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My News & Newsletter
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| Woman Accused Of Offering Sex For World Series Tickets On Craigslist (28 Oct 2009) |
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A Philadelphia woman was arrested Tuesday after she allegedly posted an ad
on Craigslist offering to perform sex acts in exchange for World Series
tickets, MyFoxPhilly reported. Susan Finkelstein, 43, was charged with
prostitution and related offenses after police say she advertised herself
as a buxom, blond, die-hard Phillies fan who was desperately seeking World
Series tickets and would have sex to get them."I'm the creative
type! Maybe we can help each other," authorities say
Finkelstein's online ad read. She described herself as
"gorgeous" and said her price was negotiable, according to
police.Finkelstein was busted when, authorities say, an undercover officer
responded to the Craigslist posting. She allegedly offered to perform sex
acts on the officer in exchange for the coveted tickets of the baseball
championship between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.
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| What Are You Worth In Bed? (21 Jun 2009) |
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See what you would be worth when you take the
test! http://hellarity.us/worth/index.php
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| Behind Closed Doors: How Rhode Island Decriminalized Prostitution (21 Jun 2009) |
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It's been nearly 30 years since Rhode Island granted a green light to
indoor prostitution. Asian spas now offer "body rubs" just blocks
from Providence City Hall, and Internet sex sites rate Rhode Island as a
destination spot. On weekend nights, out-of-state cars vie for parking
spaces outside storefronts with drawn shades and signs that read
"Spa." To understand how Rhode Island became the only state in
America to decriminalize prostitution, you have to go back to the
mid-1970s, when a powerful politician and devout Roman Catholic named Matty
Smith helped advance the cause of a former prostitute named Margo St.
James. Though few recall the details of this chapter in history, three
decades later lawmakers are still coping with the consequences.St. James,
founder of the sex workers' rights group COYOTE (Call Off Your Old,
Tired Ethics), was traveling the country and Europe to deliver her message
about keeping government out of the sex business. During a stop in Rhode
Island, she met the owner of a downtown Providence strip club. The police,
he told her, were on his back for letting prostitutes hang out at his bar.
He offered her a tour of his club. Then, he introduced her to his lawyer.
It was 1976 -- the year that The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female
Sexuality became a bestseller and Lorretta Lynn's song "The
Pill" climbed the pop charts -- when St. James' group challenged
the constitutionality of Rhode Island's prostitution law. In a federal
lawsuit, the group argued that the statute was so broad that it could
prohibit sex between unmarried adults. Back then, prostitution in Rhode
Island was a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Yet, despite
well-publicized reports of prostitution going on in places such as the
Civic View Inn, just down the street from the police station, only a
handful of arrests there resulted in convictions, mostly involving small
fines and probation. In the city's West End, residents complained that
streetwalkers flagged down cars night and day, and their customers cruised
the neighborhood with their windows down, soliciting wives on their way to
work and girls waiting for the school bus. The neighborhood had a powerful
ally in Matthew J. "Matty" Smith, then speaker of the House of
Representatives. Smith had built his power base by getting things done for
his constituents. If a voter said a fallen tree had cracked the sidewalk,
he'd call public works. A social conservative, he protested abortion
with a lapel pin that depicted a fetus's tiny feet. And he told a
Journal reporter he was worried that Roger Williams Park, where his father
had once mowed the grass, was becoming a hangout for gays. The West End was
part of Smith's district, and he called the prostitution there
"sickening and despicable." BY 1979, as neighborhood groups
pressed the police to step up patrols, the trial opened in the civil-rights
lawsuit filed by St. James' group. St. James flew from San Francisco
to Rhode Island to testify before U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Pettine.
At issue was how much power the state should have to control the sexual
activity of its citizens. Ralph J. Gonnella, the Providence lawyer whom St.
James met through a downtown strip club owner, argued that the prostitution
law was so broad -- it failed to even mention money - it could make sexual
relations between unmarried adults a crime punishable by a $10 fine. And
the person who initiated the offer of sex, he argued, could be charged with
soliciting and face up to five years in prison. The state, he said, had no
right or duty to regulate such private activity between consenting adults.
The lawsuit also alleged discrimination in how the law was being applied,
citing data that showed the Providence police were arresting female
prostitutes far more often than their male customers. In September 1979,
after four hours of testimony from witnesses, including a prostitute
identified only as Jane Doe, each side rested its case. Back in the West
End, the police, on orders from then-Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy"
Cianci Jr., stepped up their offensive against prostitution. But the system
worked like a giant revolving door. Police would round up prostitutes only
to see them pay bail and hit the streets again. As the 1980 General
Assembly session opened, Smith said he'd make it his priority to get
legislation passed to help rid the neighborhood of prostitution. His ally,
state District Court Chief Judge Henry J. Laliberte, spoke up at a meeting
at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The judge was a former city
councilman who, like Smith, the House speaker, had grown up on
Providence's South Side. The way to get prostitutes off the streets,
the judge told the residents, was to change the law - make prostitution a
misdemeanor crime instead of a felony -- to speed prosecution in the
courts. Judge Pettine was still working on his decision in the lawsuit when
the General Assembly unanimously approved a bill introduced by Smith to
amend the prostitution statute. ON ITS FACE, the amended law, drafted by
Judge Laliberte, achieved its supporters' objectives: It reduced
prostitution from a felony to a misdemeanor, allowing cases to move through
the courts more quickly. And it added the phrase "for pecuniary
gain" in the section on "harboring prostitution." But in
rewriting the law, the drafters deleted a section that addressed committing
the act of prostitution. The changes, Judge Pettine and the lawyers agreed,
had rendered the lawsuit's claims moot. The judge dismissed the case.
