Prostitution

The husband of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told authorities that he used the Internet to arrange a $150 sexual tryst with a prostitute at a metropolitan Detroit hotel, police said. Thomas Athans, 46, co-founder of the liberal TalkUSA Radio network, was stopped by police who were investigating prostitution at the hotel, according to a police report. Athans issued an apology.

WASHINGTON - The prostitution scandal that has embroiled the Secret Service is not evidence of a wider culture of boozing and paying for sex among those who are trained to take a bullet for the president, the director of the agency told skeptical senators. The senators challenged Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan to explain how it was possible, without an atmosphere of permissiveness among the agency's supervisors, that 12 agents could go out in separate groups on April 11 in Cartagena, Colombia, independently decide to bring women back to their hotel rooms, and then sign the women in at the front desk next to the agents' real names.

Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's call girl scandal prompted ABC News to give the go-ahead to a two-hour prime-time special on prostitution that includes Diane Sawyer's visit to a legal brothel in Nevada. The "20/20" special, which airs at 9 p.m. Friday, has been in the works for two years. It was expected to be on sometime in May or June, but ABC moved it up because Spitzer's resignation last week put the topic in the headlines, said David Sloan, executive producer of ABC's newsmagazines.

The woman at the heart of the scandal that has tarnished the image of the Secret Service worldwide called the agents she ran into “stupid brutes” in an interview with NBC's “Today.” Dania Londono Suarez, speaking through a translator, had nothing but contempt for the agents and their behavior in Cartagena, Colombia prior to President Obama's arrival for the Summit of the Americas. “They were full of themselves,” she said. “I'm not to blame for being attractive,” she said after being asked if she has culpability for tempting the agents.

Three Mexican nationals accused of smuggling women into the U.S. to act as prostitutes were arraigned Thursday on sex-trafficking charges. Adrian Zitalpopoca-Hernandez, 32; Eduardo Aguila-Tecuapahco, 25; and Carlos Tzompantzi-Serrano, 35, allegedly brought two women to a residence in suburban Vista and forced them into prostitution. The charges come after an investigation by the human-trafficking unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. -- Tony Perry

Two massage parlors may lose their licenses after employees were arrested on suspicion of prostitution in recent weeks. The South Pasadena City Council, which in recent years has wrestled with concerns about a proliferation of massage parlors, scheduled hearings regarding the businesses for March 7. South Pasadena police arrested Massage Villa owner Ling Ling Kuo, 44, of Alhambra on Feb. 10 on suspicion of operating a disorderly house....

Brothel owner Bobbi Davis got the go-ahead Tuesday to hire what her website cheekily calls "a few good men." Her Shady Lady Ranch is searching for "service-oriented" guys willing to become Nevada's first legal male sex workers. "I personally feel, as do the many other women who have made contact with me since I started this, that this is a service whose time has come," Davis said in a letter to Nye County officials. A county board's vote Tuesday affirming that Davis could offer "shady men" to her clientele followed months of rancorous debate among the state's legal brothel community.

In the ongoing search for a serial killer who has claimed at least 11 lives in South Los Angeles since 1985, police officials released a series of sketches Thursday that picture what the killer might look like today. The three new sketches were based on a description given to police in 1988 by the only woman known to have survived an attack by the man. Deputy Chief Jim McDonnell, head of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department, said he hopes the images will jog the memory of someone familiar with the killer.

Debby is tall and blonde and hardened well beyond her 18 years. She has a knife in her purse, a crumpled wad of $20 bills in her shoe and a bad attitude. Tonight she is working Harbor Boulevard, an Orange County hangout for prostitutes and pimps and the small-time punks who peddle their crack and heroin, and tomorrow maybe it will be Sunset Boulevard or San Diego or somewhere else. Debby is a prostitute. She doesn't really care where she sells her body.

