Prostitutes and their patrons had better have second thoughts about using Secaucus as their base of operations. Several months ago, Acting Police Chief John Cerny of the Secaucus P.D. launched an initiative to curb prostitution within the town limits. Since then, the Police Department has conducted sting and reverse sting operations, arresting both prostitutes and their “johns.”
“Do we want to send a message out? Absolutely,” said Det. Mike Torres, who has been involved from the start in the anti-prostitution initiative. “We want to send a message that we don’t condone prostitution within this jurisdiction, for the safety of our law abiding citizens, the patrons, and the prostitutes themselves, because a lot of prostitutes are victims of human trafficking.”
Prostitution is not a victimless crime, he emphasized. It is one component of a larger criminal fabric, breeding assault, robbery, drug activity, coercion, and more.
Arresting the ‘johns’
After taking over from retiring Chief Dennis Corcoran on June 2 of this year, Cerny charged the detective division under Det. Capt. Mike Reinke with conducting the operations. In October they began with a sting operation and a reverse sting, each netting three arrests.
A reverse sting operation is designed to identify and arrest the patrons of prostitutes. “It’s not really that difficult,” said Torres. “Basically you just advertise on an escort service that you’re available.”
The online advertisement includes a contact phone number, which the Police Department sets up specifically for the operation. “They call the number,” said Torres, “seeking sexual activity with that person without knowing it’s an undercover.”
The patron is then given the location of a specific hotel, where a female UC, or undercover officer, is waiting.
“They respond to whatever room we have,” Torres continued. “They come in and they ask for the sexual activity. The undercover lets them know how much, they agree upon the price, the exchange of money is done and at that point the arrest is made.”
“This is a business of making money, whether for the prostitutes themselves or the pimps that control these prostitutes.” – Mike Torres
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“Everybody tries to use the entrapment statue to get out of it,” said Torres, “because what else do they have as a defense?”
In fact, entrapment is something else entirely.
“If a law enforcement officer tries to induce you or encourages you to commit a crime that was not your intention, that’s entrapment,” explained Torres. “Once you make the call, your intentions are to solicit prostitution. You voluntarily came to that hotel to meet that escort. If I convince you to do this against your will, that’s entrapment.”
On Friday evening, Oct. 3, the Secaucus P.D. held a reverse sting operation and arrested male residents of Union City, Fairfield, and West New York, charging them with soliciting/engaging in prostitution after they responded to an ad placed on a classified advertisement website.
A regular sting operation followed on Friday, Oct. 30. The goal this time was to arrest the prostitutes themselves.
“We pose as a businessman or a person in a hotel temporarily, looking for a little extracurricular activity,” said Torres. “We contact them and they agree to meet the undercover officer. They arrive and then once the offer of sexual activity with another in exchange for something of economic value is made, they are subsequently arrested and charged with prostitution.”
In the Oct. 30 incident, a 51-year-old woman from Jersey City and a 28-year-old woman from Hillside were charged with engaging in prostitution. The Hillside woman allegedly already had two active warrants for her arrest. A third individual at the scene was also arrested on an undisclosed active warrant.
Signs of human trafficking
The phrase “sexual activity with another in exchange for something of economic value” is key to the arrest. “It could be, ‘I’m going to buy you a car for sex,’ but the statute itself actually reads exactly like that,” said Torres. “It has to be for money. Because obviously if you meet someone and you want to go to a hotel and you engage in sexual activity, there’s nothing illegal. When you want to have sexual activity and get paid for it, that’s when it becomes a crime of prostitution. This is a business of making money, whether for the prostitutes themselves or the pimps that control these prostitutes.”
All the women arrested so far have claimed to work alone, without pimps. “However we’ve learned that although they say that, they may be threatened or coerced and they’re afraid to tell the police,” said Torres.
To that end, he and other officers have undergone training to identify victims of human trafficking. “Once the prostitutes are arrested,” he said, “we interview them and try to figure out if maybe they’re being forced, coerced, or threatened.”
“I have a contact in the FBI,” he continued. “We work very closely together and she’s usually aware of what we’re doing. And once we interview the prostitutes if I need any further resource, the county, state, and FBI are there to assist us at a moment’s notice.”
Why Secaucus?
So why Secaucus? Why do prostitutes choose to operate in this area?
“It’s not just Secaucus,” said Torres. “This is a nationwide problem. However, Secaucus has numerous hotels, and hotels do breed prostitution. If you have a mall and there’s a whole bunch of cars, the guys that steal cars will show up. If you have hotels, that’s where prostitutes do their business – hotels and motels.”
He added, “Most of the hotels do not want this type of clientele because it’s not good for their business. They sometimes contact us themselves and say, ‘We think this type of activity is going on here.’ We may use that hotel as part of the sting.”
Although Cerny announced his retirement this week after 26 years of service, Torres said, “We’re going to continue building what Acting Chief Cerny started. We may be looking to do something again very soon. Ultimately we hope that we do save victims of human trafficking and prosecute the person coercing or forcing them to perform these sexual acts.”
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.