The next year, ruling on Gonnella's request for attorneys' fees,
Pettine wrote that the omission "appear[ed] to have decriminalized the
sexual act itself, even when undertaken for remuneration." The judge
puzzled over why the passage had been deleted, but to him, its effect was
clear. And his analysis would prove significant in years to come. For more
than two decades, the omission went largely unnoticed. Then, in 2003, as
brothels posing as massage parlors opened around the city amid reports that
Asian women were being forced into prostitution, the Providence police
raided four of these "spas." They arrested seven women and one
man and seized $9,300 in what they called "Operation Rubdown."
The police said the women, all Korean, had come to Rhode Island from New
York, New Jersey, Georgia and Oregon to work as prostitutes. In addition to
charges of performing massages without a license, four of the women were
charged with soliciting for prostitution. As the case awaited trial,
Michael J. Kiselica, a lawyer who was representing the owners of the Midori
and Oriental Garden Spas, and city prosecutor Steven L. Catalano agreed to
a statement of facts: Three Korean women working at the Midori and Oriental
Garden Spas had offered sex for money to undercover police. The prosecutor
argued in a written motion that state law prohibits soliciting for
prostitution. But Kiselica, quoting Judge Pettine's analysis of the
state's prostitution law, asserted that regardless of what his clients
had done, no law was violated. In addition, he said, the state Supreme
Court in 1998 ruled in State v. DeMagistris that Rhode Island's law
against soliciting was "primarily to bar prostitutes from hawking
their wares in public" and could not be applied to convict someone for
activity that takes place in private. State District Court Judge Elaine T.
Bucci ruled in favor of the defense and dismissed the case. Police still
tried to shut down brothels over the next couple of years by charging the
women with performing a massage without a license or the building owners
with violating the criminal-nuisance ordinance. But the prostitution
charges went nowhere. Kiselica has won dismissals of criminal charges
against about 15 of his clients who were arrested in spa raids,
discouraging police and prosecutors from going after prostitution indoors.
And the number of spas multiplied. Groups that monitor the spa industry
have documented more than 30 spas throughout the state, most of them in
Providence. "These are real businesses," said Kiselica, whose
clients now include about a half-dozen spa owners. "They pay the taxes
that the business owes. They operate within the bounds of the law."
NEARLY 30 YEARS after lawmakers rewrote the prostitution statute, few can
recall why it happened. "We probably vote on 500 bills a year,"
Sen. John F. McBurney III, the only member of the General Assembly who
served in 1980, said recently. McBurney says he can think of only one
explanation for why a bill that decriminalized prostitution would win
unanimous approval by the General Assembly: "They didn't know
what they were voting for." John C. Revens Jr., a former Senate
Majority leader and a lawyer who served in the General Assembly for nearly
four decades, agrees. "They would never sponsor a bill decriminalizing
prostitution if they knew what it was," Revens said. "No way. Not
in a million years." (Smith, the former House speaker who got caught
in a 1993 court scandal that drove him out of public life, did not respond
to phone messages seeking an interview.) This year, as they have for the
last three years, several state lawmakers are pushing to rewrite the 1980
law. A bill that passed the House earlier this month clearly states that
anyone who engages in sex for money is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable
by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The bill is awaiting a
hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Margo St. James, the former
prostitute who challenged the prostitution law in the 1970s, hopes Rhode
Island keeps the law the way it is. Now 72, she lives in a family cabin on
Orcas Island in Washington with her cat, Lovey Dovey. She moved there from
San Francisco with her husband, a newspaper reporter, who died in 2000.
Gardening and family visits take up most of her time these days. Last week,
she was in San Francisco to attend the annual Sex Worker Film, Art &
Music Festival. She'll be speaking at a fundraiser for the St. James
Infirmary, which she helped start a decade ago to provide health care to
sex workers. Even now, she's proud of the change she helped bring
about in Rhode Island. "We tried Massachusetts. California. Hawaii.
Florida," she recalls. "Most of them didn't get
anywhere." Twists and turns 1976: COYOTE, a national sex-workers'
rights group, sues Rhode Island in federal court, alleging the state's
prostitution law is overly broad and violates the constitutional right to
privacy. 1980: The General Assembly amends the prostitution law, reducing
solicitation from a felony to a misdemeanor and deleting a reference to
prostitution as a crime. The COYOTE lawsuit is dismissed. 1981: U.S.
District Court Judge Raymond Pettine, ruling on legal fees, says the change
in Rhode Island law decriminalized sex for money. 1998: State Supreme Court
rules in State v. DeMagistris that the law against soliciting for
prostitution was "primarily to bar prostitutes from hawking their
wares in public." 2003: Prostitution charges against four women
arrested at two Providence spas are dismissed after attorney Michael J.
