A rush hour traffic clog triggered the arrest of seven at a Pittsburgh sex show - because a Pittsburgh police detective stuck in the traffic jam spotted a sign on a building saying "Wild Thingz" and "girls unlimited" and asked her partner what it was all about.
Det. Claudia Salerno and partner Det. Barry Fox found out soon enough on Feb. 3, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Fox dialed his cell phone and called a number on the sign, hearing things which led him to think Wild Thingz was a sex club. Returning with other undercover detectives on Feb. 9, he and they saw enough to arrest two women and five men on prostitution, obscenity, and conspiracy charges, the Post says.
"There was an actual sex show between two women," Fox tells the paper. "This was no simulation. This was the real deal." Fox also tells the paper club owner Robert Kenney told him and other detectives he'd provide them with two women for sex with men at a bachelor party.
The Post says it may have been Kenney himself who told Fox over the cell phone what the club was, providing male and female entertainers for private parties - but he may also have asked if Fox was actually an FBI agent. Using a fake name, Fox said no, at which point the paper says the man Fox knew only as Bob told him of a secret party at the club Feb. 9.
"The truck in front of me said Great Northern Telecommunications so I said I worked for them," Fox tells the Post. "There was a billboard with an 800 number so I gave that to him. I just kept looking around and using what I saw. Claudia was laughing because I'm making all of this stuff up."
Fox and friends were invited to the party. He and other detectives paid the cover charges while Salerno and still others waited outside. The officers pretended one of them was about to be married and they wanted to spring him a wild bachelor party, the Post says, got prices on dance performances and sex - while forty men were in the club watching strippers and lap dancers.
But what the detectives saw that was illegal was two dancers - Courtney Weaver and Brandee Gettemy - having sex with each other as they and others encouraged men to toss money to the stage. That's when the backups were called and the busts were made.
Kenney, Weaver, Gettemy, Kenney's son Matthew, Charles Krszal, Steve Pogozeski, and Phillip Larkins were also arrested in the case.
