WA mayor said he was investigating sex trafficking, admits using illicit massage parlors

After a series of raids earlier this year at Kennewick massage parlors where women were allegedly being sold for sex, Kennewick Mayor Bill McKay went to police and admitted he had paid for services.

McKay first spoke with investigators in early March after a suspected illicit massage parlor on Clearwater Avenue was raided, according to police reports and documents obtained by the Herald under the Washington Open Public Records Act.

At first, McKay told detectives he was simply trying to help investigate the massage businesses.

But when investigators told McKay there may be video cameras at the suspected illicit massage parlors, he admitted he had paid for sexual services, said the documents and a video of McKay’s interview with detectives in March.

McKay resigned suddenly from the council earlier this week. When reached by phone Thursday, McKay declined to comment on the documents released by officials. And he previously declined to talk about his resignation after five years in office.

“The information was shared with the Benton County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and the Kennewick City Attorney’s office. Due to the fact that there was no corroborating evidence to accompany Mr. McKay’s admissions, charges were not pursued,” Kennewick public relations manager Evelyn Lusignan told the Herald in an email.

Included in the documents are emails between Benton County Prosecutor Eric Eisinger and a deputy prosecutor creating a record of times when McKay reached out to Eisinger about the sex trafficking investigation he provided information to detectives for.

Federal prosecutors were looped in, but did not make any decisions on whether or not to prosecute. They did not speak directly with McKay.

Bringing federal charges against McKay or any other customer can prove difficult because prosecutors would need to show the women involved were minors or kept in the parlors by force, fraud or coercion, according to an email conversation.

Eisinger told the Herald that his office never made any decisions about whether or not to charge McKay. Since the crime of soliciting a prostitute is a misdemeanor in Washington, it would be handled by the city prosecutor.

“Since this involves a public official, it’s particularly important that you have an appearance of impartiality,” Eisinger said. “I would have wanted a special prosecutor to take this case.”

The detectives said in an email to police commanders and prosecutors after the interview that the information McKay provided could be used in potential search warrants for a sex trafficking investigation related to some of the massage parlors he talked about.

Lusignan said that at no time was McKay asked to investigate or gather information on local massage parlors for the Kennewick Police Department.

She also said the city manager, police chief and city attorney met with council members individually once the investigation was complete.

On Tuesday, Mayor Pro Tem Gretl Crawford read McKay’s short resignation letter at the beginning of the regular city council meeting.

McKay has served on the city council since 2018, and was selected by his fellow council members to serve as mayor in 2022.

His major focus on the council was development related projects such as Thompson Hill, and adding prayer to the opening of the public meeting.

McKay is a former loan officer and small business owner. He owns a mini storage business in Kennewick. His son, Will McKay, is a Benton County commissioner.

Ethics policy concerns

A closed-door executive session to “evaluate complaints or charges brought against a public officer or employee” also was removed from Tuesday’s meeting’s agenda.

Lusignan later told the Herald that the item was related to the police reports.

Other members of the city council had begun the process of investigating an ethics concern, Lusignan said. The council was set to review the investigative materials before a citizen made a public records request for some of the same documents.

The police reports, emails and video interview were releasable to the the council and public because they were no longer part of an active investigation, she said.

Because McKay resigned, the ethics probe under the city council’s policy has been dropped. No formal ethics complaint had been filed before his resignation.

The city council voted to changed its ethics policy on April 18 to no longer require consulting with an outside attorney. The change on how they handled their own ethics concerns came during the same period that McKay was talking with investigators.

Emails show McKay called Eisinger on March 30 to ask whether the massage parlors named in his interview were still being investigated. McKay called Eisinger again on April 26 to discuss the information he provided and the decision not to charge the parlors.

The new council ethics policy directs council members to discuss potential ethics issues one on one to see if they can resolve the problem, then a closed-door executive session meeting can be called or added to a regular meeting for full council discussion without action.

After this step, there is a 14-day “cooling off period” before a formal complaint, requiring two council members requesting it, can be filed.

A full public hearing can only be added to the public meeting at the request of the council member alleged to have committed an ethics violation. After this cooling off period, the council could then vote on sanctions.

The meeting item removed after McKay’s resignation would have been the required closed discussion before the cooling off period, Lusignan said.

Massage business raids

McKay first approached the police department in March 2023, shortly after one massage parlor was raided.

At that point, he claimed he had been investigating the parlors on his own for about two years. At first he told detectives he always left when offered sexual services because “he was a married man” and didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage, but when a detective asked what they would find if they reviewed video at one of the raided businesses, he admitted he had paid for a “happy ending.”

McKay told the detectives that he began looking into the illicit parlors after hurting his back and being unable to get into the chiropractor. He said he went looking for a massage and was offered sexual services.

McKay said he had a list of 20 massage parlors selling sexual services and believed they were involved in sex trafficking. He said he only ever received sexual acts such as “happy endings” or “hand jobs” but did not have sex with the women.

Over the course of the hourlong interview, McKay went through the list of which businesses were allegedly offering which sexual services. The full list he provided to detectives included five he believed were selling sex, five offering “happy endings” and six that did not offer sexual services, according to handwritten notes from one of the detectives.

He also discussed at length the physical appearance of the women at the businesses, calling one woman “uglier than a mud a fence.” When describing the women at another illicit massage parlor, he said, “Those two, they’re old. Two older ladies, again uglier than a mud fence. I mean they actually make the other girl ... look cute.”

McKay was aware the businesses were likely involved in sex trafficking, according to comments he made during the interview.

“Here’s the thing. Those girls every two or three months are changed out. So I’m pretty sure that this is a sex trafficking,” he said.

He later said the trafficking was the part that bugged him and was why he came forward. He believed they were Chinese and did not speak English.

Alleged sex trafficking

Kennewick police have conducted multiple raids this year on massage parlors, linking at least six to alleged sex trafficking and money laundering.

Kennewick police appear to have used McKay’s information to investigate four locations that provided sexual services.

During the May 16 search, police detectives were joined by the state Department of Health and Mirror Ministries. Officials searched two others, which had licensing problems, but officers didn’t find any evidence of human trafficking.

Inside, they discovered women living inside and mattresses on the floor. This lined up with comments McKay made about some of the businesses.

Most of the women didn’t even realize they had been brought to the Tri-Cities, said investigators.

One woman told police she had landed in the U.S. within a month and said she had a $10,000 debt to pay off. Others had IDs from New York, Texas and California.

While the nine women denied living at the business, officials found suitcases and food on site and a sink converted into a makeshift shower.

Mirror Ministries Executive Director Tricia MacFarlan said at least one woman had been so deprived of personal belongings she broke down crying when she was offered some new underwear.

“It’s those little pieces of dignity that are so very powerful,” MacFarlan told the Herald at the time.

“Most of the women we talked to didn’t feel like they had any other options for employment,” she said. “It’s disheartening that there isn’t more uproar for these women from our community. We all seem to know these massage parlors are here.”

Often these businesses persist because of lack of resources and a lack of will to make a change, said Chris Muller-Tabenera, the chief strategy officer with The Network, an intelligence-driven counter human trafficking organization.

He talked to the Tri-City Herald earlier this year about the issues around human trafficking.

The May 16 operation led the city council to tighten restrictions on massage businesses in an attempt to locate more of them.