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Bad Girls 2023

Pimp raped and forced teenage girl to sell her body at the Umbrella Hotel

 

Queens Post 

A Brooklyn man who trafficked a 16-year-old girl across Queens for sex—including at the now shuttered Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens—has pleaded guilty to an array of sex crimes and is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison.

Jordan Adderley, 32, pleaded guilty Tuesday to sex trafficking of a child, sex trafficking, rape in the third degree and other crimes for manipulating a 16-year-old runaway to perform sex acts for money.

According to court records, Adderley met the victim in September 2020 and rented a room at the Hillcrest Hotel in Queens where he taught her how to make money by selling her body for sex. He also had intercourse and oral sex with the girl at the hotel.

Adderley, according to the authorities, drove the teen to various hotels in September and October 2020 to meet strangers who would pay for sex.

He was busted by an undercover NYPD unit while prostituting the teen at the now-defunct Umbrella Hotel, which was located at 124-18 Queens Blvd. Cops found him in the parking lot waiting for the victim. When officers nabbed him, he had dozens of glassines of cocaine in his possession.

“No one can undo the trauma inflicted upon this young teenager by this defendant’s callous actions, but as a result of his guilty plea, secured by my Office, the defendant will serve prison time and be held accountable for these egregious crimes,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz in a statement.

City wants to allow massage parlors in residential areas

From the Department of City Planning:

The Health and Fitness Text Amendment eliminates the special permit that is currently required for gyms, spas, and licensed massage therapy – referred to as Physical Culture or Health Establishments in the Zoning Resolution.

The proposed changes could apply to a range of health and fitness businesses such as gyms, martial arts studios, indoor cycling spaces, yoga studios and licensed massage therapy studios.

Gyms and spas would be allowed to open and operate in commercial and manufacturing districts around the city. (Learn more about Zoning Districts here.) Similar to other neighborhood services such as restaurants, drug stores, and dry cleaners, these businesses would be allowed along all local retail streets. In certain commercial districts generally characterized by smaller establishments, gyms and spas would be limited to 10,000 square feet.

Licensed massage therapy studios would be allowed just as are other health care practices licensed by the State, such as physical therapy or outpatient doctors’ offices. These are permitted in residential, commercial, and manufacturing districts.

Well folks, Big Bird's gone bonkers.

On his way out the door, BDB wants to legalize sex work so badly he is now encouraging massage parlors to open up next to your kid's school, on your quiet residential street and in your apartment building. The City already does practically nothing to close illegal spas and massage parlors located along commercial corridors. Lifting restrictions on gyms and martial arts studios makes sense, but why we're inviting sex trafficking to proliferate in residential areas now is mind boggling. To tie this latest push to "COVID recovery" is a bit of a stretch.

This is making its way through the community boards now so you might want to make your thoughts known to them and your elected representatives.

Katz orders judge to liberate prostitutes from their criminal records

LIC Post

A Queens judge dismissed nearly 700 open prostitution cases at the request of District Attorney Melinda Katz Tuesday morning.

Queens Acting Supreme Court Justice Toko Serita granted Katz’s request to vacate the open warrants and dismiss the cases pertaining to people who have been charged with loitering for the purpose of prostitution and other prostitution-related charges.

More than 200 cases involved the now-repealed loitering statute, which had come to be known as the “Walking While Trans” ban. An additional 443 cases had been for other prostitution-related charges. Some of the cases go back decades, Katz said.

Katz, at a virtual hearing this morning, also asked Judge Serita to seal the cases – so that those charged would not have criminal records related to the cases.

Judge Serita thanked Katz for making the request and called it a “righteous decision.”

“This is an incredibly emotional moment for me as I have seen thousands of cases over the years in my role as the presiding judge of the Queens Trafficking Intervention Court,” she said.

Judge Serita noted that many of those charged had been victims of trafficking and exploited in the commercial sex trade. She added that the laws have stigmatized those charged and prevented them from leading full and rewarding lives.

“This is something we recognize that you did not need to do but did so because it was the right thing to do,” the judge told Katz.

Several defense attorneys appeared at the virtual hearing and waived their clients’ appearances.

Kew Gardens hotel is a den of crime and iniquity

Queens Eagle

 The bullet holes in the front door were the last straw. 

