By elaine van develde
Staff Writer
TINTON FALLS — While police say they have lodged prostitution charges many times before, against people allegedly committing the crime in the borough’s hotels, an alleged act in the woods last week broke that pattern.
Parelee Simmons, 45, of Asbury Park, was arrested and charged with prostitution on July 30, after she was allegedly found by police having sexual relations in the woods off Essex Road with Robert Klein, 50, of Marlboro. Klein was charged with patronizing a prostitute.
Police responded to the area after receiving a call about a suspicious car at the site.
Through an investigation at the time of the arrests, police determined that Simmons was picked up in Asbury Park by Klein and driven to Essex Road, "for the purpose of having sex for compensation," the report read.
"We’ve had a lot of problems with prostitution in just about all the (borough’s) hotels," Tinton Falls Police Capt. David Trevena said. "But it is a first to actually find someone allegedly soliciting with a suspected customer in the woods."
In past cases, Trevena said, escort services operating as a front for prostitution have been known to tell potential clients to meet their escort at an area hotel room.
Rooms at all of the borough’s hotels have allegedly been used at one time or another for the services in the past. Hotel management and police have worked together to crack down on the crime and eliminate it from the establishments, Trevena said.
Tinton Falls Police have made several arrests of suspected prostitution solicitors at those locations, he added.
"We’re trying to make it (prostitution) unattractive to these people," Trevena added. "The problem has been that, if you were at a hotel and it was occurring, you wouldn’t even realize."