This page describes exploitation and abuse. Need to report something? How to report →
What happened
The madam was a senior citizen and the prostitute was just a kid. Vice cops raided a grimy midtown brothel called Episodes, where a 64-year-old hustler oversaw a stable of women - the youngest just 15 - giving "sex massages," police sources said. The W. 38th St. whorehouse was decidedly low-rent - mattresses on the floor of tiny rooms and a sign advertising $1 bottles of water, sources said. "I know things are tough, but $1 isn't going to break anyone," read the sign in the fourth-floor sex pad. Cloth butterflies and small "Phantom of the Opera" masks were the only decor in stark contrast to the majestic West End building where alleged madam Noreen Williams lived. Cops said Williams had been hustling prostitutes since at least 1997, which was news to her neighbors. "She was just a normal, polite old woman. She's always walking her two dogs. She doesn't dress flashy," said a stunned West End resident. When cops raided Episodes on Thursday afternoon, Williams was booking clients, and a 15-year-old hooker was getting ready to turn a trick in one of the back rooms, sources said. Williams told cops she had no idea the young Hispanic girl was only a high school student, sources said. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/08/15/2009-08-15_brothel_offered_teen_sex_cops_say_madam_64_ran_grimy_midtown_biz.html#ixzz0Que2LfQk
Response and intervention
See above She was arraigned last night on third-degree rape and promoting prostitution charges and is being held on $25,000 bail. The teen was not arrested but treated as a victim. The NYPD and the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement targeted the brothel after repeated complaints of criminal activity. City Hall got a court order to shutter the building this week based on multiple arrests there. In the basement, another massage parlor - which operated as Luxuryasiangirls. com - sold sex for $200, sources said. The "masseuses" slept on mattresses on the floor and showered in a back room. Williams' upstairs brothel had a living room, kitchen area and a warren of tiny "guest" rooms, investigators said. "Some days there'd be a lot of guys going in there around 5 or 6-ish. A lot of them were in suits, so I suppose they were getting off work. It was all kinds of guys," said Lizel Paule, 27, who works at a nearby laundermat. Follow up unknown.