Who’s News In Phoenix Escorts.

3 Massage Parlors Targeted in Prostitution Sting
Updated: Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 6:12 PM MDTPublished : Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 4:12 PM MDT
SCOTTSDALE – Detectives from the Scottsdale Police department are serving search warrants at several massage parlors, 18 months after an anonymous tipster said they were being used as a front for prostitution.
Detectives served search warrants at 3 massage parlor locations and at the private residence of the owner: Scottsdale Massage in Scottsdale, Paradise Island Massage in Mesa, Busy Bodies Massage in Scottsdale, and the home of Laura Ann Walden and Michael Vern Sanford in Mesa.
Five people were arrested and $18,000 in cash and up to $1 million in equipment and assets was seized.
It all started in November 2008 when the Scottsdale Police Department received information that prostitution was taking place at a licensed massage facility, Scottsdale Massage.

See the full article from “MyFox Phoenix”

… Derogatory anti-gay remarks, misogynist remarks — things that were pretty sexist” were not uncommon at senior-level meetings, recalls one longtime former employee. The alleged raunchy e-mails “were not an aberration. You can understand why these e-mails were circulated and tolerated when top management was engaging in it and tolerated it.”
It’s not like anyone can plead ignorance either, if the e-mails — for which SF Weekly has filed a public records request — are explicit pornography. Planning department higher-ups and rank-and-file know that disseminating porn on city computers during work hours is not kosher. Period.
Working in code-enforcement, “We were monitoring massage parlors and trying to ascertain whether they were legitimate massage therapists or something we should be working on with the vice squad,” recalled a planning department source. “We had to go to Web sites that were pretty raunchy and had to get special dispensation — with Larry Badiner’s knowledge. We had to get a release to do those kinds of searches.”

See the full article from “SF Weekly (blog)”

… This is going to be the busy time of the year,” said Dany Shepherd, a tattoo artist at Top Rocker Tattoo in Peoria.
The shop opened in 2009 at the Arrowhead Fountain Center retail complex. Shepherd said some days the shop is dead, but other days business is better.
There has been a proliferation of tattoo parlors in the Phoenix market in recent years as “skin art” becomes more accepted — thanks largely to tats sported by professional athletes, musicians, rappers and other creative types.
Some shops are in low-end strip centers next to massage parlors and check-cashing stores, but others have located in more middle- and upper-middle-class areas. Top Rocker, for example, is at 83rd Avenue and Bell Road, near the Harkins Theatre and the Cheesecake Factory. Club Tattoo has locations near Arizona State University in Tempe, and Wisemagic Tattoo is at Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard.

See the full article from “Phoenix Business Journal”

In addition to being unable to tell family members in some cases, there were also problems in attempting to show their performance to the public. In one instance, the show had to be cancelled at a Chinese gallery because of the content.
Regardless of content, anything can be performed in a gallery, according to Chinese law. However, Stapleton says the Chinese government tends to leave laws vague and open to interpretation to allow for some wiggle room.
“People with power can get away with a lot,” Stapleton said. “But the Internet has helped balance things.”
“Power” can mean everything from financial success to physical force. One story explained how a businessman walked into a massage parlor and expected something extra from a young girl giving him the massage. She was stabbed when she refused him and was sent to jail while the man walked away.

See the full article from “University at Buffalo The Spectrum”

The unhelpful owners have skillfully been just uncooperative enough to avoid breaking laws, but not enough to face any charges, Councilman Scott Somers said.
“They’re dragging their neighborhoods down,” Somers said. “They don’t care what goes on in their neighborhoods.”
He recalled seeing one hotel that was supposedly closed, yet every room had linens on the beds, even fresh food in the rooms, a sign the place was operating illegally. Drug paraphernalia was also in the rooms.
Despite hotels like that, Somers said, most operators in Mesa do a good job. If the city does make new rules, it would come shortly after the city passed new regulations on massage parlors to make it more difficult to operate as houses of prostitution. Many of the city’s massage operations closed after the rules were put into place last year.

