WARREN - A local process server began knocking on doors throughout northeast Ohio Tuesday, serving subpoenas on customers who frequented the eight massage parlors in Warren padlocked Friday under a court order.
No longer are the customers' identities disguised by only their initials. Now full names and addresses are public, including ''D.S. of Canfield, who is actually Daniel Stanton of Mission Hills Drive.
Stanton supplied state agents May 16 with his own account of visiting Gemini, Sun, and Moon Light Health Spas, admitting he visited the spas three to six times last year.
''He stated that the Gemini staff was white and black girls and that the other spas (employed) Asians. He would pay $80 cash for the girls to (have sex). After he was finished he was provided a towel to clean up,'' according to an affidavit.
R.H. of Pepper Pike is in fact Robert Hazelton of Edgedale Road who told agents in his account that he learned about the Tokyo Health Spa in an advertisement. He spoke to an agent May 15 at his attorney's office, where Hazelton said he has made four to five trips to to Tokyo Health Spa where he would pay $50 to an older greeter.
''He would then be introduced to a younger sexually-dressed woman usually in her 20s or 30s. He would receive a table shower and pay $100 to $150 for a (variety of sex acts.) He paid in cash and said he encountered different women on each occasion,'' according to the affidavit.
Attorneys for the city said they subpoenaed only 15 of about 40 men who unknowingly served as confidential informants in the sweep.
Others being served include: Donald B. Mumford, Pinebrook Trail, Cuyahoga Falls; Dana Blasberg, Alta West Road, Mansfield; Keith R. Bickel, state Route 303, Ravenna; Kenneth Vagnini, Eden, Wooster; Nicholas O. Rodzianko, Daventree Drive, Brecksville; John M. Kasai Jr., Third Street, Campbell; Ronald Waid, Deer Run Oval, Richfield; Albert Blazie Jr., New Drive S.W., Warren; Charles Bowman Jr., Bellwood Drive S.E., Warren; Donald N. Devaul Jr., Coleman Drive, Youngstown, Paul James Hatala, state Route 45, North Bloomfield; William E. Better, Spring Road, Cleveland; and Louis Vennitti Jr., Adelaide Avenue, Warren.
Testimony from the men is sought for a hearing Monday on a preliminary injunction to continue the nuisance / abatement action against the businesses that also have had their licenses pulled, or suspended by Warren's Health Department, for illegal prostitution.
The allegations surfaced in a yearlong undercover investigation by agents with Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation and affidavits from the customers accompanied search warrants that were served during a citywide sweep May 30.
Affidavits included only the customers' initials and statements of what they encountered inside the spas. BCI agents used remote-controlled cameras to record license plate numbers and then contacted the customers later to gain the affidavits.
Subpoenas were being served Tuesday to the men because court rules will require their actual testimony to avoid hearsay and to allow attorneys for the spas to cross examination on certain points.
Warren Law Director Greg Hicks said the law also requires mileage checks accompany the subpoenas for customers living outside of the county.
The appearance is required Monday before Common Pleas Judge W. Wyatt McKay, who is hearing all eight nuisance cases.
If customers, known as ''Johns,'' ignore the subpoenas, they can be held in contempt.
If they honor the subpoenas, they will be granted immunity against any prostitution-related criminal charges, according to city attorneys.
So far no one has been charged criminally in the spa cases except one woman at a spa that remained open after the license was suspended.
Nearly 40 men from as far away as Westlake, Wadsworth and Shelby - a 120-mile trip - told investigators similar stories for each of the spas.
One customer told investigators he believed the girls were brought from Korea to New York to Ohio.
"They do not want to be working at these places," the man said.
One former employee of both the Gemini and Ocean spas that cooperated with investigators said she knew that one man, called a "jockey," transported women from New York City to work in the city's spas. She said many of the women are illegal aliens. The jockeys also were responsible for transporting the women to Victoria's Secret at the Eastwood Mall in Niles.
In at least one of the spas, the workers were kept there and slept in sleeping bags on the floor, four to a room.
A BCI agent, in his affidavit to McKay wrote he was asking for the search warrants "so that evidence can be gathered to ensure that Warren will cease to be the 'outlet' capital of prostitution and no longer be the Grove City of illegal, inimical prostitution business."