O n July 6, , a health inspector named Karen Herzog visited a massage parlor in South Florida for a routine inspection. Over the next eight months, Detective Mike Fenton launched an investigation into what he believed was a large-scale prostitution ring engaged in human trafficking. Orchids is located off U. For seven days in early November , Sharp and his team staked out the spa. Almost everyone they saw enter was a man. One day, a group of eight men who arrived in a golf cart made touchdown gestures before entering, their arms flung up to indicate that they were about to score.
Sharp asked Herzog if she could survey the parlor, and on November 14, she complied. Herzog later testified that the spa workers appeared agitated by her visit and failed to make eye contact. Last January, he requested what is colloquially known as a sneak-and-peek search warrant. Issued under the Patriot Act, it was initially designed to temporarily expand surveillance and investigative powers of law enforcement agencies in domestic terrorism cases.
Since then, however, both the act and the warrant have been routinely used in cases that stray far from their original intent. Sharp received the warrant on January 15, and two days later his team returned to Orchids, where they evacuated the premises, telling workers that a bomb threat had been called in. While the women waited outside, officers placed hidden cameras in the ceilings of the massage rooms. Over the next five days, Sharp and his team watched, via a live feed, as more than 20 men received manual sex, oral sex, and anal play.
When the johns left the spa, an officer would follow them and initiate a traffic stop as a pretext for identifying the men. Among the patrons who turned up on the surveillance video at Orchids was Robert Kraft, the year-old owner of the New England Patriots. Kraft, who visited the spa on the afternoon of January 19, spends part of the year in a double oceanfront apartment he owns on Breakers Row, among the most coveted addresses in Palm Beach. When he was unable to get an appointment, he conferred with his old friend Peter Bernon, the dairy and plastics tycoon who also lives in Palm Beach.
Bernon offered to drive Kraft in his white Bentley to a place he knew in Jupiter, 20 miles up the Treasure Coast. After Kraft ejaculated, Mingbi wiped his penis with a white towel. Then she and Lulu helped him get dressed.