See the full article from “East Valley Tribune”

The attorney general’s office sought revocation of the three massage therapy licenses registered and posted on the wall at the Oriental Pain Management Center, 823 Lincolnway. The facility was the site of an undercover raid in January by Valparaiso police and the Porter County Drug Task Force.
On three occasions, undercover officers received $40 massages and for $40 more staff offered to fondle the officers. As part of their investigation, the officers accepted the additional services but left before the act was completed, said Valparaiso Detective Philip Rochon.
As a result of the police investigations, Wenjuan Yao, 44, was charged with prostitution, and Min Ye, 46, was charged with aiding in prostitution. Both women face a year in jail if convicted of the misdemeanor charges.
Deputy Attorney General Amanda Bailor told the massage therapy board that the massage parlor was “designed to make it appear to the public legitimate massage therapy services are being provided.” But, Bailor said, “the primary business of Oriental Pain Management Center is prostitution offered under the guise of massage therapy.”

See the full article from “nwitimes.com”

The Panties Pool You’ve seen those office pools they do for football games, right? It’s a grid of boxes, with 0-9 going down and 0-9 going across. Then people write their names inside the boxes and then one set of numbers is for one team, and one is for the other. So, say, at the end of the first quarter, the score is 10 – 7, the Saints, then you would go to that square, and that person would win. You can do the same. But instead of putting in names in the squares, you put SEX ACTS. So, whoever wins, REALLY wins. And it’s up to you to be as nice or as naughty as you want.
You can have the prizes be anything your little heart desires. From kissing to an erotic massage, he owes you oral sex. From you wearing THAT school girl outfit, to him doing THAT dance he does naked. (Um, whatever you two do…)

See the full article from “Huffington Post (blog)”

Currently, tattoo parlors and body-piercing shops require a council use permit in every case. Sheffield proposed allowing them “by right” in industrial districts as long as they’re 1,200 feet away from each other, but the council told him Thursday they wouldn’t accept that idea.
Some council members also had suggested earlier in private meetings with Sheffield that the Board of Adjustment, rather than the City Council, could make final decisions on tattoo-parlors.
Mayor Scott Smith was skeptical.
“Things such as tattoo parlors, massage parlors, really should be governed by how they operate vs. what they do,” he said. He noted the city was able to do that last year when it rewrote its massage-parlor ordinance to protect legitimate operators while making it more difficult to use such businesses as fronts for prostitution.

See the full article from “AZ Central.com”

Human trafficking should not be confused with the much more well-known crime of human smuggling, which involves paying criminal organizations to help immigrants sneak into the United States illegally, Allen said.
Arizona is the main gateway for illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border, but law-enforcement officials believe it is also a major corridor and hub for human trafficking.
Human trafficking victims can be anyone who is being held for work through force, fraud or coercion and can include legal and illegal immigrants and even U.S. citizens, Allen said.
On Friday, ICE agents raided a massage parlor in Somerton, a farming town near Yuma in southwestern Arizona, where they arrested three women suspected of illegally operating a house of prostitution.
“Running illicit prostitution rings disguised as massage parlors is a common tactic used by human-trafficking organizations,” Kevin Jeter, the assistant special agent in charge of ICE investigations in Yuma, said in a statement.

See the full article from “Arizona Republic”

… I don’t know of many police departments in the country that could lose as much as we have, maintain the productivity we have, and continue to lower crime at a rate that we have.” – Police Chief George Gascn in July as he prepared to leave Mesa and become chief in San Francisco.
“I knew it! I never trusted that mayor. He’s pro-immigrant. He’s never gonna fire that chief (Gascón). We gotta raid Mesa again.” – Sheriff Joe Arpaio, quoted in the July 20 issue of The New Yorker after he heard that Smith’s wife, Kim, declined to call Arpaio her hero during a jury-selection interview.
“It’s like an unholy storm coming together.” – City Councilman Dennis Kavanaugh in July as Mesa pondered how to combat a proliferation of seedy massage parlors.

See the full article from “AZ Central.com”