Results tagged “prostitution”

The AP reports that Bronx resident Florian Penev was arrested by Connecticut police who say he "offered strangers paid sex with his wife in an Internet ad has been fined $2,000... Norwalk police say they arrested Penev and his wife, 36-year-old Zdravka Zotkova, in June after officers responded to their Craigslist ad, which offered sex with Zotkova at a Norwalk hotel." Penev pleaded guilty to misdemeanor prostitution conspiracy charge and paid a fine, while his wife "was allowed into a court program that will result in prostitution charges against her being dismissed if she completes it." And why was Penev advertising his wife? He said he lost his job as a graphic designer.

The insults keep flying in the pages of our beloved local rags in the build up to tonight's Game 1 showdown between the Yankees and "Frillies." The Post went out and interviewed "'Phil'istines" across Philly, only to come to the conclusion that, "If the Phillies are as soft as their fans, the Yankees could walk away with the Series in four with George Steinbrenner on the mound and Kate Hudson in the bullpen. These fans are softer than the bread their beloved cheesesteaks are served on."

The Westchester DA's office announced yesterday that it took down a "high end call girl enterprise that operated both out-call and in-call prostitution services using more than thirty women over a 29 month period servicing clients in major hotels throughout Westchester County." White Plains residents Kenneth Fuina and Shawana Smith—the alleged ring leaders—were charged with promoting prostitution in the third degree while Queens resident Genevieve Margaret Peattie was charged with prostitution.

The right-wing smear campaign against community organizing group ACORN is having the desired effect; yesterday the Senate voted 83-7 to deny housing and community grant funding to the non-profit organization. The vote—prompted by last week's arrest of ACORN employees in Florida accused of falsifying hundreds of voter applications last year—came as an unflattering secret camera video shot in ACORN's Brooklyn office surfaced. The video shows two ACORN employees advising a young couple, posing as prostitute and pimp, how to falsify documents to get a mortgage and tax breaks for a brothel housing El Salvadoran teens.

The waitress who was rejected from her "dream job" as a bikini waitress at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone is now being accused of advertising herself as a Craigslist prostitute by lawyers for the restaurant chain. 21-year-old Melody Morales has filed a million dollar lawsuit against HTZ because a manager at the Times Square eatery rejected her application because he said that she had a "speech problem." The problem? It was "too ghetto."

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has announced a major bust of a Craigslist prostitution ring operating out of Queens. Room Service Entertainment ran their escort service out of Ozone Park and sent women to each of the five boroughs and beyond by advertising on the site's "Erotic Services" section. Today is the first day Craigslist is without their Erotic Services section, after calls from politicians to shut it down led them to replace it with the new staff-monitored "Adult Services" section, the place you can now turn if you're in need of a Shemale Italian Stallionette from State Island.

After standing by their "erotic services" section in the weeks following the "Craigslist Murder" of Julissa Brisman (pictured), the site has finally caved to pressure and announced that it will shut down the section that is home to many ads for illegal prostitution. Last week the heat on craigslist was turned up when three state's attorney generals (including Connecticut's) asked them to eliminate the section that also made headlines recently for connecting George Weber to alleged teenage murder John Katehis. The site will start a new section for "adult services" at double the advertising fee ($10 now) where each ad will be reviewed by a craigslist employee. In a craigslist blog obtained by the LA Times, a rep for the site wrote, "Unsurprisingly, but completely contrary to some of the sensationalistic journalism we've seen these past few weeks, the record is clear that use of craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds." Erotic services will close down when the current ads expire in seven days, making a soapy body slide with a local blond one of New York's last offerings.

The latest dose of scandal served up to Alex Rodriguez in what has already been a long year comes from Kirstin Davis, who claims that she knew the slugger "personally and professionally" over the years. Friends and associates of the madam, who has claimed that Eliot Spitzer was once a client, say that the slugger pursued her with zeal while also taking advantage of the services of women who worked for her as a client.

A Rye Brook couple were apparently so financially strapped that they advertised the 23-year-old wife as a hooker on craigslist, according to police. Neighbors had complained about people coming and going to Richard Salvatore, 45,and Rachel Grome's townhouse that police started a investigation. Apparently a cop found a craigslist ad which "featured several sexy photos of Grome. The ad claimed she was a college student trying to make some extra cash." A neighbor said to WABC 7, "This used to be a quite area, a quiet street. It's kind of sad it's coming down to that. I'm just hoping that it gets better." The couple, who have two children, were charged with prostitution, though they told WCBS 2 they were "arrested by mistake." At any rate, Rye Brook Police Chief Gregory Austin told WCBS 2, "I feel like craigslist has really brought 42nd Street and Times Square right into people's home."

