Illicit Massage Parlor Busts in Greensboro Led to Policy Shift - The Assembly

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“Can you talk about the procedure for cops getting naked in a massage parlor?” activist Ben Holder asked assistant city manager Trey Davis at a Greensboro City Council meeting last November.

It was not the first time Holder, a former reporter for the Carolina Peacemaker and former Guilford County public school teacher, had grilled officials about policies regarding women working in illicit massage establishments. Holder has repeatedly argued they are victims of sexual slavery, and police should concentrate on shutting down the unlicensed venues, not on arresting the immigrant Asian women who work there. Nor should detectives, to quote his colorful rhetoric, “have their weenies pulled” before doing so.

To illustrate his point, Holder passed out arrest records from a September 21 raid on Amazing Spa, which had 44 reviews on the “happy endings” website Rubmaps, and in which two middle-aged women were charged with prostitution. A warrant described one as “grabbing Detectives [sic] penis with hand to promote stimulation.”

Disrobing and allowing genital stimulation is exactly what police should not do, Holder told the council.

“I tried to teach y’all as much as I could about it when I made some videos, but you probably didn’t watch,” said Holder, referring to YouTube clips he’d shared during his previous speeches to council, “because you really don’t pay attention to anything people say.”

“That’s not true,” said Mayor pro tem Yvonne Johnson.

“Then you know, Ms. Johnson,” Holder responded sarcastically, “what I said so elegantly, so calmly, so nicely, is that cops don’t need to get naked and entrap these women anymore.”

Two months later, Greensboro became the first North Carolina city to issue directives explicitly forbidding officers from receiving genital stimulation from sex workers—but only after accusations that city officials had tried to stiff-arm a journalist who’d asked the same question as Holder.

Still, when The Assembly contacted officials in North Carolina’s ten largest cities, none pointed to a policy on the books preventing police officers from engaging in sexual acts as a precursor to an arrest for prostitution. There are at least 150 establishments that mix massage with masturbation in North Carolina, according to Rubmaps, which posts alleged reviews from customers claiming to have received sexual services at these spas.

The North Carolina Board of Massage and Bodywork Therapy oversees licensing, but few of the businesses listed on Rubmaps are licensed. Although state law requires such licensure, no North Carolina city has shut down an illicit spa for lacking it. Anti-trafficking advocates say while Greensboro’s police policy change is a step, more could be done to shut down illicit massage parlors and punish owners who operate without a license.

In 2023, Greensboro issued business licenses to multiple spas that the state board hadn’t licensed, critics point out. At several council meetings last year, and in multiple emails to Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Police Chief John Thompson, Holder asked why the city had issued these licenses rather than using the lack of state licensure to shut down illicit spas.

“Is it because that’s not as much fun as getting naked on a massage table?” he asked.

Shooting The Messenger​

Holder created NC SWAT, which he describes as “one of North Carolina’s only landlord education efforts targeting unlicensed/illegal businesses and the property owners who rent to them.”

SWAT stands for “Strategically Watching the Thirteenth Amendment”—the one meant to abolish slavery. When a spa appears on sites like Rubmaps or comes up in a police investigation, the group contacts the property owner, describes the lack of licensure and any indication of criminal activity, and urges that the business be evicted. According to Holder, every Greensboro massage parlor landlord NC SWAT contacted in 2023 has done just that.

After the September raid on Amazing Spa, Holder contacted not only the landlord but Greensboro News & Record reporter Connor McNeely. On October 13, McNeely emailed a city spokesperson to ask why the business was “still allowed to operate” after the arrests. He received no response to this query, and neither it nor the raid resulted in closure. Instead, Amazing Spa was evicted a week later after NC SWAT reached out to the property manager.

In an October 25 email to public information manager Josie Cambareri, McNeely quoted the arrest warrant and asked, “Does the Greensboro Police Department teach it is acceptable for undercover officers to commit sexual acts with subjects?”

The Greensboro Police Department. (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

Emails released through a public records request show that, rather than responding to this query, Cambareri forwarded McNeely’s email to several other city officials. On October 31, city emails show that Police Chief John Thompson drafted a reply to McNeely’s question in which he called the arrest warrant “misleading.”

“As the law is written, a law enforcement officer can meet the elements of the criminal charge by an attempt and initiation of a sexual act,” Thompson wrote. “The law does not require a completion of a sexual act and it is not the practice of the Greensboro Police Department to allow any activity after the attempt/initiation.”

