Israel Luna faces charges including promotion of prostitution and running a sexually oriented business without a license.
DALLAS — The owner of what Dallas Police dubbed a “sexual encounter center” said he plans to fight the charges against him and argued it was not illegal to charge money for holding an event that people attended for the purpose of having sex.
Dallas Police raided Israel Luna’s Spayse Studios near Manana Road and Harry Hines in April, detained 48 people inside the production studio space, and seized drugs and cash. Police said the people they interviewed who were inside said they paid $35 to have “consensual sexual intercourse” at the location.
Officers arrested Luna and his business associate, Marc Tuton.
Luna, 53, faces charges of promotion of prostitution, operating a sexually oriented business without a license, and two felony drug charges. Tuton, 42, was also charged with operating a sexually oriented business without a license.
The other people detained at the event were released at the scene, police said.
In an interview with WFAA, Luna said he has hosted similar events multiple times a month since 2019 — and does not believe they are illegal.
“You pay a cover charge, it’s for 21 and up, adults only and whatever happens, happens,” he said. “As long as people are consenting, you know, anything goes.”
He said police have presented no evidence that anyone involved was being trafficked or forced to participate in sex acts against their will.
“Over the years, we’ve probably had thousands and thousands of people come in and out of the studio,” he said. “Where’s the person running outside saying, ‘rescue me because they’re prostituting me?”
Texas law says someone commits the crime of promoting prostitution, one of the charges which Luna faces, if they “receive money or other property pursuant to an agreement to participate in the proceeds of prostitution” or “solicit another to engage in sexual conduct with another person for compensation.”
Police said in an arrest affidavit that Luna acknowledged that he “would receive financial compensation for sexual events that he hosted, including those uploaded online and promoted on social media.”
Luna also disputed the charge of operating a sexually oriented business without a license, saying he asked city permitters repeatedly if his production studio needed to be permitted separately because of the pop-up, private events at which people had sex. He said he was told no and to obtain a commercial amusement permit instead.
“I did what they told me to,” he said. “I just go to the City of Dallas, and I follow their lead.” He said his lawyer advised him not to provide a reporter with a copy of the emails he exchanged with city staff.
But even if Luna had registered as a sexually oriented business, sex is not allowed on the property. Dallas City Code says a license will be revoked if “a licensee or an operator has knowingly allowed any act of sexual intercourse, sodomy, oral copulation, masturbation, or sexual contact to occur in or on the sexually oriented business premises.”
(An exception is made in the city code for an “adult motel,” unless the sexual contact happens within public view. The events Luna describes hosting do not appear to fit the definition of an adult motel.)
Police said they seized from the scene 227 grams of marijuana, 671 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and 11,034.7 grams of THC hash oil. Police also recovered more than $11,000 in currency, multiple computers, hard drives and other electronics, as well as pleasure devices and a cargo van believed to be used in the production of pornography, according to Dallas police.
Luna said the drugs were not his — and the events he hosts are drug and alcohol free. He said he has retained a lawyer and intends to fight all the charges against him.
“Where are the victims? The victims are us because the police did this to us, and they ruined our entire business, they ruined our lives,” he said.