Arrest of Bungalow Resident Doesn’t Surprise Neighbors : Prostitution: A woman is accused of pimping and pandering in connection with an escort service allegedly operated from the house.

In the six months Ginger Lee Porter lived in the little shingle-roofed bungalow in La Verne, her neighbors said, they had noticed some peculiar things.

There was the sudden increase in traffic. Not many cars used to drive through the quiet residential block of small single-family houses on 2nd Street, residents said, until Porter moved in last December. “She brought in a lot of it, early-in-the-morning type of stuff,” said a neighbor who declined to give his name. “It was disruptive sometimes.”

There was the credit card machine in the front room, and the abundance of scantily clad young women around the place. Porter herself, neighbors said, occasionally sunbathed topless in the back yard. “She’d have nothing on up here,” said neighbor George Ureno, patting his chest, “and something stringy down here,” touching his hip. “She’d have all the guys in the neighborhood watching her.”

So, the neighbors said, it was no big surprise when Porter was arrested Thursday and charged with three counts each of pimping and pandering. Porter, 28, also known as Lisa Ware, was arraigned in Pomona Municipal Court on Friday and held in lieu of $75,000 bail. Judge Jack Hunt scheduled a preliminary hearing for Thursday.

According to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Porter ran the Diamonds and Lace Escort Service out of her rented house. The service, allegedly a front for a prostitution ring, employed 12 to 15 women, who charged from $250 to $500 for sex, said Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Mead.

Offering “beautiful ladies” as escorts or models in advertisements in local newspapers and in the Yellow Pages, the ring grossed between $80,000 and $100,000 a month, Mead said. In an advertisement in the GTE Yellow Pages of Ontario, Diamonds and Lace promised “professional and prompt” service, 24 hours a day.

“In response to phone calls from male customers,” Mead said, “the service would dispatch one of the escorts to a hotel, a business or a residence.” A call to the service’s listed number Friday produced a recorded message from someone named Lisa, saying her message system was full.

After La Verne police received a tip about activities at Porter’s house, Mead said, the sheriffs’ offices in Los Angeles and Riverside counties joined them for a 10-week investigation.

According to a source close to the investigation, the tip came from the ex-wife of a Porter associate, who brought his son to the house. When the boy told his mother about the number of women in the house, she called the police.

In recent weeks, undercover investigators have arrested three escorts in Los Angeles and one in Riverside County for allegedly soliciting acts of prostitution, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney said. Two weeks ago, police searched the La Verne house, which, on Friday, was unoccupied with a For Sale sign in front.