PORTLAND, Ore. – Lawrence G. Owen, 75, is headed to federal prison. U.S. District Court Judge Michael H. Simon handed down a 30-month sentence on Wednesday, April 12, 2017, to the man who ran a widespread prostitution ring disguised as a network of Portland-area strip clubs and adult video stores. Owen pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution and conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) – a double-dip of depravity and deceit.
Court documents paint a grim picture of Owen and his family’s operation. They owned and operated eight strip clubs and two adult video stores, each harboring nineteen private show rooms. These weren’t just places for a peek; they were hubs for tens of thousands of acts of prostitution between January 2006 and June 2010. Owen didn’t just turn a blind eye, he encouraged it, profiting handsomely from the exploitation of dancers.
The scheme didn’t stop at human trafficking. Owen and his family systematically cheated the IRS out of $728,000 by concealing $2.6 million in income. Their methods were brazenly simple: a cash-only policy, the destruction of daily records, and outright lies to their tax preparer. For five years, they falsified tax returns or skipped filing them altogether, treating the government – and by extension, the taxpayers – with contempt.
“Mr. Owen and his co-conspirators profited from the promotion of prostitution at numerous clubs around Portland,” declared Billy J. Williams, United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. “These clubs – and Mr. Owen’s actions – were a blight on the neighborhoods in which they operated.” Williams emphasized the office’s commitment to prosecuting those who flaunt their legal obligations, stating that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the IRS will continue to work together to identify and prosecute business owners and individuals who fail to uphold their legal duty as taxpayers.
The feds hit Owen’s empire hard in June 2010, executing federal search warrants at all ten businesses and the homes of the conspirators. The raid yielded eighty-five boxes of records and a staggering $843,000 in cash, all of which has been forfeited to the United States. Furthermore, the net proceeds from a $2.3 million property sale in Northeast Portland have been placed in trust to cover the owed taxes, penalties, and interest.
Owen isn’t going down alone. Two of his adult stepchildren, Gilbert and Kandace Desmarais, and strip club manager Gary Bryant, have already pleaded guilty to the same charges in May 2015 and March 2016, respectively. All three are scheduled to be sentenced in June 2017. The investigation was led by IRS Criminal Investigations, with support from the Portland Police Bureau and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys Seth D. Uram and Ryan W. Bounds prosecuted the case.
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Key Facts
- State: Oregon
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Sex Crimes|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Organized Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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