Read more at The Boston Herald…

Boston cops follow prostitution trail via Craigslist ad
By O’Ryan Johnson

Another prostitute allegedly peddling her services on Craigslist and working out of a Boston hotel was busted by police in an online sting, authorities said.

The arrest Tuesday of the 25-year-old woman comes just two weeks after cops locked up another woman  in an identical sting at the Westin Copley Place.

The woman – also wanted for defaulting on two prostitution warrants out of Chelsea and Dorchester – was arraigned yesterday on a prostitution charge in Boston Municipal Court. She pleaded not guilty.

A Boston detective posing as a john called a number listed on her advertisement, police said. She allegedly told the undercover cop to call her from the lobby of the hotel – which authorities declined to identify. Once he reached her hotel room, the cop handed her $200 and she began to undress, police said. At that point, cops knocked on the door, and she was arrested.

Cops seized four cell phones, a copy of her ad, and her room rental agreement.

Police are hoping to discourage prostitutes from advertising on Craigslist and other electronic billboards in the wake of the murder last year of Julissa Brisman.

Read more at WBZ.com…

Guilty verdicts in MA prostitution ring trial

Federal prosecutors say two Massachusetts members of a violent prostitution ring have been found guilty of forcing teenage girls as young as 15 to work as prostitutes, taking them to several states.

The two men were convicted in U.S. District Court on Friday. Prosecutors had previously said the 26-year-olds were members of a Boston-based group that operated from 2001 to 2005 in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Trafficking victims who were minors when the offenses occurred said in court that Tavares and Jones switched underage girls between themselves and viciously beat them.

Gosh, that’s embarrassing!  Read the whole story at The MetroWest Daily News…

Man propositions a woman he thought was a prostitute
By Norman Miller

Police arrested a Framingham man Thursday after they say he made an indecent proposal to a woman he thought was a prostitute.

The 38-year-old man was arrested at 7:20 p.m. after he offered the woman $20 for sex when he saw her behind the Concord Street CVS Pharmacy, police spokesman Lt. Paul Shastany said.

The woman he propositioned, who was not named, told police she was walking through the parking lot when she saw Da Silva.

She asked him if she could borrow $2, but Da Silva made an offer.

“He said, ‘How about $20 for sex,”‘ said Shastany. “He tried to convince her to walk across the parking lot with him to a nearby residence.”

The woman declined, but members of the street crimes unit were nearby and heard parts of the conversation and asked her what happened.

A longtime northeast sports journalist is accused of having a little entrepreneurial venture on the side.  Read the whole story at MassLive.com…

Veteran sports reporter accused of running prostitution ring in Massachusetts and New Hampshire

A veteran New Hampshire sports reporter has been accused of running a prostitution ring in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and possibly into Canada.

Kevin Provencher pleaded not guilty Wednesday to two counts of deriving support from prostitution.

Authorities say his prostitution ring advertised its services on Craigslist and other Web sites. They allege he rented a hotel room in Andover, Mass., and locations in New Hampshire where the women would have sex for hire.

The 50-year-old Provencher has been a sport writer with the New Hampshire Union Leader for more than two decades. He was arrested at his Manchester home early Wednesday and brought to Massachusetts. He was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail during his arraignment in Lawrence District Court.

Prosecutors say the ring may also have operated in Canada.

Read more at The Boston Herald…

No sex change for Craigslist
Attorneys: Site hasn’t cleaned up
By O’Ryan Johnson

Just weeks after vowing to clean up its act on the heels of an erotic masseuse’s killing in a Hub hotel, Craigslist is back to its old tricks, running thinly veiled sex-for-hire ads and sparking a new round of outrage from law enforcement.

Ads posted on the Internet giant have replaced pornographic photos and explicit sexual language with shots of scantily clad women tantilizing would-be johns with “love it like it’s your last . . . have some fun with this sexy, attractive, vibrant young lady. My measurements are . . . ”

Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley ripped the Web site, saying its new “adult services” ads are basically no different than the old “erotic services” come-ons.