Five Central Queens elected officials have urged Mayor Bill de Blasio to convene various city agencies and address a spike in gun violence and drug sales at the Umbrella Hotel, located across from Queens Borough Hall and the Queens Criminal Courthouse. 

“The events we have witnessed over the last several months at this location have crossed the line from quality of life issues into safety concerns for the people we have the privilege of representing,” the elected officials wrote in a letter to City Hall. “Simply put, we need your administration to coordinate a multi-agency response to the problems at this location.”

The hotel has been the scene of two shootings over the past six weeks, prompting U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, State Sen. Leroy Comrie, Assemblymembers Daniel Rosenthal and Andrew Hevesi and Councilmember Karen Koslowitz to send the letter to de Blasio. 

The shootings, first reported by the Eagle, took place July 3 and Aug. 9. The victims survived both attacks, but gunfire from the most recent incident punctured the revolving door of the once-quiet hotel. 

“The situation is extremely dangerous,” Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal told the Eagle after a meeting at Queens Borough Hall Aug. 13. Representatives from the NYPD’s 102nd Precinct and Queens Community 9 showed up, but several other agencies blew off the meeting, Rosenthal said. 

“There have already been two shootings and the fact that we had a meeting and that most city agencies decided not to show is reckless and unacceptable,” Rosenthal said.

Father and son bankers own half the whorehouses in Flushing

 

 NY Post


A millionaire banker once hailed as a financial savior to Flushing’s Chinese immigrants owns half of the buildings housing alleged brothels on prostitution-plagued 40th Road.


“There is a nucleus and we happen to be at the center of it,” Eugene Morimoto Tsai told The New York Times about his father’s Asia Bank and their burgeoning Queens real-estate business in 2006.
Now the Tsais are at the nucleus of a hooker hotbed.


Four of the eight addresses identified as alleged houses of prostitution by business owners on the block between Prince and Main streets are owned by the 42-year-old and his father, Jentai Tsai, through their Asia Plaza Corp.


Although reps for the Tsais have claimed they did not know what their tenants were up to, large numbers of fines have piled up on their properties.


The bustling commercial district — a stone’s throw from Citi Field and an MTA/LIRR station — is overrun with Asian women propositioning men on the street in plain sight.
 
Councilman Peter Koo and local business owners have called for an NYPD crackdown.
The elder Tsai, Chinese but raised in Taiwan, founded Asia Bank in the 1980s and backed immigrant entrepreneurs who couldn’t secure loans from American banks. Asia Bank later sold for $126 million to Cathay Bank. His son spent part of his career at Goldman Sachs.


But while the pair accumulated rank and wealth, their buildings on 40th Road racked up seamy tenants and violations.

 Also...and holy hand jobs, Batman!:

NY Post 

 Several women busted in the sweeping Florida massage-parlor sting that snagged Patriots owner Robert Kraft came from China to Flushing to get licensed and learn the illicit sex trade, cops say.

Florida police believe workers at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter — where the 77-year-old billionaire allegedly paid for sexual services — and other parlors nailed in the probe are part of a bustling New York-to-South Florida pipeline.

Lan Yun Ma, who ran a parlor in Vero Beach, employed women from the Queens neighborhood and once lived a five-minute walk from its 40th Road red-light district, police said.

She has been charged with human trafficking in the Florida investigation.

Ma also faced trafficking counts in Oxford, Mass., in 2012, when “three Asian females were rescued from indentured sexual servitude,” according to a report.

She previously lived around the corner from the slim strip of 40th Road in Flushing where eight brothels operate and where Post reporters were openly solicited.

Lixia Zhu — who was hit with racketeering and money-laundering counts after a raid at the Therapy Spa in Stuart — got her massage license in Flushing, Lt. Mike Dougherty of the Martin County Sheriff’s office told The Post.

He said at least a half-dozen other women arrested there told cops that they had worked in Flushing.

“The one thing they have in common is home base is in Flushing, New York,” Dougherty said. “It’s the first point these women hit. That’s where they are getting documents.”

First Bezos, now this. Queens, it's where the action is!

Flushing's little red light district

NY Post


A tiny Queens block has become a booming hotbed of hookers operating out of at least eight Chinese massage parlors, The Post found.

