The dangers of Incall service. Read more at Fox News in Chicago…

Police: Prostitute Was Taping Clients in Her Apartment

An undercover prostitution sting on the Northwest Side this week led to the discovery of an elaborate video recording system used to videotape transactions and sex acts between the suspect and her clients, according to police.

A 53-year-old woman was arrested Monday in her apartment in an unincorporated area near O’Hare Airport after Cook County Sheriff’s police investigated an ad on an Internet site, according to a release from the sheriff’s office.

She was charged with prostitution, according to a sheriff’s office spokesman.

The ad promised a “superb authentic oriental rub” by a 28-year-old “beautiful, highly trained and skilled young lady” who “is there to please.” For $180, customers were promised an “all inclusive” “tissue rub” and “a totally relaxing experience” in a “beautiful home, in a relaxing oriental setting,” the release said.

An undercover sheriff’s officer responded to the ad Monday afternoon and once inside, the woman allegedly offered sex for cash, the release said. She briefly left the bedroom for another room, where she had set up a video monitor connected to a camera hidden in the hallway outside her apartment door.

On the monitor, she saw officers outside her door and though she was naked, she nervously returned to the bedroom and tried engaging in conversation with the undercover officer, who placed her under arrest.

Investigation revealed a hidden camera in the public hallway and more cameras in the bedroom, including a pin-sized camera set an Oriental wall fan. Jamming equipment had also been set up to block cell phone or text message transmissions from the apartment, the release said.

All cameras all fed into a kitchen monitor for viewing, and were recording on a system set up in another bedroom. Years’ worth of tapes were found, all showing male customers exchanging cash for sex, the release said. About 30 hours worth of tapes have so far been confiscated, and more tapes had been erased.

Officers are reviewing the tapes for evidence and examining a computer found in the woman’s home. It is illegal in Illinois to videotape a person without their consent or to transmit live video of a person without their consent, the release said.

Police are also trying to determine whether any of the tapes were used to further other criminal activity against the customers.

Read more at MyFoxchicago.com…

Seven Arrested in Prostitution Sting Targeting Internet Sites

Seven people were arrested last week in an undercover prostitution sting which targeted the “erotic” sections of Craigslist and another Web site in west suburban Aurora.

The undercover detail, staged by Aurora Police Special Operations Group detectives, was aimed at prostitution activities advertised on Craiglist and Backpage.com, according to Aurora police.

Seven arrests were made Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, a release from police said.

Read more at Bloomberg.com…

Craigslist Not Responsible for Sex-For-Hire Ads, Judge Rules
By Andrew M. Harris

Craigslist won dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, that accused the classified ads Web site of creating a public nuisance by providing a forum for prostitution services.

U.S. District Judge John F. Grady in Chicago threw out the lawsuit filed by Sheriff Tom Dart, finding that the site was only a conduit for others to publish the ads and wasn’t legally responsible for their content.

“Sheriff Dart may continue to use Craigslist’s website to identify and pursue individuals who post allegedly unlawful content,” Grady said in a 20-page decision posted on the court’s electronic docket yesterday. “But he cannot sue Craigslist for their conduct.”

An interesting article about the online pay-for-sex scene. Read more at redOrbit.com…

Internet Fuels Virtual Subculture For Sex Trade

The Internet has spawned a virtual subculture of “johns” who share information electronically about prostitution, potentially making them harder to catch, according to a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University criminologist.

The research by MSU’s Thomas Holt and Kristie Blevins of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte challenges the common perception that sex customers act alone and do not interact for fear of reprisal or scorn. The study appears in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

Holt, assistant professor of criminal justice, said today’s Web-savvy johns use the Internet to solicit prostitutes and to provide each other with warnings of prostitution hot zones and stings, which can hamper the efforts of law enforcement officials.

But the more police become familiar the johns’ Web activities, the more it can help them zero in on the perpetrators, Holt added.

“The growth of these deviant subcultures has made it more difficult for law enforcement,” said Holt, who has helped police devise prostitution stings. “On the other hand, it gives us a new opportunity to use the way the offenders communicate to better target their activities.”

The study analyzed prostitution Web forums in 10 U.S. cities with the highest rates of prostitution arrests: Atlanta; Baltimore; Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; Elizabeth, N.J.; Forth Worth, Texas; Hartford, Conn.; Inglewood, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Memphis, Tenn.

In the Web forums, the johns provide detailed information on the location of sexual services on the streets and indoors, as well as ways to identify specific providers, information on costs and personal experiences with providers.

The open nature of the forums led the johns to carefully disguise their discussions with a unique language, or argot, based largely on code and acronyms. This argot may help johns and sex workers to avoid legal sanctions and any social stigma associated with participating in the sex trade, the researchers said.

Read the whole story at KJCT8.com…

Officials say Craigslist is still selling sex

Two months after Craigslist promised to rid itself of advertisements placed by prostitutes, law enforcement officials say the classified ad site is still in the business of selling sex.

From a sheriff who has no intention of dropping his lawsuit to an attorney general who suggests that he and colleagues could further pressure the company to crack down on online prostitution, they say they are not through with Craigslist.

“It makes me wonder, do they really think I’m sort of stupid, some bobblehead who will think they changed it?” said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who sued the San Francisco-based company earlier this year, calling it the nation’s largest source of prostitution. “They seem to insist on being cute and playing games (and) it’s getting old.”

