OMAHA, Neb. — www.ketv.com- Omaha police vice squad investigators said it’s easier than ever to find a prostitute. The Internet has made it simple to set up a business. Now, one Nebraska lawmaker wants to make it more difficult.

The operations are often disguised as escort services. While there are legal escort services, investigators said there are many illegal ones.

“Katie” said she’s operated legal escort services for the past five years.

KETV NewsWatch 7 I-Team investigators talked with “Katie” (not her real name), who said she’s operated a legal escort business for five years. She admits there are other services that let their workers cross the legal line into prostitution.

“I’m not ever going to do anything illegal,” Katie said. “It’s not acceptable. But there are people who don’t care.”

Because of that, state Sen. Mark Christensen [pictured] of Imperial has introduced what he calls the Escort Services Accountability and Licensing Act in the Nebraska Legislature.

Christensen said many escort services are nothing more than fronts for prostitution, even human trafficking.

“They’ll take a kid that’s run away from home, they’ll befriend them, let them get to trust them, then they’ll con them into sex and say, ‘Hey, now you owe us,’” Christensen said.

Christensen’s legislation proposes:

# Services would pay a $1,000 licensing fee then pay $500 every year after that.

# Workers would pay a $200 fee then pay $100 annually.

# There would be fingerprinting and background checks.

# Escort services would have to keep a registry of all its clients for the previous seven years.

# The business would have to maintain a physical address, not just a phone number.

KETV NewsWatch 7 checked many escort services in the Omaha area and only a handful had addresses.

Christensen said the goal is to protect women and children victimized by illegal escort services.

Lt. Jim Sklenar heads the Omaha Police Department’s special ops vice squad. He says on any given day, there are 300 escort services listed on the Internet just for the Omaha-Council Bluffs area.

Sklenar said while there are some services that are perfectly legal, many are not.

“Most of our escort investigations do lead to some sort of violation, whether it’s an unlicensed massage or prostitution,” Sklenar said.

Escort business owner Katie said she has a real problem with the proposed legislation in Nebraska. She said if the state passes the bill but doesn’t aggressively go after escort services conducting illegal activities, the state would actually be sanctioning prostitution.

“At that point you’re promoting prostitution,” Katie said. “You’re allowing something illegal to go on and you’re benefitting from it. You’re taking money from an agency that you don’t care what it is doing, legal or not.”

Christensen said he doesn’t expect his bill will be debated by the full Legislature this year, but he intends to bring it back in the 2010 session.