Read more at Law.com…

Law School Professor Withdraws Suit Against Legal Blog
by Karen Sloan

A law school professor has withdrawn a lawsuit accusing the legal blog Above the Law of publishing a “viciously racist series of rants” after reporting the professor’s arrest for suspicion of soliciting prostitution.

University of Miami School of Law professor Donald Marvin Jones dropped his lawsuit on Wednesday, nine days after he filed it pro se in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Above the Law Managing Editor David Lat declined comment on Thursday, but in a blog post on Wednesday wrote that there had been no settlement and that the posts Jones complained about will remain on the site. He offered to let Jones make his case on Above the Law, but there was no word from Jones on that front as of Thursday.

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Jones had accused the site of portraying him in a false light, invading his privacy and infringing the university’s copyright on his faculty photo. The suit named as defendants Lat, publisher David Minkin and parent company Dead Horse Media Inc., now called Breaking Media LLC. It sought $44 million in damages and removal of the content from the Web site.

The claims stemmed from a series of posts that the blog ran in October 2007 about a run-in Jones had with Miami police in August that year. Jones — a prominent African-American civil rights activist in Miami — was arrested after he allegedly asked an undercover officer for sex. He insisted he was merely asking for directions. The charges were later dropped and Jones’ arrest record was expunged, but not before Above the Law posted the police incident report and a variety of commentary, including a reader-submitted photo collage depicting Jones conversing with prostitutes. Jones alleged that the collage and much of the commentary was racist and hurt his career.

Read this update from News.com Down Under…

Madam’s arrest ‘will shock’ Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD gossip mags are honing in on a court case against a Florida woman said to watch over a list of clients and “A-list” call girls that will “shock” onlookers.

Michelle Braun has been alleged to have presided over a 70-strong stable of “the most expensive call girls in the world” commanding up to $60,000 a night out of her base in Boca Raton, Florida.

The case echoes that of infamous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who in the ’90s named A-list stars such as Charlie Sheen among clientele that paid up to $14,000 a night for access to her girls.

Braun was caught by the FBI after flying a girl from Los Angeles to New York to meet an undercover agent.

She is believed to have banked more than $10 million since filling the void left by Fleiss’s arrest in 1997.

She charged clients $2000 to sign up for online memberships to her company, Global Travel Network, to which her call girls would charge up to $10,000 a day for “travel expenses”.

Braun’s phone records and computers have been seized and details from them are likely to be aired at her court hearing set down for October.

Braun has already entered a plea deal which should see her avoid jail, but her arrest has sent a “wave of panic” thorugh Hollywood, according to reports.

“Let’s just say you’d be shocked,” her lawyer Marc Nurik told the Daily Mail when asked who was among her clientele.

Read the whole story at The Orange County Register…

Woman guilty in prostitution ring that charged $50,000 a night
Michelle Braun hired 71 women from southern California. She will be sentenced in October.
By RACHANEE SRISAVASDI

A Florida woman has pleaded guilty to charges relating to operating a multimillion-dollar online prostitution ring that offered up pornography stars and fashion models.

Michelle Braun pleaded guilty Friday to money laundering and transporting an individual from Orange County to New York City for the purposes of prostitution. She changed her plea at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney.

Braun, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., is accused of running the company, Global Travel Network Inc., as a front for prostitution, according to court records.

Braun’s prostitutes were advertised to be adult film stars, top professional fashion models, centerfolds and actresses, prosecutors said. Clients would pay more than $50,000 for a night of services, they said.

Seventy-one women worked for Braun, prosecutors said. They mostly lived in Los Angeles, though two resided here in Orange County.

Read the whole story at The Palm Beach Post…

Porn stars, pinups and johns, oh my! And all coordinated by a Boca Raton mom?
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN

Federal agents descended on a white stucco home a block from Boca’s Old Floresta historic district in October 2007, seizing a computer belonging to a woman.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old mother of two ran an international escort service that matched porn stars and centerfolds with men who could afford to pay up to $50,000 a night.

The woman was charged in March with money laundering and transporting a woman from California’s Orange County to New York City for the purposes of prostitution. In the weeks ahead, she is expected to accept a plea deal that requires her cooperation with IRS and FBI investigators.

The deal includes five years of probation – including six months of house arrest – and a $30,000 fine.

