Pensacola Independent News

COVER STORY | Vol. 6, No 14, April 6, 2006
(Inside The Sex Trade)
E-mail this to a friend

Inside the Sex Trade

Unwitting sex workers were sent by their agencies to men known for abuse for extra cash. Sometimes prostitutes were used simply to deliver cocaine or other drugs to people. Sex workers never received screenings for AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases and, on the contrary, were often pressured by both their agencies and clients to engage in risky sexual behaviors—again for more money. Prostitution ring leaders almost always "tried" a woman personally first before hiring her out for sex with others.

For several years, "Jennifer" worked for various so-called escort services in Northwest Florida. Now, she's one of the key witnesses in a major State Attorney-led investigation to put about 10 agencies in the region out of business and about 30 owners and operators behind bars.

Jennifer, who's real name has been changed for this story for her safety, recently came forward to the Independent News to discuss Northwest Florida's sex industry. It includes one mother-daughter operation, called Hidden Desires, that used a tool shed in their front yard on Palafox Street. It contained little more than a bed, TV and sex toys, to ply their trade.

During an hour-long conversation, Jennifer makes it clear that this is no Hollywood fairy tale, like "Pretty Woman."

"It's chaos. It's constant chaos," she says. "If you're not doing drugs, you're around people who are. People think you're living a glamorous life. There is no part about it that can possibly be seen as glamorous. It's sex with strangers. It's 24/7. It's dangerous. You can't maintain a regular, normal life."

PROSTITUTION BUST

A year ago, State Attorney Bill Eddins' office, the Escambia County and Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office and Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating escort services advertising in the Pensacola News Journal, Northwest Florida Daily News, BellSouth's The Real Yellow Pages and The Talking Phone Book.

"These were fronts for prostitution that spun off into trafficking in cocaine and other major crimes," Eddins says in a March 27 press conference on the prostitution ring bust. "We felt it was a health and safety issue. We hope this makes a difference in our community."

Leaders of the prostitution rings, which in some cases allegedly employed underage girls, were arrested and charged mostly with racketeering, which carries up to 35 years in jail. In two cases, two people arrested in the sting were charged with child neglect in cases involving a 7-month-old and 4-year-old.

In addition, Escambia County Sheriff Ron McNesby reports approximately 15 pounds of marijuana, about a half kilo of cocaine and more than $100,000 was seized.

"We will not tolerate this type of operation in our district," he says.

Yet, one escort service owner, Dallas Baker, boasts on a Website that his agency has been "open since 1993." Along with his mother, Mary Baker, and sister, Amber Baker, he allegedly ran Dreamweaver, Alluring Adventures and other agencies.

"He's a prominent guy and runs at least six different ones," McNesby says.

The 10 to 20 escort services operating in the area employ roughly 150 male and female prostitutes, investigators report. Many also hire sex workers from outside the region, who stay in the area briefly and do a circuit that runs from cities between Orange Beach and Destin.

SEX BUSINESS

Business records taken from one agency show it made between $20,000 and $29,000 in one month, claiming one-third of the earnings from its prostitutes, who typically charge anywhere from $150 to $600 an hour, authorities allege.

Some escort services developed sophisticated ways to collect the money. One required its prostitutes to make deposits into a bank account with the amount of cents deposited identifying the sex worker, so the agency could keep track, investigators found.

Pressure always existed to meet more clients, says Jennifer. The agencies strictly enforced one-hour time limits, calling on the 30- or 50-minute mark, to see if they were done and could meet another client for sex. During the lunchtime rush, some expected their prostitutes to have sex with at least five men in an hour, she says. Once scheduled, sex workers were given a time limit to meet with a john.

"You're always on days or nights," she says. "If you didn't take a call in five or 10 minutes, they'd say 'You're gone. You won't ever work again.'"

Jennifer says a prostitute could earn as much as $1,000 to $3,000 on a good day and between $7,000 and $10,000 in their busiest weeks during spring break, the summer tourist season and Christmastime.

"You're spending a lot of money and making a lot of money," she says. "You get addicted, like men get addicted to power. You have to make it, while you're younger."

Still, she says few seemed to spend the money wisely, including her.

"Where was the money going?" Jennifer says. "Some lived in modest homes but had all the electronics inside. You eat out a lot and have drug habits. If there was no drug habit and they lived modestly, I don't know where the money went."

ESCORTS' BENEFITS?

The prostitutes worked under constant threats and pressure and drugs were prevalent, Jennifer says.

"They pressure you to do illegal actions, things against your own beliefs," she says. "There was violence. There was drugs. People would call just for drugs. They'd say, 'Are you a party girl?' and pay the escort fee, just to get drugs.