Bina Badi tends her garden behind a picket fence. Goats leap. Boys fly kites. Water buffalo laze in the river. Idyllic, except for the used condoms that litter the road and the fact that men have visited her house virtually every day for 28 of her 38 years to enjoy her body, and she sees no escape. South Asia's caste system is infamous. The ancient tradition that once rigidly defined people's occupations continues to shape their social status and sense of self-worth. But few living under its influence are as degraded as the Badis of southwestern Nepal.

WASHINGTON - With eight Secret Service agents already forced out of the agency in the aftermath of a prostitution scandal, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate committee on Wednesday that investigators were trying to determine whether such conduct occurred on previous trips. "Part of our investigation is confirming that this was an aberration - or not," Napolitano said during an oversight hearing called by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The eight Secret Service agents retired, resigned or were fired by the agency for their alleged misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of President Obama's arrival for an international summit April 13. A ninth agent will have his security clearance permanently revoked, which would force him to leave the Secret Service unless he successfully appeals the decision.

Two more Secret Service employees have resigned and another two have been cleared as part of the ongoing prostitution scandal investigation. According to the agency, the actions Tuesday bring to eight the number of employees who have resigned or left the agency for alleged misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of President Obama's arrival for an international summit April 13. Three employees have now been cleared of serious misconduct but...

WASHINGTON -- An internal review found no evidence that White House staff members engaged in "improper conduct" in Cartagena, Colombia, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. Carney said the Office of White House Counsel conducted the review of White House staff members "out of due diligence" and not in response to a "specific credible allegation. " The Colombian prostitution scandal has consumed much of Washington for more than a week and led to rampant speculation, as reports of heavy drinking and hard partying among a Secret Service and military advance team have leaked out.   "There is no indication that the White House advance team engaged in any improper conduct or behavior," Carney said.

? Three more Secret Service employees who were involved in the Colombian prostitution scandal are leaving the agency, bringing the total to a half-dozen agents or uniformed officers who saw their careers cut short in a widening investigation of alleged misconduct. The latest casualties of the embarrassing episode "have chosen to resign," according to Paul Morrissey, spokesman for the Secret Service. He also announced that a 12th agency employee is being investigated, one more than previously known.

WASHINGTON - Three more Secret Service employees who were involved in the Colombian prostitution scandal are leaving the agency, bringing the total to half a dozen agents or uniformed officers who saw their careers cut short in a widening investigation of alleged misconduct. The latest casualties of the embarrassing episode “have chosen to resign,” said Paul Morrissey, spokesman for the Secret Service. He also announced that a 12th agency employee is being investigated, one more than previously known.

WASHINGTON - More resignations are expected soon in the Secret Service prostitution scandal. "It is our understanding the resignations could come today or tomorrow," Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday. He has been briefed by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. The Secret Service announced Wednesday that it was seeking to fire one supervisor tied to the alleged misconduct. Another supervisor is retiring, and a third agent will be allowed to retire.

Three scantily clad women paraded in front of the Ho-Hum Motel on Figueroa Street near 105th Street in South-Central Los Angeles at 10 in the morning. One offered to "make you happy" for $5. By 10:15 the women had left, scattered by a public health and safety task force sweep organized by the area's city councilman, Mark Ridley-Thomas. The goal: to discourage prostitution by using minor violations to target motels that cater to hookers.

Re " 'D.C. Madam' found hanged," May 2 As a lawyer who defends women arrested for prostitution, I see how devastating it is for a woman to be convicted for crimes that should not be regarded as violations of the law. I am not surprised that a conviction with a six-year prison sentence, for activities that hurt no one, could drive someone like the "D.C. Madam" to take her own life. Deborah Jeane Palfrey has now become a martyr in the cause of expanding personal freedom. Laws criminalizing prostitution among consenting adults are among the most hypocritical and oppressive in the criminal justice system.

WASHINGTON - Three Secret Service agents implicated in a prostitution scandal in Colombia - including two supervisors - are leaving the agency as investigators seek to determine whether the embarrassing episode led to a security breach. Officials said it appeared that none of the 11 Secret Service agents who allegedly brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena before President Obama arrived for the Summit of the Americas last weekend had weapons, radios, schedules or other potentially sensitive material in their rooms.