- Posted by Christopher Estep on September 18, 2008
Over the past couple of years, a few people close to me have been struggling with the notion that another close person has been running an escort service. A myriad of excuses are given, such as "I'm just setting up dates" and "We only put people together, what they do is their business". Of course, the fact that it's prostitution (from the girl's position) and pimping (from by the so-called service) is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge.
So, is it just a dating service? Is it something that only the girl and her "date" set up? Or is it prostitution, plain and simple? A young woman from Tennessee recently had it reinforced what it's all about:
Brittney Mayhew came to Atlanta hoping to make some big money as a female escort.
The 18-year-old from the Nashville area arrived by bus last week, hoping to make $5,000 a week for rendezvous with “lonely men,” she said.
Wow, $5,000 a week just for going on dates? Could she really be that lucky? Are people really willing to spend major amounts of cash just to spend some innocent time with a young woman because they're lonely? I'm sorry, I didn't say that right. I mean "lonely".
Though a Web site, she met a woman who promised Mayhew wads of cash for going out on dates with men.
Wow, money for going on dates. Isn't that fabulous? And to think, people actually pay services like lavalife and match.com to find people for dates. Who knew that you should be getting paid for the dates, not paying someone else?
Mayhew arrived in Atlanta on Sept. 8. Over the next three days, she met with three men — one of those meetings included sexual interaction, she said — before deciding that she wanted to leave.
The news didn’t sit well with her handler, who wanted her to make more money, she said. In a fit of anger, the woman tossed Mayhew’s phone off the 20th-floor balcony of the Hyatt [on Peachtree St. in downtown Atlanta]. It landed in the hotel pool, she said.
Mayhew left the room to call the police, and when she returned, the woman was gone. So were Mayhew’s bags and $700 that she had earned from her escort work.
Her handler? She's a pimp! What do they call dope dealers, undocumented pharmacists?
Let's call things what they are. Mayhew was a prostitute. She got paid for sex. The unnamed woman is a pimp. She arranges for people to get together, knowing the intent is to have sex. And yet, everyone pretends that it's not what it is.
These flesh peddlers entice young woman (and some not so young) with promises of fast and easy cash. And through it all, these (literal) whore-mongers skate by undeterred by claiming the transactions are "dates" and the whores are "models" and that all they are doing is arranging contacts with these so-called models. And yet they claim on their own advertisements and websites that they offer a "real GFE" or "girl friend experience" which is common slang for sex with pretended affection.
We have laws that cover these crimes, yet they go largely unenforced. GA Code § 16-6-11 says that pimping includes whenever someone:
Directs or transports another person to a place when he or she knows or should know that the direction or transportation is for the purpose of prostitution;
Receives money or other thing of value from a prostitute, without lawful consideration, knowing it was earned in whole or in part from prostitution
Aids or abets, counsels, or commands another in the commission of prostitution or aids or assists in prostitution where the proceeds or profits derived therefrom are to be divided on a pro rata basis.
Also, § 16-6-12. Pandering
A person commits the offense of pandering when he or she solicits a person to perform an act of prostitution in his or her own behalf or in behalf of a third person or when he or she knowingly assembles persons at a fixed place for the purpose of being solicited by others to perform an act of prostitution.
Each offense is punishable (as a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature) by up to $5,000 fine and/or up to a year in jail. That's for each offense. Further, the pimp's name is to be published in the newspaper exposing him or her to the world. If any of these crimes happened within 1000 feet of a church, school, daycare, or youth recreational center, tack on a mandatory $2,500.
But that's not all. These crimes are not committed in a vacuum.
Are the cell phones they use in the person's actual name or an alias? That's wire fraud.
Are they using a credit card with a false name? Most likely, there's identity fraud taking place.
What about the money? Do you really think that taxes are being paid? That's income tax fraud on the federal and state level.
And since the money is going unreported, is the pimp receiving medicaid? Welfare? Unemployment? WIC?
If the mail is used even for invoices for credit cards or other transactions, that's mail fraud and using the internet also brings in various federal crimes.
I've been threatened in the past for even broaching this topic, which is why I (legally) carry a firearm whenever possible. So tell me, if it's just an innocent dating service, why would I be threatened with bodily harm?
A few pertinent questions. If it's just a dating service:
- who pays $700 just for a "date"?
- why do the girls get arrested and why do you send someone to bail them out?
- why not use your real name?
- why threaten someone for mentioning it?
- why do you get a commission for every "date"?
We can close our eyes and pretend it's something other than it is, but the fact remains that these scumbags are defrauding society through tax evasion while selling the bodies of young women like common whores.
These people need to be stopped.