Prostitution profits from high Internet visibility, little police response

"We're terrific at ignoring something that people aren't complaining about," Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said. "The less visible it is, the less likely it is to draw the attention of law enforcement."

But prostitution is in the open, even if it's not as visible on the streets. It's in the phone book, with ads for licensed massage parlors and escort services. It's in free weekly newspapers, and it's online.

"It's unbelievable how easy it is," said Cheektowaga police Lt. Michael J. Sliwinski, who works in the department's Vice, Gambling and Narcotics Unit. "You and I could call one of those numbers and have two girls [show up right away]." Authorities say prostitution isn't a priority with police or prosecutors during a period of tight budgets and staff reductions, especially in comparison with gun violence and other crimes.

Data from Erie County Central Police Services shows that arrests for prostitution-related offenses in the county dropped recently.

From 1997 to 2001, police in Erie County - primarily Buffalo - made an average of 576 prostitution-related arrests each year.

Between 2002 and 2006, that annual average fell to 312 arrests.

Instead, prostitution flourishes under the radar, even though the practice can be linked to drug use, robberies and other crimes.

"I think it's definitely pervasive and it transcends socioeconomic [status]," said Anne E. Adams, a criminal defense lawyer and former Erie County assistant district attorney.

And prostitution is potentially dangerous for the providers as well as their customers. For example, Altemio C. Sanchez, the Bike Path Killer, frequented prostitutes, and at least one of his victims was a prostitute.

"I put myself in risky situations," said Michelle, 32, who worked as a prostitute in Niagara Falls for about 10 years, largely to feed a crack-cocaine habit.

Men paid her as little as $40 or as much as $150 for oral sex.

Michelle said she was raped once after waking up from a drug-induced blackout, and another client forced her at knifepoint to perform oral sex.

She was arrested about 30 times before finally, through faith and treatment programs, she changed her life.

Business expenses

Now married and with an 18- month-old daughter, Michelle has plans to go to college, and she has been honored for her volunteer work with area social services agencies.

"I see hope today. Because if I can do it, anyone can do it," Michelle said in her neat, modest home in the Cataract City, speaking on condition her full name not be used. "I would never sell my body again, and I would never sell my soul."

Escorts generally are less likely to work to support a drug habit, observers said. They charge more than street walkers for a sex act and have less direct exposure to the police.

Escorts contend publicly that they provide companionship and legal, sexthemed services.

But police maintain - and escorts admit privately - that the businesses are almost always fronts for prostitution.

One Buffalo woman, now 28, started out as the driver for a friend who was an escort.

She began taking phone calls for escorts she knew, setting up their appointments, and in 2003 started her own service, which ran ads in Artvoice.

"We would get calls in the richest neighborhoods in Amherst and the trailer parks in Cheektowaga," said the woman, who asked not to be named.

Escort ads run in the Verizon phone book and Talking Phone Book, in Artvoice and on many Web sites.

An adult-oriented classified ad in Artvoice costs $9.75 per line, with a three-line minimum, or roughly three times the rate for a regular ad.

Police say the promise of a massage or body rub typically is a pretense for the prostitution activity that follows.

Artvoice does not knowingly print ads for illegal services and will not accept ads that contain obscene, sexually explicit language or images, said Craig Reynolds, the newspaper's classified ad director.

But the paper does give its adultoriented advertisers the benefit of the doubt, he said.

"It's just impossible for us to police the activities of people who advertise with us, and it would be incorrect to assume that all of them are doing illegal things," Reynolds said.

The Aug. 2-8 issue of Artvoice contains display ads for four massage parlors that offer "relaxing" services without any overt promise of sex.

But dozens of classified ads in the same issue explicitly tout "hot body rubs and fantasies," "BEAUTIFUL Blondes for all your needs" and a woman who professes to be "Exotic & Erotic . ..very talented & sexy."

Other advertising options

The two main phone books in the area also carry ads for escort services.

