Jury hears differing views in prostitution case

A prosecutor told a jury Thursday that Steven Santiago Maese may appear dapper and clean-cut, but he is really a "pimp" for prostitutes who worked for the Doll House escort service that Maese co-owned with the house "madam," Tiffany French Curtis.

The old stereotype of a pimp doesn't apply anymore, prosecutor Michael Colby said during opening arguments in Maese's trial.

"The evidence will show the pimp of today doesn't wear flashy jewelry and a big hat but a conservative business suit," Colby said.

Colby said Maese maintained an escort service that really was a house of prostitution, with women dispatched to male customers to provide sex for money, and then the employees handed over a portion of the funds.

That simply isn't the case, defense attorney Gil Athay told the jury.

Maese is a legitimate businessman with a background in marketing who Curtis asked to help with drafting a business plan to buy an existing escort service company, Athay said. Maese's research showed it would be more economical to create a new business, which the pair then did.

"Miss Curtis assured Mr. Maese this business would be conducted in a legal fashion," Athay said.

In fact, the Doll House had a policy manual that outlined precisely what its female workers could and could not do. Dancing, giving back rubs and touching certain specific parts of the body were OK. Sexual activity was expressly forbidden. They also were advised by a lawyer about what constituted legal and illegal behavior, Athay said.

Athay said some of the females who will testify did work as prostitutes, but when they engaged in sexual activity while associated with the Doll House, "they did it by their own choice."

The prosecution's first witness, Daniel Bartlett of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, said the investigators started the investigation using a "trash cover," a technique in which they obtain an empty trash truck and dump the suspect's trash on trash day, and then go to a predetermined location to sift through the trash to look for clues. They determined there was enough evidence to get a search warrant.

The warrant was served on April 5, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. Investigators found documents showing the defendant co-owned the business, including a business license, incorporation documents, worker's schedules, appointment schedules, cash and a gun in a safe.