The Sheriff of Naughtyham
Sgt. Frank Morgan's one-man crusade against prostitution in D.C.'s 3rd District has made fans out of neighbors, politicians, prosecutors, fellow cops...and prostitutes.
Cover Story
Above the clatter of cops pounding out arrest reports, Sgt. Frank Morgan hears one of the seven prostitutes shackled before him mutter the word "fuck."
"Hey! No cursing, ladies!" Morgan scolds.
"Sorry, sorry..." the young woman replies.
Having restored order once again, Morgan resumes filling out a form citing one of them for an offense far more salacious than having a mouth that needs to be washed out with soap.
Morgan is camped in the Snyder Community Room in the police department's 3rd District (3D) with half a dozen other weary officers in the wee morning hours of Saturday, March 28. The sting earlier that night—female officers posing as prostitutes and males posing as johns—netted 17 arrests of real johns and real prostitutes. It was a quick, clean, almost glitch-free operation, but its byproduct—a haystack of paperwork—will keep them busy for hours longer than the operation itself took.
As the cops type and type, the johns silently ferment in their own regret as they sit in the cellblock at the other end of the building. The prostitutes have their regrets, too.
"Nicole," says one girl, called "Trigger." "We shoulda gone to the club."
"We shoulda gone out," Nicole agrees. They make plans to work again that night, then hit the bars on Sunday.
It all smacks of high school detention—a low-stakes transaction of transgressive behavior followed by minor consequences in which everyone has a role to play. The principal, in every sense of the word, is Frank Morgan. Morgan, 50, runs the prostitution unit in 3D. More accurately, Morgan is the prostitution unit in 3D.... Continued 
Issue of May. 15 - 21, 1998
News and Features
- The Sheriff of Naughtyham
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