Kiselica, citing Pettine and the Supreme Court ruling, successfully argues
that Rhode Island has no law against indoor prostitution. 2005: Bill to
make prostitution illegal, wherever it occurs, dies in the General
Assembly; similar bills fail in subsequent years. 2009: On May 13, the
House overwhelmingly passes bill to criminalize all prostitution. Bill now
pending in the
Senate.http://www.projo.com/news/content/PROSTITUTION_LAW31_05-31-09_NVEHGB
H_v161.3e90048.html
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| Prostitute Dies After Being Held In Scorching Outdoor Prison Cell (21 Jun 2009) |
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PHOENIX - A prostitute doing time behind bars, Marcia Powell was
temporarily moved one day last month to an outdoor holding pen with nothing
but a chain-link-fence roof to shield her from the searing desert sun. She
lasted less than four hours.Powell, 48, collapsed in the 108-degree heat
and died at a hospital the next day, touching off a criminal investigation
and bringing an abrupt end to a little-known practice in Arizona's
prison system that inmate-rights activists found repellent.Donna Leone
Hamm, director of the local nonprofit Middle Ground Prison Reform, called
the outdoor cages barbaric."There's something medieval about
it," she said. "It doesn't comport with any humane or
community standard that we would ordinarily think of for any animal,
including a human."Arizona's 10 state prisons have 233 outdoor
cells for temporarily holding inmates awaiting transfer to punishment
wards, medical units, other prisons or work assignments. All four sides and
the roof of each cell are made of chain-link fence. Some have coverings
that provide shade; others do not.They have been used year-round, despite
temperatures in Arizona that can climb over 100 from the spring through the
fall, and top 110 in the summer.Corrections spokesman Barrett Marson said
Arizona prisons have had outdoor enclosures since at least the 1960s.
Corrections Director Charles Ryan said he does not know whether other
inmates have died or become seriously ill from being held in one.After
Powell's collapse at the Perryville state prison outside Phoenix on
May 19, Ryan all but banned the use of outdoor detention cells, putting
Arizona in line with other hot-weather Sunbelt states. He said the cages
will be used only in extraordinary circumstances, such as a prison riot or
a brawl."The situation that Marcia Powell experienced will not occur
again," Ryan said.Florida and New Mexico do not have outdoor holding
cells, prison officials there said. Texas and California have outdoor
cells, but they are shaded, officials said.On the day she collapsed,
Powell, who was serving a more than two-year sentence and had a history of
drug addiction and mental illness, was being transferred from one section
of the prison to an observation ward after seeing a psychologist, officials
said.She was put in the unshaded holding cell and forced to wait because of
a disturbance in the observation ward, authorities said.Prison policy
called for inmates to be removed from outdoor cells after two hours, but
that wasn't done. Also, guards were 20 yards away in a control room
while she was in the cell and were supposed to check on her every 30
minutes. Authorities are investigating whether that was done and how much
water Powell was given.A deputy warden and two guards have been suspended
during the investigation.Authorities said Powell died of heat-related
causes, but the autopsy results have not been released. Investigators said
they were looking into whether she was taking any psychiatric medication
that might have affected her ability to withstand the
heat.http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526132,00.html
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| Officer Won't Be Charged In Hotel Scuffle (20 Jun 2009) |
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A reserve police officer from Waterloo will not be charged in connection
with a weekend scuffle at a Des Moines hotel that involved a woman he
planned to pay for sex, according to a police report.Steven Swanson, 41,
told officers he was at the Quality Inn and Suites, 929 Third St., to meet
a woman he contacted through Craigs-list, an online classifieds Web site
that has become popular with prostitutes and their customers, authorities
said. A hotel manager called police after Swanson and the woman allegedly
fought in a fourth-floor hallway at about 1:45 p.m. Saturday. Swanson said
he tried to wrestle away the woman's cell phone when he thought she
was going to call her pimp, the police report said.The woman's name
was blacked out in the report.When police asked Swanson for his
identification, he allegedly laid his driver's license on the table,
put his Waterloo police identification next to it and said: "And this
is the one that will hurt."A Waterloo police official told Des Moines
officers that Swanson had been on duty until 1 a.m. Saturday.The woman told
police that she met Swanson at the Lumberyard, a strip club on the north
side of Des Moines, where she works. She asked Swanson "to come to the
hotel to hang out," the report said.The woman denied that she
solicited via Craigslist. She told police that Swanson was upset with her
because she "just wanted to hang out.""The female denied
being a prostitute, so there was no way to prove it in a court of
law," Des Moines Police Sgt. Lori Lavorato said.Swanson suffered an
abrasion and a torn shirt in the scuffle. No charges were filed. Both were
photographed and released.Waterloo police Capt. John Beckman said that he
was not aware of the alleged incident and that department officials would
be "looking into
it."http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090616/NEWS/906160365/-
1/archive?GID=q3apb4Bms1/EEdJKOBdZPcoyYuzj47UO4740LGOC4Z0%3D"
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