Dart and others acknowledge that when the popular site pulled the plug on its “erotic services” category and replaced it with a new “adult services” section, it did away with the most graphic photographs.

But they say there is no mistaking that sex is still being sold on the site. Ad after ad include photographs of scantily clad women in suggestive poses. Many offer massages or undefined services — “Just imagine what we could do,” reads one; “Your wife or girlfriend won’t do this for you, but we will,” reads another — with listing prices that vary depending on how much time is required.

In an e-mail, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster dismissed Dart’s lawsuit as a publicity stunt.

“The citizens of Cook County would arguably be better served if their sheriff spent his time addressing actual crime, rather than using the courts to generate personal publicity,” he wrote.

Read the whole story at TGDaily.com…

Craigslist ‘is an online pimp’
By Andrew Thomas

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) has submitted an Amicus Brief in support of the lawsuit against Craigslist filed by Sheriff Dart of Cook County, Illinois seeking to hold them accountable for their role in facilitating sex trafficking.

CATW’s Amicus Brief contains a list of 31 co-signers representing a wide range of domestic and international members of the anti-human trafficking movement. The goal of the law suit is ‘to close the adult services section of Craigslist’.

“It is well known that Craigslist’s ‘adult services’ section has become the technological red light district for pimps/traffickers and johns,” says CATW’s Co-Executive Director, Norma Ramos, Esq.

“Sheriff Dart’s Craigslist lawsuit requests the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to compel Craigslist to no longer host these ads. In doing so an industry standard could be set which would help create a human trafficking-free Internet,” says CATW’s Founder, Dorchen Leidholdt.

Law enforcement turns to former working girls to get the 411 on their bookers. Read the whole story at WBBM 780.

Sheriff hires two ex-prostitutes to get information on pimps

To help counter prostitution throughout Cook County, two former ladies of the night are on the county payroll.

Their task? To help get information from prostitutes Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart arrests during stings to nab the bigger fish — pimps and human traffickers. Former prostitutes also share their stories to teach women they don’t have to earn a living by selling their bodies.

“We were trying to use our brains” to fight prostitution, said Dart, who has been sheriff for about two years.

So far, Dart’s office has partnered with the county Department of Women’s Justice Services for a prostitution sting in February and one in April. Sheriff’s deputies arrested 11 women. Two women accepted the county’s offer to help get them off the streets, Dart’s spokesman Steve Patterson said. The other nine received a phone number for the women’s justice department, which connects the women to social service and substance abuse assistance agencies.

Reining in prostitutes and the people who pimp them out was just one of several initiatives Dart detailed during a luncheon Monday at the Tinley Park Convention Center. The Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce hosted the event.

Craigslist has closed it’s ‘erotic services’ section, after a bit of scrutiny from law enforcement. But it looks like the racy ads have migrated to the new ‘adult’ section. Progress? See what ABC News says…

Craigslist Clean-Up: Is it Really Working?
Conn. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal: ‘We’re Not Going Away’

It’s been nearly a month since Craigslist promised improvements to clean the Web site of prostitution and graphic images, and while attorney general watchdogs report some progress it still takes just seconds to find illegal activities advertised on the site.

ABCNews.com looked at advertisements in eight cities and almost immediately found posts that were both lewd and illegal in markets that included Hartford, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Salt Lake City and Columbia, S.C.

The ads have ranged from a lusty “Hey fellaz” with hourly rates to raunchy photos, and even an offer to trade drugs for sex.

“It’s very much a continuing battle,” Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told ABCNews.com. “So far, Craigslist has failed to do enough and that’s why we’re asking the questions.”

Craigslist, which told ABCNews.com that it was being unfairly targeted, was hit with a fresh round of questions on May 26 from the attorneys general of seven states, requesting more information about the site’s screening process and criteria for banning certain posts among other details.

The Web site has yet to respond to the AGs’ letter sent to Craigslist attorney Edward Wes, but Blumenthal said further action would be determined, in part, by the answers to those questions.

Read the whole story at My Fox in Chicago…

Prostitution Ring Busted in Hillside

Hillside police say ads in adult magazines led them back to a house on Hawthorne Avenue where they took away evidence and six people, two men and five women, for questioning today. They wouldn’t say if one of them was a woman who was arrested back in April of 2006. Police say the then 17 year old, who called herself the madam of the house, was arrested for running a house of prostitution.

Police were first alerted to the home after several erotic ads were posted on craigslist. The woman later admitted to running an illegal operation out of her family’s home and paid a $235 fine.

“We received some information and we contacted sheriff dart’s office and he was nice enough to lend us his vice unit and they have been assisting us for four months.”

Investigators are now sorting through boxes and bags full of evidence, conducting more interviews and looking into who owns the cars left parked around the home. Neighbors wouldn’t go on camera about the search today but tell us they are sick of illegal activity happening here.

Read the whole story at WGN News…

Cops: 9 held in Aurora reverse prostitution sting

An undercover reverse prostitution sting in Aurora has resulted in the arrest of nine men, police said today.

All were charged with solicitation of a sexual act for allegedly offering an undercover female Aurora police officer money in exchange for sex.

The operation, which took place on May 21, was the first in what Aurora police said will be regular operations aimed at curbing complaints of street prostitution, which typically increase in the area as the summer months approach. The exact location of the detail was not divulged in order to protect the integrity of future stings.

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Under a city ordinance, the vehicles of six of the men who allegedly were using their vehicles while soliciting the undercover officer were towed and impounded.