Up to 12 Secret Service agents were recalled from Colombia late this week after allegations surfaced that one may have been involved with a prostitute. more ›

On the very day that a D.C. Council committee is debating legislation that would allow police to further crack down on prostitution affecting parts of Ward 7, a candidate for the ward's seat on the council agreed to community service in the wake of a prostitution-related arrest late last year. more ›

The balloon effect seems to apply to the District's efforts to crack down on prostitution, writes WAMU reporter David Schultz in a must-read piece today. Crack down in one place, and it'll simply appear elsewhere. more ›

The Post has got some intimate details on why a candidate for the Ward 7 seat on the D.C. Council was arrested in December, while the City Paper went ahead and Xtranormalized it. more ›

According to both the Post and City Paper, Ward 7 D.C. Council hopeful Kevin Chavous, Jr. was arrested late last week for allegedly soliciting a prostitute. more ›

Under current D.C. law, prostitution is illegal. Simple enough, right? Well, no. more ›

Today's crime roundup includes a murder-suicide, glass for diamonds, a nude tase, and a young father facing a 30-year sentence in the death of his infant son. more ›

Remember Pamela Goins? She was the Metro custodian who, in 2008, was fired for her role in a prostitution ring at the Farragut North station. That didn't stop her from getting another job working for WMATA, though. more ›

It doesn't appear as if the story about undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers getting naked rubdowns while investigating city brothels is going to be going away anytime soon. more ›

Massage parlors offering a wide variety of illegal sexual services are, as we've detailed in the past, common in the District of Columbia. In turn, investigating such parlors is hardly new territory for the undercover units of the Metropolitan Police Department. But are undercover cops getting a little too close for comfort while covertly soliciting sex workers? A report in the Washington Times suggests they might be. more ›

While I was perusing weekend arrest digests from the District's police listservs last night, I noticed that there had been a uncommonly large number of arrests on prostitution charges in Petworth on Saturday night. 12 people were arrested and charged with solicitation around the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Taylor Street NW between 9:09 and 11:57 p.m. that evening. It's an area that, according to Lieutenant John R. Haines of the Fourth District Vice Unit, police have had their eyes on for some time. "In a very short time, we were able to identify and arrest several female suspects in the area and charge them with prostitution-related offenses," said Haines in an email explaining the bust to the MPD-4D listserv. "Then, we deployed several undercover officers (female), posing as potential prostitutes in order to target the 'Johns'. Over the next several hours, we were able to arrest several subjects and charge them with prostitution-related offenses as well." Haines called the sting "very effective" -- with 12 arrests made in a little over four hours, its hard to argue with that assessment. more ›

An undercover sting operation resulted in two arrests at M Street Spa downtown yesterday. Police charged a woman working at the spa with soliciting prostitution and arrested a man for the unlawful operation of a massage parlor -- essentially for operating a house of prostitution. No one is answering the telephone at M Street Spa, which is located at 1829 M Street NW on the third floor. more ›

It's been at least a few years since we had a good crackdown on any of the city's "happy ending"-style massage parlors, but the wait is no more: D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has ordered five such businesses shuttered, as D.C. Wire reported last night. If you've been frequenting any of the "technicians" at Orange Spa (617 Pennsylvania Avenue SE), Star Spa (1829 M Street NW), or VIP Spa (719 8th Street SE & 1429 Parkwood Place NW), you'll have to take your business elsewhere, because they're now closed. Also included in the closure list is the "D.C. Wrestling Club" at 1618 14th Street NW, aka the gay sex club where a man died in October. more ›

Over the weekend, Aaron picked up a story about D.C.'s Prostitution Free Zones that's been making the rounds on the internet. Privacy and safe sex advocates are worried about the results of a sex worker survey that purports that carrying more than two condoms inside a declared Prostitution Free Zone could lead you to be arrested for prostitution. more ›

Yes, we all had a good laugh about the enforcement of "prostitution free zones" during last year's Inauguration festivities. But a DCist reader emailed this morning to point our attention to this post at change.org which strikes a much less whimsical chord. more ›

With a hat tip to the City Paper's Mike DeBonis, today we find that one of our esteemed D.C. Council members isn't just complaining about a congressional amendment that would gut the District's gun laws -- he's trying to get even with one of its sponsors. more ›

Reader Jason Cragg sent over this capture of a sign placed at 5th and Eye Streets NW, right in the middle of Inauguration Island. You're reading it right: portions of downtown have been declared a "Prostitution Free Zone" for the Inaugural celebration period. The best part? It has an expiration date, as though at all other times, hookers have free reign over downtown Washington -- hey, at least the MPD is honest. more ›

You asked for it, and now the Post is dishing it up. Sharon Waters, 42, who was fired as the manager of the Dupont Circle Metro station after she was caught in a sex sting operation, has agreed to attend a court-approved diversion program for prostitutes. If she successfully completes the program, which involves two days a week of therapy over four months, solicitation charges against her will be dropped. The other Metro employee involved in the sting, custodian Pamela Goins, is scheduled to appear in court on Friday. Both Waters and Goins were fired from Metro. more ›

The local Tampa Bay FOX affiliate, FOX13, is reporting that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known in the media as the D.C. Madam who was last month convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering, has been found dead in Tarpon Springs, FL, of an apparent suicide. more ›

If the D.C. Madam is convicted and no one cares, does she make a sound? Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called D.C. Madam who got every Washington watcher all hot and bothered last year over her impending trial and purported client list, and then proceeded to bore everyone to tears with how mundane the scandal turned out to be, was found guilty today on charges of racketeering, mail fraud and money laundering. Not that you probably cared one way or the other. We know we didn't. more ›

A user on the Washington, D.C. page of the USASexGuide's massage parlor online discussion forum was kind enough to link to a post of ours earlier this week, at which point we were alerted to the web site's existence. And boy oh boy, does it contain mounds of helpful/hilarious information about which Asian massage parlors in the District offer the best "full service" technicians. In other words, this is a chat room for men to share with each other where they can find massage parlors that trade in sex workers. Some of the terms used, along with some small images at the top of the page, are NSFW, so proceed with some caution when you follow this link. UPDATE: It should be noted that not every single one of the massage parlors mentioned are necessarily "Asian". The vast majority of posters on this web site refer to AMPs, or Asian Massage Parlors, but there do appear to be some establishments mentioned that employ women who are not Asian. more ›

It's always exciting when major sex scandals elsewhere turn out to have local connections. If you somehow haven't been inundated with the news already for the past couple of hours, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has publicly apologized after having been caught on a federal wiretap arranging for a prostitute to meet him in a hotel room. Turns out, the hotel room in question was right here in D.C., though it's unclear which hotel that might have been. Spitzer stayed at the historic Renaissance Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Ave. on Feb. 13, the night in question, but hotel records show the room number the prostitute allegedly visited was registered under a different name that night. more ›

Third District Police Commander Larry McCoy sent out the following announcement of arrests related to a prostitution ring working out of the Washington Plaza Hotel in Thomas Circle.

The Prostitution Enforcement Unit (PEU), under the direction of Insp. Brian Bray, conducted a hotel operation at the Washington Plaza Hotel targeting adult and juvenile prostitutes and johns. The operation took place at # 10 Thomas Cir. NW. As a result of the operation 11 individuals were arrested. There were no other incidents that occurred during the operation.