Alleged Operator Advertised in Yellow Pages : Woman Charged in Call-Girl Ring

A Granada Hills woman has been charged with operating a prostitution ring from her home by placing ads for escort services in telephone yellow pages.

Lisa Melody Andrade, 28, was arraigned Tuesday in San Fernando Municipal Court on two counts of pimping by operating the services--Regency International Escorts, Scandia’s, and Misfits--out of the residence.

Andrade advertised the services in telephone directories and adult newspapers distributed from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach, Los Angeles police said in an affidavit for a search warrant. Several of the advertisements called Regency International Escorts “The Ultimate in Body Massage.”

Vice officers served a search warrant on the house and arrested Andrade two weeks ago, culminating a three-month investigation of Regency, court records show. The search turned up telephone records for all three services, 15 pounds of marijuana plants and a stolen Porsche engine in the garage, an arrest report said.

Anonymous Tip Received

According to the affidavit, detectives began investigating Regency after they received an anonymous phone tip May 16 that prostitutes were working out of the house at 12801 Woodley Ave.

They discovered that utilities at the house were registered to Andrade, who has eight prior prostitution arrests and 13 known aliases, Officer Megan H. McElroy wrote in the affidavit.

Four days after the tip, a detective followed a woman as she drove from the Granada Hills house to a hotel near Los Angeles Airport and watched as she introduced herself as “Linda” at one of the hotel rooms before stepping inside, the affidavit said. Two hours later, the detective followed the woman to a pay telephone, where he listened to her conversation as she asked if there were any more calls for her, the document said.

$100 Hourly Fee

Officers confronted “Linda’s” client after she left and were told that the woman charged “$60 for the service fee and that her price was $100 an hour for any type of sex he wanted,” the affidavit said.

McElroy wrote in the affidavit that Andrade would collect the $60 “service fee” as the house’s 10 alleged prostitutes returned from calls.

Two women were arrested for soliciting sex for pay after officers rented hotel rooms and called the Regency number to have the “escorts” sent to their rooms, the affidavit said.

McElroy said Andrade’s case illustrates how prostitution rings are employing modern business methods.

“The street pimp is pretty well a thing of the past,” she said. “Criminals go high-tech with everyone else, so beepers and phones are the way of it now. Just look in your phone book and see how many escort services are there.”

McElroy said the new breed of prostitution ring requires more time to investigate.

“We need a phone warrant, we need to set up a hotel room, we need to arrange a call,” she said. “It can take five or six investigators several months to crack down one of these.”

Andrade, who is free on $2,000 bail, is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 20.