NYPD busts 12 brothels rife with ‘inhumane conditions’ on Queens commercial strip: cops
The NYPD busted a dozen brothels rife with “inhumane conditions” in a weeklong Queens takedown, officials said Friday.
The department began investigating 12 “commercial locations” posing as massage parlors on Roosevelt Avenue – a major commercial corridor – due to “allegations of illegal prostitution activity” happening there, the NYPD said.
“The investigations led to undercover NYPD officers entering the storefronts on various dates where individuals agreed to perform sex acts in exchange for a fee,” the NYPD said.
Between Jan. 18 and Thursday, the NYPD executed court orders directing the temporary closures of the seedy establishments, cops said.
“It’s clear what is taking place there,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters Thursday, at the culmination of the operation.
“This is really bringing down the quality of life of this community and anyone who says this is a victimless crime, you really need to see the inhumane conditions.”
The unsightly conditions included a long row of filthy beds within the brothels, each separated only by curtains, WABC reported.
“This has been a calling for over a year now from community residents,” City Councilmember Francisco Moya said. “Local businesses are just frustrated with the fact that they have to walk these streets and see what’s happening out here in the open.”
No arrests were made during the series of shutdowns, the NYPD said – with the department’s assistant commissioner Kaz Daughtry noting that efforts are not meant to target the sex workers.
“We don’t want to lock up the women that work here,” Daughtry said during the Thursday press briefing.
“We want to get them help. Our job as the police department is to help them give them the services that they need so that they don’t [have] to do this. [There are] other types of work here in New York City besides doing this.”
The New York State Supreme Court issued the closing orders pursuant to the city’s nuisance abatement law, and the NYPD will litigate the cases to ensure that the storefronts will now be “used for lawful purposes,” police said.
The NYPD announced its Queens efforts hours after police said an NYPD recruit was busted on a patronizing prostitution rap as cops cracked down on an open-air sex market in East New York, Brooklyn.
