The stunning young girl lives in public housing and says her family desperately needed the money. Her mother works two jobs and cares for six children and her father is disabled and unemployed. Jana has learning disabilities and believed she could help to feed her family, who she said often went without meals because they could not afford food. Jana would have sex or perform sex acts with as many as 30 men in a hour period. Her pimp took total control of her life, taking her to hotels to rape her when she was not working.
The neatly painted, two-story white commercial building looks like any other on the busy street, with a nail salon, mail drop, sports bar and lounge and pet store on the first floor. Though she had been promised she would be paid well, her pimp never allowed her to keep any compensation. Kathryn Xian, head of the non-profit Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, said as many as five brothels have operated over the last several years at Ward Avenue where Jana was rescued by law enforcement last year.
In , there were two prostitution arrests in Golden Queen, four arrests in , two arrests in and one in Both relaxation parlors also were cited numerous times for licensing violations for operating without a massage, beauty or cosmetology license: Golden Queen has been cited 15 times since and Rappongi 11 times. Neighboring relaxation parlor, Pink, was cited four times since for license violations by the Honolulu Police Department.
None of them would respond to in person inquiries. She promised to have someone call to answer our questions, and took our business card and contact information, but no one did. The property under Ward Avenue is owned by Victoria Ward Centers, a prominent Hawaii company that owns land under several shopping centers, theatres and restaurants in the Honolulu area.
A company controlled by prominent Hawaii lawyer Rick Fried has held the master lease for the building since the s and subleases to a number of small businesses, including Rappongi, Golden Queen and Pink through his property manager, Nelson Jones. Jones said he was unaware of any illegal activities at the Ward building now, although there have been problems there before and he has evicted other tenants in the past. Records of that department show businesses operating at Ward Avenue have repeatedly been cited and fined for licensing violations.
