Stop Treating Every Raid as Rescue

The recent raids in Anchorage and Wasilla are being framed as arresting sex traffickers and rescuing victims, but many of those charged were actually the workers themselves. Simple things that sex workers do as part of the job, like negotiating a price, having condoms, locking doors, or working alongside another sex worker, are used as evidence to justify sex trafficking charges.

What jumps out to me about the massage parlor raids is not just who was charged. It is who is being treated as more dangerous. In total, there were seven people arrested.

I wasn’t able to find charging documents for Xiong Xiaotian. Maybe it was a spelling issue, but I tried multiple variations for the spelling. I even tried Vinelink. No luck.

But I found the others.

According to the charging and bail information, Terry Allan Volkman, identified by investigators as a suspected manager of Renew Spa, was released on a $5,000 appearance bond on April 15.

Meanwhile, several of the women charged, women who are identified in the charging docs as sex workers, face far steeper bail amounts.

Guoguo Zhang was held on $100,000 cash/performance and $100,000 cash/appearance bail. The undercover officer had propositioned her during a massage and asked if there was another girl who could join.

Tuan Huynh’s bail was set at $25,000 cash/appearance. From the charging docs, he appears to be the boyfriend of one of the women, Hui Zhang, helping with shopping and sometimes acting as a driver. In the docs, they write that he also said that a long time ago he used to be a client, but not anymore, since he had met Hui.

Hui Zhang is described in the docs as being a sex worker, but also getting rid of condoms, and helping to pick up a sign from SIGNCO for Zen Massage.

Her recommended bail? It was presumptive release to personal recognizance, but that was overridden due to “Significant Criminal History”.

I couldn’t find anything about her criminal history, and I searched. Although there is a man by the same name in Massachusetts who defrauded the bank of a million bucks.

I don’t think they are the same person. And that is worth noting.

Hongzhen Li was listed on business documents as the registered owner of Zen Spa and is being held with no bail at all. Huynh told the police that she was Van Ness’s girlfriend. She is 51, and Lee Merrill Van Ness is 75. Van Ness had $5,000 cash/appearance bail, with a court-approved custodian.

When sex trafficking cases are announced in the media, the public is usually handed a familiar script. The news reports what the police tell them, and the headlines exclaim “SEX TRAFFICKING” and “VICTIMS SAVED”.

We are told this is about rescue.

We are told law enforcement is targeting exploitation.

But when you look at who is actually locked up, who gets a path out, and who is left sitting in jail, this story gets messy fast.

If Volkman was important enough to be described as a suspected manager, someone allegedly helping run operations at Renew Spa, why was his bail only $5,000? Why does a man described as part of the management structure walk out on a relatively low bond while women in the same alleged business face high bail amounts or no bail at all? That is not a small detail.

This raises a harder question that these raids rarely answer. When police say they are going after trafficking, who are they actually going after? Because over and over, the answer seems to be women who are sex workers, and because the women in these specific raids are not white, it only makes it harder to see them as capable and independent enough to make their own choices. Xenophobic much?

Well, until you figure the bail amounts anyway. Then they are seen as capable criminals.

That is what makes these cases so hard to take at face value. Using the language of trafficking suggests the state is targeting power, coercion, and force. But the bail outcomes suggest something else. They suggest a system that still knows exactly how to sort people by who the court sees as worthy of release.

And in Alaska, this pattern is not new.

In Alaska, sex trafficking just means that someone manages or supervises a place of prostitution (Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree). Or like Guoguo Zhang, allegedly agreeing with the undercover to go get her friend for a double (also Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree). In the charging doc details, condoms and security measures are being used as criminal evidence. Alaska has not figured out how to actually combat sex trafficking without arresting sex workers.

Sex workers are often treated as both suspect and expendable. Victim or victimizer. Our bodies become the site of public outrage, and then we are handed the harshest consequences. But the men around sex workers, often when described as facilitators or managers, often seem to move through the system differently.

Especially if they are white men.

Maybe prosecutors will argue there are facts not yet public that justify the bail disparities. Maybe more information will come out. I don’t know, but I will be paying attention. I have the charging docs and the pretrial assessment docs. The proof of service and the arrest sheets. I have read them all, and many things stand out, but I wanted to focus on the bail discrepancies right now.

Based on what is public now, what is alleged, let me paint you the bail picture that tells its own story.

A suspected male manager at Renew Spa got out on $5,000. One woman got no bail. Another was hit with a $100,000 bail. That is not what equal concern for exploitation looks like. It looks like the same old hierarchy bullshit.

Here are the people charged and the specific alleged charges and bail info (minus Xiong).

Tuan Huynh, charged with five counts of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree. He was observed transporting women and luggage between various spas and the airport. $25,000 cash/appearance.

Lee Merrill Van Ness, charged with five counts of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree. Evidence shows him picking up workers from the airport and transporting them to spas. $5,000 cash/appearance.

Terry Allan Volkman, charged with five counts of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree. He was identified as a suspected manager of Renew Day Spa, where he was seen bringing groceries, transporting workers, and managing patron altercations. $5,000 appearance bond, per risk assessment, pretrial enforcement was recommended, and records indicated he is on formal probation supervision, although I did not see anything in a court records check on what that would be from.

Hui Zhang (alias Sunny), charged with one count of Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree (managing/supervising an enterprise) and two counts of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree (receiving compensation and facilitating the enterprise). Presumptive release to personal recognizance was recommended, yet this was overridden, and she is being held with no bail according to her arrest sheet.

Hong Zhen Li, charged with two counts of Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree (owning/managing an enterprise) and one count of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree (facilitating the enterprise). No bail.

Guoguo Zhang, charged with two counts of Sex Trafficking in the Second Degree (owning an enterprise and procuring customers) and two counts of Sex Trafficking in the Third Degree (accepting proceeds and facilitating the enterprise). $100,000 cash/performance and $100,000 cash/appearance.

If this really is about sex trafficking, then the public deserves more than headlines about raiding massage spas.

What about the other sex trafficking cases that have been repeatedly called in to APD?

Women like Kaitlyn Kaganak, her alleged sex trafficker has not been arrested, and it has been months since she was found murdered.

There are other names I cannot list, bad men, predators, that have been shared by family members asking the police for help getting their loved one away from their trafficker. Where are those headlines of those arrests?

We deserve an honest accounting of who is being punished, who is being framed as dangerous, and why that burden keeps falling so heavily on the women. Before you applaud these arrests and thumbs up these raids, try to read beyond the headlines, between the police press releases, and stop treating every raid as a rescue.

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