STINGS

[needhotdudes]

hey are there active stings in LA and SF? I'm headed to both real soon and wanna be aware. Thanks

[+ Lucky]

Best to go right to the source.

 

San Francisco Police Dept.- 415-553-0123

 

Los Angeles Police Dept. 1-877-ASK-LAPD

[+ Axiom2001]

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

[+ Axiom2001]

If the preceding plethora of smiles is NOT deleted-- IGNORE them, please! I tried my best to get rid of them. I did not really know how to take Lucky's response: was he being serious or facetitious?

 

I think I viewed and understand correctly and responded much too swiftly!

[Epigonos]

Los Angeles and San Francisco are NOT Las Vegas. As long as you are hiring guys in those two cities I don’t think you will have anything about which to worry. I really don’t think you would even have a problem in the depths of Orange County. All of these jurisdictions have far more serious things with which to concern themselves. West Hollywood is a separate city patrolled by L.A. County Sheriffs but I can’t imagine them getting involved in such nonsense either. I have hired all over the Los Angeles basin and have NEVER ever worried about sting operations and have NEVER had a problem.

[+ Lucky]

needhotdudes and I communicated on this, and I pointed out to him that a sting is just that, a sting. They're over when they are discovered, and a new one starts. So even if someone tells you about one, you're really no better off with that information than you would have been before.

[+ Lucky]

RE: STINGS IN NEW YORK

 

From Gay City News:

Five More Prostitution Busts IDed in Chelsea Video Store

By: DUNCAN OSBORNE

01/22/2009

 

Police arrested at least five men for prostitution in a Chelsea porn shop last September and October, bringing the total number of known prostitution arrests of gay and bisexual men to 52 in eight different businesses dating back to 2004.

 

"Generally, these are people who are not working as prostitutes and even when they are confronted by the undercover they may be intending to have sex, but not take any money," said Linda Poust Lopez, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society, who is representing one of the five men busted in Unicorn DVD, located at 336 Eighth Avenue near 27th Street.

 

At least three of the men have pleaded not guilty. Attorneys for the other two known to have pleaded guilty either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment. As Gay City News went to press, the remaining two men had not been identified.

 

The five arrests are part of a wave of such arrests that swept through Manhattan porn shops in 2008, with cops busting at least 27 men in at least six porn shops last year.

 

Police made at least 25 other arrests from 2004 through 2007, including at least 23 at Video, Video, Video, a porn shop that was located at Eighth Avenue and 34th Street.

 

Citing those prostitution arrests, all of which were done by undercover officers, the city brought nuisance abatement lawsuits against seven of the eight businesses seeking to close them. Four of the seven lawsuits came in 2008. The city sued Unicorn DVD on January 14 of this year. Two of the businesses, including Video, Video, Video, were shuttered, while the other four stayed open under agreements with the city that restricted their operations.

 

The police department has defended the arrests, saying it is responding to community complaints. The Manhattan district attorney's office, which prosecuted the men, had no comment.

 

"I decline to comment," said Alicia Maxey Greene, spokesperson for Robert M. Morgenthau, the district attorney.

 

The gay community clearly sees the arrests as fake, and the men as having been set up, judging by the angry comments on websites where the arrests have been discussed and at a January 15 town meeting that drew some 300 people to the LGBT Community Center.

 

"I think it's very disturbing that there has been this pattern of arrests," said Thomas K. Duane, the out gay Chelsea state senator, at the town meeting. "This is harassment. No matter how you look at this issue, the enforcement is completely, utterly inappropriate and out of control."

 

Andrea J. Ritchie, director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, said the arrests and lawsuits against the porn shops are to punish "deviant sexuality."

 

She said at the town hall, "The decision in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 did not end the policing of gay sex," referring to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws nationwide.

 

Two patterns of arrests have emerged at Blue Door Video, a First Avenue porn shop also the subject of recent law enforcement actions. One suggests police were sending younger cops into the store to aggressively flirt, often with older men. Eight of the 12 men arrested there were 42 or older. When those men agreed to what they thought was a consensual sexual encounter outside the store, the officers then said they wanted to pay the men. If the men did not refuse and walk away, they were arrested.

 

Police appear to have used that same method of aggressively flirting, winning agreement for consensual sex outside the store, and only then mentioning money, with the four younger men as well.

 

Gay City News identified these patterns from reviewing the detailed arrest records contained in the nuisance abatement suit brought against Blue Door and speaking with two men arrested there. The records in the other 2008 lawsuits were far less detailed and did not identify the men arrested.

 

The men arrested in Video, Video, Video were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, with one teenager. Some of the criminal records related to that lawsuit are sealed, and Gay City News could not determine the age of all the men.

 

Herald Price Fahringer, the attorney who represented Video, Video, Video, argued in court filings that police entrapped the men arrested for prostitution there. Most of the arrests there "were solely the result of police solicitation," Fahringer wrote. "We urge that, absent the officers' prompting, these acts may not have occurred at all."

 

Of the five men busted in Unicorn, two are now at least 34 and a third is now at least 27.

 

Several of the cops who made arrests in Blue Door also made a significant number of the 2008 arrests in the other porn shops, including one officer who made all three known Unicorn arrests, according to an attorney familiar with those cases. In some court records, the officers are identified by their badge numbers.

 

Given that it successfully led to arrests, it is likely that, in those cases for which detailed information is not publicly available, police have consistently used the method of first getting agreement for consensual sex and then mentioning money.

[Guest zipperzone]

RE: STINGS IN NEW YORK

 

I would have though the arrested one would have had to actually TAKE the money before the crime was committed.

[Guest Ca Robert]

In San Francisco, I think you're safe. Several years ago there was a documentary on prostitution, and although they tried to charge the johns, the DA threw out the arrests. The kind of prostitution SF tries to address is primarily street hustling, which is viewed as bringing crime and drugs to neighborhoods.

 

Back in the 90s, though, there was a well-known escort service that also catered to men. It was busted as it expanded into San Jose, and the madam was sent to prison. Interestingly enough, they showed no interest in prosecuting the johns, although they had enough evidence from records kept by the agency to make life hard on customers. I was a regular customer, as they had hot guys. The arrest, however, made me look elsewhere for companions. They did have a competitor agency I used from time to time that kept a lower profile.

 

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.04.99/cover/prostitution-9905.html

[Blade9]

RE: STINGS IN NEW YORK

 

Sounds to me like the heteros who may live in the area are attempting to get the stores closed and this is the first step. I wonder who owns the real estate?

[+ Lucky]

RE: STINGS IN NEW YORK

 

Hopefully the mob!