On May 3, two women were detained after Montoursville Borough police executed a search warrant on Jia Yuan Spa on suspicions that it was operating as a brothel. Police arrested one of the women and charged her with promoting prostitution, a third-degree felony. However, that charge has since been replaced with ten charges alleging a much deeper involvement in the business’s operation, including promoting prostitution, criminal use of a cellphone, and criminal conspiracy charges. The woman remains incarcerated at Lycoming County Prison where she awaits her preliminary hearing, scheduled for May 18, 2026.
The search warrant was obtained after a source told police he paid $140 for sex acts at the spa on two separate occasions, once on May 2, 2026, and the other six months prior. When investigators executed the search warrant on May 3, they discovered the two women they detained, along with a nude man who had $130 in his possession. Investigators seized $660 hidden in a cereal box, as well as credit card receipts, a transaction ledger, and bank deposit documents. Investigators also seized multiple security cameras found on the property. Additionally, police found several condoms and lubricants throughout the spa, and conducted a black-light search which revealed evidence of sexual activity.
The woman is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and she reported through a Chinese interpreter that she came to the United States between 2017 and 2019 and has been living with her husband in Allentown. ICE also detained a second woman, who could face local charges. However, the nude man discovered during the search of the spa has been released while investigators “determine if he was involved in the business.”
Thousands of illicit massage businesses operate throughout the United States. Illicit massage businesses provide a venue for commercial sexual exploitation, and the majority of victims who are trafficked through them are low-income immigrant women who are promised work opportunities and a better quality of life but then trapped in a cycle of cultural manipulation, fraud, and coercion.
The CSE Institute is disappointed in the detention of both women discovered at the spa and release of the nude man, who possessed nearly the amount of money allegedly being charged for sex acts at the spa. The sex trade relies on supply and demand: without sex buyers, there would be no market for prostitution. The CSE Institute supports the Equality Model to combat commercial sexual exploitation. The Equality Model directly targets demand by criminalizing the buying of sex, while decriminalizing individuals who are bought and sold for commercial sex. The Equality Model consists of four key elements: (1) decriminalization of the prostituted person, (2) criminalization of sex buyers and facilitators with a commitment to treating buying sex as a serious crime, (3) a public education campaign about the inherent harms of prostitution, and (4) funded, robust, holistic exit services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The CSE Institute encourages Montoursville law enforcement to focus their investigation on the buyers soliciting sex acts from the illicit massage parlor, not the people in prostitution.
The CSE Institute also encourages Montoursville law enforcement to conduct careful investigation into the potential victimization of either of the women detained in this case. The line between victim and offender is often blurred in sex trafficking situations. The victim-offender overlap is rooted in coercion, survival strategies, and trauma, not voluntary criminality. Understanding the complexity of forced criminality is important because criminalization perpetuates harmand can act as a barrier to a victim’s recovery. Ultimately, we hope that in combating illicit massage businesses, law enforcement will aim their efforts at sex buyers, while protecting and supporting victims.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.