Months after New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution at a Jupiter day spa, legislators take action.
Months after a high-profile prostitution bust netted New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft on charges of soliciting sex at a Jupiter spa, a new state law aims to drive down demand in the sex trade industry and curb human trafficking.
Ron DeSantis on June 27 signed into law a requirement that spas and hotels teach staff to spot signs of sex trafficking and all law enforcement officers complete four-hour training on how to investigate the crime. The charges against him nonetheless shone a national spotlight on an industry experts say has operated in the shadows for decades. The new law takes direct aim at brothels operating out of spas: Owners now must report the names of spa managers to the state, making it more difficult to reopen a massage business under a new name and license after a prostitution raid.
In March, The Palm Beach Post used signs spelled out by police — offers of sex acts online, health inspections and complaints from neighbors — to identify 95 massage parlors in the county that matched the pattern of those busted in Jupiter and Martin County, which investigators once suspected were part of elaborate sex trafficking networks.
Police in February said some women lived in the spas while operators often shuffled them across county lines to work at other locations. Prosecutors in Palm Beach, Martin, Indian River and Orange counties charged Kraft and dozens of other men with soliciting prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor. But video shot inside massage parlors to build their cases have been tossed out in Palm Beach and other counties.
