YORK, Pa. AP β Inside the bedroom, Heather Strausbaugh sat talking with her client β the conversation ranged from nightlife and bars to their families. The man seemed nervous. But, eventually, he took off his clothes and laid beside her on the bed. Minutes later, police officers barged through the front door, and saw the young woman, naked holding a blanket wrapped around her body, and the man she had just been in bed with was walking toward them.
He was an undercover police officer. Now, Strausbaugh was under arrest. And they even found an online ad confirming their suspicions. And the listing was on Backpage. Strausbaugh argued that what she had been doing was legal β there was never an exchange of money for sex. But a jury disagreed, finding that what had been happening was clearly prostitution.
At what point do they stop? Several of these cases ended with someone being sentenced to probation or ordered to pay fines and court costs. Every time a person is prostituted, experts say, he or she is further victimized. The Pennsylvania Superior Court examined the question of whether someone needed to actually have sex to be found guilty of prostitution in Fredericks gave her the money and then placed her under arrest.
The woman was found guilty of prostitution. Spaeth Jr. Police departments and their policies. The York Daily Record filed Right-to-Know Law requests with more than 25 police departments in Pennsylvania, including all of them in York County, for copies of written memos, procedures and policies on how police officers are to conduct prostitution investigations.
Many did not have policies. One emphasized that it rarely encounters prostitution in its jurisdiction. But other police departments that have recently conducted these investigations did not have any policies, either. Tom Kelley, a defense attorney in York, likened prostitution cases to undercover drug investigations. Kelley previously served as first assistant district attorney and was on the York County Court of Common Pleas from to Sometimes, he said, police officers have to be smarter than their adversaries.
