New Haven Independent

New details emerged Tuesday about the busts Saturday night that shut down Star Sauna and Orange Sauna on upper Whalley Avenue.

Police confiscated $30,000 in cash and arrested 12 people on prostitution and promoting-prostitution charges during the raids. According to arrest warrant affidavits on file at state Superior Court, some of the alleged prostitutes had been living for days at a time at the establishments, which were open from 9 a.m. until at least midnight seven days a week.

The 12 suspects appeared in court Monday and were released on bond.

They listed their various hometowns as Denver, Honolulu, and, especially, Flushing, N.Y.

So now the police investigation continues into whether the two establishments were part of a larger ring, according to Lt. John Velleca (pictured). Velleca heads the department’s tactical narcotics unit, which oversaw the three-month investigation that led to the arrests.

“We think it’s all emanating from out of state. We’re still working it,” Velleca said Tuesday. “We think they’re shipping these girls all over. We have to pin that down.”

“One guy goes around and sets up and these places and sells them off to a group of Korean females,” Velleca said. That man also had opened three massage parlors in Wallingford that were previously busted as brothels. So Velleca reached out to Wallingford detectives early on to help guide the New Haven investigation. Wallingford cops accompanied city police on last Saturday night’s raids.

It’s too early to tell whether the woman working at the “saunas” were there on their own free will, or whether human trafficking was involved. Velleca said the women were “scared to death” when the bust occurred; they didn’t speak with the cops.

$100 “Tips”

For years Westville neighbors have complained about Star Sauna, which is behind Dunkin Donuts near Ramsdell Street. It openly advertised in the erotic section of The New Haven Advocate and online.

In investigating the case, cops concluded that another establishment across the street, Orange Sauna, was affiliated and promoting the same business. So Velleca’s unit decided to check it out.

First it sent in a “cooperating witness,” a man who has helped detectives with undercover drug buys over the past two years, leading to the seizure of “large amounts of narcotics, along with weapons and monies derived from the sale of narcotics,” according to a July 17 arrest warrant affidavit written by Det. Elisa Tuozzoli.

Also, according to the affidavit:

The cooperating witness first went to Star Sauna as an undercover customer on May 15 at noon. The cops gave him $140. He spent 35 minutes there. Detectives stood nearby watching.

Later, at a “debriefing site,” the customer described what happened. He was greeted by an “older Asian female” in her “mid to late fifties, early sixties” and with “graying short length hair, semi curly/ wave style.” She told him, “Sixty dollars, plus tip.” That was a “house fee” for coming inside.

The woman — referred to as “Mama-San” — led him down a hallway past “five to six rooms” with closed doors, into a “private room” where a woman in a bikini greeted him. She said she was 23 and named “Kelly.”

She undressed him, then “escorted him into a separate room called the shower room, where she washed the cooperating witness’s body including his genitals and placed a towel around him.” Then she “told him to lay down on his back on top of a massage type of bed. ‘Kelly’ washed the front side of his body and asked him to turn over. The Cooperating Witness then had his back side washed.

“Afterwards, ‘Kelly’ escorted the cooperating witness back into the room where he had first undressed. She told him to lie down on top of a small bed. She asked, ‘You want everything? Sex, too?’”

“Yes,” the customer replied.

To which ‘Kelly’ replied, “$100.”

“How much for a blow job?”

“$80.00”

Credit cards accepted?

“No,” said “Kelly.” “Cash only.”

The customer “paid Kelly the $80.00 in NHPD funds. ‘Kelly’ then undressed herself,” and “performed oral sex on the cooperating witness,” who then left.

He did the same thing on June 5 with a woman calling herself “Bonnie.” And again in July.

With this evidence in hand, the cops obtained a search and seizure warrant prepared for last Saturday’s raids. They assembled around 11:00 p.m.

Advocate Readers Dish

A whole team showed up: Lt. Velleca, Wallingford detectives, and New Haven detectives. They set up surveillance positions. Velleca briefed the team.

They staked out the two establishments and prepared to enter each.

First they hit Star Sauna. Detective Ted Forbes was assigned the task of buying sex.

He took in three $20 bills. He entered around 11:21 p.m.

The “Mama-San” asked if he’d been there before. He said he hadn’t. She charged him $60, then led him to a private room, where a “younger Asian female” later came in. “She told him to undress,” then led him to the “shower room.”

On the way to the room, “the prostitute would announce their presence to the other females behind the closed doors as they walked down the hallway; as if they were warning them” to keep their patrons hidden from view.

In the shower room, the woman told Det. Forbes to lay on a table. She “began showering the undercover Detective” then told him to “turn over, at which time she continued to wash down the front of his body.”

She then “escorted him back to the room and began to massage him. Then she asked, ‘How do you like your massage; hard or soft?”

It was now 11:40. With no sign of Det. Roberts, Velleca decided the cops should go in.

They went inside to serve the warrant. Some of the women started “running throughout the business trying to escape.” One “jumped out of the window and ran down the driveway,” only to be caught. Seven women in all were arrested.

The detectives made it to Roberts’ room “and interrupted their dialogue as to the monetary agreement for a sex act.”

The cops caught three male customers “undressed” and “in the act of sexual activity.” They waived their Miranda rights and offered written statements. They said they’d been coming to Star Sauna and Orange Sauna for as long as a year to buy sex. Two said they first came there after seeing an “advertisement in the New Haven Advocate.”

Money “Left” In Car

Meanwhile, the undercover “cooperating witness” was paying a return visit to Orange Sauna across the street, again with New Haven cops nearby watching.

The “Mama-San” led him to a private room. She told him to leave the $60 entry fee on a table. He did. He “was then told to undress and was given a towel to wrap around [his] body … [U]pon undressing, a younger Asian Female subject who was wearing a torn blue jean skirt and dark colored bikini top entered into the private room.”

She asked, “What do you want?”

“Blow job.”

“One hundred dollars tonight.”

At that point the undercover customer said he’d left his money “in the car and would go get it and be right back.” He dressed and left through the back door.

Velleca then directed the team to enter the building. One detective knocked three times on the back door. “Police with a search warrant, open the door,” he called.

No response. “Detectives could hear persons moving about inside.” So they used a metal ram for fear that the occupants may destroy potential evidence.”

They rounded up five people, including prostitutes and the “Mama-San.”

The cops also found two male customers, a 38 year-old man from Naugatuck and a 48 year-old man from Hamden. They signed Miranda waivers and offered written accounts. Like the customers across the street, they said they’d bought sex at the Sauna that night, and several times before.

The johns found at the raids were not arrested. “We’re going to take advice from the state’s attorney” about whether to arrest them at some point, Lt. Velleca said.