Four Milwaukee, Wis.

Wednesday, July 12, 2000

Four Milwaukee, Wis. women were arrested overnight and charged with prostitution.

A man accompanying the women was also arrested and charged with inducing and promoting prostitution.

The five people face a first appearance in Mower County District Court Thursday morning.

While residents of Austin were dealing with a record-setting flood Monday afternoon, the women were approaching shoppers in the parking lot at the HyVee Food Store.

On Monday night and again Tuesday evening, they concentrated their activities in the downtown bar area.

According to Austin Police Department reports, Lateshia Shaunta Lewis, 19 of Milwaukee, Wis., was arrested after propositioning a man waiting in a car in the HyVee parking lot.

Lewis and two other females, plus a man, arrived at the parking lot in an automobile. One woman went into the store, while the man and two females visited with the man waiting in his vehicle in the parking lot.

The man was given a card advising him to call "Nikki in Room 218 at the Super 8 Motel" in Austin.

The man contacted police and agreed to call "Nikki" and meet her at the downtown plaza parking lot Monday evening. When the woman arrived and offered to have sex with the man and his wife for $200, officers moved in to arrest her.

Two females, Sheila K. Smith, 36, and Nicole Latriece Nichols, 22, both of Milwaukee, Wis., were arrested after a man assisted police in making the arrests after he was accosted in the downtown bar area.

The women reportedly were seen in the Brown Derby Bar in downtown Austin Monday and Tuesday evenings attempting to solicit an entertainment deal with the owner. They were rejected, but one of them left with the man, who was later stopped by police near the Fourth Avenue and Eighth Street NE intersection.

The man accepted their offer to have sex for $50 and the trio left in an automobile enroute to the Super 8 Motel. The car was stopped near Read’s Fourth Avenue Food and Fuel and the women arrested. The man was not charged.

Cecil Edward Thames, 36 of Milwaukee, Wis., was charged of offering Camelia Marie Young, 39 of Milwaukee, Wis. to have sex with a confidential informant of the police department.

Thames allegedly offered Young and "three or four other women" to the informant and the deal included going to the Sterling Motel for the sex for pay.

According to police reports, not all of the women arrested were represented by Thames.

Thames allegedly threatened other dancers at the Brown Derby bar to leave and promoted the women accompany him to become dancers in the bar.

Two men were shot and killed and another wounded in the early morning hours of June 30, at the Downtown Motel.

The homicides occurred after one of the victims visited a prostitute in Room 28 at the Downtown Motel for sex.

The woman told her male companions and they returned to the victims’ room in a robbery attempt.

The men and their female accomplices were later arrested and are now in the Mower County Jail awaiting a grand jury to consider first degree murder charges.

The presence of prostitution activities, mainly in the downtown bar area, where two bars featuring nude dancers have been linked to the illegal activities, as well as at the Downtown Motel, have caused law enforcement and city officials to examine measures to prevent the illegal activities in Austin.

Austin Police Chief Paul M. Philipp said the sting resulting from Monday’s parking lot encounter with prostitutes is the result of the recent homicides.

"This type of sting operation is something we do periodically," Philipp said, "but, yes, certainly we are paying more attention to that sort of illegal activity since the homicides."

Philipp said bar owners "have an obligation to kick them out," when females solicit bar customers for sex.

According to Philipp, the owner of the Brown Derby has told police women who frequent the bar for the apparent purpose of soliciting sex will not be served and will be removed from that establishment."

The latest women to be arrested for prostitution were apparently never inside the Hey Rube! bar in downtown Austin, which also features nude dancing.

In addition to the Brown Derby bar, the latest arrests were made by women who were also observed in Spanky’s and Ric and Louie’s Margaritaville bars.

Police chief Philipp said, "I have the impression that they have been to Austin before."