Thompson never sent that reply to McNeely, but on the same day, city spokeswoman Carla Banks emailed his editor, Dimon Kendrick-Holmes, to complain about the reporter’s “persistent” questions. She wrote that “Connor needs to understand how the outcome of months of undercover work can be jeopardized by premature reporting without proper context and complete facts” and that McNeely “has been advised on more than one occasion the City will not comment on active investigations.”

Banks also invited Kendrick-Holmes to a private meeting with Thompson, which occurred on November 7. According to the city, there’s no public record of what transpired at this meeting, and Kendrick-Holmes declined to comment.

Holder got the emails via public records request, and they became a hot topic at a December city council meeting. Thompson responded to the controversy in a letter to city council stating that the “law does not require a completion of a sexual act and it has not been the practice of the Greensboro Police Department to allow any activity after the attempt/initiation,” but acknowledging that “allowing initiation to occur further traumatizes those who are victims of human trafficking.”

He then issued a departmental directive stating “no officer(s) conducting undercover operations will intentionally touch the genital area of a suspect, or allow for their genital area to be touched by a suspect.”

The News & Record didn’t publish on the subject until January 17. The Assembly asked Thompson why he described the arrest warrant as “misleading” in his unsent response. “The information he put in there is not incorrect as to what happened,” said Thompson, referring to the detective who described a sexual act. “The misleading portion of that was in relation to a news media individual who had sent an email to us making assumptions that we allowed officers to complete sex acts.”

Thompson did not address whether the detective undressed, but said he believed “the officer had his penis grabbed.”

This occurred, said Thompson, due to the difficulty of securing prostitution arrests. “The individuals you’re dealing with aren’t ever going to tell you they’ll provide a sex act. You have to ask ‘what else do you offer?’ and they grab hold of a detective’s genitals and take some action to show they’re initiating a sexual activity. At that point, all contact is supposed to stop.”

The new policy, however, forbids the initial contact.

“I can’t in good conscience,” said Thompson, “ask my officers to go into those situations and try to make a determination of whether somebody is being human-trafficked or willingly involved in prostitution. So, the policy change says we will not allow an officer to have that happen to him.”

Greensboro Police Chief John Thompson in his office. (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

Thompson said the Greensboro Police Department is also drafting an ordinance that would bring municipal law more in line with state statute. The details of the proposed ordinance will not be public until presented to council, but he said it will focus on licensure and the landlords who rent to illicit massage parlors.

“We are trying to amend the city ordinance around licensing specific to massage parlors so that we have an enforcement tool on the licensing side,” said Chris Schultheis, captain in the Vice & Narcotics division of the GPD. The ordinance will “mirror the language” of state law, he said, and “give the city some teeth to enforce that statute.”

The Troublemaker​

Ben Holder was characteristically irascible about what Greenboro police are expected to propose.

“Why the hell are they claiming they need an ordinance to enforce a state law?” he asked.

He was also annoyed to have received no credit for the changes: “They seem to have trouble even saying my name.”

Indeed, many know Holder as “The Troublemaker”—a pen name he blogged under 20 years ago. The blog no longer exists online, but was a site where Holder wrote about a variety of things he thought the city was doing wrong or ignoring. Massage parlors were one topic.

“I can’t in good conscience ask my officers to go into those situations and try to make a determination of whether somebody is being human-trafficked or willingly involved in prostitution.”

John Thompson, Greensboro police chief

But there was a time when Greensboro officials praised his passion and results. In 2014, the council passed a unanimous resolution recognizing Human Trafficking Awareness Day, and Mayor pro tem Yvonne Johnson effusively praised his “absolutely tireless” efforts on the topic. Then Mayor Nancy Vaughan called him to the podium, saying his name more warmly than she has anytime lately.

This is a very different reception than Holder got at the November meeting, when Johnson could be heard muttering “what an ass” as he left the podium.

Chief Thompson didn’t express a lot of love for Holder, either.

“Ben Holder has reached out to me a number of times, but always in such an erratic manner. I wish that his behavior allowed for a better relationship,” said Thompson. “He brought to light that we probably should not have been investigating the way we were investigating, because it potentially brought additional trauma, and we made a change and I think we’re better for it. But I’m not going to sing from the top of the hill that Ben Holder is this great and wonderful person because he brought this issue to us.”

