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Former Deputies Arrested In Prostitution Scam
Suspects Released On Bond
Posted February 14, 2005
HOUSTON
-- Two former Fort Bend
County deputies and a reserve deputy constable were arrested by the
Texas Rangers and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity
for their alleged involvement in a prostitution scam, Local 2 reported
Monday
Deerfield Apt. Complex
Undre Skinner, 40, and Murphy Randall, 35, were terminated from the sheriff's office on Jan. 6 for policy violations involving working unapproved extra jobs, officials said. Usef West was a Harris County Precinct 6 reserve deputy constable.
Investigators said while Skinner and Randall were supposed to be guarding the Deerfield Apartment complex, 10001 Club Creek Dr., they would get women to pose as prostitutes to lure men to a back parking lot.
"Then they would arrest them. That is, they would pretend to detain them, search them, take money from them, and then shoo them off -- either tell them there would be no charges, they just left and never came back or something like that. But (they) just intimidated them into leaving without their money," said Joe Owmby, a Harris County prosecutor.
Skinner has been with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department for 5 years.
Randall has been with the department for 10 years.
West has been with Precinct 6 since December 2003.
All three have been released on bond.
Undercover officers in prostitution stings can get naked to get arrests
Harris County Assistant DA Ted Wilson said Police Chief Harold Hurtt has changed a long-standing, unwritten department policy to allow undercover vice officers to disrobe in such cases.
(01/24/05 - HOUSTON)
Some suspects in prostitution investigations are confronting naked justice.
A prosecutor says police are now allowed to undress in an effort to persuade suspected prostitutes to negotiate sex acts.
During a four-month sting operation that ended with 56 arrests in November, some undercover vice officers dropped their covers altogether.
<"Someone had to do something to shut these places down," said Harris County Assistant District Attorney Ted Wilson. "It was just so widespread. It had almost gotten in your face."
Wilson said Police Chief Harold Hurtt has changed a long-standing, unwritten department policy to allow undercover vice officers to disrobe in such cases.
But Hurtt and other Houston police officials declined to discuss the new policy.
"I'm not going to comment about the strategies and tactics that we use," said Hurtt last week.
The Houston Police Department has stepped up efforts to crack down on the local "spa scene." Besides the new policy, authorities are using organized-crime charges to prosecute owners and operators of prostitution businesses.
In exchange for testimony against the owners of the Wildflower Group and Escapes of Houston, authorities agreed to drop prostitution charges against all but one of the 50 women arrested during the Nov. 16 raids.
The businesses, said police, are among some 200 across Houston that advertise themselves as "day spas," "stress relief clinics," "massage parlors" and "modeling studios," but are really fronts for prostitution.
William Henry Costa and Mary Elizabeth Johnston, the Wildflower Group owners, were scheduled to be arraigned in a state district court Monday morning.
Former golf teacher Randall Jones, Escapes of Houston owner, was scheduled to appear in court later this month with three co-owners and operators.
Recently, growth of so-called "day spas" and "stress clinics" has caused a surge in residents' complaints about prostitution.
It had become almost impossible for vice officers to make arrests in such businesses because the workers, aware of prohibitions on police getting undressed, will not negotiate sex acts for money unless a man removes his clothes, Wilson said.
"The old street prostitution cases are easy, but the people running these massage parlors are sophisticated," he said.
Prostitutes' tactics are forcing police to the limits of acceptable practices to make arrests, said Charlie Fuller, executive director of the Clarkrange, Tenn.-based International Association of Undercover Officers.
"I can assure you that these undercover officers don't want to get naked, but they don't have a choice," he said, adding that many large-city police departments allow officers to get nude to make arrests.
But Robyn Few, an ex-prostitute who directs Sex Workers Outreach Project USA, said vice officers are fighting a losing battle.
"People need to recognize prostitution as a profession," she said.
A Brief History of Prostitution in Texas
PROSTITUTION. Prostitution has long been a feature of the Texas social landscape. In 1817, when Texas was still a Spanish province, nine prostitutes were expelled from San Fernando de Béxarqv (San Antonio). Spanish-speaking prostitutes resided in San Antonio from its early days under Texan rule. Anglo prostitutes joined them during the 1840s and 1850s, and by 1865 both groups were entrenched. Galveston had prostitutes from its beginning in the 1830s, while the city of Houston was barely three years old when, in 1839, a local newspaper decried the town's houses of ill fame. Gen. Zachary Taylor'sqv army was catered to by prostitutes during its eight-month stay in the Corpus Christi area before invading Mexico in 1846, and in 1850 an observer noted that the newly incorporated town of Brownsville was "infected with lewd and abandoned women" who kept "dens of corruption." Indianola and Jefferson, on the other hand, survived their first years relatively free of prostitution, but during the 1850s an influx of prostitutes spurred both towns to pass ordinances suppressing bawdy houses. Prostitution was thus not an uncommon phenomenon in antebellum Texas,qv but neither was it rampant. In many communities it was either unknown or occurred on such a small scale that little public notice was taken.