http://bergennow.com/…

RAMSEY, NJ – A large-scale prostitution ring operating throughout the Bergen and Rockland County areas was shut down yesterday, authorities say.

The reported ringleader, John Lanza, 42, of the Bronx, was arrested on Wednesday, June 3 at approximately 3:30 p.m. on the charge of promoting prostitution. Also arrested, on the charge of engaging in prostitution, were Wol Lee, 28, of Queens, NY, and Hye Yeun Bang, 37, also of Queens.

According to authorities, the arrest stemmed from an investigation in which John Lanza was operating a large scale prostitution organization throughout the Bergen and Rockland County areas. Utilizing Internet advertisements and area hotels, Lanza would arrange for encounters where persons would either engage in or facilitate prostitution.

The arrests came about as a result of an investigation conducted by members of the Ramsey Police Department, under the direction Chief Bryan Gurney; numerous local law enforcment officers from the Bergen County Police Department and the police departments of Fort Lee, Saddle River, Hillsdale, Rochelle Park, River Vale, Park Ridge, Ridgewood, Bogota, and Tenafly; and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Task Force.

The suspects have all been released on their own recognizance.

And where’s the victim?

No victim, no crime. Aren’t there some actual crimes these cops could be investigating? Some theft or murder cases they could be working on? I somehow doubt all natural crime in the Bergen and Rockland County area has been eradicated.

http://online.wsj.com/…

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.

“While I don’t necessarily disagree with Gil’s focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don’t want to see it at the expense of law enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences.”

1. You can’t convince people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product’ because that’s impossible and just as ridiculous as a ‘war on terror’ or ‘war on a tactic.’ They see it as a war on them because it is. Drug and products exist only because people desire them. You must go after the actor behind the drug or product. The user or seller or manufacturer. Whenever you prohibit something you will enveitably make that problem worse and cause negative side effects you didn’t account for. Whether that be drugs, guns, prostitution or fast food.
2. While forced treatment is likely better than forced incarceration you will still have asset forfeiture happening. You’re still forcing people to do something against their will for what was likely a consensual, non-violent, voluntary ‘crime.’
3. Treating it as a ‘health’ issue doesn’t make me feel any better. Health in general but specifically mental health has been a tool used by violent fascist governments throughout time to remove those who they disagreed with. Many states in the USA practiced eugenics before Hitler or anyone else. Many regimes would use vague mental ‘disorders’ to lock up political advisories in padded rooms and in most countries including the United States you can be held practically forever without the same well documented legal rights that a normally imprisoned individual has. Not that that always helps.
4. Medical-marijuana dispensary raids? Oh yes because that promise was so well kept. I’m totally going to just ignore all of Obama’s lies and believe his drug ‘czar’ on this one.
5. This has been said many times but… czar? Really? Must they be so blatantly power hungry? I’ve no doubt these guys think of themselves as little emperors. It’s sick.
6. Even if treatment goes up will incarceration go down? Will he ask Obama to release/pardon all or some or even one of the non-violent federally held drug ‘criminals?’ The USA has the largest prison population both in total number of prisoners and per capita. The prison system is one of the fastest growing industries. To make room for non-violent drug offenders California last I heard was planning on releasing violent prisoners out early. Seems wrong on several levels.
7. Oh… and what about obeying the actual laws of the land Mr. Kerlikowske? You know… the US Constitution? The 9th and 10th Amendments. Would you be so kind as to point out the section in Article 1 that gives congress the power to pass such prohibitions?
8. Of course James Pasco is wary of the proposed changes. As he says: “I don’t want to see it as an expense of law enforcement.” What he really means is that he doesn’t want the war on drugs to shrink because then he may not get the funding or get to use his fun SWAT equipment as much. Can’t have a reduction in the police state. Gotta keep them boys employed. Can’t make it look like they aren’t enforcing the rule of law. Even though they are breaking their oath to be peace officers and to the Constitution regularly.

http://www.nj.com/…

South Brunswick police raided a massage parlor in Dayton today, seizing thousands of dollars and accusing the owner and staff of prostitution.

The bust of June Spa II in Liberty Mall on Route 522 comes two years after cops raided the same location three times when it was operated under different names, according to township police.

Because of the recurring issues, police said, they charged the owner of the property, Tobia Scotto Daniello, of North Brunswick, with maintaining a nuisance.

Detectives started looking into the businesses after Mayor Frank Gambatese’s office received an anonymous complaint that it was a front for prostitution, a department news release said.

