Rep. Ron Kind | Facebook/Rep. Ron Kind
Rep. Ron Kind | Facebook/Rep. Ron Kind
Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) took advantage of the ability to vote by proxy, after saying he was unable to attend the House Chamber proceedings in person but was seen taking President Joe Biden out to an ice cream parlor.
The location of, The Pearl Ice Cream Parlor in La Crosse, has raised some questions for critics, as the parlor is located just one minute away from where Kind's tenants are known for being linked to human trafficking, Wis Politics reported.
According to Wis Politics, Kind was able to get out of being present in person during a recent House Chamber meeting to vote on several bills by voting by "proxy" through another representative that was physically present at the meeting.
“I am unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing health emergency,” Kind wrote in a letter to the House clerk, according to Wis Politics.
In May, it was revealed that Kind was abusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s proxy voting rules.
The ice cream parlor is just a one-minute walk from office space owned by Kind whose tenants include Asian Sunny Massage, which has been advertised on sex-trafficking websites like RubMaps, AssortList and BodyRubsMap. Kind collected between $15,000 and $50,000 in rental income from the property in 2018 and 2019, according to financial disclosures, Fox News reported.
"The most common, how we are seeing trafficking in massage parlors is through the recruitment and using fraud of undocumented or newly documented workers in the U.S. that don't really know how to navigate the job market and obviously need income," Rochelle Keyhan, CEO of Collective Liberty, said in a Fox News video.
A police report from Plymouth, Minnesota also revealed that the spa’s employees had previously been involved in sex trafficking.
"A lot of times, their connections are being hidden through shell corporations. It is a huge issue and a policy issue we have to address in order to empower law enforcement to really get active, and say no, and set people free," Camile Zolfaghari, executive director of Street Grace, told Fox News.
The massage parlor advertised a “new young massager” on its Facebook page in 2019, including suggestive photos of young women, whose age was unknown. One reviewer even wrote a complaint saying there were "no professional boundaries to the clients," Fox News reported.
Asian Sunny Massages owner Jie Yang told Fox News that the parlor did not provide any other "services" and only performed massages to customers.
According to Fox News, Kind has served in Congress since 1997, and has yet to release his 2020 financial report.
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