The slim strip of 40th Road in Flushing’s Chinatown, just a short walk from Citi Field, has become a 24/7 destination for sex-seeking horndogs from all over the metro area, as “masseuses” brazenly compete for johns on the narrow sidewalks.

One former NYC crimefighter said he hasn’t seen such a dense concentration of flesh factories in years.

Non-Asian men are specifically targeted by the Chinese pimps, working girls and spotters who steer customers into storefront spaces or second-floor “spas” for hour-long encounters.
 
It’s the same block where a prostitute committed suicide in 2017 by leaping from a building as she was about to be arrested during a NYPD sting.

 The Flushing Business Improvement District says it’s identified eight brothels on that block, between Prince and Main, just around the corner from the Flushing Main Street MTA/LIRR station.

NYPD officers ran prostitution and gambling ring

From AM NY:

A retired police detective and his wife are accused of running a massive prostitution ring and illicit gambling business with the help of seven active NYPD members and 40 civilians, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said on Thursday.

Ludwig Paz, 51, a retired detective from the NYPD’s Vice unit, allegedly ran the day-to-day operations at seven of eight brothels spread out across Queens, Brooklyn and Nassau County. Using his knowledge of the department’s vice protocols when investigating prostitution cases, Paz set up new policies for accepting clients in order to help root out possible undercover cops, according to Brown’s office, and paid his contacts within the NYPD for information that enabled him to thwart raids.

Among the active NYPD members who are accused of helping Paz and his wife, Arelis Peralta, are Brooklyn South Vice Det. Rene Samaniego, 43; Sgt. Carlos Cruz, 41; Det. Giovanny Rojas-Acosta, 40; Sgt. Cliff Nieves, 37; Sgt. Steven Nieves, 32; Officer Giancarlo Raspanti, 43; and Sgt. Louis Failla, 49.

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said the officers “tarnished the NYPD shields they wore,” and betrayed the trust of all 8.6 million New Yorkers.

Between August 2016 through September 2018, the prostitution ring — with brothels located on Gates, Foster and Fourth avenues and 42nd Street in Brooklyn; on Liberty and Onderdonk avenues in Queens; and on Front Street in Hempstead — netted over $2 million in revenue, per the district attorney’s office.

Bayside pimp pinched

From the Times Ledger:

Three people are facing prostitution charges following an April 21 arrest in Bayside in which the alleged ringleader offered two of his “employees” to two undercover cops from Queens Vice Enforcement Division for sex acts in exchange for money, the Queens district attorney said.

Cheolryong Shin, 31, was identified in the criminal complaint filed by the DA’s office as the man who allegedly attempted to sell two officers on a full body massage complete with sexual gratification before being arrested alongside Ting Ting Wen, 27, and Yan Yan Hong, 40.

After Shin allegedly offered the services of the two women for a fee of $160, the undercover cops were led into the basement of a business at 211-54 45th Drive, where the fee was discussed again with the female defendants, the complaint said.

The location is an inconspicuous office space with no exterior signage indicating there was a massage parlor of any kind occupying the building, which also houses a dental business. It is on a quiet residential street west of Bell Boulevard.

Maspeth bar shut down for prostitution, drugs, gambling & counterfeit cigarettes

From NBC:

A Queens bar had its liquor license suspended after authorities allegedly uncovered prostitution, narcotics, illicit gambling and untaxed cigarettes.

The New York State Liquor Authority issued the emergency suspension of Huang Jia Inc in Maspeth Wednesday effective immediately, which prohibits alcohol to be sold or consumed on the premises.

According to the State Liquor Authority, SLA investigators and officers with the New York City Police Department’s Citywide Vice-Enforcement Division executed a search warrant of the bar on April 12. During the search warrant, investigators allegedly discovered 97 packs of counterfeit or untaxed cigarettes, jars and bags filled with the narcotic ketamine, records related to the sale of prostitution and illegal gambling devices.

The NYPD made nine arrests, including the bar’s owner, for criminal possession of a controlled substance. Additionally, a number of hazardous conditions were observed, including overcrowding, blocked exits and non-working emergency lighting, the State Liquor Authority says.