The December 2005 Verizon book, for example, has ads for Baby Dolls Entertainment, Mistress Gina and Sensational Secrets, which guarantees "absolute discretion."

And the 2006-07 Talking Phone Book carries ads for Pebbles Bedrock Escorts, Fantasy Escorts and Tropical Beauties.

A full-page, full-color ad in the Buffalo Talking Phone Book costs $2,592 per month, or about $31,000 for the year, said Greg Garrick, vice president of marketing for the company.

The Talking Phone Book won't take an ad that shows a suggestive photo or drawing, and company officials do reject explicit ad content, Garrick said.

However, he said, "We don't police the companies."

The Buffalo News does not accept ads for escort services, said Sherri Deaton- Callahan, the paper's assistant advertising director.

However, The News will accept classified and display ads for massage parlors if the owner can produce a valid state business license and the content meets the paper's standards, Deaton-Callahan said.

Police and people familiar with the adult entertainment industry say prostitution also can take place at strip clubs on both sides of the border.

Some dancers have sex with patrons in exchange for money, sometimes at the clubs but more frequently at a hotel or other location, they said.

"Is it going on in the clubs? Yes it is. Are the owners aware of it? Sure. Will they admit it? No," said a former area strip-club owner, who spoke on condition he not be named.

Law enforcement officials periodically pursue undercover stings by responding to escort ads or booking appointments at massage parlors.

In March, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with local police, made a series of arrests at massage parlors in Amherst, Cheektowaga, Depew, the City of Tonawanda, West Seneca and the Town of Niagara that authorities say offered sexual services.

Most of the massage parlor employees were from overseas and were paid only what they could earn in tips, said Sliwinski, the Cheektowaga police lieutenant.

"They're being exploited," he said. "They want a better life for themselves."

But those raids were driven by concerns about treatment of illegal immigrants.

And it's not just prostitution enforcement efforts that have languished. Programs aimed at getting treatment for women in the industry also have lagged locally.

The 1990s and early part of this decade saw law enforcement officials, community groups and social workers join together on a Buffalo Prostitution Task Force and a court-mandated "John School" that sought to scare customers straight.

A program called the Magdalen Project offered drug counseling and other treatment.

"There really needs to be an extended treatment program," said Jackie Andula, a special assistant to the Erie County health commissioner and a member of the Prostitution Task Force. "There was evidence that these programs are working."

Affording accountability

But the John School hasn't operated in years, and the Magdalen Project ended when its grant ran out, said Clark, the district attorney.

Also, the DA's community prosecution unit was a victim of Erie County's budget problems.

"All of these things, they had a noticeable effect on the problem. But they only had an effect as long as you were concentrating [on prostitution]," Clark said.

Authorities said it's a question of manpower and law enforcement priorities in a tight budgetary climate.

Prostitution just isn't considered a serious crime, police and others said.

The prostitutes are more valuable as informants and as bellwethers for illegal activity in a neighborhood, said Adams, the lawyer and former assistant district attorney.

Still, escorts have to worry about police attention and are cautious to avoid arrest.

A guy who isn't picky about what type of woman he wants, or who tries to get the escort to describe in advance what she will do with him could be a cop, escorts said.

Despite these precautions, the Buffalo escort operator was arrested in 2005 as she waited in the parking lot of an Amherst motel for one of her escorts to finish with a client.

She was charged with promoting prostitution and fined $300 but continued running her service for another year before finally getting out in early 2006.

"I needed health insurance. I needed to start paying taxes. I needed to be adult," she said. "I miss it. I used to have fun. I'm not going to lie. I had a ball. I used to have money handed to me."

Prostitution profits from high Internet visibility, little police response

As visitors to her Web site can see, Cindeee is eager to please the right kind of gentleman. The Buffalo-area escort has a sophisticated Internet home, offering photos of her in skimpy lingerie and a rich description of what she offers customers.

The site even boasts a list of her prices, an interactive schedule of her future availability and links to reviews from clients.

"I will provide for you a unique, unforgettable experience - whether it may be a simple dinner date, a night on the town or just some discreet private time together," Cindeee writes.

