On January 23, Homeland Security and local police arrested five individuals in connection with a “prostitution investigation” in North Strabane Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania. The arrests followed searches of two spas, Jin Spa and Yan Spa, by the local North Strabane Police Department.
Police stated that undercover officers conducted five operations between the months of October through January to investigate the spas. Following this series of investigations, police report they could confirm accounts of criminal activity at the two locations, which are purportedly owned and operated by two of the arrestees: Walter Mock Jr., 59, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and Jing Wang, 53, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Both are each charged with participating or controlling a corrupt organization in criminal activity, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities with intent to promote, criminal use of a communication facility, and promoting or owning a house of prostitution.
According to police, Mock allegedly brought “spa workers” back and forth between the two locations, while Wang allegedly accepted individuals in for massages and exchanged sex acts for money.
According to police, the three additional individuals arrested were employees accused of performing sex acts on undercover officers in exchange for money. These individuals are all charged with being an employee of corrupt organizations and promoting prostitution. Furthermore, two of the defendants also face indecent assault charges for beginning to perform sex acts on undercover officers before asking for permission.
The CSE Institute feels obliged to bring attention to the North Strabane Police Department’s abhorrent behavior throughout this investigation.
First, we want underscore that law enforcement should not arrest people in prostitution during investigations aimed at ending the sex trade. Oftentimes, people in prostitution are not making the “choice” to engage in the criminal behavior in a meaningful way. Rather, they are subjected to overlapping forms of force, fraud, and coercion pushing them into the sex trade, where they are ultimately exploited. Instead of targeting the supply of victims, law enforcement should focus on prosecuting sex buyers to decrease demand. If there is evidence to establish the defendants in this case as victims, police should not charge them for their own victimization and exploitation.
The sex trade is a market-based system that relies on supply and demand. Prostitution would not occur without sex buyers, who are the demand that drives the sex trade. Buying sex and sexual exploitation are inherently linked. Thus, to target the root of sexual exploitation, law enforcement must use their resources and efforts to target sex buyers rather than those being exploited in prostitution. Therefore, when officers are confronted with situations like these, it is important to determine if the spa workers are victims of human trafficking rather than suspects to target for prosecution.
Unfortunately, massage businesses are a prominent venue for illicit sex buying in the Commonwealth and neighboring states. The annual revenue for these illegal establishments is estimated at approximately $2.5 billion nation-wide. Victims in these businesses are promised work opportunities and a better quality of life, but then are trapped in a cycle of cultural manipulation, fraud, and coercion. The women sold for sex in illicit massage business are often immigrants of Eastern Asian descent, as are four of the individuals charged in the case. The complex vulnerabilities associated with race, ethnicity, immigration, and class often prevent victims of exploitation from immediately self-identifying as trafficking victims to law enforcement or service providers. For more information on the issues that illicit massage businesses pose and our proposed solutions, see our 2024 Annual Report.
Second, we are disturbed and baffled by the decision to charge the women from which the officers solicited sex acts with assault. According to reports, the officers charged these women with assault because they allegedly did not ask for consent before beginning to perform sex acts. However, the facts alleged state that the officers solicited sex acts. We are appalled that the women were charged with crimes for engaging in acts they were seemingly directed to perform by law enforcement posing as sex buyers.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the CSE Institute feels compelled to address the atrocious conduct on behalf of the officers who are reported to have purchased sex acts as part of a prostitution sting. Police officers, the very individuals tasked with protecting the most vulnerable members of the community, should never be permitted to buy sex—a crime in itself— as part of an investigation in their official capacity. In doing so, police themselves not only committed a crime, but furthered the exploitation of vulnerable individuals. Moreover, paid-sex sting operations increasingly exacerbate issues present in the sex trade, such as legitimizing abuse and re-traumatizing vulnerable individuals. Not only does this approach breed mistrust in the legal system but it also enables a power imbalance conducive to law enforcement abuse.
The CSE Institute has voiced its concerns over other policing strategies such as using confidential informants (CIs) to engage in sexual activity in order to build cases against prostituted persons. As reported before, engaging CIs or utilizing paid-sex sting operations could constitute outrageous government conduct. In fact, the Pennsylvania Superior Court classified this tactic as problematic in the case of Commonwealth v. Chon.
In Commonwealth v. Chon, defendant Chon—a prostituted person—was charged with promoting prostitution after police used a CI to build a case against her. In the case, the police on four different occasions provided a CI with money to purchase sexual acts and one officer even admitted to explicitly telling the CI he could have sex. On all four occasions, the CI purchased sex and the police then compensated him for his time, totaling $180 for all four visits. Additionally, the police admitted that they laughed with the CI each time after the CI purchased sex. The trial court granted Chon’s motion to have her case dismissed based on outrageous government conduct. On appeal, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed, finding the actions of the Pennsylvania State Police and their CI were “outrageous to the level of violating her right to due process.”
Pennsylvania courts should dismiss cases for outrageous government conduct in violation of the Due Process Clause if the police conduct was “so grossly shocking and so outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice.” In the case of an outrageous government conduct claim based on sexual misconduct, “the defendant need only show that the government consciously set out to use sex as a weapon in its investigatory arsenal, or acquiesced in such conduct for its own purposes once it knew or should have known that such a relationship existed.”
While the egregiousness of police conduct varies, the CSE Institute asserts the use of paid-sex stings at all to build cases against prostituted persons is outrageous. The police used the money “to engage in sexual activity” with prostituted persons. This act constitutes patronizing a prostitute directly in violation of Pennsylvania law. These operations go far beyond investigations and constitute direct violations of the very law the officers are charged with the duty of upholding.
Using sex as an investigatory weapon is arguably outrageous government conduct. At a minimum, the undercover officer’s conduct in this case, is a crime. Law enforcement should not commit crimes in order to accuse others of a crime.
The CSE Institute will provide updates as they become available.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.