When officers executed a search warrant, they seized records, nearly $2,000 in cash, records and approximately $5,000 dollars worth of property.

Arrested in the raid were business owner Mi Hee Lee, 56, of Palisades Park; Manager Susan Kim, 58, of Fort Lee; and Ae S. Son, 60, of Flushing, N.Y. They were held on $2,500 bail.

Sounds like a real dangrous group. So proud their business is destroyed, the employees are for the time jobless and these people perhaps will end up in jail.

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/…

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn’s home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

All this is according to a lawsuit filed in Galveston federal court by Milburn against the officers. The lawsuit alleges that the officers thought Dymond, an African-American, was a hooker due to the “tight shorts” she was wearing, despite not fitting the racial description of any of the female suspects. The police went to the wrong house, two blocks away from the area of the reported illegal activity, Milburn’s attorney, Anthony Griffin, tells Hair Balls.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond’s school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.

“I think we’ll be okay,” says Griffin. “I don’t think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who’s just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she’s a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She’s scared to death.”

Since the incident more than two years ago, Dymond regularly suffers nightmares in which police officers are raping and beating her and cutting off her fingers, according to the lawsuit.
Griffin says he expects to enter mediation with the officers in early 2009 to resolve the lawsuit.

We’ve got calls in to the officers’ lawyer; we’ll let you know if we hear something.

Update: This is from the officers’ lawyer, William Helfand:

Both the daughter and the father were arrested for assaulting a peace officer. “The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off.”

Also, “The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances,” Helfand says. “It’s unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest.”

Yay war on prostitution! Keeping the fatherland safe.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

When one walks into a business, most often you are greeted. As part of treating customers as their very livelihood, companies usually enact policies that make it a requirement for employees to acknowledge the arrival of a client or customer.

Imagine, however, if instead of getting a “hello” or “good morning,” the manager of the store asks you to greet him. Further, imagine if the manager holds you at gunpoint and threatens you with imprisonment. Assuming you could escape, chances are that you’d never go back to that store. Yet this is what happens in the courts.

Virtually everyone in the courtroom has to rise when the judge enters. Failure to do so might result in contempt of court – you can get a fine or be sentenced to jail time for your audacity. This is, of course, absurd. First of all, government courts are financed through taxation. People who do not use the system at all, for example, still have to pay. This is a form of redistribution, also known as socialism. Aside from the fact that the resources to run the system are extracted aggressively, often the accused are victims rather than victimizers.

Laws and ordinances regulating peaceful drug or firearm possession or usage, municipal codes regulating assembly, zoning, prostitution and gambling, for example, violate no rights and therefore have no victims. Thus, when an innocent person is brought (violently or through the threat thereof) to one of those government courts, the last thing one expects is to be further humiliated by having to stand for the judge. If anything, the judge should be kissing the defendant’s feet and begging for forgiveness.

We should not be surprised that the state does whatever possible to ascertain its aggressive political power in every instance; the courtroom is not an exception. Perhaps in the old days it was customary to rise for the judge. So what? Today, however, I see this not as a gesture of respect but as a demand for obedience. The judge, a state bureaucrat, has no authority over anyone. Prove that the judge and the court deserve any respect. After all, they were the ones (along with the legislative and executive branches) to kidnap people from their homes, families and places of employment, only to be dragged to face “justice.” Show that, especially in the case of victimless crimes, the defendant should stand for the judge. The concept of contempt of court, so long as the state holds a monopoly over this institution, is a farce. I believe is the court, along with all the thugs it employs, who is in contempt.

Anyone willing to show the violence of the court by refusing to obey is a hero. Rising for the judge is bowing to the state.

November 17, 2008

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

http://www.nbc10.com/

EASTON, Pa. — The Easton City Council is considering a law that would let the city permanently seize the car of anyone caught cruising for a prostitute.

However, it is unclear if such a law would hold up in court. Easton defense lawyer Gary Asteak said the city cannot impose a severe penalty for what state law calls a misdemeanor. Still, Pennsylvania law lets police seize cars used in drug deals.

Police Chief Larry Palmer said he doesn’t know how the courts will rule, but said such a law is worth trying. Once a few cars are seized, it will make people think twice about going into Easton to find a prostitute, Palmer said.

What if you are cruising on a bicycle? A skateboard? Better yet, what if you approach a prostitute while taking a mid-afternoon stroll? Will they seize your sneakers?

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults. Period.

Government should not only be kept out of the bedroom, but also out of the backseat of some guy’s Chevy.