As the one year anniversary of the Eliot Spitzer scandal pulls near, the Daily News ties up one of its loose ends and gets some kinky details from an escort who claims that she was sent to the former governor. "Annie" opens up to Rush & Molloy about Spitzer's desire to play rough with her. She tells them:

Yesterday's protest in front of Mayor Bloomberg's residence at Gracie Mansion seems to have drawn the attention that demonstrators were hoping for after weeks of growing anger from within the gay community over claims that the NYPD has been targeting gay men and the porn shops they patronize under trumped up charges of prostitution. Activists compared the situation with the Stonewall raid of 1969. Attorney Bill Dobbs said, “Forty years later, the NYPD is still targeting gay men and places we gather."

     

After weeks of unrest within the gay community but little official action over accusations that the NYPD has been setting up gay men in fraudulent prostitution stings inside adult video stores, protesters took their message to the steps of Mayor Bloomberg's home and staged a rally today outside Gracie Mansion.

Speaker Christine Quinn wants to get to the bottom of series of allegedly false arrests that she calls "the most egregious I have heard of," where officers are accused of luring gay men at porn shops into trumped up charges of prostitution. For months NYPD has allegedly been using "handsome young undercover cops" to solicit (consensual) sex out of middle-aged gay men and then arresting them for prostitution as they exit the store. At a town hall meeting last month, one man described the scenario where after agreeing to go home with the young man, "He said, 'I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].' I didn't respond, but I thought it was strange." Once accosted by police outside he said, "I thought I'd been set up by a gang...They handcuffed me and said, 'Why the f--- do you think we're arresting you—loitering for the purpose of prostitution.'" Some believe that the city may be using the arrests to shut down sex shops under the "nuisance abatement law," which led the city to sue Unicorn in Chelsea last month.

Michael Garcia, who is leaving the U.S. Attorney's office for private practice, explained why former governor Eliot Spitzer isn't facing federal charges for his involvement with a prostitution ring. In an interview with the NY Times, Garcia "said that although there was evidence that Mr. Spitzer had violated the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting people across state lines for the purpose of prostitution, there were none of the other factors that traditionally weighed in favor of bringing charges, like the use of juvenile prostitutes, or commercial or other exploitation of them." He added,"I think at the end of the day that decision is the right decision. And it’s justice in that case. And I stand by it.”

Former governor Eliot Spitzer has come back into the public eye with an editorial in the Washington Post called "How to Ground The Street". The WaPo subheadlines the editorial,"The Former 'Enforcer' On the Best Way to Keep Financial Markets in Check," but let's face it--most people know him as the 'Steamroller' or 'That Governor Who Had to Resign Because He Regularly Saw Prostitutes.'

Only six days are left until America gets its first TV interview with Ashley Dupre, the call girl who famously answered the call to Client #9. Next week's 20/20 will feature two segments dedicated to Diane Sawyer interviewing the woman who made headlines for her role in bringing down the short-lived governorship of Eliot Spitzer back in March. Sawyer has already taped the interview with Dupre and sources say that it is more focused on Sawyer's ongoing and extensive investigation of prostitution than it is in digging for salacious details of Hookergate. The "insider" told the Daily News, "People who think this is all about Eliot Spitzer are going to be disappointed. Diane has done extensive reporting on prostitution. This is another chapter in that reporting."

Kristin Davis, the madam with the (allegedly) biggest black book in America, says she'll write a tell-all about the "naughty exploits" of the powerful and famous. Davis ran Wicked Models from a Murray Hill apartment and reportedly had over 10,000 clients. And in a nod to the actress with a similar name, the Daily News reports the book will be named "The Real Sex in the City: True Tales of the Manhattan Madam." Davis, who pleaded guilty to prostitution last week, also made this statement, "While it is true that Spitzer, as well as many other celebrities, patronized women employed by my former agencies, what is not accurate are the rumors that I personally serviced Spitzer."

