asked instead if Angel could borrow an anatomy book, but Akins told him they’d have to buy it.
Angel’s story was that she had a son at Wichita State University, Akins said.
“She was very pleasant,” Akins said. “She was anxious and excited to take classes. But unless there’s a translator in here, it’s tough.”
Akins guessed Angel was in her early 30s. The woman is actually in her mid-40s, according to court records.
She had long black hair and often wore a long skirt – nothing short or skimpy. “She was modest. Didn’t look like a hoochie mama,” Akins says.
Elias sent Akins and her staff a melon-and-pineapple fruit bouquet for Christmas.
Akins saw Angel leave the building only once. She had no vehicle. Eventually, Elias got her a bike, but only after police came by once.
Looking back, Akins thinks Elias chose to move next door to her school to make his business look more legitimate.
Customer cars next door were nice, Akins says: Cadillacs, Lexuses, high-end sports cars.
The men – they were all men – were well-dressed, she said, usually in suits.
‘Happy endings aren’t a joke’
There are 6,000 to 9,000 illicit massage businesses operating in the United States, according to Polaris, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that focuses on ending human trafficking.
“We really discourage anyone involved in this initiative from arresting women,” said Meghan Carton, strategic initiative specialist at Polaris.
“You never know how much trauma a woman has gone through,” Carton said. “Some of these women come from incredibly violent backgrounds. We’ve heard stories of women who have experienced sexual assault as children, domestic violence before they’ve gotten involved in this, and this continues to perpetuate the violence and abuse against them.”
Often, the reason for the sting and the arrest is to try to get testimony from the women.
“We really encourage A) not arresting them, and then B) going after trafficking from different lenses, not necessarily trying to rely on the testimony of a traumatized woman,” Carton said. “‘We’ll drop the charges if you testify against your trafficker.’
“We really encourage these stings to stop because it is continuing the exploitation and abuse of a woman if she’s in a trafficking situation. This is not something she wants to do.”
Stings are especially difficult for immigrant women, who often have no idea what their rights are, Carton said.
“They’ve been told often by their trafficker that they have no rights, that the police are always out to get them. So it’s a very traumatizing thing,” she said.
One of the biggest things people can do to help stop trafficking is to be aware of what’s happening in these businesses and speak up about it, Carton said.
“We hear jokes all the time about happy endings or massage businesses or Asian girls. Understanding that a happy ending hides a dark truth – that it’s women who are exploited, that we have human trafficking occurring,” Carton said.
“These aren’t happy, smiling 20-year-old girls. These are moms. These are women who are struggling to try to make a better reality for their kids, for their families, for themselves, and got trapped and trafficked.
“Happy endings aren’t a joke.”
The arrest
The day after the February massage, the undercover detective returns for another, affidavits say.
Angel touches him again, undraping him to expose his naked body while he lies on his stomach.
She massages up from his feet between the legs.
He says he’s ticklish, but she continues. She doesn’t negotiate for more money.
He wants to see more, he says. She tells him to “take off.”
So he shows her a condom. She says she can’t do that, and she doesn’t want any trouble.
She tries to dress him. Then she asks for a tip.
He comes back a week later.
It’s the same routine. Except this time, the detective asks if he can massage her.
She begins taking off her pants. He asks if she wants him to touch her breast. She shakes her head yes and grabs his genitals.
The arrest signal is given.
Inside, officers find a used condom in a toilet, a black mask that comes from a package labeled “Sex & Mischief,” and two bottles of Wonderland Potion Sexual Energy.
Angel is charged in Municipal Court with “manual or other bodily contact stimulation.”
Later, police arrest Elias.
He’s due in federal court later this month on charges of transporting and harboring an alien, money laundering, and importation of an alien for immoral purposes.
‘Angel, I love you’
Angel’s municipal court hearing has been delayed twice. It’s now slated for August.
She won’t be able to comment until after the hearing, her attorney says.
It’s unclear what she is doing now.
Every now and then, Akins said she still sees men in nice cars drive into the parking lot of the white house next door. They don’t realize Angel isn’t there.
On Valentine’s Day, just after the sting, someone sent flowers, a Teddy Bear and chocolates that said, “Angel, I love you.”
The delivery man couldn’t leave them at the vacant white house, so he brought them next door to Akins, who turned him away.
“She really made an impression on somebody.”