The raids on four Providence massage parlors last week shows how the police are powerless to crack down on prostitutes or their customers who are inside.

08:43 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 24, 2005

BY TRACY BRETON and AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writers

PROVIDENCE -- Sex for money isn't illegal in Rhode Island as long as the sex takes place indoors.

Journal photo / Kathy Borchers

The Midori Spa at 112 Union St., Providence, is one of four massage parlors raided by the police last week. Several women were charged with giving massages without a license.

Police are able to bust the streetwalkers, pimps and people who run houses of prostitution. But they say that under current law, they have been unable to crack down on the plethora of massage parlors that are actually brothels.

Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman says that the places that his officers have raided in recent years are more than pay-for-sex businesses. The establishments, he claims, are part of human trafficking in which women -- most often illegal Asian immigrants -- "are locked in their rooms from the outside and not allowed to leave.

"They are not going home anywhere at night," Esserman said. "They live and work in the same facility. In fact, we often find cooking pots and stoves in their bedrooms."

But based on current Rhode Island law and recent judicial decisions, the police say they are powerless to crack down on prostitutes or their customers inside massage parlors.

As a result, Lt. Thomas Verdi, the head of the Providence police vice squad, and Mayor David N. Cicilline have gone on the offensive. Alarmed at the growing number of illicit massage parlors, they've convinced Providence legislators to introduce bills that will once again make prostitution a crime in Rhode Island. The identical bills pending in the House and Senate target not just those who engage in sex for pay but also those who knowingly allow prostitution in properties they own or control. The bills include a provision that would make proceeds from sex acts subject to forfeiture. No hearings have been scheduled.

Verdi says that until 2 1/2 years ago, Providence police were arresting alleged prostitutes inside massage parlors. But they stopped doing so after a Warwick lawyer who has represented prostitution defendants for years -- Michael J. Kiselica -- persuaded District Court judges to dismiss prostitution cases, based on the wording of the current law.

Rhode Island used to be one of the few states that made prostitution a felony -- a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. But in 1976, a group of female prostitutes filed suit in federal court, claiming that the Providence police were discriminating against women in their arrests. Police weren't targeting the male customers, but only the females selling sex, the suit alleged. The prostitutes also claimed that the law in Rhode Island was unduly harsh, criminalizing private activities between consenting adults.

The case went to trial but when the legislature amended the law, the case died. The new law -- which 25 years later is the current law -- reduced the crime of loitering for prostitution to a misdemeanor. It also deleted the prohibition against committing the act of prostitution or any other "indecent act." But soliciting sex on the street or from a car remained a crime.

Providence police say that as a result of this loophole, illicit massage parlors have proliferated. During the last few years, the police have raided massage parlors in Providence, Cranston, North Smithfield and Pawtucket but haven't been targeting the sex acts. Unchecked, says Pawtucket police Maj. John Whiting, "It'll be . . . showing up on every corner."

Since 1997, Providence police have raided 13 illicit "spas." Verdi said, "At each and every one of them, there's . . . prostitution going on." Last week, his department raided four "spas" but made no prostitution arrests. Instead, the police charged women with giving a massage without a license. "They pay the fine and they go right back to doing what we charged them for."

Many of the women rounded up in last week's raids -- at the Midori Spa, Central Health, Bally Day Spa and Spring Relaxing Center -- are now being held on immigration charges.

David Riccio, resident agent in charge of the Providence office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says that most women who work here in illicit "spas" are from South Korea. Some are here illegally; others can't be deported because they've married U.S. military men.

Some of the establishments raided by the police have state licenses to operate as massage parlors. But anyone giving a massage without a license can be charged. Others operate illegally.

Some show up on Internet sex sites. The customers rate the women's figures, talk about negotiating for sexual services, recommend certain women and describe in explicit detail what goes on inside.

According to one Web site, one Providence massage parlor has a bouncer who serves the customers beverages while they wait. Others line up the lingerie-clad women and offer the men their pick.

The men never see the rest of the place -- the small rooms lined with cots where the women sleep, the small cooking areas, the suitcases packed with their clothes.

But occasionally, a hint of the desperation comes through.

"Even after she got the money, she was still sweet to me," one man wrote. "And . . . said that if I were ever to win the lottery to come back and take her away from this place and that she'd marry me."

Ernest M. Julian, who runs the office of food protection at the Health Department, says massage parlors fall under his jurisdiction but that the department doesn't inspect any of them because it does not have enough staff. With 12 inspectors, "we have to police 8,000 establishments out of this office," Julian said. "This includes all restaurants, all the places that serve and handle food, including the schools, meat processors and markets. We also have the beaches and about 70 massage parlors. We have to prioritize where we go. We go where the largest number of people go, where there is the most potential harm to human health."

In recent years, Julian says that the Health Department has been flooded with applications for massage parlors. He says he has no idea how many of them are legitimate. He says the department depends on the police to check them out. His office asks the police to do criminal background checks on people who are applying for massage licenses as well as the operators of these businesses. His office also refers complaints of unlicensed facilities to the police.

To try to help the police, Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch's office has set up a Nuisance Task Force that meets with landlords who own buildings that the police believe are problem sites. But Lynch says that the task force can't combat the problem of illegal massage parlors because his office doesn't have convictions for prostitution to use as leverage with landlords.

Former Mayor Joseph R. Paolino Jr., leases space at 204 Westminster St. to a spa that was busted last week by the Providence police, but he says that he is powerless to evict the tenant.

The tenant is Bally Day Spa. Last Monday, the police charged a 30-year-old Asian woman with giving a massage without a license. She and a second Asian woman on the premises were turned over to immigration officials and are being held pending deportation proceedings.

"How do you break a lease if they have a license with the State of Rhode Island and a license issued by the City of Providence?" the former mayor said. Last year, he said, he received a complaint from an adjacent property owner "who questioned that illicit behavior was going on there that was not in taste with community standards." He said he wrote to Esserman asking him to investigate. The letter said the business he had rented to "is intended to be an upscale reputable business providing its clientele with massage and aromatherapy services." If the police found "evidence of any illicit activity being conducted at this establishment," he wrote, he hoped that "the proper licensing authority" would be notified.

Paolino said he never heard back that anything was amiss until yesterday when he said he first learned, from a Journal reporter, that the police had raided the spa.

Tracy Breton can be reached at tbreton [at] projo.com or 277-7362. Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amilkovi [at] projo.com ot 277-7213.