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Kraft Charges Reveal a Sordid World Thriving in Florida 

The police is investigating a broader human-trafficking operation.

Kraft Charges Reveal a Sordid World Thriving in Florida 
Skyscrapers stand on the horizon in St. Pete Beach, Florida, U.S. (Photographer: Ty Wright/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The Orchids of Asia Day Spa was an open secret around southeast Florida, well known for blending the opulent with the sordid. Online reviews on a site called Rubmaps.com cited paid sex services in vulgar terms including “rub and tug.” Another on yelp.com noted a “happy ending.”

It was here -- aside a nail salon and Outback Steakhouse in the town of Jupiter -- that the police say Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was twice dropped off by a chauffeured vehicle. Worth $4.4 billion, he paid, the police say, between $59 and $79 for sex acts. An explicit police affidavit says the encounters didn’t include intercourse.

Kraft Charges Reveal a Sordid World Thriving in Florida 

The 77-year-old Kraft proclaims his innocence in a broader investigation that ensnared two other prominent financiers, including John Havens, Citigroup Inc.’s former president. John Childs, a buyout pioneer, was also charged in a related prostitution investigation. The police say in total 26 encounters are captured on video in the Orchids.

The case has peeled back one of the most unsavory aspects of this stretch of Florida -- where a playground of the wealthy filled with golf courses and beaches meets with what authorities say may be a human trafficking ring spanning from China to the U.S. There are multi-million dollar mansions as well as the massage tables that police say women slept on when not engaged by customers.

Mansions and Massages

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said in an interview Saturday.

The juxtapositions are jarring.

Jupiter is home to countless celebrities and sports stars, as well as the Trump National Golf Club, where the president golfed with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus earlier this month. Thirty minutes to the south, in the area around near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, there are $10 million homes tucked behind carefully groomed hedges and the valet lines teem with Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces.

Sheriff Snyder said the multi-jurisdiction probe was expected to carry on for the foreseeable future into more and possibly broader human trafficking operations. He said that in many cases it involved coerced women without access to their own transportation, who would be moved from location to location, living where they were taken and sometimes working late into the night.

‘Treated Like Cattle’

Snyder said, for all the attention given to the high-flying men accused, this in his mind is a story of the women: None of the women ever left until they were moved -- and many, he said, had been carried out of their jurisdiction in expensive cars. They had no days off, he said, and cooked rice on hot plates. Condoms were never used, he said.

“These women are being treated like cattle,” Snyder said. He said of the arrested men: “Any thoughts that they didn’t know they were trafficked women were hogwashed.”

The affidavit covering the police operation at the Orchids was based in part on video surveillance obtained from Jan 18-22, described the sex acts in graphic detail, but the men were only identified as Man 1-26. Charges were filed against 25 johns with the State Attorney in Palm Beach County. The police said Kraft visited twice.

Others Deny Charges

In addition to owning the Patriots, Kraft is the money behind the New England Revolution Major League Soccer team and other businesses. His wife Myra died in 2011.

Florida statutes describe a first offense of soliciting a prostitute as a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by as many as 60 days in jail and a fine. But the punishment can increase significantly for repeat offenders. Suspects who are Palm Beach County residents will receive a summons in the mail to appear in court, Jupiter Detective Andrew Sharp said, while those residing outside the county will have an arrest warrant issued.

Kraft is a frequent visitor to the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The Patriots owner was in the area this past weekend, attending a fund-raiser for the Everglades Foundation.

Childs, meanwhile, was among 165 people that were charged by Florida’s Vero Beach Police Department in a separate but related investigation into massage parlors.

“I have received no contact by the police department about this charge,” he said Friday in a phone interview. “The accusation of solicitation of prostitution is totally false. I have retained a lawyer.”

A man who answered a phone number listed for Havens said, “I have no idea what you are talking about,” He then hung up and additional calls weren’t answered.

--With assistance from Hailey Waller.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Levin in Miami at jlevin20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Ian Fisher

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.