Don't have an account yet? Get the most out of your experience with a personalized all-access pass to everything local on events, music, restaurants, news and more. A detective in a massage-parlor sting was nude when he began receiving what court records call a "hand job" from a suspect in May, but Glendale police insist that the officer stayed within policy. The incident during an undercover operation demonstrates the fine line officers must walk to make busts when their targets know the rules of the game.
Getting nude or performing sex acts with prostitution suspects has raised controversy in Arizona and other states in the past, such as in the bungled sting by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that resulted in cases against 60 defendants getting tossed. The probe culminated in raids last Wednesday on businesses and homes in Glendale, Scottsdale, and Phoenix.
Four Chinese women in their 40s and 50s were arrested on suspicion of operating a house of prostitution, illegal control of an enterprise, money laundering, and conspiracy. The suspects made millions of dollars since , taking bulk cash to China on airplanes before filtering it back into U. Officers with the Glendale, Chandler, Scottsdale, and Phoenix police departments helped make the case by using video surveillance, combing through accounting records found in trash, and sending undercover officers into the massage parlors.
But in at least one instance noted on a booking sheet submitted to the Maricopa County Superior Court, a detective stripped down and received a massage before the suspect began giving him a "hand job. The suspect, year-old Ding Hengxia, had the undercover officer "roll over and after doing so Hengxia began to masturbate hand job without solicitation or an agreed price.
New Times ' inquiries about this statement in the public record have created consternation among officials at Glendale police officials and the Arizona AG's office. Officer Tracey Breeden, spokeswoman for Glendale police, said the info in the booking sheet about what happened between the detective and suspect was "incorrect," and that questions about the court record should be directed to the AG's office.
