News Sep 26, 2017 at 3:20 pm

City attorney Pete Holmes hired a hotshot law firm to defend his hardline approach to prosecuting sex buyers.

The building where SPD arrested more than 200 men for attempting to buy sex from an undercover cop. Seattle Municipal Court documents

Comments

1
Can't we arrest johns for not seeing an obvious sting?
3
was mitch levy involved?
4
Good reason to boot Holmes from office. Clearly a sane approach to the drug war does not mean he is free of that most odious of brain diseases, known as prosecutoritis. What is his opponents views on wasting public resources on this complete bullshit?
5
Oh, Seattle. You're so weird. I can shoot heroin in front of your kids at Ballard Public Library and then take a shit right on the sidewalk (ED: Actual events that I saw this summer) but if I want to get my rocks off, well...
6
So if a person is a non-citizen or poor and committed a crime, he or she get an out of jail card. But if a person isn’t poor or is a citizen, it’s open season?

Do this and rightwing nuts are going to get rid of the equal protection clause. It’s creating a separate judicial process depending on a person’s special class. That’s a very dangerous thing and will be misused.

I work with immigrants who are poor and some have been victims of crimes committed by other immigrants and they want criminals caught and prosecuted. Sorry, but the law needs to be applied evenly!

7
Oh Seattle you seem so progressive and then I am reminded you are part of the USA anti sex culture. Take the example of the Australian Capital Territory with legalised and regulated sex work. It saves lives and eliminates trafficking. Now if only we could follow your lead on marriage.....
8
Hot lady cops. Just sayin'.
9
"Debra Boyer, the Executive Director of Organization for Prostitution Survivors, says Holmes’ policy is fair."

OPS is the organization that offers the 10-week, $900 "Stopping Sexual Exploitation" course that is part of the standard plea deal for this crime under Holmes' watch.
10
Yeah, because adult-movie performers aren't whores . . . .* rolls eyeballs* . . . .
11
"he only wanted a regular massage"

Probability: low.
12
“Police arrested dozens while pretending to run a brothel” is the stuff evening news are made of.
In real life the only segments of population that get anything out of it are the local police department and the various TV stations.
Police force earns some sympathy for no apparent reason, maybe also a slightly higher budget for next year. News outlets increase their ratings for a night or two, and that’s about it.

Those highly publicized band aids are not going to stop prostitution nor make the conditions better to anyone involved on either side.
Time to legalize.
15
Since this is a new article, about as good a place as any to say goodbye to The Stranger. Bi-Weekly? Means Sayonara. It was fun while it lasted but nothing is forever.
16
I don't know Mr. B. Consider that 'feminists' who are against 'sex trafficking' likely have a great deal in common with throwbacks such as yourself. Shouldn't go burning any bridges now should we?

And we'll keep in mind that slogan about doing the time after doing the crime when you are picked up in some vacant lot off Aurora, doing something which certainly should not be a crime in any civilized society.
17
Paying someone for sex is now called "sexual exploitation"?

That treats the person getting paid as if they have no autonomy at all.

Pretending that all women who have sex for money are "sex slaves" being held against their will is absurd. When cops in Bellevue busted what they called a "human trafficking ring" were the perps charged with kidnapping, or forcing people into sexual slavery? No, they were only charged with "promoting prostitution".

If there are women out there who are truly being used as sex slaves, they should be helped and the people doing it to them should go to jail. But treating all prostitution as human slavery is stupid, and does nothing to help anyone.
18
The women brought over from Asia in Bellevue were trafficked. Some were paying off debts owed by their families, some were duped, and some were poor. These women were murdered, abused, raped, beaten up. It was all cute sex games. They didn’t love their jobs like the defenders here. Taking advantage of people’s vulnerabilities so rich a-holes here can get it on is not liberation.

It’s sick this attempt to make pimping, sex trafficking, drug & the skin trade, child prostitution ok by using poor immigrants as a reason. Thatt’s exploitation too. If legalizing prostitution is worthy, then push for it like pot legalization in its own merit.