On April 14, the NYPD and SLA conducted a follow up inspection, making six arrests after allegedly discovering patrons with ketamine in three separate karaoke rooms inside the bar and finding patrons consuming alcohol after closing hours.

On April 16, the SLA charged the establishment with 22 violations of the ABC Law, including disorderly premises for permitting prostitution, gambling, trafficking of controlled substances, failure to supervise and for becoming a focal point for police attention.

Between March 15th and April 12th, the NYPD conducted three undercover operations where detectives posing as customers allegedly purchased narcotics, prostitution and gambling — all which formed the basis for the April 12 raid, officials say.

According to the NYPD, there was an alleged a pattern of criminal activity in and around the premises months prior to these incidents.

Show Palace shut down

From the Queens Chronicle:

Lawmakers and other opponents of Long Island City strip club Show Palace are celebrating this week after police shut down the problematic venue last Saturday.

Armed with a court order, officers from the NYPD’s vice unit walked into the 45-20 21 St. all-nude venue around midnight, ordered everyone to leave and posted a notice on the door, saying it had been shut down by the authorities.

The closure came a little more than a month after police raided the venue and arrested five women on prostitution-related charges — the latest in a laundry list of alleged crimes, including drug offenses and a handful of nonfatal shootings, that have either occurred there or were otherwise stemmed from confrontations at Show Palace over the years.

Pros busted at LIC strip club

From the Daily News:

A raid by the NYPD Vice Squad netted five prostitution arrests at a notorious Queens strip club early Friday, the Daily News has learned.

The Vice cops swept into Show Palace on 21st St. near 43rd Ave. in Long Island City just before 4 a.m., police said.

The officers arrested the women, ranging in age from 20- to 35-years-old, authorities said.

"Five girls arrested in one night? That’s not a strip club. It's a brothel with music," a police source said.

The strip club is owned by the same group that owns the Sin City jiggle joint in the Bronx.

Great history on this place.

Prostitute plunges to her death during sting

From the Daily News:

A prostitute jumped to her death from a third-floor window atop a Queens building while trying to escape arrest during an NYPD sting operation, cops said Sunday.

The 38-year-old woman was working in an apartment above a massage parlor on 40th Road near Main Street in Flushing Saturday night, when she agreed to perform a sex act for pay on an undercover officer, cop sources said.

She bolted out a window when the cop’s backup tried to enter the apartment and arrest her, cops said.

Other officers posted outside watched as she plummeted to the sidewalk below at about 9:30 p.m., cops said.

Peralta vs. prostitution

From the Queens Chronicle:

Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights is widely regarded as a hotbed of prostitution and human trafficking. And state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) wants to give law enforcement another tool to crack down on businesses acting as a front for the problem.

The lawmaker has introduced legislation mandating massage parlors to get a license from the New York Department of State that allows them to operate, a practice required for many businesses. According to Peralta, some — but not all, he emphasized — of the parlors are fronts for prostitution. One thing he pointed out about some of the businesses is that people on the street pass out cards for them late at night.

“The legitimate places are open from, like, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” the senator told the Chronicle. “These folks are open late at night. In particular over the weekend; one o’clock in the morning, they’re still operating.”

Many constituents weary of the massage parlors have complained about them to his office, Peralta added.

His bill would make massage parlors get four-year licenses from the state, which they would have to display, showing customers that they are complying with the regulation. The businesses would also have to get a bond or liability insurance.

Massage parlors operating without the license will not be taken lightly: The punishment could be paying $2,500 and spending six months behind bars.

The life of a trafficking victim

From the NY Post:

Sandra, 30, is one former sex slave helped by Sanctuary for Families. Kidnapped from her hardscrabble hometown in central Mexico and forced into the sex trade at age 19, she escaped her pimp-captor in 2011 and has received counseling, legal aid and health care from the group ever since. Wanting to protect her family, Sandra declined to provide her last name.

Here she tells her story:

On a good day, I’d only have to sleep with 30 men.

I always wore a tight, short skirt and stilettos. Alfredo was my “padrote” (pimp), and he arranged for different drivers to take me through Corona, Jackson Heights and sometimes Brooklyn. I would nod off in the car. I had a different driver every week.

