By Julia Vergara | Staff Writer
Seventeen people were arrested over the weekend in a prostitution sting conducted by the Waco Street Crimes Unit.
According to Sgt. Patrick Swanton of Waco Police Department, the prostitution sting took place Thursday night through Saturday night and resulted in the arrest of 15 men and two women.
The two female suspects were arrested for offering themselves for sex and the 15 male suspects, or “Johns,” were arrested for looking to meet up with a prostitute for sex, Swanton said.
Two people were arrested on Thursday, seven on Friday and eight on Saturday.
Swanton said that 17 arrests in a total of three nights is pretty quick.
“We would have made more arrests but we’ve just limited the manpower it takes to safely perform one of these operations,” Swanton said. “As many times as we do this, we will arrest as many people as we can handle.”
In order to catch the suspects, officers from the Waco Street Crimes Unit put up ads on the internet, acting as if they were offering prostitution services — which the suspects then responded to with calls and arranged to meet with what they thought was a prostitute at a hotel in Waco, Swanton said.
When the suspects arrived at the hotel, they were met with undercover officers who conducted the arrests after witnessing them offer money for sexual favors, Swanton said.
Swanton said that it is amazing that prostitution suspects continue to commit these crimes, especially when Waco PD writes press releases and the media covers all of these cases.
“They continue to fall prey to this type of criminal activity and as they do, we will continue to put them in jail,” Swanton said.
Some sources identified one of the arrested, Reagan Starr, as a Baylor student. However, assistant vice president of Baylor media communications Lori Fogleman confirmed that Starr is not a currently enrolled student.
Those arrested include: Justin Lee, Dexter Beck, Andre Dunn, Jose Perez-Serrano, Jose Santillano, Kyle McGowan, Eduardo Carderas, Emanuel Lopez, Reagan Starr, Robert Davila Jr., Pablo Garcia, Zhen Wang, Rachel Finney, David Martinez, Aaron Sickler, Richard Erminger and Monah Howard.
