Wealthy Clientele in the County Continue to Lure Prostitution : Vice: Officials say escort services have targeted this affluent area. They also report an increase in drug addicts and homeless women selling themselves on the streets.

STANTON —  It was lunchtime and Orange County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Steve Howieson had plans. He was meeting an attractive young woman named Michelle at a motel. It was strictly business: $250 in exchange for sex.

Once the terms were agreed upon and the clothes hit the floor, Howieson arrested Michelle on suspicion of prostitution.

“This type of thing happens all the time,” Howieson said after the arrest.

Despite the AIDS epidemic, the recession and occasional police crackdowns, prostitution continues to be a problem in Orange County, authorities said. And while the problem is not as bad as it was in the 1980s, when prostitutes thrived in such parts of the county as Harbor and Beach boulevards, some trends have emerged that are raising concern among law enforcement officials.

Illicit escort and modeling services around the Southland, for example, have targeted Orange County because of its wealthy clientele, law enforcement officials said. Also alarming, officials said, has been an increase in the number of drug addicts and homeless women turning to prostitution on the street level.

“Most of these women, unfortunately, are very desperate for money,” said Sgt. Bob Giles, who heads the Sheriff’s Department vice unit.

Michelle, who was arrested by Howieson during a recent crackdown on escort services, is one of them.

The 24-year-old single mother, whose last name was withheld to protect her identity, said she became a prostitute to “put a roof over my head.”

After her arrest, she admitted to investigators that she worked for an Anaheim-based escort and modeling service.

Having no business skills, Michelle said, she couldn’t find a job that would pay as much as she makes with the out-call service. She said she works several calls a day, charging $250 per customer. Out of that, the service takes $75 per call, she said.

“You can’t blame me for doing this,” she told investigators. “You can’t.”

Over the past several years, the sheriff’s vice unit has shut down at least half a dozen major escort services that have employed as many as 30 women each. The investigations, which are time-consuming because of the size and sophistication of the services, frequently lead investigators outside the county.

“Many of the escort services we’re seeing now are from the surrounding counties” such as Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino, Howieson said. “They say they’re sending their girls here because there is a lot of money to be made.”

Down Beach Boulevard from the motel where Michelle was arrested, the sheriff’s vice investigators deal with a different type of prostitute: the streetwalker.

Megan, 23, whose last name was also withheld, said she became a streetwalker when she was 19. Recently she was arrested by sheriff’s investigators on a warrant for prostitution and taken to the station, where she freely talked about her problems.

Her right hand was swollen and infected as a result of heroin and cocaine injections, and her eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“When you first were picked up you said you could make more money than the rest of the girls because you were prettier. Do you remember that?” Howieson asked.

“Yeah. Look at me now,” she said.

Megan admitted that she is a slave to her drug addiction and walks the streets for money to support her $200- to $300-a-day habit. But at $40 to $60 a customer, she is rarely able to get enough “dates” to pay for it all.

Lately, she said, she has been able to find only three or four dates a day.

In vice language, Megan is known as a “hype” or drug addict. Investigators estimate that there are hundreds like her on the streets.

Paul Jesilow, an associate professor in the department of social ecology at UC Irvine who has studied prostitution, said there are several factors that make Orange County a “particularly fertile” area for prostitution.

For instance, the county has a large population of unattached men, young and old, including men who are in the military or are divorced or are immigrants, Jesilow said.

Additionally, he said, the county is a popular tourist and convention center that has historically attracted prostitutes.

“As long as there are men willing to pay for it, we are going to have prostitution,” Jesilow said. “It’s a transaction between two consenting adults, and the police will be hard-pressed to do anything but regulate it.”

Indeed, vice investigators admit that they have a hard time containing the problem. More often than not, arrested prostitutes are cited and released rather than booked into overcrowded jails, investigators said.

As Jesilow put it: “What can the police do? They can’t arrest every prostitute out there. The jails, which are overcrowded now, would not be thrilled by such activities.”

And because of other crime problems, many police departments in Orange County consider prostitution a low priority, police officials said. Nonetheless, several departments staff full-time units to work on prostitution, while others mount occasional task forces when prostitution appears to be getting out of hand.

The sheriff’s vice detail makes about 60 prostitution arrests a month, according to Giles.

“There’s plenty of work to be done out there. There’s never a slow moment,” he said.

In Anaheim, police officials said, prostitution is a constant problem.

“As compared to years past, we don’t have an out-of-control problem,” said Sgt. Harold Mittmann, who heads the vice unit. “But the blatant activity that the public sees on the street will probably always be there. . . . We’re at the point now where it is manageable, but I don’t believe it will go away.”

For years, Newport Beach police have battled prostitution at many of the city’s numerous massage parlors. Recently, city officials passed a moratorium on any new massage parlors while police investigate the illegitimate ones, said Lt. Tim Newman, who runs the vice unit.

In Santa Ana, merchants once complained that prostitutes were driving away business. As a result, police periodically conduct prostitution sweeps throughout the city.

“It’s a sign of disorder, and if you allow it to continue, more serious crimes will occur,” Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters said.

Walters said the city used to have a problems with streetwalkers and “bar girls.”

“For us, the problem has been down considerably,” Walters said. “When we see it start up again somewhere, that’s when we go out and put pressure on them.”

But to many prostitutes, the police are the least of their worries.

“Their job is more dangerous than cops’,” Sheriff’s Department Investigator Chris Rhodes said.

“Some people say it’s a victimless crime, but it’s not,” Rhodes said. “It’s not like the movie ‘Pretty Woman,’ where they made it look like fun. They didn’t show prostitutes getting stabbed, robbed, raped or catching diseases. . . . There are plenty of victims.”