Tag: prostitution

Online classified ads service Craigslist will get rid of its "erotic services" category that critics called a front for prostitution, replacing it with an adult category that will be reviewed by Web site employees, state attorneys general announced Wednesday.

"We're very encouraged that Craigslist is doing the right thing in eliminating its online red light district with prostitution and pornography in plain sight. We'll be watching and investigating critically to make sure this measure is more than just a name change," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "This is a good next step but by no means is it the ultimate or complete solution," he said.

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Tags: ads, craigslist, erotic services, escorts, online, prostitution

The stories you are about to read are true and were taken directly from the files of the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU ) only the names (and maybe a few of the notes) have been changed to protect the innocent. Because you really can’t make this kind of drama up ya know…

Feb. 19 at 2 a.m: Officers from the DC Metro Police responded to a reported prostitution-related complaint in the 4100 block of 14th Street, N.W.Upon arriving, the complainant told officers that he had visited “a known house of prostitution, where he engaged in consensual sex acts with a member of the transgender community” in exchange for money. The complainant also told police that when he learned the person was “a biological male,” he demanded his money back.When the “service provider” refused to return the money, the complainant called police….

March 7, at approximately 2:15 a.m: Officers of the DC Metro’s Third District responded to an apartment in the 2400 block of 16th Street, N.W. ; the call for a roommate dispute. Upon arriving, officers determined the dispute involved the two male resident’s tangled in a row over living arrangements. The men previously were involved in a romantic relationship, but continued to reside together despite the termination of the relationship. Officers determined that none of the apartment’s residents had committed a criminal act, because people change, so the break up was no body’s fault really and since neither party had done any bitch slapping in the dispute…. no arrests were made, however some relationship counseling was strongly suggested.

March 8 at approximately 2:30 a.m. : Members of the Second District responded to the 1500 block of 23rd Street, N.W. to investigate an ongoing parking complaint. According to residents in the area, vehicles are constantly parking illegally in the block, in violation of posted “No Parking Anytime” signs. Several parking tickets were issued.

NOTE: The DC GLLU would like to remind LGBTI community members that the residents of that neighborhood are pretty bitchy and to carefully read all posted signs before parking. Illegal parking could result in a fines or the impoundment of your vehicle.

March 8 at approximately 3:30 a.m.: Officers of the Second District were dispatched to the 1100 block of New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. for an assault. Once on the scene, officers located a male victim, who was not injured. The victim advised officers he met the male suspect in the 2000 block of P Street, N.W. and invited the suspect to return to his hotel room on New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Once there, the suspect demanded money from the victim, who refused. A struggle ensued and the suspect made good his escape with the victim’s driver’s license and credit cards. The suspect is described as a black male in his thirties, approximately 6?3? tall, 200 pounds, with a dark skin complexion.

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Tags: DC Metropolitan Police Department’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, GLLU, parking, prostitution, Washington DC

Members of the Coalition to Stop the Arrests, a gay group protesting police stings that nab gay men in adult businesses for allegedly "loitering for the purpose of prostitution," have met with the District Attorney for Manhatten over the arrests. A Mar. 9 article in the Gay City News said that Coalition founder Robert Pinter, who was motivated to establish the group by his own arrest, and Coalition member Joey Nelson attended the Mar. 6 meeting with DA Robert Morgenthau, along with an array of other individuals, officials, and organizations.

"They handcuffed me and said, ’Why the fuck do you think we’re arresting you--loitering for the purpose of prostitution.’"

"At this point, we should be doing an all-points bulletin that people who have been arrested should be contacting the district attorney’s office to ask if their cases can be vacated." Said Pinter, "The message, at least in the DA’s office, was heard really loud and clear," the article reported.

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Tags: Blue Door, Christine Quinn, Coalition to Stop the Arrests, District Attorney, Entrapment, homophobic, Joey Nelson, loitering, Manhattan, new york, New York City Council, police, prostitution, Queer Justice League, Robert Morgenthau, Robert Pinter, Thomas Duane

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he’s busted enough prostitutes who were pimped out on Craigslist to know the popular on-line classified site is the country’s largest whorehouse. “I am fed up. I am tired and this is going to stop,” Dart said.

"Misuse of Craigslist to facilitate criminal activity is unacceptable, and we continue to work diligently to prevent it. Misuse of the site is exceptionally rare compared to how much the site is used for legal purposes," Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster said in a statement. "Craigslist is an extremely unwise choice for those intent on committing crimes, since criminals inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law enforcement officers will follow. On a daily basis, we are being of direct assistance to police departments and federal authorities nationwide."

“Could I arrest prostitutes around the clock? Yeah, what’s the point here?” Dart said. “I want to do something that matters in helping these women. The best way is to remove this site that actively and aggressively helping this crime going forward.”

