news story / By Heidi Walters

Stung

Businessman arrested in the never-ending effort to rid Third Street of prostitution

(Sept. 3, 2009)  It’s a familiar story: A quiet evening on Third Street in Old Town Eureka. Well-heeled tourists stroll catty-corner from their berths at the Carter House Inn to the Carter House’s tony Restaurant 301 for a nightcap. Working-late lawyers in the several law offices along the historic street shuffle a few last thoughts.

And in front of the Humboldt County Library, down where the street makes a jerky jog of right angles, a woman paces the street hoping for some kind gentleman to stop and offer her some money. Sometimes she might even settle for some speed. And in exchange for the money or drugs? Well, lucky man.

Unless the cops are bored. Like last Wednesday night, when they arrested three men, including a prominent Eureka businessman, for soliciting prostitution on Third Street from a female cop pretending to be a hooker. The men — Richard William Littlefield, 58, of Eureka; Eric C. Peterson, 58, of Phillipsville; and Juan Jose Salazar, 33, of Arcata — were booked and charged with solicitation for prostitution, a misdemeanor.

Littlefield, who owns Eureka Natural Foods, also was charged with driving with a suspended license. Peterson additionally was charged with possession of methamphetamine. (Incidentally, he is not to be confused with the similarly named president of the Humboldt Association of Realtors. After the sting made the news, and some jokey calls came into the Humboldt Association of Realtors, HAR sent out a memo to its membership just to let everyone know that, no, it wasn’t their president who was arrested, said Lois Lee Busey, HAR’s executive officer, on Tuesday.)

Reached Tuesday, Littlefield declined to comment on his arrest.

Lt. Murl Harpham of the Eureka Police Department said the sting began just before dark. He wasn’t there, but he described the general approach:

“The decoy officer just basically walks in that area around Third Street, from about J Street to the library,” he said. “And then we have officers that cover her, watching her from a distance and listening to her — she’s got a wire on her. And then when a person approaches her and commits the act — wants to have sex for money — then she says, ‘OK, I’ll meet you at the motel.’ And then when he drives away we arrest him in the area of the motel, which shows that he was planning on going through with it. It’s called ‘furtherance of the act.’”

Harpham declined to say which motel the sting used. “We were using one motel for awhile and we tried to do a Craigslist thing, and everybody got suspicious of that motel and wouldn’t go there,” he said.

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