As Cindeee's fans already know, prostitution today has moved from the street corner to the World Wide Web.

Now, prostitutes are setting up their own Web sites, advertising through national sites such as Escorts.com or through classified ads on craigslist. "Back in the day, prostitutes used to have to walk up and down the street. I don't do that," said a 26-year-old Town of Tonawanda woman who advertises her services online.

She was one of a dozen current and former escorts, an operator of an escort service, detectives, lawyers and others familiar with the industry interviewed by The Buffalo News. Several spoke about their work only on condition they not be named.

Some escort Web sites spell out in detail what a customer can expect to receive. But many walk a legal tightrope, promising pleasure without explicitly offering sex for money.

The Internet has been a boon for the women, taking the sex trade underground and out of plain sight. It's also easier for their customers, who can find a wide selection of women whenever they wish from the comfort and safety of their home.

"It's more discreet. They don't have to drive through the seedy part of town looking for a woman standing on a street corner," said Larry Dombrowski, chief detective with the Erie County (Pa.) district attorney's office, which recently led a Web-based sex-for-pay sting.

Perhaps it was inevitable that the world's oldest profession and the Internet would converge.

"Certainly that tie between sex and technology has always been there," said Alex Halavais, an assistant professor of communication at Quinnipiac University who once taught a "Cyberporn and Society" class at the University at Buffalo.

VHS versus Betamax

In ancient Pompeii, he noted, frescoes played that role: Many of the erotic drawings from that time were ads for prostitutes.

More recently, the VHS format for videocassette recorders beat out Betamax in part because the porn industry backed VHS, Halavais noted, and cybersex has flourished as a result of video file-sharing, Webcams and other advances.

Not everything has changed in prostitution. Street walkers still ply their trade on Niagara Street on Buffalo's West Side, on Broadway and Walden Avenue on the East Side, and in Niagara Falls, observers said.

Escorts, however, typically are contacted by phone, through an ad in a free newspaper or the phone book. They also can be choosier about their clients.

They charge more than street walkers and usually meet their clients at a hotel room rented by the customer or the escort.

"Sometimes it makes me sick how much money I missed out on because I'm not in the business anymore," said a Buffalo woman, now 28, who operated a small escort service for several years through 2005.

Police, lawyers and industry observers say a lot of prostitution activity - particularly that of the escorts - seems to have moved onto the Web.

"Online's just taken over everything," said David Sugg, a newly retired Buffalo police detective who spent 25 years in the department's vice squad. "I'd have to say 75 percent of it has to be online now. That's a guess."

Escorts are becoming Internet entrepreneurs, setting up their own Web sites, advertising through established adult-entertainment companies or placing ads on classified-ad sites.

Large Web sites such as Escorts.com and TheEroticReview. com let prospective customers search through thousands of escorts by location, by the type of woman desired or by how highly her services were rated by former clients.

A search through Escorts. com in the Buffalo area brought up 85 local escorts, while TheEroticReview.com carries information on 24 "independent providers" who work in the region.

Courtesan, not escort

One area escort, who calls herself Ciara, has an extensive Web site that features a blog, a list of rules, and quotations from Andy Rooney and Adlai Stevenson.

"Everything you will see here is from the fruits of my own labor. There is no way a stranger or Web design company could do my site. For heaven['s] sakes! How would you get to know the REAL me?" Ciara asks playfully.

The Web sites the women set up vary in sophistication but most offer a brief biography, basic guidelines, alluring photographs, a fee schedule and a calendar of her availability.

One 28-year-old woman who has a Web site advertising her charms prefers to call herself a courtesan, not an escort, and said what she does is part of a lifestyle and not a job.

The Eastern European native, who lives in a Buffalo suburb, provides companionship and intelligent conversation to men of a certain socioeconomic status here and in Las Vegas.

She set up her site to reach a wider geographic range of men.

It describes her physical appearance, standards and fees. She does not like discussing money, but suggested "donations" range from $500 for an hour to $30,000 for a week.

