A Lowell police officer was charged with raping prostitutes and soliciting prostitution while on duty.

Officer Aravanh Lakmany was indicted on Thursday, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office.

Lakmany allegedly solicited several prostitutes beginning in 2009 during his night shifts for the Lowell Police Department. Prosecuters say he asked the women to get into his cruiser or personal car and drove them to a secluded area to engage in sexual acts.

The officer told one prostitute he would not arrest her if she had sex with him, according to prosecutors.

According to the Associated Press, a woman answered Lakmany’s home phone and said “no comment,” and hung up.

Did anyone else not know that prostitution was legal in Rhode Island until this week?

More than 30 suspect brothels could be raided by police soon as Gov. Don Carcieri signed legislation Tuesday banning prostitution and making it a misdemeanor.

Rhode Island was, until now, the only state except Nevada where prostitution was not a crime. This began in the Ocean State as a loophole in 1980 when legislators passed legislation aimed at cracking down on people who sold sex in “public,” which was a major problem in Providence’s West End. Judges would later rule that the law actually made prostitution legal in private, and the brothels sprung up all over. The effect was that a law aimed at cracking down on the sex trade actually made it proliferate.

But the party’s over now.