Prosecutor: Kraft was at massage parlor before AFC title game - The Mercury News

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Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
File photo: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was videotaped paying massage parlor employees for sex acts in south Florida twice in two days in late January, including just hours before his team played in the AFC championship game in Kansas City on Jan. 20, according to court documents released Monday.

By Will Hobson | Washington Post

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was videotaped paying massage parlor employees for sex acts in south Florida twice in two days in late January, including just hours before his team played in the AFC championship game in Kansas City on Jan. 20, according to court documents released Monday.

Wearing a blue baseball cap, a dark long-sleeved shirt and shorts, the 77-year-old billionaire walked into the massage parlor just before 11 a.m. that Sunday, according to documents released by prosecutors in Palm Beach County. He paid cash at the front desk – the parlor charged $59 for 30-minute sessions, police have said, $79 for an hour – and then was escorted into the back.

The massage attendant hugged Kraft before the sex act, a detective who viewed the video wrote, and then hugged him again about 10 minutes later when it was over. He tipped her $100, plus at least one other unidentifiable bill, records state, and then headed for the parking lot, where a blue 2015 Bentley was waiting for him.

Kraft was formally charged Monday with two counts of soliciting prostitution, misdemeanors that likely will not carry any jail time for a first-time offender. He also was videotaped visiting the same massage parlor – the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida – on Jan. 19, the night before the AFC title game, the documents state. That time, Kraft left in a white 2014 Bentley, and when the car was pulled over a few minutes later – ostensibly for a traffic-related reason – the Patriots owner produced his Massachusetts driver’s license, records state.

Kraft was among 25 men charged Monday by prosecutors in Palm Beach County as part of a wide-ranging investigation of massage parlors across several counties suspected of engaging in human trafficking. While police have arrested two women who ran the massage parlor Kraft visited, neither has been charged with trafficking-related crimes, and law enforcement officials have acknowledged they have not interviewed any of the parlor’s employees, whom they suspect are trafficking victims.

Kraft, who has maintained a second home in the Palm Beach area for years, has denied the allegations. At a news conference Monday, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said that Kraft will not have to appear in public court over the charges, which, if they lead to convictions, likely will carry punishments including a fine and community service.

The NFL is also expected to investigate the incidents and decide whether to penalize the Patriots owner under the league’s broad personal conduct policy.


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