Pandering?
PHOENIX – A woman arrested in connection with a prostitution ring has been sentenced to probation.
Per a plea agreement, Judge Dean Fink sentenced Margaret Pahssen, 36, to nine months of supervised probation for facilitation to commit illegal control of an enterprise.
Pahssen and others were arrested in January 2013 after Phoenix police served search warrants at the Champagne Room near 40th Street and Interstate 10 and a home in Surprise.
Although billed as a 24-hour strip club, police said the business was a house of prostitution where customers would enter, be taken to a back room and be given a "menu" to select from a list of services.
Police began a two-year investigation after receiving complaints from nearby business owners. Police said the investigation took such a long time because the owners of the Champagne Room took precautions to avoid allowing undercover agents to enter their establishment.
Police arrested several other people on charges including control of an illegal enterprise, money laundering, prostitution, receiving earnings of prostitution and pandering.
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last comment24 hours per day? This sounds not like an SC, but more like one of these Lingerie Modeling / Adult Entertainment venues. Anyway, unless they found some way to make it into a felony, like pandering, there is no way they could impose such a sentence.
More effort needs to be put into methods of preventing this sort of heavy handed bust.
SJG
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My bet is the cops took two years because they kept making repeat trips to gather more evidence.
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I've heard of prostitutes convicted of fucking and cock sucking but exactly what is "facilitation to commit illegal control of an enterprise". Is that like a dirty Sanchez?
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'I'm shocked, shocked"
@slickwilliam - nice "Casablanca" reference
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I think Shadowcat is right, some degree of plausible deniability for the owner is how the mileage has gotten to its present level.
In AMPs it is like this. No owner ever gets busted. Just workers. What the cops really want is civil procedure to close the business. Most of these procedures are also unconstitutional.
SJG
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@steve229 Always worth another view: youtube.com
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I think more work just has to go into figuring out how to do this so that the laws are impractical to enforce. It shouldn't be that hard. Then once this happens, there will be so many people involved that the political mandate to enforce will be gone.
Hong Kong Bar quality
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Legal Issues:
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SJG
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What a shocker
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Two years huh? They had a hard time getting into the VIP so they just kept trying and trying and trying. Boy that was a hard job I'm sure. Glad the city of Phoenix had no murders, rapes, assaults, child abuse or anything else going on during those two years the detectives were trying to get into the VIP.
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"Glad the city of Phoenix had no murders, rapes, assaults, child abuse...". I see the pattern. In that crimes mentioned by occurious, one participant was likely not consenting.
The topic bust was between consenting adults. Perhaps all VIP rooms should be equipped as a S&M room, ergo, one could claim to not consenting. :)
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This is some real fucked up shit
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So they spent two years and countless thousands of taxpayer's dollars and the "criminal" gets probation. Nice. Doesn't our government have more pressing needs than this????
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$330-$900 ?!? I though Phoenix was full of pensioners. Think of the tax revenue this could generate if they just got realistic about it. I think the government is just more pissed about lost revenue then they are about morality or victimization. Two years for a prostitution operation smells like a lie.
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