Last winter, King County prosecutors decided to get tough on a
prostitute—who had been repeatedly pulled off the street and
cited by police—and sought an unprecedented yearlong sentence for
the young woman. Months later, while the woman sat in jail, police got
hold of her black book. According to court documents, the book
contained a list of names and phone numbers, which appear to be the
woman’s johns.
Despite a new law that puts the emphasis on busting johns, police
don’t appear to have followed up on the information. Normally, this
wouldn’t come as much of a surprise—but in this case, the
prostitute was 15 years old. It follows that these men were not only
guilty of soliciting a prostitute, but also of having sex with a
minor.
Traditionally, law enforcement has not focused on arresting johns.
However, Senate Bill 5718, sponsored by Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles
(D-36), redefined underage prostitution by addressing the fact that
young girls involved in prostitution are victims, rather than
criminals. The bill redefines “promoting juvenile prostitution” as
“commercial sexual exploitation of a minor,” and increased penalties
for johns who patronize underage prostitutes. The new law can add an
additional year on to a john’s sentence if prosecutors elect to add a
charge of “rape of a child.” The bill took effect in July.
The Seattle Police Department claims there is an “open and active
investigation” into the teen girl’s case. However, several of the men
on the list who were contacted by The Stranger—who
admitted to paying for sex with the teen—say the police have
never contacted them. When The Stranger asked another officer
at SPD about whether cases like the teen girl’s are followed up on, the
officer quipped, “Yeah, on TV.”
Senator Kohl-Welles had harsh words for the police department.
“There’s no excuse for a police department not to [enforce] the law,”
she said. According to one officer at SPD, the department’s vice
unit—which handles citywide street-level prostitution—is
overloaded, with only a half-dozen officers on staff. Still,
Kohl-Welles isn’t letting the cops off the hook. “They can say they
don’t have enough staff, but they have to determine how they’re going
to follow up.”
Prosecutors did bust the girl’s pimp after they uncovered creepy
letters where he advised the teen on how to conduct herself. “Don’t get
in a car with tinted windows,” he wrote from jail. “I need you to be my
better half and continue to hold me down like you always have. We’re
Bonnie and Clyde now. It’s me and you against the world.”
The county filed charges against the pimp for “promoting
prostitution,” but again, it does not appear that SPD has contacted the
men identified in the teen girl’s diary. It wasn’t hard for The
Stranger to contact the men; all it took was one phone call.
A 43-year-old man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says he paid
for oral sex from the teenage girl after he met her at a Fred Meyer in
Shoreline. The man says he was suspicious of how young she looked, and
actually asked her to prove her age. Under the new “commercial sexual
abuse of a minor” law, johns are expected to make a reasonable effort
to determine a sex worker’s age. In this case, the man says he asked
for—and was shown—identification, which said the girl was
over 18.
More than a year after he first met the teenage girl, the man says
he remembers her well and seemed surprised when he was informed that
she was 15. He recounts that he regularly saw her on Aurora Avenue,
where she stood out from the other girls working the street. “You can’t
help but notice her,” he said. “You go down Aurora Avenue and you see
all these crack whores and these girls who are just out of it, then you
see someone like that—a very attractive blond girl—and
it’s like, wow, what’s going on there? She had a sweet disposition
about her. You know, she just seemed like a good girl.”
Another man on the list didn’t remember the teenage girl as vividly,
but he nervously admitted it was possible he’d picked her up. He said
he couldn’t imagine buying sex from a girl that young—although he
later admitted it was possible he’d picked her up—and pointed out
that he has two daughters of his own. Still, his name, work number, and
office extension were listed in the 15-year-old’s diary.
Seattle City Council President Nick Licata, who brought the idea for
SB 5718 to Kohl-Welles, was shocked to hear about the 15-year-old’s
case. “That’s horrible,” he said. “How are we going to stop
prostitution if we’re not going after the johns? If you’ve got their
names and phone numbers, it seems like fish in a barrel.” 
