ST. GEORGE — A Dixie State University student was arrested Friday for alleged sexual solicitation and running a massage parlor without a license after an extensive investigation by campus police.
On the afternoon of Jan. 30, the campus housing department contacted Dixie State University Security and Campus Police to report that a woman, later identified as 18-year-old Ramajah Marie Patrick, was allegedly engaging in sexual solicitation, Dixie Campus Police director Don Reid said.
Video surveillance footage showed several middle-aged men inside of the Campus View Suites, the on-campus single student housing complex, at night after the doors were locked, Reid said, which prompted the five-week investigation conducted by Dixie State Police investigators.
The men who were entering the dorm did not appear to know their way around the facility, the police director said, which led investigators to believe they were not active students. Further surveillance footage allegedly showed Patrick meeting these men at the door and inviting them into her room.
“That type of behavior undermines campus safety, particular when these individuals who are not attending the university but are seen entering the apartments after hours,” Reid said, “and our primary agenda is to keep the students safe.”
After viewing the suspicious behavior, Reid said, officers scanned social media where they found advertisements discreetly posted by Patrick to solicit individuals for prostitution.
According to the probable cause statement filed Friday by Dixie State University Police officer Eldon Gibb, investigators found on three separate occasions Patrick met three different men between the ages of 35 to 45 years of age at her apartment, and after approximately 30 minutes the men were seen exiting the building.
Using social media, investigators responded to the woman’s advertisement on Craigslist and made an appointment to meet Patrick, Reid said. At the scheduled time, two uniformed officers along with the undercover officer responded to the room and placed Patrick under arrest.
The woman was then brought to the DSU Campus Police office where she was interviewed and, according to the probable cause statement, allegedly confessed to engaging in sexual acts with other men and to providing massages to men for money without a license.
The five-week investigation and arrest was handled by the Dixie State University Security and Campus Police Department, Reid said, with advisory assistance from the St. George Police Department and the city prosecutor’s office to ensure that all legal and probable cause requirements were met.
“This was a pretty tough investigation,” Reid said, “and it’s the first investigation and arrest of its kind that I’ve heard of in all of my years of working at the university.”
Patrick was transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility early Friday morning and faces one count of running a massage parlor without having a license, a class A misdemeanor and one count of sexual solicitation, a class B misdemeanor. Patrick was later released on $2,630 bail.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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well i can understand why they don’t want the dorms to become a brothel. Very embarrassing for her.
Why weren’t the customers arrested?
They were probably men that work for the college too. You know people that couldn’t embarrass them… Upstanding citizens that are in this great city/state of Utah that do no wrong… She probably paid her tuition and dorm fees and any other fees with that money too… Wonder why no one turned her in for it??? ?