OAKLAND \u2014 Two men from Washington were arrested and charged with aiding prostitution after undercover cops spotted them interacting with suspected sex workers on International Boulevard, court records show.<\/p>\n
Aavron Manning-Blanks Jr., 20, and Zion Johnson, 19, were charged with felony gun possession and a misdemeanor count of aiding prostitution after a March 10 undercover operation by Oakland police. The men were both seen interacting and exchanging items with two women who were dressed in lingerie around 7 p.m., in a part of Oakland known for prostitution. The women both turned out to be Washington state residents, like Manning-Blanks and Johnson, authorities said.<\/p>\n
An undercover detail called Oakland patrol officers, who pulled Johnson and Manning-Blanks over. The officers found a gun in the vehicle, and Johnson told them he \u201cfound it in some bushes,\u201d police said in court filings.<\/p>\n
The two women were interviewed. One admitted they were sex workers but denied they had a pimp, and said they were traveling through the Bay Area en route to Los Angeles, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Both men have been released from jail while the case is pending, records show. They have pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 Two men from Washington were arrested and charged with aiding prostitution after undercover cops spotted them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[861,862,143,145,12905,144,121608,12906],"class_list":{"0":"post-283245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bay-area-crime","9":"tag-california-crime","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-human-trafficking","13":"tag-oakland-news","14":"tag-oakland-police-bust","15":"tag-oakland-prostitution"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}