Sting nets 10 looking for prostitutes

PALMER — A prostitution sting operation last week landed 10 alleged johns in jail, police announced Tuesday.

Detective Sgt. Kelly Turney with the Palmer Police Department said the operation was set up online with an undercover female cop posing as a prostitute. The johns agreed to meet for a rendezvous, set up a specific price for a specific service and were arrested.

“They showed up at a location that we had already arranged to have set up,” he said.

Turney wouldn’t get into specifics about exactly how or where the arrests went down. But, he said, prostitution stings aren’t common in the Valley.

“To my knowledge this is the first time something like this has been done in the Valley,” he said. “We’re going to continue to address this issue.”

He said there’s a lot of different ways to deal with prostitution and police have to look at more than one approach.

“Folks say, ‘How come you’re only going after the johns and not the girls?’ But, like I said, it’s a multi-faceted approach to be able to deal with any issue,” the sergeant said. “You have the same issue when it comes to narcotics. Do you bust the users to get to the dealers? Do you bust the dealers but not the users?”

Prostitution, at least around the Valley, is mainly an online phenomenon, Turney said. There are multiple websites to arrange a local rendezvous.

“We get complaints every once in awhile and I know that Wasilla had gotten some complaints about this sort of stuff going on online,” he said.

The operation, he said, was put on in support of Operation Cross Country, a nationwide effort the FBI spearheaded in 36 cities nationwide the same week as the Valley arrests. The FBI sought to tamp down on child prostitution and human trafficking and said in a press release that it had rescued 52 children being exploited for prostitution and arrested 60 pimps.

Though the Valley operation was different, Turney said, it’s a step in that direction.

“By doing this you’re able to interview those johns to find out, ‘Do you know of anybody who has underage girls or of anybody that might be basically enslaved to this life of prostitution?’” he said.

Asked if prostitution was a problem in the Valley, he said it was surprising to see how many people responded to the phony prostitute.

“By the number of phone calls that we received in a two-day period, I’d say it’s a problem,” he said. “Can we stop it? Probably not. Can we put a big dent in it and show it won’t be tolerated in the community? Absolutely.”

Arrested for soliciting prostitution were:

• Steven A. Brown, 58, of Wasilla

• Carl D. Cook, 44, of Anchorage

• Jeremy Firth, 30, of Wasilla

• Tyler Henslee, 31, of Anchorage

• Gregory S. Hutchins, 50, of Wasilla

• Scottie R. Mack, 27, of Wasilla

• Gregory C. Ray, 42, of Palmer

• Christopher J. Schoff, 46, of Eagle River

• Christopher Seeley, 31, of Palmer

• Vitaly Zhuchkov, 18, of Wasilla

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.