EVANSVILLE – Two women who face prostitution charges after a police sting at an Evansville massage parlor earlier this year have been deported, court records state.
Both Nianxian Xia, 41, and 46-year-old Shujuan Liu are now in China. According to an email from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer filed in Xia’s court records, she departed the U.S. on June 6.
As far as Liu, she filed a notice of “voluntary departure” in Vanderburgh Circuit Court on June 4. A day later her attorney, Chris Bjerke, told Magistrate Ryan Reed that Liu had returned to China. The docket states she has no plans to come back.
Despite that, Reed filed a failure to appear warrant for Liu’s arrest. The Courier & Press reached out to the prosecutor’s office Monday morning to see if the warrant was still active and if officials would attempt to extradite Liu back to the U.S. As of Tuesday, no one had responded.
The charges against Nianxian Xia and Shujuan Liu
Xia and Liu faced two counts each: one of promoting prostitution as a Level 5 felony and another of prostitution as a Class A misdemeanor.
According to the probable cause affidavit filed against them, investigators began scoping out Eleazar Spa – a massage business nestled in a strip mall in the 4300 block of Morgan Avenue – in December after fielding a tip from the Indiana Gaming Commission about “suspicious currency transaction reports” that allegedly stemmed from Xia. The affidavit didn’t offer any additional info on the tip.
On Dec. 16, police spotted a man leaving the spa and pulled him over as he drove away. He reportedly admitted he’d “paid a female at Eleazar Spa for a sexual act.” Police conducted at least two similar traffic stops in the ensuing weeks, and each time the men behind the wheel allegedly said they’d gone to Eleazar for sex acts, the affidavit states.
EPD spokesman Sgt. Anthony Aussieker told the Courier & Press in March there were no records of any of the men involved being arrested.
Investigators eventually obtained a warrant and searched the spa on March 2. According to the affidavit, they reportedly found a “male … who was laying fully nude on a massage table,” as well as condoms, a sex toy, “a large amount of U.S. currency,” lingerie and “numerous cases of baby wipes,” among other items.
Detectives later “determined” Xia and Liu were “responsible for the daily operation of the business.” During an interview at Evansville police headquarters after her arrest, Xia allegedly told investigators the utilities for Eleazar were in her name and that she was responsible for paying rent.
In her own interview, Liu allegedly “admitted to cleaning and maintaining the building.”
Both women were taken into ICE custody a short time later. They were housed at the Grayson County Detention Center in Kentucky, a frequent destination for Tri-State area residents snagged in ICE proceedings.
In March, Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Winston Lin told the Courier & Press the cases were “effectively on hold until the ICE custody is resolved.” Since they were taken by ICE, they couldn’t attend their initial hearings. And without those, the cases couldn’t move forward.
The hearings didn’t hit the docket until June 5, at which time both women were either out of the country or on their way to being so.
A review hearing in Xia’s case is scheduled for Aug. 10 in circuit court. As of Monday, there hadn’t been any updates in Liu’s case since Reed issued the warrant for her arrest.
A new civil case
In between all that, another case against the women popped up in court records. This time it was a civil matter filed against them by the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Drug Task Force.
Authorities launched the case on April 22. In the complaint, attorney Michael DiRienzo asked for $11,774 in U.S. currency reportedly found at the spa to be forfeited to law enforcement. The complaint also seeks “reimbursement of all law enforcement costs associated with this cause as provided by statute.”
Bjerke filed a response on Xia’s behalf on May 29. It states the seizure of the money violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, while the forfeiture would violate the Eighth. A hearing in the civil case is set for July 16.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Records: Women accused in Evansville prostitution case now in China
Reporting by Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press | USA TODAY Network
