The fine line between a legal nude massage and illegal prostitution in Kentucky is no more distinct than it was a few months ago now that the prosecution of a Covington massage business owner has ended with a plea bargain.
Don Meyer, owner and operator of Classy Touch Therapeutic Massage at 409 Scott St., took a plea bargain arrangement with the state prosecutor's office on the advice of his lawyer, Daryl Cox.
"I did it just to get rid of the headache of it all," Meyer said. "My lawyer advised me to take it because all it is is parole."
Although Meyer has accepted the plea bargain, he maintains that he didn't break any laws. Last year, he narrowly missed a guilty verdict in a trial on similar charges, and Meyer said Cox advised him to take the deal because the prosecution's evidence was fairly persuasive.
In March, CityBeat reported that Meyer, charged with organized crime and prostitution as a result of a series of raids on his three massage businesses, was facing trial on June 20 because his previous trial had resulted in a hung jury ("Ah, There's the Rub," issue of March 30-April 5, 2000).
The jury was just two votes shy of a guilty verdict during the first trial in June 1999. While the Covington Police Department and the Commonwealth of Kentucky Prosecutor claimed Meyer knew some of his employees were offering sexual services in addition to nude massage, jurors were confused about Kentucky's definition of prostitution.
Kentucky law states that any time an act for sexual gratification involving the sex organs occurs in exchange for money, it's considered prostitution. Arguing the law's literal definition, Cox said that because Meyer's employees, who subcontracted under Meyer, didn't accept additional money for extra services, those services legally weren't prostitution.
"The argument is: Does the (price) include a sex act?," Cox said in a previous interview. "The argument back is that nothing was discussed."
Cox couldn't be reached for comment for this story.
In essence, Meyer has admitted that he knew some of his employees were prostituting themselves, said Jim Redwine, assistant Kentucky Commonwealth attorney who prosecuted the case. But the legal question that Cox referred to still is open, he said.
"It will be up to the appellate courts to provide the answer to the legal question: If a man goes to a massage parlor and pays a woman to undress and then masturbates in her presence, is that prostitution?," Redwine said.
Bryan Burlew, an attorney with the law firm Megerle, Cox and Burlew, concurred with Redwine's assessment, saying that because the case was resolved with a plea bargain "it would have no impact at all for the purposes for establishing law."
Meyer pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution in the second degree and to being a persistent felony offender in the second degree. He faces five to 10 years in prison, half of what his original charges carried, but jail time is at the discretion of the court, Redwine said, and his office isn't recommending it.
Other stipulations of the bargain include that Meyer reimburse the Covington Police Department for the cost of its investigation and that he immediately cease the operations of Classy Touch.
Meyer said he will obey the conditions and that his partner, Leanne Moore, who also was charged with the same offenses, will take over the business. By Aug. 12, he said, he will no longer be associated with Classy Touch. He now is in the process of moving all business operations out of his name and into Moore's.
Moore was the only one of Meyer's employees to be charged with a crime because she didn't cooperate with police, Redwine said in a previous interview. But when Meyer took the plea bargain, charges against her were dropped.
Still, Redwine said Classy Touch would remain under a watchful eye.
"She's an admitted prostitute," he said of Moore, adding that when she was questioned during the May 1999 raid she confirmed it to police.
Something else Moore confirmed, Redwine said, was that she would testify against Meyer in his latest trial. Redwine said he has taped phone messages from Moore's lawyer from late May saying she agreed to testify.
Moore denied both of Redwine's allegations.
"He's the lyingest sack of shit," Meyer said.
Lt. Thomas Schonecker, assistant chief of the Covington Police Department, said Moore's possible testimony was the most damaging evidence against Meyer -- more damaging than the five employee testimonies from his original trial.
According to jury notes, those employees testified Meyer had told them either that it was alright to masturbate customers, that it was alright for customers to masturbate themselves, that additional money could be made by providing other services or that he didn't want to know what went on behind closed doors.
This was in addition to three undercover officers' accounts of some employees touching their genital areas, offering additional services or telling them they could masturbate themselves. ©
