One was a 60-year-old Sun City woman. Another a Tempe woman with a brand-new $60,000 boat. And another advertised herself as a former Miss Canada. They were among the 45 women arrested Thursday in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's prostitution raid, which swept from Wittmann to east Mesa. A companion operation netted 27 male customers.
Operation
House Call
Operation
House Call targeted 33 homes and 10 massage parlors, while Operation Destiny
ran a sting out of three Valley hotels, arresting men who came to pay for
sex. Among the men were a local radio station's sales director, an airline
pilot and a state correctional officer.Women
arrested on suspicion of running houses of prostitution face felony charges.
Men arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex face misdemeanor charges.Sheriff
Joe Arpaio said previous prostitution stings were criticized because they
targeted only the women. This time around, he went after the customers.Outside
Margaret Miller's modest Sun City condo, a sign warned of neighborhood Block
Watch on the lookout for crime. Her neighbor had a Sun City Posse sponsor
sticker on the door.But
undercover detectives say Miller, 60, has been enticing men in for $125
tricks, using an alias of "Allison."
Thursday morning, as a neighbor put up a sign on the corner advertising a garage sale, deputies banged on Miller's door, arrested her and searched the house.Deputies said they found the house partitioned by curtains, with a private area where Miller lived and an area for clients, with an inflatable mattress on a pedestal, candles and fragrance. They also found four cases of condoms.Miller ran an ad promising "silken fingers, roaming hands" and requesting White male clients over 45.After her arrest, she admitted to a 1980s arrest in California for prostitution and said she had been running the ad since March, deputies said.Miller declined to comment on her arrest.Arpaio kicked off the eight-week undercover investigation after a Sept. 3 bust of a massage parlor near his home made him realize that prostitution "must be everywhere." During a news conference, Arpaio defended the sweep and called it just as valid as chasing murderers. "We're a full-service law enforcement agency," he said. "We go after everybody." He said prostitution, which some consider a victimless crime, brings in diseases, crime, guns, drugs and domestic violence.
Sheriff's detectives spent $12,000 in seized drug funds during the operation, but they found $36,000 when they searched the homes and massage parlors. Once the women are booked into jail, they will be kept until they are checked for any sexually transmitted diseases, part of a new state requirement. "We have an epidemic of syphilis," Arpaio said. While prostitution is a misdemeanor, running a house of prostitution is a felony. "If you're going to have a law on the books, enforce the law," Arpaio said. Deputies will decide whether to seize the women's homes and cars after more investigating, he said. They are checking the women's ledgers for current customers.
Deputies
take notice
One suspect,
Kelly Beth Beach, 36, seemed to be living well beyond her means in a Tempe
neighborhood of mostly retirees and professionals, detectives said. A 2003
lifted Ford F-350 was parked in the driveway. Deputies saw a luxury boat
worth about $60,000 and brand-new dirt bikes at her house.Detective
Brandon Uptain, who coordinated that raid, said Beach could be bankrolling
her lifestyle with prostitution earnings of up to several thousand dollars
a week.Deputies
raided her house in the 2000 block of East Malibu Drive at 8:02 a.m. Beach
was taken away in handcuffs 90 minutes later.Inside,
deputies said, they found two of her ads, lauding her as a "hot shot,
hard body and discreet," hanging from the refrigerator.In
the ads, Beach, a k a "Niki Lynn," wears a black wig and little
else.Deputies
found handcuffs and restraints attached to her bed, which had a box of sex
toys underneath. There were 11 handguns, rifles and shotguns in the house
and 67 homemade videos, deputies said. Beach was naked in bed with a 19-year-old
man, but there was no sign he paid for sex, Uptain said.
A 23-year-old woman staying at the house was arrested on outstanding felony warrants involving drunken driving and drugs.Beach declined to comment, but she told police she recently stopped working as a prostitute and planned to become a professional fisher.Uptain rated the morning arrest a success."It's great, a happy ending," he said. "She copped to everything. I got all the evidence in the world."
Callers take
the bait
After the women
were arrested, female deputies answered their phone calls, sending callers
to the three hotels. Deputies also had placed ads for the three women: "Destiny,"
"Crystal" and "Brittany."Among
the hundreds of calls the teams fielded, there were several bizarre requests.One
man wanted a woman to run in sneakers to get her feet sweating before donning
stiletto heels; another wondered whether being in a wheelchair was a deal-breaker;
and one woman wanted to join in with her boyfriend for his birthday.One
man called Crystal to ask if he could bring his soldier friend, recently
returned from Iraq. He was told not to."He
deserves a little better than being thrown in jail," said Detective
Shari Decker, who posed as Crystal.Arpaio
said the world's oldest profession isn't going to end anytime soon."It'll
still be there, but they'll never know when we're coming back."
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