Maryland's intermediate appellate court has upheld a Howard Circuit judge's affirmation of a state board's decision to deny a massage therapy certification to a North Laurel woman with a prostitution conviction from 1999.

The state Board of Chiropractic Examiners properly ruled that Song Park Stidwell's January 1999 solicitation conviction in Washington was a "crime involving moral turpitude" - one of the allowed reasons for denial of a certification - and that it went against a requirement that those receiving certification be "of good moral character," according to a Court of Special Appeals opinion filed yesterday.

Stidwell applied for a massage therapy license in April 2000, but was denied a few months later. Judge James B. Dudley affirmed the state board's decision.

Stidwell was living in North Laurel and working in Jessup, according to an official with the state attorney general's office.