The woman, who split her time between Boca Raton and Southern California, made at least $8.5 million running two escort services – Bella Models and Nici’s Girls. Before the site was taken down last year, Bella Models advertised the most beautiful women from Los Angeles, Miami, London, New York and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, including hundreds of centerfolds from men’s magazines including Playboy, Penthouse, Maxim and FHM.

The women, whose head shots were posted above aliases including Tyra Banxxx and Claire Dames, were available for “the ultimate in companionship,” according to the site. The clients, Bella Models said, “are affluent gentlemen who expect the very best: royalty, Fortune 500 CEOs, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, celebrities, entertainment moguls, aristocrats and politicians.”

The minimum fee for a one-hour introduction was $1,500, up to more than $50,000 for “an evening of undiluted pleasure,” according to the Web site. Bella Models offered to send the women along on business trips, book vacations to exotic locations, or fly them anywhere in the world.

Her connections to porn stars and high rollers in Los Angeles have invited comparisons to Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who went to prison for three years in 1997 on charges stemming from her upscale prostitution ring.

But the woman’s attorney, Marc Nurik of Fort Lauderdale, rejects that comparison. He describes her as a matchmaker, not a madam. The men weren’t paying for sex, he said, but a chance to meet women who were well-known, at least to fans of adult films and men’s magazines.

Guys, unless it is all agreed on beforehand, an escort encounter isn’t a tender, intimate experience.  Read the whole story at NBC Philadelphia…

ShamWow Pitchman Punches Prostitute For Biting
ShamWow spokesman almost has his tongue bitten off by a hooker

Vince Shlomi, best known for hocking products for $19.95 on late night info-mercials, was arrested on South Beach last month for allegedly beating up a prostitute who tried to bite out his tongue.

It appears she must not have liked what Shlomi was selling that night in his hotel room.

According to a report on www.thesmokinggun.com, Shlomi invited the woman up for “straight sex” at the low introductory rate of $1,000.

But wait…there’s more.

When Shlomi, 44, tried to tongue kiss the woman, she latched onto his tongue with her teeth. Not sure if that was part of the offer or one of those throw in deals for acting fast Shlomi is always talking about.

Shlomi is probably best known as the ShamWow! guy who wears a phone headset while extolling the super absorbent virtues of the ShamWow towel. He also sells food choppers, which look pretty effective when he demonstrates.

Back to the action. So as the woman chewed on Shlomi’s money maker – his tongue – the pitchman punched and punched until – ShamWow! – the hooker let go, according to the police report.

Shlomi ran to the lobby of the hotel where security called police. When they arrived, they found Shlomi bleeding from the mouth.

Authorities originally charged both combatants with aggravated battery, but prosecutors decided not to pursue the charges on either.

A local Florida community deals with its legion of street walkers, Read the whole story at WPLG.com…

Community Works To Eliminate Prostitution
Officers, NET Crack Down On Crime

Pepe Martinez’s morning routine has been the same for years. He wakes up at 5 a.m., makes a cup of coffee and then looks out his window.

It may not seem very exciting, until he gets to the next step.

“It’s incredible the hour they come out,” Martinez told Local 10’s Sasha Andrade.

The retired man said each day, he watches a pimp drive up his street to drop off a group of prostitutes.

“They move. One goes over here, one goes over there,” said Martinez.

He said it happens smack in the middle of the West Flagler area, whose residents are mostly senior citizens.

“We target this every single day,” said Ana Maria Rodriguez of the city of Miami’s Neighborhood Enhancement Team office.

Rodriguez said prostitution is by far the biggest neighborhood crime problem in the area. She said the city is attacking it two ways. The NET office is working with local motels to eliminate loitering, and to change hourly rates to nightly rates. Police officers are working undercover because it’s hard to arrest prostitutes.

“For standing on the sidewalk legally, you cannot arrest them. You have to catch them in the act,” Rodriguez said.

In the past two to three months, Rodriguez said prostitution has gone down by 80 percent. It’s a relief for longtime retired residents like Martinez and his wife, who want to look out their window in the morning and see peace and quiet.

Another large ring bites the dust. Read the whole story at The DC Examiner…

Men charged with running prostitution ring
By Freeman Klopott

A Maryland man and a man from Miami have been charged for their alleged roles in running a nationwide prostitution ring that took advantage of immigrant women and sent them to Tysons Corner for their first meetings with customers, a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday said.

