Court: Lap dancing
is prostitution

The law, justices say, ‘establishes a
bright-line rule: “You can look
but you can't touch”’

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union says a high-court ruling that prostitution includes lap dancing could affect activities like ballet and sports.

Attorney David Johnson said touching by paid ballet dancers, martial arts instructors or masseuses could also be defined as prostitution.

"Think of all the activities and all the different ways people touch each other in perfectly permissible activities," he said.

The state Supreme Court yesterday ruled that touching a person's sexual parts through clothing for a fee constitutes prostitution.

But the justices added, "It would have been reasonable for the Legislature to limit prostitution to 'sexual penetration.' "

The ruling was in response to Carl Richie's appeal on convictions of promoting prostitution in the second degree and unlawful ownership or operation of business.

The justices affirmed the prostitution conviction.

But they reversed the second conviction, saying Richie had been charged twice for the same offense.

Richie was convicted by a Kauai jury on Feb. 9, 1996. He maintained that his company, Fanta-See EXpress, was a legitimate adult entertainment business that provided strippers and dancers for private parties. But detectives in an undercover sting operation in September 1995 said the dancers engaged in sexual contact for pay, which is a violation of state law. No intercourse was ever alleged or proved.

Richie's conviction has cast a question mark over lap-dancing clubs.

The opinion, written by Associate Justice Mario Ramil, said the law was clear that "touching the sexual parts of another person for a fee constitutes prostitution, even if the touching occurs through clothing.

"The statute establishes a bright-line rule, which in laypersons' terms can be summarized as, 'You can look but you can't touch.' "

But the opinion also said that sexual assault and prostitution are distinguishable offenses and that "it might have been wise for the Legislature to adopt either a different definition of 'sexual contact' specifically applicable to prostitution, or even to eliminate 'sexual contact' as a basis for prostitution."

Ramil wrote that the law did not prohibit nude dancing.

He also wrote that some of Richie's examples of the law's alleged overreach are "extremely and patently absurd. . . . His most outrageous example is 'sitting on the lap of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.' . . . It is clear they are distinguishable."

Kauai Prosecuting Attorney Michael Soong called the decision "sound" and said he was not surprised by it. He said other appellate decisions that came after Richie's conviction "indicated it would go the way it went."

Richie received 15 years in prison for being the first person in Hawaii convicted of prostitution for running an exotic-dance company. He received early parole in May after serving 2-1/2 years in a Texas prison.

Richie's attorney, Daphne Barbee-Wooten, could not be reached for comment yesterday.