7 Arrested as Deputies Raid Saugus Brothel in Dry Riverbed

Seven women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution Friday by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who raided a makeshift brothel of mattresses laid out in a dry riverbed in Saugus.

Authorities said the arrests were made after plainclothes deputies were propositioned by the women. None of about 30 men on the scene when the raiders arrived were arrested because “the officers did not see them engage in any unlawful activity,” Deputy Drew Basey said.

“Some customers yelled, ‘Here come the cops!’ and so several women and customers scattered into the brush,” the deputy said.

The undercover operation was a response to complaints from nearby residents, Basey said. Basey said the investigation lasted six weeks, but that it was not known how long the brothel had been in operation before that.

Situated in a Wash

The brothel was in a wash in San Francisquito Canyon. A dirt road led past a construction area to a secluded area strewn with torn, dirty mattresses and beer bottles on patches cleared of brush and trees. Foot trails connected the patches where the mattresses lay.

The brothel operated between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m., on Fridays only, Basey said. He declined to say whether the customers came mostly from a nearby chicken-processing factory after getting their pay on Fridays. But, he added, “I don’t think the customers would come a long distance for this.”

He said the women will be held at the county’s Sybil Brand Institute for arraignment next week.

The discovery of the brothel was unusual in the Santa Clarita Valley, a mostly upscale area of housing tracts where, in Basey’s words, “I don’t think you’d classify prostitution as a problem.”