A downtown massage parlor which has been the subject of controversy and investigation for several years is now under police investigation for alleged prostitution activity.
A report from the Madison Police Department released Wednesday said police are currently investigating the Rising Sun on 117 West Main Street, near the Capitol and on the same block which includes establishments such as The Frequency and the Tornado Steakhouse.
The report said officers were executing a search warrant to investigate prostitution at the massage parlor, which Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said has commonly been the subject of inquiries from area residents.
Verveer said he has, for the last several years, been asked if any illicit sexual activity occurs at Rising Sun. However, he said both he and police had not received any leads about prostitution at the location and none of the inquiries were actual complaints.
“Everyone has suspected for years that it was a house of prostitution, and for whatever reason it was not a priority for the authorities to investigate,” Verveer said. “I never asked [police] to investigate personally; it’s never from my perspective been a problem for the neighborhood.”
MPD spokesperson Joel DeSpain said although police are currently tight-lipped about the specifics of the case, prostitution has mostly been a problem on the city’s south side, not downtown.
Most of this activity has been centered near Badger Road and Park Street, where police arrested 12 men in 2007 as part of a prostitution sting.
Police have responded to dozens of calls at Rising Sun throughout the past several years, although most of them have not involved prostitution.
DeSpain said the investigation was not a raid but instead simply the execution of a warrant, since police or SWAT team members did not enter the establishment.
He added most prostitution problems police investigate happen online.
“There used to be a larger prostitution problem in the downtown in the 1970s,” DeSpain said. “(Now), most of the sex for sale industry…are internet sites.”
The MPD report said police searched Rising Sun for evidence connected to the sexual assault of a five year-old girl on Madison’s east side in 2008. Police have not arrested anyone yet in connection with that case.