“A cursory look at the adult services section of the site shows no significant distinction from the ‘erotic services’ section that preceded it,” Conley told the Herald.

“Our concern is public safety. As we’ve seen in Boston, the online advertisement of illegal services provided an assailant a shopping list of victims,” he added.

Conley’s office is prosecuting Philip Markoff, the alleged Craigslist killer who is accused of gunning down erotic masseuse Julissa Brisman and robbing two other women he met through Craigslist.

In Illinois, Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, a staunch Craigslist critic, said the new revamped site has changed little from the old raunchy one.

“To say I’ve been less than overwhelmed by Craigslist’s new practices would be an understatement,” Dart told the Herald.

“They made promises to the public but have yet to file anything with any court outlining these new monitoring procedures, how many monitors they have or who’s doing it. We don’t know if it’s a team of trained, qualified staff or a summer intern.”

Read the whole entry at Bostonist…

Sex Still Sold On Craigslist; Revenue Increases

Any alleged negative attention garnered by Craigslist as a result of the “Craigslist Killer” case seems to have had little impact on how people use the Internet classified ad site, or on how well its business is doing. As a motion to investigate media leaks in the case filed by the attorney for alleged killer Philip Markoff was being rejected by Judge Frank M. Gaziano, another arrest involving illicit Craigslist ads was made on July 8. Two alleged prostitutes and a client were arrested in a sting run by Somerville police after officers responded to two separate craigslist ads for prostitution.

Bostonist was under the impression Craigslist was cracking down on ads for “erotic services”. One thing is certain, business appears unimpeded at Craigslist as the New York Times reported in June that the San Francisco-based company’s revenue is expected to rise 23% in 2009 and reach the $100 million mark.

Read the whole story at The Lowell Sun…

Pepperell woman: Man forced me into prostitution

A 46-year-old Cambridge man was arrested at gunpoint outside a Somerville hotel accused of forcing a Pepperell woman into prostitution.

The man was charged with deriving support from prostitution and kidnapping in connection with an investigation by Somerville police into suspected prostitution being run from a room at the LaQuinta Inn in Somerville, according to the Daily News Tribune.

A detective called a sex-for-sale ad and posed as a client to arrange an appointment. The man was arrested after police found a 31-year-old Pepperell woman set up in a prostitution scheme.

The woman allegedly told police that the man had forced her to have sex with clients for money and threatened her with bodily harm if she didn’t perform, according to published reports.

Readers of Insider Escort Secrets know how to minimize the risk of hobby-related extortion. Read the whole story at The Boston Herald.

‘Secret’ hooker’s probation woes piling up
By Laurel J. Sweet

Ever since the woman, an alleged prostitute, was convicted of extorting $280,000 from a high-rolling married trick to keep his name out of the papers, her bad girl act has risen to diva proportions.

An allegedly potty-mouthed woman was “threatening staff” June 4 at the Boston halfway house she’s assigned to after they bagged her with a cell phone and for secreting food in her room, a federal probation report states.

Consequently, employees of the McGrath House – where she was sent last month because U.S. District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf believed she could no longer be trusted under house arrest in Dorchester – are subjecting the hooker gone haywire to “ongoing personal searches to ensure her compliance with community program rules.”

According to a report probation filed Wednesday with Wolf, “[She] accused staff of restricting her inappropriately and suggested that others in the house should also be restricted,.” “Staff refused to discuss other members in the house, and directed her to leave the room. She refused to follow the directive and continued to press staff for a date when her restriction would be lifted.”

The summary continues, “[She] was ultimately informed that her restriction would last one week, and was directed again to leave the room. [She] refused for a second time, and when the staff member left the room herself, [she] followed her to another room. At that point, [she] Robinson reportedly became irate and and began swearing and threatening staff.”

At the U.S. Probation Office’s request, Wolf declined to punish the woman further.

Robinson pleaded guilty in February to selling her silence to a 60ish wealthy businessman she’d carried on a sex-for-hire relationship with between December 2007 and June 2008. She faces imprisonment if she divulges the john’s identity in the next three years.

