Prostitution sting nets 6 arrests

GLENDALE — Undercover detectives arrested six men for soliciting prostitution Friday during a sting operation and rescued two 16-year-old girls who were being used as sex slaves, officers said.

The girls, who were runaways, were discovered inside a hotel room in the 1500 block of Colorado Street after police had questioned their male companion outside the hotel for smoking marijuana, Glendale Police Vice Sgt. Scott Johnstone said.

Police followed the man up to his hotel room, where one of the girls was taking a shower and the other was sitting on the bed with another man, Johnstone said.

The girls admitted to police that they were underage and were soliciting prostitution. They had been giving all of their earnings to the men, who were their pimps, because they had promised to buy them a new pair of shoes, Johnstone said.

“They were taken to the station and will be returned to their parents,” he said.

The men — Christopher Coleman, 23, and Murphy Lettleton, 32, — also were on parole for drug sales, Johnstone said. Police said they also found marijuana inside the hotel room.

The girls told police they had been living with the men since last year after they ran away from their foster homes and group homes, Glendale Police Officer Blanca Razana said.

“They both had similar stories,” she said. “Then they met a guy who was in the business of pimping girls.”

The girls liked partying, and the men provided that lifestyle for them by supplying them with alcohol and drugs, Razana said.

They had sex with the men, and one of the girls was raped and abused, she said.

The girls were forced into prostitution and were told to do whatever was asked of them, Razana said.

They solicited sex for $50 and $60 for other sexual acts, working mostly in the San Fernando Valley, she said. But the girls mostly spent their nights sleeping in a Glendale hotel room.

The men kept the girls’ earnings, but they bought the girls shoes, clothes and video games and provided them a place to sleep, Razana said. So they stayed with the men because they were afraid to be alone and sleeping on the streets.

“They are used to this lifestyle,” she said.

Police officers got mixed emotions from the girls after the men were arrested.

One girl appeared relieved that police had rescued her from the men, but the other girl was angry that the men had been arrested, Razana said.

The two men were among six arrested Friday during the Glendale Police Department vice squad’s undercover operation, known as a “John sting.”

During the operation, police said, an undercover female officer dressed in regular clothes walked outside a motel on the 1500 block of Colorado Street, and male drivers stopped her and asked if she was a prostitute soliciting sex.

The officer told the men she was a prostitute and gave them a price for the sexual favor that they requested. Once the men consented to the price, she told them what hotel room she was staying in and invited them up.

As she and the men approached her room, police officers opened the hotel room door and arrested the men.

“It could be anybody’s sister or daughter,” Johnstone said.

German Noborr Noble Jr., 35, of Los Angeles, was arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitution during the sting.

He offered the undercover officer $42 for a sex act, he told police at the scene.

He told police he was going to pick up his son but saw the apparent prostitute and stopped.

“I screwed up,” Noble said. “I am sorry.”

While Noble was arrested during a John sting, the vice squad often contacts Glendale women who advertise sex services on Craigslist, an Internet classified website, and arrests them at local hotels.

Along with arresting men and women for soliciting prostitution, the squad — made up of two detectives and a sergeant — goes undercover, investigating the drug and sex trade in Glendale.

“This is the dark side of things,” Johnstone said.

The department’s vice squad has been active lately, having recently arrested alleged cocaine users and dealers at a local bar, found an illegal gambling operation at another bar and monitored more than 450 alcohol licenses and operations at massage parlors, which are sometimes used as a front for prostitution, Johnstone said.

“We are actively looking for these things to keep our city safe,” he said.

Sex solicitation readily occurs in public bathrooms, such as the JCPenney store or the Macy’s store at the Glendale Galleria, Johnstone said.

Glendale is known on the Internet for the sex solicitation that occurs during lunchtime in public bathrooms, Det. Matt Prokosch said.

While Prokosch was working undercover during a sting, a man pulled his pants down and exposed himself to the detective in a JCPenney bathroom in the children’s clothing department, he said.

He also found a couple having sex in a bathroom stall next to a father and son using the restroom.

With the large number of bathroom incidents, the squad urged the retail stores to change their bathroom stalls, and they complied. But sex solicitation is still occurring in bathrooms despite the changes, Prokosch said.

“These are the things that no one sees but are happening throughout our city,” he said.

 VERONICA ROCHA covers public safety and the courts. She may be reached at (818) 637-3232 or by e-mail at veronica.rocha@latimes.com.