A 29-year man from India in the U.S. on a work visa and employed at the time as a San Jose, Calif.-based software development manager for Amazon.com, was arrested April 12 and charged April 19 in King County Superior Court with the felony offense of attempted commercial sexual abuse of a minor after becoming ensnared in a Seattle Police Department vice unit sting involving an apparent 15-year-old prostitute. Public documents in the case file assert he agreed to pay the apparent prostitute $60 for oral sex, cuddling and fondling in his room at the Seattle Hyatt at the end of a five-day business trip here in mid-April. It is another in a series of Seattle Police vice unit busts attempting to root out alleged patrons of underage prostitutes – engineered through online hook-up ads, emails and text messaging conversations. Similar cases recently filed have not yet yielded convictions but have already resulted in a University of Washington-Bothell teaching associate being placed on temporary leave, and a managing director of the Seattle-based national firm Slalom Consulting being dismissed from his job.
Charged this time around is Vishwastam Shukla, of Fremont, California, who also gives a second residential address in the 2300 block of 3rd Avenue in Seattle. In both the Seattle Police Department arrest form included in the charging documents and in the King County Department of Adult Detention bail release form, Shukla is identified as a software development manager for Amazon.com. The bail release form also provides a San Jose work address of 2880 Zanker Road.
Amazon is not commenting at all, but the onsite building manager of Shukla’s Amazon.com work location in San Jose, confirmed directly to Public Data Ferret that Shukla, by name, worked in the building in a space leased for Amazon.com. We also reached Shukla on the landline phone in that office Wednesday May 1, through the building’s front desk concierge and switchboard call router, who had just seen him returning to the office and put the call through. He declined comment.
Shukla’s Seattle-based lawyer Jeffrey D. Cohen also declined comment. Repeated email and voice mail messages to Amazon media relations functionaries including spokesman Drew Herdener went unreturned.
Sharon Rummery, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that for holders of HI-B visas (the type used by foreign national software workers in the U.S.) any cessation of work must be reported by the employer and could become grounds for invalidation of the visa.
““FAQs on Public Data Ferret crime stories,” Musings of MrDataFerret – Tumblr site
Shukla’s LinkedIn profile, viewable only as a cached Web page since one day after Shukla was first contacted by Public Data Ferret, lists his key duties for Amazon.com in San Jose as setting up a new Bay Area office for the firm, plus “ground up” formation of a new software development team for Amazon Payments including “optimized experience” for related products used on mobile devices. His profile says he began working for Amazon.com in 2007 as a software development engineer and then manager, including a stint in Bangalore, India; and assumed his latest position as “software development manager and San Jose Site leader with Amazon.com” last August.
Shukla attended the Indian Institute of Information Technology between 2003 and 2007, and received a B.A. there. The school has served as a pipeline for highly-trained U.S. tech industry workers in Puget Sound, Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
According to public records in the current King County court case Shukla was at the end of a five-day business trip to Seattle when around 8:30 a.m. on April 12 he was arrested. Court records state that this occurred after he allegedly walked out of the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in Seattle at 110 6th Ave. N. and paid a cab driver $20 as previously agreed for transporting what we he thought would be a prostitute with whom he had begun an electronic conversation two days prior. Police allege after he responded to an ad, she replied and conveyed her age, 15, and availability, to which Shukla said, “Howdy Hun! How much? I can host at my cozy room at Hyatt…” As the conversation continued she underscored that she was “15, fun, outgoing and very cute.” The two later negotiated price, acts to be performed, and transportation fee.
After getting an email the morning of April 12 that she was downstairs, Shukla went to the Hyatt lobby, paid the driver and was then arrested. The role of online bait was played, as has typically been the case in a string of similar recent Seattle Police stings, by a male vice unit detective who specializes in online impersonations of underage hookers. Her role upon delivery to the hotel was played by a female undercover vice detective, and the cab driver by a male counterpart.
“Seattle Police Sting: Felony Charge for Ravenna Man,” Public Data Ferret
Shukla’s next court date in Seattle is May 14, for case schedule setting. The exact language of the charge against Shukla, “attempted commercial sexual abuse of a minor” is different from recent filings in very similar cases, due to the preface, “attempted.” Asked about the significance of this, Criminal Division Chief Deputy Mark Larson of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said that after Shukla’s arrest “the court refused to find probable cause on the completed crime of commercial sexual abuse of a minor. The court believed there was only probable cause for the attempt.” King County prosecutors in at least this and one other parallel case will use the “attempted” qualifier in charging documents, but then will argue in court that the attempt under the state statute constitutes “a completed crime,” said Larson.
“UW Teaching Associate Faces Felony Sex Charge In Recent Seattle Sting,” Public Data Ferret
The state statute currently does appear to define commercial sexual abuse of a minor as when someone offers or agrees to pay, or does pay a minor or a third party either for engaging in sex with the minor, or to facilitate that. It is a Class B felony, and the penalty upon conviction can be imprisonment for up to 10 years, or a fine of up to $20,000 or both. However, if only the “attempted” charge sticks in a given case, if that, then it declines to a Class C felony, with a maximum penalty range 25 percent lower. Across the board however, standard sentencing ranges are typically far less than the maximum allowed.
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