Logic might indicate that CCDS itself -- as the nonprofit agency receiving the referrals -- would have a count of how many cases were sent its way.
Not so. CCDS Executive Director Thom Bateman explained to the supervisors that all records older than 12 months had been destroyed, because the statute of limitations expired on those cases. Another six months' worth of data was lost when one of the hard drives on a CCDS computer crashed.
All anyone could tell from available records is that during the last five months of the program -- between July 1 and Nov. 30, 1998 -- the DA's Office referred 456 cases to CCDS, and 243 of those women appeared for hearings and, most likely, agreed to pay fines. (What happened to the remaining 213 cases is a mystery.)
The numbers from CCDS, however, do not seem to match up with Police Department records. In response to one of SF Weekly's public records requests, police produced a list of 192 women who they say paid fines to the vice squad during a 17-month period from July 1997 to November 1998.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano had a hard time swallowing Bateman's explanation. "I am bothered here by, to be diplomatic, a poor accounting procedure," Ammiano said. "It comes across as: 'A dog ate my homework.' It really casts aspersions on the whole process."
How much money was then actually paid to police? Nobody knows. The police put the figure at somewhere around $22,000 for the 17 months from July 1997 through November 1998.
Reve Bautista, the assistant district attorney who oversaw the diversion program, told the board the DA's Office handles some 60,000 misdemeanor cases a year, and that massage parlor busts are but a small part of that load.
So, then, if an unknown number of women paid an unknown amount of money to the vice squad, did all the money make it to the bank?
There's no way to tell. Alex Fagan, head of the police's fiscal division, assured the supervisors that no money fell through the cracks. "I defy anyone here to divert a San Francisco vice check at a bank," Fagan said. "It just doesn't happen."
Perhaps. But in his report to the board, the budget analyst was not so certain.
"Given the lack of data, the budget analyst and controller conclude that there was not adequate documentation of these prostitution-related cases referred by the District Attorney to CCDS, and there was insufficient data on the money received from these specific cases in order to adequately track the funds generated from the program," Rose's report concluded.
Both the budget analyst and controller, however, conducted relatively limited spot checks of the vice squad's accounting procedures. An SF Weekly review of police financial documents identified $2,348 in checks that could not be matched to any of the deposit slips the vice squad filled out when it took the money to the bank.
For instance, on April 4, 1998, a check was written to vice in the amount of $350 for a case involving one Phi Ngo. On July 22, 1998, Evans Thieu Cai delivered a cashier's check for $100 to vice. Neither seems to show up on the bank deposit slips, and the list goes on.
In truth, there is no way to know if the money made it to the bank, was purloined by an errant police employee, or might still be stuffed in the back of a desk drawer somewhere.
The police accounting systems were simply too leaky to allow that kind of determination.
Despite the questions, no one is planning an in-depth audit of the vice squad's financial practices. One member of the Controller's Office, in fact, told SF Weekly that -- even if there were hard evidence of corruption in the Police Department -- tracking down a few thousand dollars wouldn't be worth the bother.
What can be said with some certainty is that the massage parlor restitution program is supposed to be dead. After SF Weekly's stories, the DA's Office stopped referring massage parlor cases to CCDS. Women arrested in parlor raids are now being referred to the SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) diversion program, which was already handling cases of arrested streetwalkers.
Unlike CCDS, SAGE does not charge administrative fees for itself, nor work out deals to pay money to the vice squad. Instead, women are offered job training, counseling, and other programs that may actually help them pursue new lines of work. SAGE's director, Norma Hotaling, says she has received only a few massage parlor cases in recent months.
Supervisors Yee, Ammiano, and Bierman, however, vow their investigation into the cost-recovery program has just begun.
"This is an ongoing problem," Yee said at the hearing's end. "If you can't handle it, then this committee and myself will take care of it."
Just because the vice squad has stopped collecting money from massage parlor workers doesn't mean it's not still handling piles of dough. With the blessing of the supervisors, the DA's Office, and the city's financial watchdogs, the Vice Department continues to accept checks from people arrested in gambling raids and for liquor law violations.
Many of those cases are also referred to CCDS, and the violators agree to pay fines to the Vice Department to settle the charges. Those receipts dwarf the amount of money collected under the massage parlor program.
