A meeting was ultimately held at police headquarters in Manhattan, but the sessions were not productive, one police official said. A persistent problem for police has been the reluctance of the women to cooperate with police. Even when the women are not arrested, when I tell them I am not going to charge them, that I just want them to tell their stories, they won' t talk to me, said Queens Executive Assistant District Attorney Jesse Sligh, who directs prostitution investigations. In 99 percent of the cases, the women do not carry any paperwork at the time of the arrest. I believe the women are taught that, said Sligh.
Language is another problem.
To pass as customers, undercover officers may need to speak particular dialects of Asian languages or may need to speak Spanish with a certain kind of accent. In Brighton Beach, investigators believe there is some type of forced prostitution occurring with women who have recently arrived from the former Soviet Union. But so far, language barriers have hindered police efforts to infiltrate the Russian restaurants and clubs along Brighton Beach Avenue, according to police sources. Police have assisted federal officials in some sex trafficking cases, notably the breakup of a Czech ring in 1998 and a Chinatown brothel in 1995. Grasing, who reports having good relationships with other law enforcement agencies, said recent successes in busting Korean and Hispanic brothels have allowed his staff of 19 detectives to begin focusing attention on the bigger picture, particularly in the Korean sex industry.