In brief: City Council revises prostitution ordinance

A revised prostitution ordinance introduced Monday by the Spokane City Council would expand what the state Supreme Court called a vague ordinance defining prostitution.

The city stopped using a portion of the ordinance to prosecute prostitutes after the state Supreme Court threw out a case in 2004 against a Spokane woman charged with prostitution-related loitering. That hindered prosecution of a few cases, City Prosecutor Howard Delaney said.

“That’s why we’re changing it,” Delaney said. “It’s a pretty simple change.”

Gypsy Ann Neff was charged with loitering for the purposes of prostitution in 2001. The city public defender’s office appealed her conviction on the grounds that the ordinance was too vague, and the Supreme Court agreed.

At the time, the ordinance used the term “known prostitute” but didn’t define it. The revised ordinance defines a known prostitute as someone who has been arrested for violation of the prostitution ordinance or is known by police to have a past conviction.

Monday was the council’s first look at the revision.

Couple jailed on drug charges after heroin found in car

Deputies confiscated a pound of heroin Sunday after stopping a car for a defective taillight and an obscured rearview mirror.

Brandy E. Lorentzen, 33, told a Spokane County sheriff’s deputy her license was suspended when he pulled her over in the Taco Bell parking lot at 1202 N. Monroe St. about 6:45 p.m., according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The deputy discovered her passenger and husband, Brian D. Lorentzen, 32, was wanted on a state Department of Corrections warrant charging him with escape from community custody.

The deputy found a baggie with black tar heroin on Brian Lorentzen and a tube containing a half-pound of the drug in his wife’s purse, according to a news release. Fifteen baggies with about 12 grams of heroin each were found in the couple’s Chevy Celebrity station wagon, along with a scale and drug packaging material, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A jailhouse search of Brandy Lorentzen turned up $300, in addition to $516 found during the traffic stop, according to the release.

The two were booked into the Spokane County Jail on charges of possession of heroin with intent to deliver.

VANCOUVER, B.C.

Another human foot washes ashore in British Columbia

Yet another human foot has washed up along the British Columbia coast.

Police in southwestern British Columbia say a left foot was found partially submerged in water on Westham Island, south of Vancouver, Monday morning.

It’s the fifth foot in less than a year that has washed up on shorelines along islands in British Columbia.

The four previous feet were all right feet wearing socks and shoes, and two of them were size 12.

The last one was found on May 22 on Kirkland Island in the Fraser River.

Police are trying to see if they are linked.

BELLINGHAM

Body of man killed by rocks removed from Mount Baker

The body of a man who was killed by falling rocks on Mount Baker has been removed from the mountain.

The Whatcom County sheriff’s office says that 25-year-old Hyun Seo reportedly was standing at the bottom of a cliff at the 6,500-foot level of the 10,778-foot mountain when a large piece of rock broke off and fell on him.

It took search-and-rescue volunteers two days to retrieve the body, which was crushed by boulders.

The accident was reported about 11 p.m. Friday by other members of Seo’s climbing party.

The death came three days after 31-year-old Eduard Burceag, of Bellevue, died when he and two others were trapped in a blizzard on Mount Rainier, 130 miles south of Mount Baker.