The manager of the ring, with trysts set up through the Web site MiamiUltimate.com, would enlist immigrant women into his escort service, only to tell them moments before their first meeting that they were expected to be prostitutes, the indictment filed in a Michigan federal court said. After their first trysts in Tysons Corner, the women were flown around the country on Miami Ultimate’s tab, often landing in Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and Cleveland.

One of the ring’s clients would drive from his home in Boyds to Tysons Corner for trysts set up through Miami Ultimate, the indictment said. Between June 2007 and October 2008, the client became increasingly involved with Miami Ultimate, going from customer, to reviewing trysts on the Web site, to planning a joint prostitution ring in the Washington area with the manager of the site.

The Miami Ultimate Web site isn’t explicit about sexual activity between the “escorts” and “clients.” A disclaimer on the Web site says payment is for modeling and companionship. Anything else that could happen “between two or more consenting adults of legal age is not contracted for.”

A pretty significant bust in the Sunshine State.  Read the whole story at SunSentinel.com…

South Florida prostitution ring busted, feds say
By John Holland and Luis F. Perez

They spent the hours between the beatings and threats and forced sexual encounters cloaked in suburbia, stashed invisibly in quiet family homes.

Now they are free, and the ring of smugglers who prosecutors say kidnapped them in Mexico and shuttled them to brothels across South Florida to service as many as 100 clients per week are behind bars.

Federal agents this week charged five people with operating a prostitution gang that targeted girls as young as 14, smuggled them across the border and forced them into a “modern day form of slavery,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The arrest affidavits outline the victims’ lives spent bouncing between homes and brothels in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Homestead, Miami and elsewhere, always watched over by vicious handlers. At least one was held captive for nine years.

According to the affidavits:

The women collected $25 per encounter. Nearly all of the money went to their pimps. Some called the men their husbands, but all said they lived in constant fear that they or their families back home would be harmed.

The plot began unraveling in January when a victim started cooperating with law enforcement agents. From then until this week, investigators talked to more victims and tracked the smugglers.

The first woman to come forward had been kidnapped in Mexico in 1999, smuggled through Arizona and wound up on the streets of New York.

Times are tough and discretionary spending is down, but this is ridiculous! Local 10 News in Miami reports…

2-Cent Offer Puts Man Behind Bars

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said a Bonita Springs man has been arrested after offering undercover deputy who was posing as a prostitute 2 cents for sex.

Fausino Diaz Hernandez, 46, has been charged with soliciting a prostitute.

According to an arrest report, Hernandez offered a female undercover deputy two pennies on Thursday night.

Acting Sgt. Matt Chitwood, of the narcotics and vice operations for the Bonita Springs Community Policing unit, said Hernandez offered the undercover deputy other things as well, including cigarette lighters and a bicycle.

Hernandez’s arrest was part of a three-hour sting to crack down on prostitution in Bonita Springs. He was one of 10 men arrested during the sting.

What a dad! The News-Journal reports…

Police: Dad took son on hooker search
A Kentucky father is in jail without bail accused of taking his 13-year-old son with him to cruise for hookers on Ridgewood Avenue.

Though John W. Phillips, 46, of Frankfort, Ky., was charged with a misdemeanor for soliciting an undercover cop posing as a prostitute Friday night, he was charged with felony child endangerment because his son was in the front seat of his pickup during the transaction, police said.

“The officer asks who is in the front seat and he tells her,” Chief Mike Chitwood said Saturday. “When she asks what they are going to do about that, he said, ‘It’s OK. He’s a man.’ “

It’s clear to police Phillips has done this before — with his son in tow, Chitwood said. He first asked the officer if she was indeed a cop, before negotiating a $40 price for oral and traditional sex.

Phillips was on a family vacation with his wife and asked police to call her to take custody of their son and the truck, Chitwood said.

“It brings new meaning to the statement, ‘Here on vacation, home on probation,’ ” he said.

Friday’s arrest was part of a 48-hour operation by police called Dog Day Afternoon. A total of 100 arrests were made, including 18 for prostitution on Friday and 12 for soliciting prostitutes on Saturday

Three hundred tickets were also issued during this operation for drugs, code enforcement and transient violations, Chitwood said.