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Tags: chicago, craigslist, prostitution, sheriff

Former Hoedowns proprietor Ben Elliott hoped that turning in drug dealers, prostitutes and child pornographers would help reduce his time in federal prison, but a mathematical error may have also played a role. Elliott appeared in federal court Feb. 25 in Atlanta to learn his fate after he was indicted in a scheme that attempted to bilk as many as 500 car dealers of up to $30 million. Among Elliott’s uses for the stolen funds was to purchase Hoedowns, the beloved Atlanta gay country bar that shut down in 2007 after several tumultuous months under his leadership.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash sentenced Elliott to nine years in prison followed by five years of supervised release and required him to pay $4.28 million in restitution to three banks that fell victim to his wire fraud scheme. The sentence came after a federal probation officer’s calculation error in the pre-trial sentence report was discovered in the courtroom.

“This is just so bizarre,” Thrash said after learning of the error during a break. “It is beyond belief. Nobody would have noticed that, including me.”

The mistake was discovered after both parties had agreed to the sentence guideline level, which reflects the severity of the crime and mitigating factors like remorse and cooperation with investigators. Despite objections from prosecutor Russell Phillips, Thrash used the lower guidelines, although he hinted he considered going higher.

Thrash later ordered Elliott into immediate custody before he could say goodbye to his family that had gathered to watch the trial. Before the sentencing Elliott appeared to ignore his attorney’s advice by speaking in his own defense. He said that he asked “the three most Christian women I knew to come over and pray for me,” a few days before the sentencing. “I’m very sorry about what happened and I will do my best to pay back everyone,” he said.

Elliott pleaded guilty last fall to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors charged that Elliott and an associate, Connie Lee Buce, used a direct mail advertising business called 300 Up Promotions to make multiple unauthorized withdrawals from the bank accounts of car dealerships that had been their clients.

Those banks absorbed the loss and Elliott’s $4.28 million restitution will be split between First Horizon Bank, First American Bank and Flag Bank, which has since been bought by RBC Centura. Phillips said that one of the banks involved failed largely because of the millions Elliott defrauded from it.

Buce was also sentenced Feb. 25, receiving 51 months in prison and $4.28 million in restitution for her role.  The judge gave her additional credit for contacting federal investigators as soon as she learned of their inquiries and credited her with helping track down Elliot’s deals.

More on This Story At Southern Voice

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Tags: Atlanta, bars, drugs, prison, prostitution

Anger is building against the police department in the wake of an increase in arrests of gay men for prostitution at Manhattan adult video stores. Last week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined in the outcry. She said she is working with the mayor's office and commanders of the police department to set up a meeting that will include gay community groups "to get to the bottom of this."

The arrests have been documented by Duncan Osborne of the Gay City News over the last several months. Police are allegedly using handsome young undercover cops to cruise middle-aged gay men, offering to go home with them for consensual sex. As they leave the store together, the cop offers to pay the man for the sex, confusing the victims who can't imagine why the younger man would make such a proposal. Then, as they walk out of the store, the victim, despite never having agreed to any exchange of money, is surrounded by undercover cops, handcuffed and charged with prostitution.

Gay activists and civil libertarians see the arrests as part of a continuing effort to shut down porn operations in the city and a tendency by the police department to criminalize gay sexual behavior.

We need to see [the arrest policy] stopped and to figure out how it started," Quinn told Gotham Gazette, calling the arrests of gay men "the most egregious I have heard of" going back to her days as executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, which is part of a coalition to stop these arrests. "It's not even entrapment," she said. "These are false arrests."

Recounting the Arrests

Anger over the arrests also brought more than 200 people to a town hall meeting at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in January.

Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old gay man who was arrested for prostitution at the Blue Door in the East Village on Oct. 10, spoke at the town hall meeting. He said a young man — a 29-year old undercover cop who, Pinter said, looked even younger — cruised him in the store. He was "charming and persistent, and we agreed to go home for consensual sex, but as we were leaving he said, 'I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].' I didn't respond, but I thought it was strange," Pinter recounted. As the men left the store, Pinter said, a group of men who did not show police identification pushed him against the wall

"I thought I'd been set up by a gang," he said. "I asked them why they were doing this to me. I was totally clueless. They handcuffed me and said, 'Why the f--- do you think we're arresting you — loitering for the purpose of prostitution.'"

Pinter spent several hours in a police van, more time at the Seventh Precinct, and "16 or 17 hours in the Tombs," the city jail downtown. His Legal Aid attorney "strongly suggested I plead guilty to disorderly conduct," which he did, although he now regrets it. He was also ordered to go to city-sponsored classes on how to engage in prostitution more safely.

Most of the victims, some of whom are foreign tourists and almost all of whom have never been arrested before, have been encouraged by their lawyers to plead guilty to "disorderly conduct" and end their ordeal, rather than risk trial on the much more serious charge of prostitution. But as the arrests have piled up, civil rights and Legal Aid lawyers have convinced some of the men to fight the charges.

Mark Spiegel, a veteran civil rights litigator, who won a landmark case in 2006 against the Port Authority police for targeting and falsely arresting gay men in Port Authority restrooms, is the process of identifying men caught up in the current sweep who are interested in fighting the charges. "Their civil rights have been violated," he said.

The arrests at the Blue Door, Osborne said, "are suspect and improbable. While overall, 17 percent of men arrested for prostitution in New York City are over 40 years of age, 66 percent of the men arrested at this location targeted by police were over 42.

