Why not bring criminal conspiracy charges against men in the Mummers prostitution case?

I'm clearly a bit cranky that the criminal burden of the Mummers prostitution party has fallen upon the female prostitutes involved. Here's a question for Philadelphia police and prosecutors: Why not bring criminal conspiracy charges against some of the Mummers' leaders?

Here's how the Inquirer describes the investigation:

The investigation into the club began almost two months ago, after police received tips that women were soliciting sex on the second floor of the building every second Tuesday of the month between 7 and 11 p.m., Blackburn said.

Lt. Charles Green of the citywide vice unit said an undercover officer gained access to one of the parties last month after wrangling an invitation from Crovetti. Inside, the officer saw women walking around wearing next to nothing, as well as about 50 men.

About 7:30 Tuesday night, two undercover officers made a repeat visit to the party. As the officers made their way around the building, they saw a man pulling his pants up near a naked woman in one room, and others engaging in sex acts in view of the bartenders and others. Meanwhile, Green said, 10 women approached the officers about paying for sex.

"It was just so out in the open, and so obvious what was going on," Green said.

If it was so obvious what was going on—not just in that moment, but to the point that it sparked a two-month investigation—then it was probably obvious to the folks who run the Mummers' Downtowners Fancy Brigade clubhouse. They—in all likelihood—knew what was going on and permitted the illegal activity to continue.

Seems like that fits the definition of a criminal conspiracy under Pennsylvania statutes:

A person is guilty of
conspiracy with another person or persons to commit a crime if
with the intent of promoting or facilitating its commission he:
(1) agrees with such other person or persons that they
or one or more of them will engage in conduct which
constitutes such crime or an attempt or solicitation to
commit such crime; or
(2) agrees to aid such other person or persons in the
planning or commission of such crime or of an attempt or
solicitation to commit such crime.
(b) Scope of conspiratorial relationship.--If a person
guilty of conspiracy, as defined by subsection (a) of this
section, knows that a person with whom he conspires to commit a
crime has conspired with another person or persons to commit the
same crime, he is guilty of conspiring with such other person or
persons, to commit such crime whether or not he knows their
identity.

In other words, you don't have to have had a conversation saying "let's do this criminal act together" in order to commit criminal conspiracy. It can be implicit and tacit—and the justice system can infer evidence of such a tacit conspiracy.

Well, hey: Pretty much the whole city has made the same inference here.

It's another question entirely whether prostitution should be illegal at all. (I'm of mixed opinions on the topic.) But right now it's not just illegal to offer sex for money; it's illegal to pay money for sex. We've only one side of that equation here—and women, again, are bearing the criminal burden of it. Philadelphia police and prosecutors can do better than that.

'Our main targets were the females': Police, the Mummers, and prostitutes

Lawrence Crovetti, charged with
promoting prostitution—the only man
to face sex charges in the case.

We get a bit of an explanation in today's Inquirer:

John Murray, 56, of Deptford, the club's financial secretary, and Alfred Sanborn, 44, of South Philadelphia, its steward, were arrested on liquor violation charges. The two acted as bartenders during the parties, and the clubhouse did not have a liquor license, police said.

Murray and Sanborn were aware of the prostitution, said Deputy Police Commissioner William Blackburn, but police did not have enough evidence to charge them with prostitution-related offenses. The dozens of men seen interacting with the women were not arrested, either.

"We weren't privy to the conversations between the males and the females, where there was a price and a particular act that was identified," Blackburn said. "Our main targets were the females."

The main targets were the females? Why? If the police are correct, Tuesday night's Mummer's prostitution party was a monthly event. They went to the trouble of getting an undercover officer invited into the club. They couldn't take the time to develop a case against the people who were facilitating the prostitution parties, or taking advantage of the services?

It takes two to tango. Certainly, this particular Mummers club has received a black eye it may not recover from. But it is the women—with one exception—who are charged with crimes involving sex. Not the men who were also committing crimes. With due respect to the difficulties of developing a prosecution-worthy case, it is simply wrong that the criminal burden of this situation falls so heavily, so exclusively on the women involved.

Not just the criminal burden, but the social burden. The men who sought blowjobs and who knows what else from these women won't have their pictures published in a photo gallery at Philly.com, forever viewable by anybody able to use Google. (And look at those photos, how bedraggled and worn most of the women appear. It should put the lie to any media-fueled fantasies we have about Julia Roberts-style glamorous hookers.) The men were paying for sex, but it is the women who are paying the price. It is a shame. A damn shame.