A woman told the XNA Police Steven Prager came to On The 밤알바 Fly Saloon looking for a massage. The woman left the private room of the salon for a brief period of time so that Steven Prager could get covered, but said that when he turned around to get the abdominal massage, she started touching her penis. The woman said Steven Prager entered the salons private room and got undressed, but lied completely naked on the bedsheets. The documents continue that a different woman soon entered the private room and began massaging one of the officers on the lower back on her bare skin.
Police charged Mycha Jones with felony trafficking, saying women in the spa told them that Jones knew they were engaging in sexual acts, and she kept most of their earnings to pay for their rooms and meals. By the time the police wrapped up the second operation, they had charged at least 30 women with prostitution. Martin County code enforcement officials are prosecuting similar solicitation charges against an estimated 100 other men who are said to be paying women, some in traffic, to perform sexual acts at four day spas located between Hobe Sound and Stuart. As of Friday, Kraft, nor 24 other men named in the arrests, had been officially charged with solicitation by a prostitute.
Officials will issue a summons to Kraft on the two counts of solicitation to procure prostitution, state prosecutor Dave Aronberg said. Jupiter Police Chief Daniel Kerr said at a news conference Friday there is video evidence for criminal acts for all of the people charged, including Kraft. At a press conference on Friday afternoon, JUPITER – Police Chief Daniel Kerr announced Kraft was among 25 men — 29 to 84 years old — facing charges for soliciting prostitutes at the health club.
In addition to seeking charges against men who visited the spa, Jupiter police arrested its owner, Hua Zhang, and its manager, Lei Wang. There, amid surf shops, a nail salon and a Thai restaurant, Kraft entered Orchids of Asia day spa and paid a woman to perform a sexual act on him, according to JUPITER-POLICE. Wang, who is accused of performing sexual services for Kraft, 77, at Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Fla., is charged in his own case with soliciting prostitution by running the business.
After courts determined the states surveillance video from a massage parlor was not admissible, prosecutors dropped charges against Kraft and other men charged with soliciting prostitution last year at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida. Yet in Palm Beach County, Kraft and at least 13 other men were charged with soliciting another person to engage in prostitution (a misdemeanor) after they allegedly paid staff members at Orchids of Asia to perform sexual acts. Masseuse Cheen Min-bi – one of the two women at Orchids of Asia whom Kraft is accused of paying for – was charged with one count of soliciting prostitution a sex act – and 10 counts of soliciting another to engage in prostitution.
In fact, it was women providing massages and sexual acts — the very groups authorities said they were there to save — who faced the harshest charges. Authorities said this week that many of the women came to the U.S. from China with the pretense of having legal jobs at spas, only to be forced into working the sex trade, often being restricted to storefronts, eating and sleeping there when they were not working. Police raided four spas on Miami Beach in August 2017 as part of an eight-month investigation into the human trafficking, finding signs that women working at the spas were living there.
Hollywood Police raided Bonita Spa in Hollywood in 2016 and 2017 under Operation Red Light, with two women pleading no contest to charges related to prostitution. The publicity surrounding the sex-spa raids reached fever pitch in February with raids in South Florida, which led to charges against New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who police said was caught on video paying for the sex acts. The Palm Beach State Attorneys Office said New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has been charged with two counts of solicitation to procure prostitution, days after police said surveillance videos caught Kraft during two visits to Orchids of Asia day spa in Jupiter, Florida.
Wang indicated he will fight any efforts to have her testify against him, dealing yet another crippling blow to prosecutors cases after a judge blocked them from using video purportedly showing Kraft receiving paid sex acts as evidence. While Krafts legal team has been fighting to get charges against Kraft dismissed, one of the alleged sex workers arrested during the raid, Lee Chen, remains in custody with ICE. In addition to videotaping Kraft, police said they have also had footage of John Havens, the former head of operations at Citigroup Inc., paying a price for sexual acts, as well as one person working for an Ohio-based CPA firm and a Pittsburgh business owner.
While state prosecutor Dave Aronberg did not offer any new details on how the women working at the Jupiter Spa came to the United States, the states prosecutor described how traffickers frequently attract women to come to America with promises of better lives, only to have them instead be forced to be sex workers. Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said that women cooked on hot plates and slept on the same massage tables, where they were forced to perform sexual services to between eight and 15 men per day. A medical examiner who visited one of the day spas noticed suitcases at one of the illegal businesses, Snyder said, as well as other indicators some women may have been living at the shopfront business.