A former employee of a business that ran illegal massage parlors in Tucson for more than three years branched out and started a similar operation of her own, a newly released police report shows.
During the course of an investigation into the prostitution ring, By Spanish, there was a falling out between one of its reported operators, Clarissa Lopez, and an employee, according to a police report obtained by the Arizona Daily Star. That employee eventually left By Spanish and started a similar business called Daisy’s Delights.
On Tuesday, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor confirmed his department had been conducting a separate investigation into Daisy’s Delights, at the same time it was looking into By Spanish.
It’s unclear if the operators of By Spanish, Lopez and her boyfriend, Ulises Ruiz, had any involvement in running Daisy’s Delights, but phone records released by police indicate Lopez was aware of the business and communicated with the woman who ran it.
The woman, whose name was not released by the police department, told officers in January that Daisy’s Delights had been operating for at least a year and advertised on websites like Backpage.com, where By Spanish also posted ads. She said she learned how to run the illicit massage parlors from another individual before starting her own business, the report states.
Police also interviewed the woman identified as the “booker,” during which the phone she used to communicate with clients “continued to receive text messages,” according to the report. She also told police she had never seen a legitimate massage business advertising on Backpage.com.
During the Jan. 27 police raid of four residences and two business associated with By Spanish, four locations affiliated with Daisy’s Delights were also raided.
Evidence was seized from three apartments linked to Daisy’s Delights, and during the service of a high-risk warrant to a fourth property, police found a handgun and about 30 marijuana plants being grown in a spare bedroom.
In February, police presented evidence of the marijuana operation to Gordon Bennett of the Pima County Attorney’s Office, who agreed to file charges against the man police linked to the grow operation. The status of the case is unclear.
In addition to the woman who started Daisy’s Delights, phone records provided by police indicate at least one other person may have been involved in the operation, as the phone used by the “booker” was registered to a man.
During the course of the investigations, detectives learned that several Tucson police officers might have been involved with the massage parlors. Last month, Villaseñor confirmed that at least seven officers have been investigated, with two having resigned and five others placed on administrative leave with pay. The investigation is expected to wrap up in the next few weeks, he said.
In June, police released the names of 14 men identified as being among the most frequent customers of By Spanish or Daisy’s Delights. The list included area firefighters, Border Patrol agents and Air Force personnel.
On Wednesday, a list of contacts taken from phones seized during the investigation was released to the media. More than 7,000 points of contact were listed, but police confirmed that many of the names were unrelated to the massage parlor investigation.
In an examination of the first page of the several-hundred page list, the Star was able to identify another area firefighter and a Tucson city employee as customers of Daisy’s Delights using a simple Internet search.
Villaseñor said Tucson police has handed the list to the Tucson City Attorney’s Office and won’t be investigating it further.
City Attorney Mike Rankin said it hasn’t been decided if charges would be pursued against any of the individuals identified as clients of the massage parlors.