Many in Greensboro know Ben Holder by the pen name he blogged under 20 years ago, “The Troublemaker.” (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

Holder expressed harsh sentiments about Thompson, the mayor, and the city manager, and said he first “brought this issue” to Greensboro more than 20 years ago.

“To me, there was no better story to cover, on so many levels, and prostitution was never the level I addressed it on,” Holder said. “As far back as 1993, the U.S. attorney’s office said that Asian massage parlors in Greensboro were engaged in indentured servitude. The fact that this modern-day slavery was ignored by Greensboro’s community, civic leaders and other journalists was, in my opinion, criminal.

“If [Thompson] hadn’t tried to silence Connor from asking about his officer getting naked at Amazing Spa, and that hadn’t blown up in the city’s face, it would still be business as usual.”

Holder also expressed skepticism about the city’s recent efforts: “We’ll see if they’re actually going to do what they claim they will.”

Traumatic Encounters​

Pam Strickland, founder of the Greenville-based nonprofit NC Stop Human Trafficking, said every law enforcement organization in the state should have a prohibition similar to the one the Greensboro police issued in December.

“It is absolutely unethical and hypocritical to engage in a commercial sex act and then arrest the other person,” said Strickland. “To not only NOT assist the person being victimized, but to add to their trauma—I don’t have the words to express how unconscionable that is.”

If Greensboro’s changes are a tentative step, it’s more than most other North Carolina cities have taken.

The Charlotte area has almost as many erotic massage parlors—42—as the rest of the state combined, according to Rubmaps. But Michael Allinger, public information officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, said he could not release any details about how his department investigates them, nor what officers can and cannot do.

“It is our policy not to release detailed information on our specific investigative procedures, as these are confidential and integral to the effectiveness of our operations.”

“It is absolutely unethical and hypocritical to engage in a commercial sex act and then arrest the other person.”

Pam Strickland, founder of NC Stop Human Trafficking

Rubmaps shows that Fayetteville has the second-highest number of illicit massage parlors in the state. The police department said in a statement, however, that it doesn’t have a policy for searches in prostitution investigations.

Asked whether officers are prohibited from engaging in sexual contact with sex workers, police spokesperson Rickelle Harrell reiterated that there’s no specific policy for such investigations. “However, whenever such an operation takes place, an operations plan is meticulously crafted,” Harrell wrote.

In Raleigh, the police public affairs office said via email that “policies pertaining to undercover operations are not available for public release.”

High Point Assistant Police Chief Kevin Ray wrote that while it “is not our practice to allow sexual contact during the course of investigations,” the department “does not have written directives regarding these types of investigations.” Winston-Salem Police Public Information Officer Annie Sims wrote that her department does not have “a policy explicitly stating” that officers are prohibited from engaging in sexual contact.

The case that forced the policy change in Greensboro was part of a months-long, multi-city investigation by the Forsyth County Drug Task Force. In early 2023, detectives with the task force, working in conjunction with Homeland Security, investigated illegal massage parlors operating out of residential neighborhoods in Winston-Salem. An October media release stated that these businesses were owned by two women, Li Huang and Chongmei Wei, whom it described as “connected to” additional two other parlors in Gastonia, one in Indian Trail, one in Charlotte, and Greensboro’s Amazing Spa.

“New U Spa” at 503 Thurston Street in Winston-Salem was shut down last fall. But online listings suggest it’s now open again under the name “King Spa.” (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

Both Huang and Wei were both charged with felonies for continuing a criminal enterprise and promoting prostitution. Five other women, all with Chinese names and between 52 and 60 years of age, were also arrested and charged with prostitution-related offenses, including the two arrested at Amazing Spa. (The Assembly has chosen not to publish their names.)

Timothy Mabe, a lieutenant with the Winston-Salem Police who works with the task force, denied that any of the women were victims of human trafficking, but declined to elaborate: “When we give specific details as to why we choose to charge or not charge, people involved in this type of criminal activity read this information and train some of their staff to answer questions in a way to avoid being charged or to avoid being identified as human trafficking victims.”

In late January, charges against the two women arrested at Amazing Spa were permanently dismissed. Charges against another were dropped in March.

