from www.freep.com – The pimp and the madam have pleaded guilty.

So have the office manager and the prostitutes’ travel coordinator.

But the thousands of johns who used their service are free, as are the call girls, including several who still advertise on the Internet.

So goes the tale of Miami Companions, a high-priced escort service whose big finish in Detroit resembles the downfall of so many sex rings before: The organizers go down. The players go free.

Women’s advocacy groups and some defense lawyers say if you want to curb prostitution, you have to go after everyone. But many law enforcement officials say you have to start at the top.

On May 12, Gregory Carr [pictured], who prosecutors say masterminded Miami Companions, will be sentenced for running what the feds had dubbed one of the biggest sex rings in the country. Metro Detroit was among its busiest ports.

But none of the 30,000-plus clients who paid as much as $500-an-hour for sex were ever outed. The so-called black book that contains their names remains in an FBI office in Tampa under tight security.

And Barbara McQuade, U.S. attorney for southeast Michigan, said she has no plans to release the book — nor does she need it now that she has guilty pleas.

“Our goal is not to stamp out prostitution. I don’t think we’ll ever do that.” she said. “But what we are concerned about is deterring criminal organizations from exploiting women as a commodity for profit.”

When Phoenix police released the black book of the Desert Divas prostitution ring in 2009, the fallout was ugly for some.

Investigators found the names of two police officers, a radiologist, the general manager of a luxury hotel and a prominent local GOP leader.

In Charlotte, N.C., in 2008, the Hush Hush sex-ring bust outed prominent locals who paid for high-priced call girls. Among them were a cardiologist, the well-known owner of a Mercedes-Benz dealership and a pool business owner accused of claiming his payments for escorts as advertising expenses on his taxes.

“The government made a demonstration of, ‘Hey, you know what, everyone who is involved here should be punished accordingly,’ ” said North Carolina attorney Melissa Owen. She represented Sallie Saxon, the Hush Hush madam who served two years in prison for running the sex ring that charged up to $700 an hour for sex.

“I do think it is significant that some of the johns were prosecuted,” Owen said. “It should stand out.”

It does. But the prosecutions were few and far between.

That is typical in the world of prostitution busts, officials said — as the Miami Companions sex-ring case in Detroit has shown. The case will essentially wrap up May 12 when co-owner Gregory Carr is sentenced for running the sex ring that, for a decade, made him millions by dispatching call girls nationwide, with metro Detroit among its busiest ports. He faces 21 to 27 months in prison.

None of the men have been prosecuted. And there are lots, about 30,000 of them, according to the agency’s client list, which remains off-limits to the public.

Renee Beeker, president of the Michigan chapter of the National Organization for Women, said she doesn’t get it.

“The men who come for this service really have to have some kind of consequence,” she said. “It would be very hard to curtail something when, essentially, the customers are allowed to continue to solicit for services.

“We clearly have to pressure our legal communities to act,” Beeker said, calling for disclosure of the list.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said releasing the client list “would be irresponsible at this point.” Sometimes the names are fake, she said. Just because someone’s name is in the book doesn’t mean they paid money for sex. And proving so would be a waste of government money, she said.

“We’re not trying to be the morality police,” McQuade said. “We try to go after what we perceive to be more important offenders, those who are engaged in organized criminal activity.”

Those would be the pimps and madams.

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, a professor in forensic social work at Arizona State University, said she believes that is the smarter approach. Having spent years counseling prostitutes, trying to help them leave the profession, she said the key to stamping out prostitution is eradicating the pimps.

“The pimp is the one that seems to have all the control. They search out the johns and groom the girls,” Roe-Sepowitz said. “The bad guy in the triangle is the pimp.”

That’s the rationale several police departments in metro Detroit have taken in their approach to prostitution: get the organizers. For the johns, much of the shame punishment is dead. The onetime “Johns TV” show, where arrested prostitution clients were shamed on a cable show throughout metro Detroit, no longer exists. There are no more billboards with their faces on them.

At most, their cars might get impounded and they might be ticketed. But police do run stings in hotels, where, they said, wealthy men tend to go with high-end call girls they have found on the Internet.

“We’re going after organizations. That’s the key to everything,” said Troy police Lt. Robert Redmond. “Just catching a girl in a room — that’s not going to stop anything.”

That’s what Troy police said they were thinking in 2008 when they arrested Thomas Athans, husband of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, during a prostitution stakeout at the Residence Inn. Athans, who was caught leaving the hotel, admitted that he used the Internet to make a $150 date with a prostitute. He was not criminally charged but received a ticket for driving with a suspended license; the call girl was arrested and charged.

“We caught a lot of heat for that,” Redmond said.

But, he explained, Athans cooperated, and police were hoping his information would lead them to the operators of the Web-based sex ring.

It didn’t.

The call girl was an independent contractor, he said. Stabenow and Athans divorced last year.

As for Miami Companions, Redmond said Troy police have not arrested anyone connected to the agency.

Neither have police in Southfield, Detroit or Novi, where Miami Companions frequently dispatched call girls, according to court records.

Police in all three jurisdictions said they have no interest in the Miami Companions list. Pursuing old prostitution cases, they said, is too difficult and too expensive.

As Southfield police Lt. Nick Loussia sees it: “Just because someone’s name on a list doesn’t mean they’re guilty of anything.”

Still, Paul DeCailly, who represents Greg Carr, said he is skeptical about the government’s decision to keep the Miami Companions lists secret.

“Look, if you think about it, if their intent really was to squelch prostitution, one of the most effective things they could do was release the list.”