Giving legal free pass without getting fair and safe labor practices is BS. That’s not helping prostitutes. That’s helping the exploiters.
19
Well this is a social justice dilemma. Immigrants rights, sex workers rights, or women's right. You don't get to pick three in this case.
20
That should be “it wasn’t all cute sex games.” I think Murray’s accusers weren’t sucking d***k because they enjoyed it. In my 30 years working and treating people, I’ve yet to meet a person who like fuc*ing for money or drugs. They hate it. They suffered major PTSD. Their children also suffered.
21
#18 the Bellevue police investigated for months, and the only charges filed were for promoting prostitution. Nobody was charged with murder, rape, kidnapping, beating people up, forcing someone to work as a prostitute, zip, nada, nothing.

After all that investigating, and the big press conference about human trafficking, why no charges other than "promoting prostitution"?

Probably because some people are scared that prostitution will become legal like marijuana, and they don't want to happen, so they are trying to convert all examples of prostitution into "human trafficking".

22
Try reading more news. Not just the bro brothers who got caught and now want to be superheroes and saviors. Better yet, start volunteering in shelters for abused women and working with women and children who are trying to get their lives together after this great "career choice".
23
"Khandelwal says the clients her office sees are “incredibly poor...""
And yet they can afford $100 hand jobs.
24
I would like to see the police charge people with slavery and kidnapping if they are going to have press conferences where they state those things are happening. Months of investigating, and no charges to match up with the extreme rhetoric. Why?
25
@18 I know those with your level of moral rigormortis are not real good with critical thought but consider this: if you are perpetuating the fraud that all sex work is 'sex trafficking' or 'sex slavery' then you are doing an extreme disservice to those who are actual victims of these actual crimes. I get that this is the new preferred tactic for the paleo-feminist temperance league (and their fundamentalist brethren) because hey, who is for 'sex trafficking'? Trouble is if you are indulging in blatant fraud to push your agenda eventually no one is going to take anything you have to say the slightest bit seriously.
26
I dated a few lawyers and paralegals that worked for Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. Fuckin-a do they like cocaine.
27
mallow- no denying there is sex trafficking and exploitations.
Legalization should also include pre screening of providers’ legal status, providers union that offers health care (including mental), an establishment that is allowed to have its own security, providers right to refuse service, and so on.

28
@mallow, thank you for your comments. The rest of you are ill-informed. A tiny percentage of "sex workers" are middle-class cam girls and dominatrixes. The vast majority of prostituted women are being, yes, sexually exploited.
29
Even if we accept for the sake of argument that all prostitution is exploitation, it wasn't the customers who put them in that situation.

If the undercover police women offered the sex for money before the customer asked, then that is entrapment, which invalidates the so-called crime by the customer.
30
@29, you can't claim entrapment unless the perpetrator lacked the "predisposition" to commit the crime. That doesn't apply to the guys who walked into this massage parlor. The Times story states that not a single woman ever did so, which suggests that the advertising was attracting people with "predisposition."
31
I fail to see how this is an immigration issue. How is it that the rights of an immigrant paying for sex are the focal point of this article while the rights of immigrant women often coerced into sex trade are not. While race and immigrant status are not irrelevant to this discussion, it seems misogyny shapes this discussion and this publication's stance on the issue more profoundly. Prosecuting the men who prop up a system which relies heavily on sex trafficking seems to me a worthy cause to support and pursue.
32
@31 Let's see, maybe that it is because this operation did not in any way involve 'immigrant women often coerced into sex'. It was a sting operation set up by the cops. Did you miss that?
33
i'd say the guy in the pic with the pony detail is a fan more than a sex worker
34
"King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell will hear arguments on Wednesday over whether to review the challenge from the City Attorney’s office."

Well, I think we all know how ex-Sex Crime Prosecutor O'Donnell will decide this one. our very own prosecutor with a black robe for show.

With O'Donnell, you might as well let Pete Holmes make the decision. O'Donnell has never met a sex worker or client he did not re-imagine as a predator and a rape victim.

That facts of the case will be entirely irrelavant to O'Donnell. Why bother having a hearing at all?

Please wait...

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