Thursday, July 8, 2010

City Discloses Wider Porn Shop Arrest Effort

Blue Door Video on First Avenue

Speaking at a hearing on four federal civil rights lawsuits brought by five men who charge they were falsely arrested for prostitution in porn shops and a spa by New York City vice cops, an attorney for the city said police made such arrests in 10 businesses from January 2007 to the end of 2009.


Attorneys for the five men have argued that the city made the arrests so it could later cite them in nuisance abatement lawsuits it brought to try and shut the businesses down. Tonya Jenerette, a senior counsel in the city’s Law Department, said that the city’s data did not support that.


In the three-year period, 75 lawsuits brought against businesses by the police department’s legal unit cited prostitution arrests, but just eight of the 75 cited arrests of men, Jenerette said. Two of 24 lawsuits that cited prostitution arrests brought during that time by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement cited arrests of men.


“Their theory of the case is just nonsense,” Jenerette said at the July 7 hearing before Judge Shira A. Scheindlin. Jenerette did not say how many men were arrested altogether and she declined to comment following the hearing.


Reporting for Gay City News, I previously identified six porn shops and two spas in which men were arrested for prostitution by officers in the Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Squad in 2008. Among the six porn shops, only five were sued by the city so it is possible that there are additional businesses where such arrests were made, but they are not included in Jenerette’s data because those businesses were never sued. At least 30 men were busted in the six porn shops. Eleven men and one woman were busted in the two spas.


Attorney Michael L. Spiegel is representing three men who were busted in Unicorn DVD on Eighth Avenue and one man who was arrested in a 34th Street spa. James I. Meyerson is representing Robert Pinter, a gay man who was arrested in Blue Door Video on First Avenue and blew the whistle on the city in late 2008. It appears that the police department largely stopped making these arrests after Pinter went public. A man who was arrested in an East 37th Street spa is suing the city in state court.


While interesting, Jenerette’s data does not disprove the plaintiff’s theory. It may supply more information to bolster that theory. Then the plaintiffs never claimed that they were the only population targeted by the police.


What Jenerette’s data clearly does not explain is the improbable nature of these arrests. In Blue Door Video, eight of the 12 men arrested were between 42 and 54.


These arrests were made by the same crew of undercover officers who were identified only by their badge numbers in criminal and civil court records. Just two officers -- 3371 and 31107 -- made most of the porn shop arrests. Undercover 3371 is known to have busted at least 16 men. Four were 27 or younger, six ranged in age from 32 to 38, and another six were 41 to 49. Four of the seven men that 31107 arrested ranged from 34 to 37 and two were 43 and 44. The oldest, Pinter, was 52.


In a December 3, 2008 email to me, Paul J. Browne, the police department’s chief spokesman, wrote that “So far in 2008, 31 out of 179 men who were arrested for prostitution-related offenses in Manhattan South were above the age of 40. In other words, 82.7 percent were younger, often in their 20s.”


Or, in other words, male prostitutes arrested in Manhattan South, which ranges from 59th Street to the bottom of the island, were overwhelmingly younger men. So how does one explain this concentration of older male prostitutes arrested in Blue Door Video and other porn shops?

What Pinter and other men who were arrested said was they were first approached by a young, attractive man who flirted aggressively with them. After they agreed to consensual sex, with the young man insisting that the sex take place in his nearby apartment or car, the young man then said he would pay them for the sex. The offer of money usually came right before the arrest.


It certainly looks like the city was less interested in addressing prostitution and more interested in racking up arrests to be used in closing porn shops, an industry that the city has been attacking for decades.


In 2008, police arrested 151 men, 329 women, and 32 people whose gender was “unknown” for prostitution in Manhattan, according to statistics from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. In 2009, police arrested 57 men, 247 women, and 28 people of “unknown” gender for prostitution in Manhattan. Inexplicably, prostitution arrests in Manhattan fell by 35 percent in 2009 over 2008. In the other four boroughs, prostitution arrests were stable or increased in 2009 over 2008.


I know from reviewing roughly 35 nuisance abatement lawsuits brought by the city in 2008 that the undercover officers who arrested men in porn shops and spas also frequently worked together arresting women for prostitution and unlicensed massage in other businesses.