Read the whole article at The Eagle-Tribune…

Police keeping tabs on online sex ads
Local departments say Web postings have led to prostitution, drug arrests
By Jim Patten

One woman offers to come to customers’ homes to do “full erotic body rubs and much more” for $200 for an hour.

Another writes that she will do “discreet incalls and outcalls” in Northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.

Those are just two of the many postings on Craigslist offering illicit and possibly illegal services in the region.

Last month’s murder of a masseuse in Boston who had advertised on the Web site has raised a new round of questions about how it is monitored and whether its loose rules encourage criminal activity.

Police in Andover, North Andover and Salem all say they have investigated complaints of prostitution advertised on Craigslist. Other local departments say they also monitor the site.

But what makes the site especially difficult for police is that many of the postings that could involve illegal activity don’t explicitly say what services are being offered and don’t mention cash.

“You have to read between the lines with some of them,” Haverhill Detective Capt. Alan Ratte said.

The proliferation of ads for “erotic services” on the Web site caught worldwide attention following the arrest of Philip Markoff, a Boston University medical student charged with killing Julissa Brisman, a 25-year-old masseuse, on April 14 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel. He also is charged in a robbery at a nearby hotel of another masseuse police say he met through Craigslist.

Markoff, who has been dubbed the “Craigslist killer,” is being held without bail and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Local police say they’ve been monitoring Craigslist’s erotic postings section for years to keep tabs on possible prostitution and drug cases in the area.

“We have found activity at various locations, predominantly the hotels, but there have been residences listed as well.” Andover police Lt. James Hashem said.

But he said Andover police do not know of any assaults or other incidents of violence involving the Web site.

“We are pretty vigilant about monitoring them, and we have not allowed anything to fester into a situation like that,” he said. “Once we identify a situation like that, we are pretty quick to act on it.”

In North Andover, police Inspector Daniel Cronin said investigators there also monitor the site on a regular basis.

“We’ve had a number of complaints that were initiated on Craigslist over prostitution and financial fraud,” he said.

An interesting look at how technology helped nab the Craigslist Killer suspect. Read the whole story at Information Week…

Tech Played Role In Hunt For Craigslist Killer
Police investigation relied on e-mail accounts, text messages, and IP addresses
By K.C. Jones

Technology allows women to reach perfect strangers and market sex, massages, lap dances, and other “erotic services.” It allowed a killer to lure women to hotel rooms, rob them, and shoot one dead. It also helped police and the public to track down and arrest a suspect.

Just days after the debate over whether Craigslist essentially promotes prostitution by allowing users to post ads online, police said that the Internet helped them find Philip Markoff, a 22-year-old medical student arrested in connection with the shooting death of Julissa Brisman in a Boston hotel.

Police said that a 29-year-old woman reported being robbed at gunpoint less than two weeks ago after meeting a Craigslist user in a hotel room in an affluent section of Boston. Four days later, Brisman, a 26-year-old New York City model, was shot to death as she tried to flee a hotel room in Boston. She went to the hotel to meet someone who responded to her Craigslist ad for massages. Two days later, a 26-year-old woman reported that a man tried to rob her at gunpoint in a Rhode Island hotel. That victim also met the perpetrator through a Craigslist erotic services ad.

Police said all three victims were bound with the type of disposable plastic handcuffs officers use at large gatherings and protests where multiple arrests are common. Police released surveillance photos of the suspect in Rhode Island and Boston. In an image captured after Brisman’s slaying, the man appeared to be texting on a PDA as though nothing had happened.

Markoff was arrested during a traffic stop and faces charges of murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping in connection with Brisman’s death. He is being held without bail. Police are investigating possible motives and whether Markoff was involved in the two other robberies. The Boston University student’s fiancee told reporters that he is innocent.

Law enforcement authorities said in court Tuesday that police used computer forensics to track Markoff down. They said he left trails on his own PDA, through an IP address, and through an e-mail account they said he created before answering the ads.