Penal Code 315 PC House of Prostitution
This is a situation where an individual or a group of individuals keeps a house, and the house's primary purpose is for prostitution activities. To prove this case, the government will have to show that the house was being used as a house for prostitution, number one.
And number two, any defendant charged with this particular crime will have to be shown to know and be involved with the house being kept for prostitution. This sex crime is described under California Penal Code 315.
Examples of Prostitution Activity
Examples of this would be that the individual involved paying the rent for the house knowing it was being used for prostitution, collecting proceeds from the prostitution activities, set up the prostitution activity inside the house. This is a serious crime.
You don't see it charged a lot. I often know the crime is coming up when individuals are being charged with other more serious offenses, like pimping and pandering, for example, which carries a 3-year mandatory minimum. Instead of getting that 3-year mandatory minimum and pimping and pandering conviction of their record, the attorney can negotiate this Penal Code Section 315 – keeping a house for prostitution purposes.
The government doesn't prosecute this a lot. They do once in a while. I see it charged when people get greedy, meaning they are keeping a house of prostitution and mixing gambling, drugs, and other illicit behavior. It ends up being a big operation.
Maybe they're stupid enough to do it in the neighborhood, the neighbors see it, they become angry about it, they call the police, and the police either send somebody in there to surveil it.
This means they send somebody in there who pretends they're a john and they're trying to hook up with one of the women in the house, and then they end up getting all the evidence they need to arrest everybody, or they surveil it, watch people coming in and out and maybe bust a few people for drugs.
Ultimately, they might even get a search warrant for the house — go in and try and corroborate their suspicions that this house is being run for prostitution. A related crime is Penal Code 266h and 266i PC pimping and pandering.
Retain an Experienced Criminal Defense Lawyer
So, suppose you have one of these convictions. In that case, you want to get a criminal defense attorney because some of the ramifications that could flow from any sex crime have to do with registering as a sex offender, jail time, prison time, all sorts of different bad things that the police and prosecutors can level against you if you get convicted of this particular crime.
So, what I have you do is come in. You give me all the background. We're going to try to look for angles — either to get you out of it by asserting a defense, like maybe you didn't know. You had no idea what was going on; even though you might have been involved with the house somehow, you had no idea exactly what the activities were going on within the home.
So, the critical thing is that you have to know and be a part of it. If you don't know and you're not a part of it, then obviously, you're not going to be in a position where you're going to take a conviction for this particular crime. So, come in, sit down, we'll go over everything. We'll see what the best angle is. Whether it's an angle to try to win the whole thing or whether we're trying to negotiate a plea bargain for you with one of the prosecutors. Contact the Hedding Law Firm for help.