What the state data suggests is that when the gay community objected in late 2008 to the police tactics used in these arrests, the bosses at One Police Plaza flipped a switch and Manhattan prostitution arrests plummeted in 2009. That may be due to the city not caring so much about prostitution and caring more about shuttering porn shops, spas, and massage parlors. Of course, that also means that Jenerette is wrong.

4 comments:

  1. It is probably true that 82.7 percent of men arrested for prostitution in 2008 were in their 20's. Probably though, those men in their 20's WERE actually guilty of soliticing sex for money, whereas the men in their 40's and 50's probably were not, and were framed.

    What I want to know is, who is behind this? What is the NYPD's motivation to close down porn shops? Are the residents who live near places like the Blue Door and Unicorn complaning about a porn shop being near their apartments? If so, they should just move to Connecticut!

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  2. While middle-aged gay men were being falsely arrested for prostitution, our gay city council speaker Christine Quinn refused to speak out in support of these men and against the NYPD. Some of these men lived in her district. She supports the LGBT only when it's politically expedient:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXoANkQh93I

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  3. New York City has an arrogant and contemptuous billionaire mayor, who is widely rumored to be a closeted homosexual himself. His homophobic policies for his NYPD puppets only serves to give credence to those rumors. (Any competent professional in the field of psychology will assure you that what you fear in others is what you fear in yourself.) Add to this the inescapable fact that the NYPD is a known haven for fear-driven homosexual psychopaths, and we have the routine forcing of their deviant and unwelcome homosexual assaults on their kidnapped victims, most notably Abner Lewima and Michael Mineo. The problem lies in the fact that government sponsored criminals are NEVER punished, and there is NO LEGITIMATE RECOURSE FOR VICTIMS OF GOVERNMENT SPONSORED CRIMES IN AMERICA. We are living in the new Nazi Germany. Why is it legal for government agents to loiter in gay bookstores, CRIMINALLY IMPERSONATING CIVILIANS, propositioning patrons for sex, them kidnapping them, and falsely accusing them of "prostitution?" Who are the real criminals here? As long as we as a people continue to bankroll our own violation, it will continue to escalate. The ultimate non-violent protest is twofold: Refusal to submit and withdrawal of support. (moral, ideological, and FINANCIAL support.) These crimes by government agents are clearly criminal, yet "legal." Remember, it was legal to gas Jews in Nazi Germany. Not only was it legal, but it was "heroic" and "patriotic," as it protected the "Fatherland" from an "eminent threat." In the new Nazi Germany, we call it the "homeland." (Sound familiar/) Keep in mind that homosexuality was criminalized in Nazi Germany as it is here. I draw these parallels as a warning. Homophobia and anti- gay bias are officially sanctioned by our government as a matter of both national and international policy, as demonstrated by the bigoted refusal of our government to legalize gay marriage, as well as the so-called "don't ask don't tell" policies in our military. Gay people are equally exploited and robbed of our earnings (in violation of the law and the constitution) when it comes to Federal income tax, but clearly gay men and women are NOT equal in the bigoted eyes of the "law." It is also important to note that in December of 2008, the United Nations passed a resolution banning discrimination on the basis of sexual preference or gender identity, which was signed by 55 countries on 5 continents. Conspicuously absent among the signees was "The land of the free and the home of the brave, where all men are created equal." Clearly, America reveals itself as a world-class hypocrisy, Rather than a "Democracy."

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  4. We will continue to have "government sponsored crime" everywhere until and unless we risk having the guts to have internally defined identities, instead of externally imposed social and cultural constructs,categories, comparisons, etc. We need to risk living lives of internally derived HUMAN agency. We need "the golden rule" to be made the "Unique" rule that would be chosen Mastery "LAW" instead of the PRACTICED external FLAWED rule of law we now have. Then, instead of external government, crime, and the limitations of social and cultural constructs, categories and comparisons, etc. we will have unlimited freedom from drama and ego, because drama and ego will have been replaced by a self empathy, self love, that is extended to all. This is humanities'realistic utopian goal and mission: emancipation from all emotional limitations, namely freedom FROM external government in exchange for (paradoxically) Freedom TO internally govern the soul!

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