The men pay for her time, she said, not the sex.

"Some men love their wives, but the excitement is not there, and they would like to have some spark," she said. "And I don't see anything wrong with that."

Help from husband

A 45-year-old man whose 36-year-old wife works as an escort first set up a Web site for her in 2001, when few local escorts had sites and competition was not as strong.

"The Internet has been the main key" to their business, the Niagara Falls man said.

He handles the books, answers e-mails from the men, drives his wife to her appointments and waits outside while she meets the men.

They earn good money - $250 to $300 per hour, plus tips - from clients in Erie and Niagara counties, Rochester and Syracuse.

He said his wife has received several cars as gifts from regular clients, including a BMW 3 Series convertible.

The couple hasn't gotten into legal trouble but has a prominent local lawyer on retainer just in case. The husband said they report and pay taxes on their earnings.

Their three children - ages 12, 13 and 14 - know what their parents do, he said.

He admits he was uncomfortable at first with his wife sleeping with strange men, but now he views the sex as a business transaction.

"The money's so good, it makes you look the other way," he said.

How much can an escort make in a year?

The Niagara Falls man said his wife made $4,000 to $5,000 per week - or $200,000 to $260,000 per year - when she started working as an escort and there wasn't much local competition. Now she earns less but still makes a good living, he said.

The Town of Tonawanda online escort said she sees an average of 12 to 15 clients per week and charges $200 per session - for an annual income of $125,000 to $150,000 per year.

She said she tries to save $100 per day and, after working as an escort for about 18 months, she has $30,000 in the bank.

The escorts say they couldn't make as much as they do without the ability to reach customers through the Web.

Some of the sites are helpful for beginners, with answers to frequently asked questions and guidance on what the guy needs to do, plus a glossary that explains the shorthand used by most women.

One standard term - "GFE" - refers to the full girlfriend experience they promise to provide.

The client reviews, not unlike those found on eBay, help ensure customer satisfaction.

At TheEroticReview, for example, a local escort who goes by the names Rosary Gardyn and Sarah has received 10 reviews since June 2004.

Her ratings for her appearance range from "OK if you are drunk" to "Really Hot" and those assessing her performance range from "average" to "went the extra mile."

Most escort Web sites include some form of legal fig leaf that the escorts are charging a fee for their companionship.

Non-escort escorts

"They advertise an escort service, but they never go anywhere," said Dombrowski of the Erie County (Pa.) district attorney's office. "It kind of takes the escort out of the business."

But as Mindy and Ricky McAllister, discovered, the system is not foolproof.

The Albion, Pa., couple ran "Take a Trip to Heaven with an Angel," a Web site that advertised escort services to men in Western New York; Erie, Pa.; and Cleveland, Dombrowski said.

The McAllisters pleaded guilty to misdemeanor prostitution- related charges in Erie, Pa. Their Buffalo-area clients were not prosecuted.

Locally, one of the escorts arrested in an Internet-based sting conducted this spring by Buffalo police called her friends in the escort industry later that night to warn them, the Niagara Falls escort-service operator said.

The threat of arrest hasn't stopped many escorts from using the Web to advertise. The Town of Tonawanda resident, a single mother of 5- and 6-yearold boys, said she entered the business after visiting friends who worked as escorts in New York City. They told her how to use craigslist and other Web sites to find clients.

Safety precautions

"Where else can I earn $200 an hour?" asked the escort, who said she has earned an associate degree.

One of her ads on craigslist ran under the title "PLEASURES TREASURES" and featured four photos of her posing in lingerie.

"If they like what they see, they call me," she said.

She requires the clients to use a condom, and said she undergoes regular testing, which never has come up positive for HIV or a sexually transmitted disease.

She said she doesn't want to do this forever because having sex with strangers - often married, cheap and unable to carry on an adult conversation - takes an emotional toll.

"What this does is it puts a cold block of ice over your heart. Even if you sleep with someone who you might love. It's hard to do that," she said.