"Some women who don't do drugs do this. That's bizarre to me. How do you do it without taking drugs?"

Still, she says she and other women preferred agencies to being independent because the escort service would do the advertising in the newspapers, phone books and Internet, set up appointments, so they wouldn't have to develop an emotional tie or repertoire with the men, handle the business side and provide a lot more "volume" or clients.

Despite those "advantages," Jennifer says the agencies failed to protect sex workers' safety or health.

She says some agencies did set up code words, so women could warn if they were in danger, like "Everything's great."

She says some of the local agencies at one time wanted to collaborate on known abusive clients, sharing their do not serve, or DNS, lists. But some owners refused and no action was taken.

"The agencies knew if someone was abusive and they wouldn't even warn girls," Jennifer says. "The business owners had a total lack of concern for your personal safety. They could have collaborated on this. But one owner did not want to do it. He said he was not concerned about safety. If someone was abusive, they could hold out for more money."

HEALTH RISKS

Jennifer, who admits having a sexually transmitted disease, also says sex workers' health is never a concern by the agencies or clients, who both pressure women not to use condoms and engage in risky sex acts.

"There's never any screening," she says. "It's hard for me not to laugh at that question about healthcare. Some girls never used any protection. You had to provide (healthcare) yourself."

Historically, sex workers have been blamed for transmitting AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. But it's difficult to determine precisely the incidence of AIDS infection among sex workers, or the prevalence of safer sex practices during sex transactions because they receive scant attention from both public health officials and researchers. Plus, the stigma and criminal actions attached to prostitution make reliable data hard to come by.

However, because a prostitute can typically have sex with 200 to 300 people a year and often engage in risky behavior, including drug use, they're thought to pose more of a health risk for AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

Some studies put AIDS among sex workers at the same national infection rate of other women—22 percent—with syphilis and hepatitis estimated at 25 to 50 percent and STDs, such as gonorrhea, chlamydia and herpes as high as 95 percent.

Sex with a prostitute is the third most common way for American men to contract the AIDS virus, some research reports. However, recent studies suggest the risk of contracting AIDS from a sex worker is probably no greater than the risk from a girlfriend.

AGENCIES' DEFENSE

Meanwhile, escort agency owners and their Websites insist they aren't involved in prostitution and if it does go on, they don't know about it. They assert hourly rates are for "entertainment."

The Destin's Angels Website, allegedly run by Robin Allen and Michael Hobbs, says: "Rates are for time and companionship. Anything beyond is between two or more consenting adults."

However, Destin's Angels, Alluring Adventures (allegedly operated by the Bakers) and other Internet sites feature women's and men's pictures, some with their faces whited out, with detailed descriptions and measurements of their bodies. They also list what services they perform, such as exotic dancer, escort, dominatrix, and whether they will meet with men, women or couples.

The Alluring Adventures Website claims: "Beautiful Ladies Available For Your Pleasure."

"The business owners say they didn't know sex was happening," Jennifer says. "They knew. They asked you for your preferences and would pressure you to do certain requests. It's pretty blatant."

Authorities allege that confiscated computers and undercover agents posing as prostitutes and clients gathered information that further supports that the owners and operators were knowingly running illegal prostitution rings.

THE HOBBYISTS

Also researching the Internet, for example, investigators can find a prostitute pictured on an escort agency's Website and then find them reviewed by "hobbyists" or johns on Websites reviewing the escorts in explicit detail.

For example, a ghwelty gave Blaire a "9" and called her "model material," while a BoInDestin gave Blaire a "10" and said she was a "once in a lifetime appearance."

A recent check of www.theeroticreview.com, though, no longer posted local reviews, even though, Russ Edgar, the State Attorney's Office lead prosecutor on the case, says the investigation is currently focusing on escort service owners and operators.

"We're not saying we will not go after the clients," Edgar warns.

Jennifer adds: "I can't classify the clients in one category, three or even five. They're from all walks of life from minimum-wage workers to rich men. And it's the rich men who barter the most on price."

On blogs for hobbyists, such as www.secretescortsociety.com, the johns warn of the prostitution bust and blast the authorities, accusing them of conducting the investigation simply for votes and political gain.

Jennifer says she's grateful that she received help and left the sex industry. She says she has put her life back in order. She says she hopes the investigation makes people realize the consequences of prostitution and stops them from allowing it to continue.

"All the agencies are bad. None are good," she says. "I'm definitely better off now than I was then. There are no drugs, no abusive men. It's a good feeling. It feels a lot better to feel like a person and not a product."

SEX ADS

The escort service classified ads in the Pensacola News Journal proclaim, "explore your fantasies," and promise, "for your party or pleasure."

