From today's Miami Herald

[Boston Guy]

The following is from the front page of today's Miami Herald:

 

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Woman arrested on Internet prostitution charge

 

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. -- (AP) -- A woman has been arrested on a charge she used her Internet escort service site to solicit for prostitution.

 

Jennifer Mahoney, 24, was arrested by undercover officers after she arranged an appointment at an Orange Park motel.

 

She was later released on $752 bond.

 

Investigators found her Internet site while routinely checking regional Web sites advertising escort services, said Mary Justino, a spokeswoman for the Clay County Sheriff's Office.

 

Solicitation for prostitution is a first-degree misdemeanor. If convicted, Mahoney faces up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

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I guess the police have all become Internet-savvy now. I wonder how much time the typical department spends cruising the net looking for would-be felons?

 

Caution would seem to be in order for everyone, especially those who have well-known Internet sites.

[Bilbo]

Not to be too paranoid, it is also important to remember that the police are allowed to lie in this matter. Yes, it is entrapment, but entrapment is not a defence in a misdemeanor case. It doesn't come into play until felony level cases.

[Guest Ken]

THIS MERITS REPEATING: As escorts, you charge for your TIME....NOTHING ELSE. What develops is between you and the client who has hired you to SPEND TIME WITH HIM. you sell nothing BUT YOUR TIME.

[Bilbo]

When I was arrested, it was on the basis of two seperate questions asked at the motel where I was already alone in the room with the disguised officer. One was that he was uncomfortable with anal sex was it OK if we just did oral? The other was whether he should pay me before or after the session.

[HooBoy]

I usually ask an escort to stop at the store and buy a bottle of Chardonnay.

 

I pay for the wine. I can't help it if we get drunk and fall in love.

 

Lawyers: Does that hold up?

 

HooBoy

Email: HooBoy@male4malescorts.com

[Bilbo]

There are two schools of thought going on here. Which is, I know, quite human of us all. One is the one Hoo expresses so well here = You're just paying for the time. The other is exemplified by the current thread on Emmett Andrews = Be sure you get specific with the escort as to just what you want to happen before you hire him. I can envision escorts leaning towards the first view and clients leaning towards the second, which is going to lead to some very fraustrating phone and email conversations. It's like so many things. You have to decide what level of unavoidable risk you're comfortable with.

[Guest Ken]

Bilbo makes an excellent point. Just how much is the escort willing to say on the telephone? If not discussed prior to meeting because of fear of entrapment, is the client justified in aborting the meeting if the activities are not what he expected? Where is the fine line drawn? Of course this applies to "first time meetings". If by chance an arrest is made, what usually happens to the escort?.....fine??if so, how much? Is jail a possibility here?

[Bilbo]

I suppose that what happens to the escort will change from location to location. In Houston, I got deferred adjudication (I had an excellent lawyer.) if I keep my nose clean during my probation there will be no finding on the case but my arrest will always be on my record. My probation lasts nine months, no liquor, I am alowed to travel out of the city if I am always back for my meetings with my probation officer, I am paying off a $400 fine, I have to serve 40 hours of community service. The officer who assigned my community service place said that there was only one place she could send me since I was a sex offender. I show up on days of my own choosing with a sack lunch, join a road crew type group and go and do whatever they're doing that day. I have to go for a full 8 hour day each time. So far I have been twice and the work was only bad one half of one day when they had me throwing tires into the back of a semi trailer for two and a half hours.The rest of the time I have been cleaning oil stains etc. off of concrete parking lots. Evidently I don't have to register with the local police as a sex offender whenever I move since I wasn't found guilty. (I don't know if I would have to if I had been.) If I blow my probation, I am found guilty, I have to pay a $2,000 fine and spend two weeks (I think it is) in the county jail. (If it's like the city jail where they stored me overnight when I was arrested (at 3PM), the mattresses scare me. I could come out of there crippled for a year after trying to sleep on them for 2 weeks!)

I have said this on some other thread and would have sent you looking for it, but I can't remember which one. Anyone else who just read this even though they weren't interested and didn't want to hear it again - hey! You coulda ignored it fairly easily, so don't blame me too much.

[HooBoy]

I think its safe to say that if an escort has positive reviews here and advertisments elsewhere, you can be candid with what you expect.

 

If it's one of those AOL lurkers, I'd be circumspect and ask him to buy me wine.

 

Frankly, I woudn't employ him.

