Spotsylvania Deputies Receive Sex Services in Prostitution Cases

Key and others said undercover officers need obtain only an offer of sex for money to make a case. "Most of the time, they can get [prostitutes] far enough where there's a solicitation," he said, "an offer of sex, which is far enough to put them under arrest."

Jon Gould, a criminal law professor at George Mason University, said of the sexual contact in Spotsylvania: "I've never heard of that anywhere else in any police department. You don't have to go through with the act to prove" solicitation. He called it an improper use of taxpayer dollars.

Smith said most "professionals" know better than to name an explicit act and a price. And with the Asian-run parlors that have periodically sprung up in Spotsylvania, he said, "they don't speak much English. There's not a lot of conversation." Smith and Spotsylvania Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Thomas Shaia likened the situation to investigators buying drugs from a drug dealer -- a necessary violation to prove a larger crime.

But police officials and prosecutors in many Northern Virginia jurisdictions said buying drugs, as undercover officers routinely do, is not analogous. Officers purchase drugs for evidence but don't use them. Likewise, the other jurisdictions do not allow their officers to conduct sexual activities with suspected prostitutes.

"Our policy has always been no, we don't do it," said Robert F. Horan Jr., Fairfax County's chief prosecutor for nearly four decades. "Normally, there is a conversation where you agree what the sexual act is going to be and what the price is going to be," Horan said. He noted that such a negotiation isn't too difficult because "there aren't a lot of Phi Beta Kappas in that field."

Horan added: "They've got to get some agreement. Otherwise, they're doing it for love."

Capt. John Crawford, an Alexandria police spokesman, said that the city's detectives might go so far as to disrobe but that once a suspected prostitute makes a move to "the guy's personal area," she is arrested.

Spotsylvania sheriff's deputies have shut down several massage parlors with the help of the Virginia attorney general's office, specifically its Financial Crime Intelligence Center. The director of the center, Edward J. Doyle, authored the affidavit for the raid last week on Moon Spa, which resulted in the arrest of two Fairfax residents -- Hae Suk Chon and Chung Hwan Choe -- who are alleged to be the spa's proprietors.

According to the affidavit, after receiving a tip about possible impropriety at Moon Spa, two unidentified Spotsylvania detectives promptly visited the spa and each paid $60 for 30-minute massages in separate rooms. A woman known only as Mimi gave the detectives a bath, a brief massage and then performed a sex act on them. "For her services, 'Mimi' was paid a $50 'tip,' " Doyle wrote. Police made two more visits with similar results.

Doyle said he did not want to comment on the propriety of sexual contact between investigators and suspects, referring questions to the sheriff.

Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) declined to discuss the investigative techniques of the case. "This investigation is a matter for local law enforcement," spokesman Tucker Martin said.

Key, the former Baltimore lieutenant, noted that he would have concerns for the officers' health, their psychological well-being and any difficulties such duty might cause with their families, in addition to the legal issues.

Smith said, "It's not something the sheriff likes his people to do, but in these cases, it's the only way to prosecute these people." He said his department's approach was not a secret since detectives had testified to similar experiences in trials of other massage parlor operators.