Following a major bust of escort services for prostitution, Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar wants to know, "What's the policy of the PNJ going to be now?"

Edgar, the lead prosecutor in the case, says the investigation started with the Gannett-owned daily paper's classified section that regularly includes about a dozen escort service ads.

"Not one of them was legit," Edgar says. "The paper's reasons for running them are not well thought out."

The Northwest Florida Daily News also runs such ads, along with many dailies and weeklies across the country. The Independent News does not accept escort service ads.

Irene Fields, head of PNJ's classifieds section, did not return a call for this story but an employee says, "My supervisors told us we're not pulling the ads, unless we're told to pull them."

Daily News officials also did not return calls.

One former escort service worker claims the newspapers had to know the ads, which run up to $300 monthly, were for prostitution.

"They take your ad and design it," she says. "They have to know what's going on."

The debate on lucrative "adult" advertising, which often fetches up to three times the price of normal small display ads, is not a new one for newspapers.

Many newspaper executives see the sex ads as freedom of commerce and speech protected by the First Amendment. Meanwhile, some legal experts argue that the First Amendment is not a license to break the law and newspapers are abetting a criminal offense.

Major daily papers in Dallas and Detroit have begun accepting such ads during the past few years.

Meanwhile, many alternative newsweeklies have run the ads for decades, although some have begun to stop taking them. They find sex ads are limiting their growth in revenue and readership and hurting their distribution to certain outlets. The latest to end the practice was the Williamette Weekly in Portland, Ore., earlier this year.

Kelly McBride, a Poynter Institute journalism ethics expert, told the American Journalism Review in a 2003 story that community tastes usually dictate what kind of ads run in a newspaper.

"If the community has decided that lap dancing was unacceptable, then it probably would not be acceptable to run an ad for lap dancing," she said. But, she warns that "newspapers can get into pretty dangerous territory when [they] start trying to apply moral codes to advertisements."

ESCORT SERVICE ARRESTS

Below are a few alleged prostitution agency owners and operators that were arrested on racketeering charges March 27 in a major, year-long investigation in Escambia and Okaloosa counties.

• Dallas Baker, Mary Hellen Baker and Amber Renea Baker of Dreamweaver, Alluring Adventures and Wild Card.

• Lois L. Jorgensen of Rosebuds.

• Denise Deanna Gentry and Rebekah Marie Williams of Angels Above Pensacola.

• Robin Nannette Allen and Michael John Hobbs of Destin's Angels.

• Christopher Eric Gooden and Theresa Lynn Gooden of Florida Dream Girls and FLKaya.com.

ESCORT SERVICE GLOSSARY

Agency — An organization or individual that manages many providers. The agency handles all calls, bookings and advertising. The agency takes a percentage of the fee for each session.
B&S — Bait and switch. When Internet, newspaper, or phone book advertisements, which may include photos and descriptions, do not match the woman who shows up, or she has been grossly misrepresented.
Bag — Condom.
Bareback — Without a condom.
BFE — Boyfriend experience. A subjective term used primarily by providers to describe good clients.
Blue Steel — Viagra.
Cash and Dash — A rip-off. She shows up, takes your money, doesn't provide or might offer to "dance," and leaves.
CC — Roman numeral used for $200 fee.
Clockwatcher — A term for a provider who counts the minutes until the session is over. Usually used to describe a provider who rushes and does not enjoy her work.
Commercial Company — Prostitution.
Completion — Orgasm.
DDG — Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Donation — Payment to a provider.
Ellie — Law enforcement.
Escort — A woman who is paid for her companionship.
Five-O — A police officer, uniformed or undercover.
FS — Full service. Vaginal intercourse to completion.
Get Comfortable — Get naked. For security reasons, a provider may ask a client to "get comfortable" or "make yourself comfortable" before a session, this means to get fully undressed.
Hobbyist — A man who patronizes prostitutes.
Incall — Client goes to her place (Could be hotel, motel, studio apt, her residence, or a mini-storage unit.)
Independent — An escort who works on her own, without an agency affiliation. The escort manages her own calls, bookings, advertising and finances.
Lot Lizard — A prostitute that works primarily in truck stop parking lots.
Mileage — A subjective term that describes value for money and how accomodating she is.
Off-the-clock — Activities that occur with a provider that she chooses not to charge for.
Outcall — Prostitute comes to your place.
Provider — Prostitute.
Review — A critical evaluation of a provider. May include information on her looks, attitude and service.
Session — Paid time spent with a provider.
SFH — Sex for hire.
Spinner — A very petite provider.
White Knight — A poster who defends or "comes to the rescue" of a provider who has been reviewed poorly, regardless of whether the review is accurate.

duwayne@inweekly.net

InWeekly

Inside the Sex Trade