Read more at The Union Leader…

Police make arrest in alleged prostitution ring
By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI

They called themselves “Sweet Asian girls” and promised “body relaxation sessions.”

But police allege they were really part of a prostitution ring being run out of a Seabrook apartment complex.

So far, police have arrested one former New York City woman of Chinese descent, a police prosecutor said yesterday, and they are looking for other women who had been set up in the apartment and the person who leased the unit.

“We would like to find out who leased the apartment, who brought the women there and the other women involved prior to this woman,” Detective Scott T. Mendes said.

Police also are investigating whether another woman, who was arrested with an alleged client Wednesday, may have been the victim of human trafficking and have contacted the FBI, said Mendes, who also is the police prosecutor.

The matter came to police attention Jan. 6 when they received complaints from neighbors about a stream of men coming and going from the apartment in the Tudor Crest complex. The men would stay a short time, then leave, police said.

A bargain is a bargain – the parties should honor it!  Read more at WMUR.com…

Police: Man Says Woman Refused Sex After He Paid For It
Man, Woman Both Charged With Prostitution

A man and a woman were charged with prostitution Tuesday after, police said, the man called them to report that the woman didn’t have sex with him after he paid for it.

Police charged them both with prostitution.

Police said the man called the Marlborough Police Department on Monday and reported that he had paid the woman and a third party $150 to have sex with him on Sunday night. The man called police after the woman failed to have sex with him, police said.

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.

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 the whole story at The Boston Herald…

States demand details from Craigslist on anti-prostitution screening

Attorneys general from seven states are asking online classified site Craigslist for details on how it will keep pornography and prostitution off its newly created adult services section.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and others are making the request two weeks after Craigslist agreed to eliminate its “erotic services” ads. The Web site came under intense scrutiny after a Boston man was charged with killing a masseuse he met from Craigslist online classifieds.

Craigslist has not prescreened ads in the past, but says postings in its new adult services section are reviewed before being posted.

Blumenthal says attorneys general from Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Mississippi and New Hampshire signed the request asking Craigslist for more detail on the screening process.

A Craigslist attorney did not immediately return a call.

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.

Read the whole story at WCVBTV.com…

Portsmouth Police Respond To Craigslist Erotic Service Ads
Woman Who Answered Police Sting Arrested

A prostitution sting on the Seacoast netted an arrest Saturday as police cracked down on the online sex trade.

Portsmouth police spent a week monitoring activity on Craigslist.org, a classifieds Web site that has become a routine connecting point for sex crimes, WMUR News 9’s Adam Sexton reported.

Less than half an hour after Portsmouth police contacted a prostitute through the Web site, they made an arrest.

“The first phone call we made, the female was local, and she literally made her way to the location within 20 minutes it was that fast,” Portsmouth police Detective Steve Arnold said.

The Portsmouth police special investigations unit organized the sting after tracking more than a dozen posts from people offering erotic services in the Seacoast region. Another woman responded to the call and was detained, but police did not have enough evidence to arrest her.

“She was very careful to make sure she didn’t violate the law. She called herself an escort, and that’s the way she operated,” Arnold said.

Lt. Corey MacDonald said these stings are a priority because prostitution brings other crime into town: “Drugs, violence, a lot of times, violence against the women who are putting those ads out, theft, we’ve had all those calls right here in Portsmouth.”

Police said the woman they arrested was a 19-year-old who admitted she began selling herself to make ends meet.

“As you see the economy sort of going down the drain, unfortunately, our job security goes through the roof — from burglaries, to thefts, to things like this, where people normally wouldn’t get into prostitution, they take that step,” MacDonald said.

A look at how the industry is reacting to Craigslist working with law enforcement in its fight against escort services. Read the whole story at InternetNews.com…

Life After Craigslist for Online Sex Trade
By Kenneth Corbin

Craigslist made a splash last month when it announced a set of policy changes aimed at stamping out sex crimes facilitated through the Erotic Services section of its site. But sex workers and legal experts say the measures are likely to have scant impact on the shadowy world of online prostitution.

Following the initial report about the new policies, a reader who identified herself as a “working girl in San Francisco” told InternetNews.com that Craigslist is hardly the only game in town.

“Because of the new procedure on Craigslist, we are turning to other Web sites … to promote our services,” she wrote in an e-mail. “These sites are free and just as effective. I don’t believe that this change in Craigslist will do anything to affect the industry.”

The reader declined to be interviewed further for this report, but people on both sides of the war on prostitution agree that the multiplicity of adult-oriented sites on the Internet has made the policeman’s work considerably more complicated.

“It’s really just a function of today’s digital economy,” said Alex Southwell, an attorney with the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher and a former federal prosecutor. “The Internet’s ability to make illicit services available is really groundbreaking.”

“It’s a question of convenience,” Southwell told InternetNews.com. “It used to be for prostitution you would have to go to some shady corner of town at night. Now you can do it on the Internet.”

Some interesting analysis on Craigslist’s new found cooperation with law enforcement regarding the erotic services niche. Read the whole story at The Las Vegas Sun…

Hawking erotic services? Craigslist now has your number
By Abigail Goldman

Mahria is a “beautiful blonde” offering “erotic wrestling” for $100.

Dru is charging $80 for an hour of “sensual massage.”

Alicia can be at your door in half an hour.

These advertisements, which come with photos a family newspaper won’t print, are a small sample of what can be found in the “erotic services” section of Craigslist in Las Vegas — an online classified ads Web site that, aside from helping people find roommates or sell old lawn mowers, has become one of the most popular ways for Clark County escorts to peddle their wares to the electronic masses. It’s an Internet buffet of costly companionship, but perhaps not for long.

Just over two weeks ago, Craigslist began charging a fee to advertise on the site’s “erotic services” section. The fee is small — $5 — but the consequences are huge.

The fee must be paid with a credit card, and Craigslist will supply this credit card information to law enforcement officials, should they subpoena it. Erotic services advertisers must also provide a phone number, which an automated system will call before any posting is published online.

In short, Craigslist is working with the police.

Erotic services advertisements in the dozens of American cities Craigslist serves have fallen dramatically since Nov. 6, when the fee took effect, the company’s chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, told the Sun. On Monday in Las Vegas, that meant there were only 362 erotic services ads posted on Craigslist. The Monday before the traceable fees, there were more than 1,100 ads.

Is the party over for working girls on Craigslist? Read the whole story at SFGate.com…

Craigslist to crack down on prostitution ads

Under the watchful eye of law enforcement in 40 states, Craigslist pledged Thursday to crack down on ads for prostitution on its Web sites.

As part of Craigslist’s agreement with attorneys general around the country, anyone who posts an “erotic services” ad will be required to provide a working phone number and pay a fee with a valid credit card. The Web site will provide that information to law enforcement if subpoenaed.