Four women pleaded guilty Wednesday for their part in a multi-state prostitution ring masquerading as an escort service.
Jodi Leigh Hoskins, 49, of Las Vegas, and Torri Wilkinson, 43, of Salt Lake City, pleaded guilty to money laundering of criminal activity and being an accessory after the fact, both felonies. They are scheduled to be sentenced May 21.
Aisha Kaluhiokalani, 45, and Andrea Smith Tizzano, 46, both pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of supervising a prostitute. Tizzano and Kaluhiokalani were both placed on one year of informal probation and sentenced to time already served behind bars — 54 days and 72 days, respectively.
They were all charged in 2019 following an investigation of the Companions escort agency, which was characterized by law enforcement in court papers as a “large-scale criminal organization that is operating call centers in four counties in three states.
The organization was operating in Orange County, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. The call centers sent money to Hoskins and Wilkinson, who were in charge of the overall operation, investigators said.
Employees in the call centers would “solicit females online to sex purchasers, communicate with the sex purchasers while posing as the female victims, and then dispatch the female victims to the `dates’ with the sex purchasers,” investigators said in court papers.
The prostitutes would collect a “door fee” of $200 and then perform sex acts for more money, investigators said. The profits would be divvied up among the others involved in the organization.
The call center manager in Orange County was Kaluhiokalani, and Tizzano did the same in Palm Springs, investigators said.
Undercover agents with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force ran a sting operation. Investigators estimated at least 50 prostitutes worked in the ring. There were more than 15 bank accounts associated with the ring, investigators said.
Law enforcement intercepted a package mailed from Wilkinson to Hoskins that contained more than $50,000 in cash, investigators said.
As part of the plea deal, multiple felony counts of pimping, pandering, conspiracy and money laundering were dismissed.