Kristen Davis, the madam allegedly with America's largest little black book, admitted to running a prostitution ring from her East Side apartment. She took a plea deal for "time served and a likely five years probation" and will probably forfeit close to $500,000 at her sentencing later this year. Davis was arrested in March, after Eliot Spitzer's hooker habit was revealed, and it was rumored he was a client. However, though her lawyer said, "I'm not going to go into details at this time," he did add, "She was not Spitzer's Madame Butterfly."

While some business owners, like these pizzeria owners in Brooklyn, are facing hard times due to the economy, one segment of the workforce is claiming something close to job security. The Daily News proclaims, "Prostitution has not suffered drop-off despite economic meltdown"--one "promotional model-turned- Manhattan prostitute" explained, "The market is down, but we feel it less. We're still busy... If men are horny, they're going to come here." However, one madam says, "the $1,000/hour girls are just not going to make it" (she charges $160/30 minutes and $260/60 minutes for time with her girls). And a 42-year-old laid-off secretary said she was working as a prostitute to pay for her son's education, "He's trying to get an engineering degree."

A former Scores dancer has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the club alleging all sorts of mistreatment while she worked there back in 2005. In a lawsuit filed yesterday, Ruth Fowler says that the club pressured dancers into having sex with upscale clients as well as managers. Scores has denied accusations that prostitution took place in the club since having its liquor license revoked in March after police found dancers having sex for money on the premises. Among other claims, the NY Daily News reports that Fowler alleges "her audition lasted just 30 seconds while dancers who managers had no intention of hiring were forced to bump and grind for 20 minutes" and that "a manager once smeared a steaming hot steak over her face." Earlier this summer, Fowler published the memoir No Man's Land about her life as a stripper.

The lawyer accused of running a prostitution ring at his strip club and laundering the proceeds through a voter registration non-profit gave the Daily News an exclusive interview from his Manhattan jail. Lou Posner claims sex-for-pay was not occurring at the Hot Lap Dance Club, "We hired intelligent, well-spoken girls, some of them Ivy League girls," and said women who weren't hired were launching fake allegations against him. Powner is also upset his wife was swept up in the arrests ("The most she did was make brownies [for the staff].") but he did look on the bright side of being behind bars, while he is being held on $150,000 bail, "I need to lose some weight."

The lawyer accused of operating a strip club/brothel in Midtown was held on $150,000 bail, as was his wife. And his employees spared no details about Lou Posner while talking with the tabloids.

At the Hot Lap Dance Club on West 38th Street, police say customers could indulge not just in hot lap dances but some more intimate fun by the hour in cubicles, private bedrooms or even "off-premises." And what's more, the joint was run by a group of people, including one who started a voter reform advocacy group after the 2000 election and a private police force cop.

Billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to charges that he paid girls for sex (as the Smoking Gun put it, "if investigators are to be believed, Epstein has a thing for teenagers, vibrators, and assorted massage lotions") in Florida. Profiled in 2002 as an "International Moneyman of Mystery" in New York magazine, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in a Palm Beach County jail and a year of house arrest. Besides being designated as a sex offender, Epstein and his legal team must deal with the many lawsuits filed by women who claim they were molested by him.

City Councilman--and hopeful mayoral contender--Eric Gioia thinks the city should crack down on "erotic services" ads on craigslist. He said, "What used to happen on seedy street corners and brothels has now moved to the Internet." However, the NY State Division of Criminal Justice Services tells the Sun it really relies on "tips from people who know or suspect what's going on."

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer seems to have turned the corner after resigning from his Albany office in the middle of a prostitution scandal. And instead of whiling away his summer at the beach, the Steamroller is planning on establishing an investment fund that will focus on turning people's failed dreams into cold hard cash for himself.

Tameka Rachelle Lewis, a University of Virginia graduate now immortalized as the prostitution ring booker who confirmed an escort's visit with Governor Spitzer, has pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution and money laundering.

Six employees at a Manhattan S&M club were arrested this week and arraigned on misdemeanor prostitution charges yesterday. The women were busted for offering more than the standard whips, chains, and ropes that other dungeons offer. The six women, ranging in age from 19 to 39, allegedly offered to extend their services to full sexual intercourse for an additional $220. That's when undercover cops had to say the safety word, "Busted." Presumably, they weren't trussed up with ballgags in their mouths at the time.

It's a relatively quiet month for revelations about former governor Eliot Spitzer, so the Post serves up an "Exclusive" about a "second call girl" who says the Steamroller like "props."