Sheriff investigators' nudity, sex contact dooms prostitution cases
About 60 people arrested last year in a prostitution sting will not be criminally charged because Maricopa County sheriff's deputies used tactics including nudity and sexual contact in their undercover operations, county prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Maricopa County prosecutors believe the two-month sting, which targeted suspected prostitutes and men accused of soliciting sex for money, was botched by sheriff's officials who allowed undercover deputies and department "Posse" members to remove their clothing and engage in sex acts on videotape.
"The credibility of the officers and the tactics they used are so abhorrent that we believe the likelihood of conviction has disappeared," special assistant county attorney Barnett Lotstein said. "At no time did our office ever, explicitly or implicitly, sign off on anything relating to the conduct that they employed." Full Story...