On a bad day, when we left New York and went to Long Island or Connecticut, I couldn’t rest. One day, over the span of 16 consecutive hours in Boston, there were 80 men.

Alfredo beat me, refused to give me food or even water. The drivers he worked with advertised women on a “chica card” that they handed out to potential clients as they stumbled out of cheap nightclubs in Queens and Brooklyn.

I was also forced to hand out the cards to potential customers. Sometimes the cards had pictures of nude women. Other times they advertised children’s birthday parties. Everyone knew what the cards really meant; that the number on the back was to arrange deliveries of women.

We were delivered like pizzas.

Most of the men were day laborers. But some were well dressed, in suits. If they spoke Spanish, they paid $35 for 15 minutes, but if they spoke in English, the price went up to $45. For that price, the men could do whatever they wanted with me.

People think that prostitutes somehow enjoy what they do, but I can tell you that’s not true.

I had never been a prostitute. I did nothing wrong, but I was raped every day for the four years that I was a prisoner.

Fighting crime on Roosevelt Avenue is a long, hard slog

From DNA Info:

An ongoing effort to tackle crime and quality-of-life issues along Roosevelt Avenue in Corona and Jackson Heights should expand west to target problem bars and clubs in Woodside, lawmakers said Monday — likening the street at night to "old Times Square."

Elected officials called on city and state agencies to pour more resources into monitoring "bad actor" businesses along the corridor: bars that operate without proper licenses and attract drug use, prostitution and other problems, they said.

"Roosevelt Avenue is a vibrant avenue during the day," said state Sen. Jose Peralta, who's been pushing for several years to clean up the street, including a request to have NYPD lines redrawn so the avenue was united under one precinct.

"What happens at night is that it turns into something completely different," he said. "It's turned into the old Times Square, where you have prostitution, where you have $2 dance bars, where you have drugs, where you have fake IDs, and that needs to end."

While the stretch of Roosevelt Avenue located within Peralta's district has garnered much of the negative attention in recent years — including in Jackson Heights, identified as a problem spot for sex trafficking — its issues extend into Woodside too, officials said.

"Unfortunately, it's no different on this part of Roosevelt Avenue, a little bit further west," state Sen. Michael Gianaris said at a press conference on 65th Street Tuesday.

The NYPD did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The lawmakers say their focus is on getting the State Liquor Authority and the city's Department of Consumer Affairs to better enforce licensing rules, saying many bars on the avenue operate as dance clubs without the cabaret license that allows them to do so.

Peralta introduced legislation this summer that would increase fines for clubs that violate cabaret rules, and would temporarily suspend the licenses of bars found to be operating illegally.

Peralta wants Roosevelt Ave cleaned up

From the Daily News:

Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Queens) wants to clean up a stretch of 20 blocks along Roosevelt Ave. that bring in a “bad element” at night.

“It’s a vibrant place in the day ... but at night all kinds of illegal activity occurs, prostitution, human trafficking and more,” he said.

Peralta, who represents the area, wants the city to increase its enforcement of existing quality of life laws and up the fines for certain violations from $1,000 to $10,000.

Flushing couple pleads guilty to sex trafficking

From PIX11:

A couple from Queens and massage parlor manager have pleaded guilty in a “cross-county sex trafficking ring” after two women were forced to perform lewd acts on customers for several months, the Nassau County District Attorney said Friday.

Zhaowei Yin 49, and his wife Shuwen Ai, 47, of Flushing, pleaded guilty on Friday to two counts of sex trafficking, a felony, and two counts of promoting prostitution in the second degree.

Parlor manager Li Fei Leng, a 33-year-old also from Flushing, pleaded guilty to the same charges Tuesday.

Hoverboard seekers robbed at hooker haven

From the Daily News:

Two Long Island men made a late-night trip to Queens, hoping to buy a “Kool Wheels” hoverboard, only to find themselves ambushed, robbed and bound, the victims told the Daily News.

Brian Taylor, 40, and Walter Roth, 34, went to a home on 103rd St. and 33rd Ave. in Jackson Heights, a known brothel according to cops, on Sunday, answering an ad selling hoverboards for $100 to $200, the victims said.

As they entered, three men grabbed them from behind, one of them brandishing a black handgun, police sources and the victims said.