The felony cases against the remaining four are scheduled for July 5 in Forsyth County District Court. Susan Chung, a licensed clinical social worker at UNC-Chapel Hill and interim chair of the board of directors of the North Carolina Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said the demographic of the women was fairly common from her experience working as a translator and counselor for police departments in North Carolina and New York City. Most were older Chinese women, ranging in age from their mid-40s to their late-50s.

“I used to have a misconception that victims of human trafficking are in their teens or early 20s,” she said. “I was also surprised that most didn’t feel comfortable collaborating with our law enforcement and would rather be charged and arrested.” Many were single or divorced mothers who came to the U.S. seeking employment, as the retirement age for most women in China is 50, and had heard about massage jobs on social media or messaging platforms.

“It’s not the young women whose images are used in ads for these places, but older ones coming over in search of a better life,” said Mai Lin Petrine, director of legal and regulatory affairs for the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards.

Chung said she was concerned about the details of the Greensboro case, but unsurprised. “That often happened in New York. Police would receive some free services from the women and then arrest them right away, after they got free massages and whatever,” she said. “I did report a lot of survivors were really traumatized by the NYPD, but never learned the outcome.”

‘Whack-A-Mole’​

Chung said having people available who can speak Mandarin and other languages is critical to investigating human trafficking. Thompson said Greensboro “may have one officer who speaks Mandarin,” but can call on SBI and Homeland Security resources as needed. Petrine said that while language skills are necessary, “it’s more about the cultural competence to understand that these women are afraid that, if they don’t perform the acts demanded of them, their families back in China risk harm.”

It also requires state-level collaboration between law enforcement and licensing boards, said Petrine. “Otherwise you’re just pushing illicit spas over into another municipality and making them someone else’s problem.”

“If [Thompson] hadn’t tried to silence Connor from asking about his officer getting naked at Amazing Spa, and that hadn’t blown up in the city’s face, it would still be business as usual.”

Ben Holder

Many other organizations were reluctant to criticize either individual police departments or activist organizations like NC SWAT on the record, but said calling landlords or shutting down unlicensed venues is basically a game of “whack-a-mole.”

“A ‘new’ business then opens up using the same license, often in the same location,” said Petrine.

She also said that raids on illicit massage parlors rarely result in the women working in them being freed from debt bondage.

“Often when these women are arrested, the charges are pled down, and they are moved to another illicit business—usually in another state,” she said. “The lack of information sharing among states is exploited by the illicit businesses.”

Anjanette Grube, the public information director for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement that the bureau and its partners “seek to combat human trafficking in all forms, wherever it occurs.”

The site of the September 2023 raid that led to Greensboro’s policy shift. (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

“Illicit massage businesses, like other businesses that seek to mask human trafficking, present their own unique challenges and difficulties, which require regular changes in investigative techniques and focus,” she wrote. “We will continue our efforts to combat and end human trafficking wherever we find it.”

The massage board’s legal counsel, Charles Wilkins, pointed to a message that had been issued to North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police, NC Sheriff’s Association, NC League of Municipalities and the NC Association of County Commissioners in March reiterating state law.

“A place of business operating without an establishment license shall not operate and shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.”

While the board has issued more than 500 licenses, it said, “many businesses in North Carolina are operating without an establishment license” and “are providing illicit services and are also in violation of human, sex, and labor trafficking laws.”

Two cases in point: As of May 5, a massage parlor at 503 Thurston Street in Winston-Salem was still in operation despite having been closed in the Forsyth County Drug Task Force operation with Homeland Security that triggered this controversy last September.

At the time of the raid, the illicit business was listed on Rubmaps as “New U Spa.” A neighbor who lived across the street told the local TV news that the raid was actually the second at that address; another illicit spa had been shut down there previously.

But recent online listings suggest it’s open again, now under the name “King Spa.” One ad touts that there “are many beautiful new girls here” and that a “professional Asian masseuse will bring a unique and excellent massage.” A phone call to the number on the ad confirmed as much: “Wendy” was available for “special Asian massage” at 7 p.m. that evening.

And in April, a Facebook page was activated for J Day Spa at 620-K Guilford College Road in Greensboro—the same address as Amazing Spa. The woman who answered the listed phone number confirmed that it was previously known as Amazing Spa. But as of Monday, there was no evidence of activity at the address and the phone number was no longer accepting calls.

No business at that address is currently licensed by the NC Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy.

Correction: When SWAT was formed and Holder’s tenure with the school district have been updated.

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Ian McDowell is a Greensboro-based freelance journalist and author.


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