 

HooBoy

Email: HooBoy@male4malescorts.com

[Bilbo]

Pretty safe for you, Hoo, but ... There are no reviews of you nor do you advertise anywhere. If this blacklist site even exists, it only talks about the spectacularly bad clients, not who is safe to talk to. So you can be candid, but how candid can you reasonably expect the escort to be? My answer would involve the fact that he is taking a chance on you, but would also point out that he is comfortable taking some amount of risk or he's in the wrong business.

Completely unrelated, but somehow this reminds me of it - I have had strangers (potential new clients) call me up and tell me that I was recommended to them by one of my regualar clients. But they would demure from telling me his name. Why would they expect that to make any difference in the way that I would treat them? I was the one who had been recommended as being good, not them. If they had given me the name, I could have considered it a recommendation going both directions, but, under the circumstances ...

Please don't get me wrong. I wholeheartedly support this interprise going forward with flags aflaring and guns ablazing. It's just that you mustn't forget that just because his name is Wallenda doesn't mean he won't get hurt if he takes a fall without a net.

[Guest JayMI]

Bilbo, I was sorry to read of the draconian deal that you got, even with an excellent attorney. The arrest itself must have been traumatic; and to have that kind of sentence imposed on top of that is nothing less than barbaric. Thank goodness that you seem to have a healthy perspective on all this, but I know that you must find the experience difficult. The absurdity of enforcing prostitution laws should be obvious even to the police and the courts. I hope that the probation officers at least have a sense of the stupidity of what they are doing.

[al]

The police are doing a little bar cruising too. The Boardwark was closed and only allowed toreopen with dancers. Lords and Johnny's were raided and arrest made of dancers and customers for lewd behavior. I story said customers whose hands were inside gstrings were arrested.

The story also made reference to recentSupreme Court ruling allowing communities to regulate adult entertainment.

[Bilbo]

Thanks, Jay. It all did come as somewhat of a surprise. I had gotten the impression from various Broadway musicals and some howto books that there was usually about a $600 fine and most escorts only found it necessary to disappear from the city or the practice for six months or so. I suppose that that is either dramatic license or a difference in jurisdictions. So I for one would be Very Interested if other people who have been in this situation in different cities would let us know what punishments they received and how they differed from mine.

[Guest Quinte]

Please stop!

 

Gentlemen, you certainly have me very bothered and so worried. I may well be turning away potential clients since I read this post. My concern is even more justified after hearing what must have been a horrific experience for Bilbo, who is from my city, Houston. How long ago was this B? I shall search the archives to see if you ever posted the full story.

 

I always keep enough cash for bail at home and exercise some caution in all my contact with clients. With new clients, I let them make the first move or solicit a sexual invitation. What more should I and other escorts be doing?

 

I shall be checking this post with much interest and ample paranoia.

 

Q

[Bilbo]

When one is telling a story, one tends to emphasize the dramatic. So I probably left off the happier details quite by accident. The arrest happened in early February. Perhaps, Q, you might remember my ads disappearing. (I was listing as Blade.) One of my dissappointments (there with the negative again!) is that many of my clients were coming to me for BDSM (me as Top) and that there really isn't anyone filling that niche here at the moment. The only one I can remember advertising that (besides my partner Cub - same story) here I wouldn't trust enough to send clients to him. I am still seeing some of my most regular clients for free to wean us away from the situation slowly. I have wonderful supportive friends. I have made no secret of the situation on my own part (There are people I don't tell because Cub is not as public as I am.) and I am not aware of anyone treating me differently in a negative way. I was blest, as you can be, with a very, very good team - gay activist to bail bondsman to lawyer. The judge was as kind to me as he felt he could be - I pulled comparatively very few hours of community service and a very short probation (9 months vs. a year at least). Remember, when you are arrested, everything, every last scrap of paper even, is taken from your pockets and put in a secure place for you. Memorize your friends phone numbers if you haven't already, because they will have to go for the money for you. Even if you had it on you, I don't think you could use it for the bail.

But like yo said, this is all too scary and depressing, even though it doesn't feel like that to me any more. You have my e-address now. Indeed, any of y'all do as its in my profile. I don't like clamming up, family, and I don't mean anything negative by it, love y'all, but discussing this subject in this forum is starting to bore me and I shall try to shut up about it. Send me something privately and I will answer almost any question you might have. You know me, one of the queens of TMI