TodayEffect of prostitution stings still visible in area, DA says
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Article RatingSeveral years ago Cumberland County law enforcement officials started cracking down on prostitution at area truck stops.
The effects of those stings are still visible today, according to Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed.
“I can state firmly that we had a positive effect on the supply side,” Freed said.
Prostitutes are now less likely to come to the truck stops, he said, noting that much of the problem was in Middlesex Township, where the proximity of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 81 draws large numbers of long-distance truckers.
But, Freed said, that doesn’t mean there’s not still a market for them.
“We had a somewhat lesser effect on demand,” he said, noting that police still conduct anti-prostitution operations from time to time and usually nab several men.
The crackdown began, Freed said, while Merle “Skip” Ebert, now a county judge, was serving as the county’s district attorney.
“We have had several very serious incidents over the past several years related to prostitution, and mainly truck stop prostitution,” Freed said. “To those who call this a victimless crime, I would point out that we have at least two murders and one near murder directly related to truck stop prostitution not to mention innumerable drugs and assault crimes.”
In February 2004, a 16-year-old girl was found unconscious along the turnpike near mile marker 232 in Silver Spring Township. Ebert said the girl, who was injured, acknowledged that she was engaged in prostitution and that her assailant was a man she believed would pay for sex acts.
That June, the body of 44-year-old Vesta Haufe of Tennessee was found near the Plainfield Plaza in West Pennsboro Township along the turnpike. Pointing out a string of similar findings, authorities in several states said they suspected that there were two or three serial-killer truckers.
Before long, Cumberland County had started a series of stings that netted at least 24 arrests by the end of the year. Freed noted that the local operation also included undercover stings on some massage parlors and out-call massage services that were fostering prostitution. These days, he said, most of the arrests stem from truck stops or the Internet.
About the same time, federal officials conducted a sweeping investigation of prostitution based in Toledo, Ohio, By December 2005, according to the FBI’s Web site, 19 people had been arrested and more than 30 charged.
According to a press release from the Department of Justice, central Pennsylvania seemed to be a hub of the activity.
Carlisle Borough Police Chief Stephen Margeson said the stings didn’t have much effect on the borough, because prostitution “has never been prevalent here.”
“We know that in the past on and off we have certainly had some prostitution activity in the borough,” Margeson said, pointing out that most of the activity centered on the Miracle Mile and involved transients. But, he said, in the past several years “as far as the borough was concerned it was at a very low level.”
What few cases there are in the borough seem to run in cycles, he said, and he could not remember any major incidents in the last few years.
In Middlesex Township, however, police second Freed’s assessment that the problem has declined.
“We still see some of it,” said Middlesex Township police Sgt. Steven Kingsborough. “We still make arrests, but it’s not with the frequency it was before.”
Kingsborough said the truck stop companies have been “very cooperative” in the ongoing efforts to squelch prostitution.
“It makes it safer for the public, makes it safer for the truckers,” he said. But, he added, although police are fighting it, the problem doesn’t seem likely to disappear anytime soon.
“That’s just part of the industry,” Kingsborough said.