The experience has radicalized Pinter, who founded a Coalition to Stop the Arrests that meets on an ongoing basis at the LGBT Center. "We have to hold the NYPD accountable," he said, "and keep the pressure on until it ends."

Going After 'Nuisances'

At the town hall meeting and in his stories in Gay City News, Osborne has tied the arrests to the city's aggressive enforcement of the 1977 "nuisance abatement law." Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and now Mayor Michael Bloomberg have used the law to sue and close businesses where alleged "criminal activity is demonstrated." According to Osborne, such nuisance abatement cases increased from 110 in 1994 to 709 in 1996 to 899 last year, closing everything from chop shops to unlicensed massage parlors.

"The commander of Midtown South said that civil enforcement is a police commander's best friend," Osborne said, who noted the city has had an ongoing effort to shut porn stores.

Following a spate of arrests at another porn shop, the Unicorn in Chelsea, the city sued to close it, citing the arrests by undercover officers.

The Police Department did not respond to Gotham Gazette's e-mailed query after the town hall meeting. Previously, Paul Browne, the department's deputy commissioner for public information, told Gay City News, "The fact remains that the locations had become notorious for solicitation of sex acts, with complaints from the public resulting in police attention."

Bloomberg's press office refused comment, referring questions to the police department. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's spokesperson, Alicia Maxey Greene, also "declined to comment" on the arrests or his office's prosecution of these cases.

State Sen. Thomas Duane said he has been in contact with the district attorney's office and placed a call to Morgenthau himself, but almost a week later had not received a call back from the district attorney.

Duane, who spoke at the town hall meeting, called for the arrests to stop immediately. "People's lives are being ruined," he said. He was noncommittal about whether there should be a criminal investigation into the police conduct. "We have to take things one step at a time, "he said.

City Councilmember Rosie Mendez of the Lower East Side issued a statement criticizing the police for "targeting and criminalizing behavior that is legal."

"In this instance, they are targeting the sexual conduct of gay men. This type of targeting is simply the harassment of certain type of commercial ventures and of potential customers of legitimate businesses. This type of harassment infringes upon an individual's civil liberties," she wrote.

At the town hall meeting, some speakers said police use of false prostitution charges has gone beyond the video stores. Jennifer Ramirez of the Anti-Violence Project said that police go on the "casual encounters" section of Craig's List to trawl for potential arrestees.

"The cops go on the assumption that everyone's a sex worker," she said. "It's not getting better, it is getting worse." As a transgendered outreach worker, she said, "When I'm out on the street doing education, I'm perceived [by the police] as a sex worker and I'm criminalized."

Andrea Ritchie of the Urban Justice Center's Sex Workers Project said police arrest gay and transgendered people for conduct "that would be ignored or winked at in heterosexual people." African American and Latino people are particularly at risk, she added.

There was a sense at the town hall meeting that the public outcry might prompt the police to end their arrests of middle-aged white gay men on false prostitution charges. However, they said, the wider problem of police abuse of their arrest powers for gay, lesbian and transgendered people will continue unless the political leaders protesting the former look into the latter.

The Gay City News series on the arrests:

Five More Prostitution Busts IDed in Chelsea Video Store (Jan. 22, 2009)

Community Mobilizes Over False Prostitution Arrests at Video Stores (Jan. 16, 2009)

NYPD, City Respond to Questions About Prostitution Arrests (Dec. 5)

Shuttering Porn Shops, City Fakes Arrests (Dec. 3)

Courts Training Prostitutes? (Nov. 6, 2008)

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Tags: Manhattan, police, prostitution

Amsterdam announced plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafés in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven. The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the so-called coffee shops where marijuana is openly sold. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.

"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan.

The news comes just one day after Amsterdam's mayor said he would search for loopholes in new rules from the national government that would close marijuana cafés near schools citywide. The measures announced Saturday would affect about 36 coffee shops in the center itself -- about 20% of the city total. Asscher underlined that the city center will remain true to its freewheeling reputation. "It'll be a place with 200 windows" for prostitutes "and 30 coffee shops, which you can't find anywhere else in the world -- very exciting, but also with cultural attractions," he said. "And you won't have to be embarrassed to say you came."

Under the plan announced Saturday, Amsterdam is to spend $38 million to $51 million to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the center. It also is to build new underground parking areas.

Amsterdam already had plans to close many brothels and some coffee shops, but plans announced Saturday go further.

Asscher said the city would reshape the area, using zoning rules, buying out businesses and offering assistance to upgrade stores. The city has shut brothels and sex clubs in the past by relying on a law allowing the closure of businesses with bookkeeping irregularities.

Prostitution will be allowed only in two areas in the district -- notably De Wallen ("The Walls"), a web of streets and alleys around the city's medieval retaining dam walls. The area has been a center of prostitution since before the city's golden shipping age in the 1600s.

Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000, formalizing a long-standing tolerance policy.

Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts. Coffee shops are allowed to sell it openly.

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Tags: Amsterdam, marijuana, Netherlands, prostitution