Couple accused of running prostitution operation from neighborhood home

The ad from Katerina, the sweet-looking “girl next door” looks like a personals ad from Match.com.

“I am 5'2”, 102 lbs, petite blond. I am smart, dedicated and work out regularly to stay in shape,” says the ad on a website advertising escort services. “I like to go for walks, roller blade, ice skate. I like Chinese food and white wine.”

Although fully dressed in an attractive red summer dress, with nothing showing unlike most women on the site, Shakopee police say “Katerina's” advertisement of services for $380 per hour was nothing innocent.

Instead of a single woman looking for a date, authorities believe 23-year-old Katerina was really 27-year-old Luba V. Lavrusik, a married mother selling sexual services at her home in Shakopee for cash. And lots of it.

After months of investigation, on April 20 Shakopee and Bloomington police raided the Downing Avenue townhome of Lavrusik and her 27-year-old husband Ivan. Police said they confiscated records, cell phones, handguns and other items from the couple. Authorities also allegedly seized $181,950 in cash from the couple's safe, along with large amounts of steroids found at the home.

Ivan Lavrusik refused to explain where the money came from, but police say his wife Luba admitted that all the cash came from her prostituting herself.

The Lavrusiks were booked into Scott County Jail and released pending formal charges. On Friday, the Scott County Attorney's Office filed multiple charges against the couple. They are scheduled to make their first court appearance June 7.

Luba Lavrusik is accused of prostitution and child endangerment by firearm access and her husband is accused of the more serious crimes of promoting prostitution and possessing felony-level drugs. He is also charged with child endangerment because of handguns found in the home with loaded magazines.

Shakopee police say the couple were running a high-scale escort service, seeking the name, age, height, weight and occupation, as well as a “reference” from prospective clients.

According to the criminal complaint, Luba Lavrusik told detectives the couple began the escort service about a year-and-a-half ago because they were having financial struggles.

She said her husband set up the account on the Internet, handled all the photographs and paid for the advertisement.

“She was careful,” Shakopee police Detective Sgt. John Buetow said.

The couple were arrested for prostitution in Las Vegas in September 2009.

Luba Lavrusik said she tried quitting the escort business a couple times, but her husband pressured her to continue, Buetow said.

Ivan Lavrusik told police that his wife saw most of her clients in the master bedroom and he helped check references for clients. He maintained, however, that his wife doesn't receive payment for sex and her contacts as an escort “don't necessarily have to involve any sexual act.”

Luba Lavrusik admitted providing sexual services to various clients in exchange for money, Buetow said.

Whenever she would see a new client, her husband would remain at home, typically staying in their daughter's bedroom for Luba's protection, she allegedly said.

Police say they were tipped off to the escort service in October by a “concerned citizen,” who was suspicious about goings-on at the home and found the woman's escort ad online.

Ivan Lavrusik, a zealous aspiring law enforcement officer, was well-known to local police, so they had to get help from Bloomington police for the investigation. Since 2005, the man had 80 contacts with Shakopee police, mostly from him reporting nuisance violations.

He was constantly calling on his neighbors for things like loud mufflers and unleashed dogs, Police Chief Jeff Tate said.

shakopeenews.com