Tag: sex workers

The Backpage Defendants Never Stood a Chance

Eighty-six counts of criminal activity—that’s what veteran journalist and publisher Michael Lacey faced in the federal case against him, a saga kicked off by federal agents raiding his house and shutting down a website he co-founded in 2004, Backpage. A saga that has stretched on for more than five years, through multiple judges, one mistrial, and the death of Lacey’s longtime business partner James Larkin. A case premised on a moral panic that previewed tactics threatening to all sorts of speech.

One count of international concealment money laundering—that’s the only charge of which a jury found Lacey guilty. Lacey’s offense? Moving money from a U.S. bank to a Hungarian bank in 2017.

Transferring money between bank accounts doesn’t seem like it should be a crime. Then again, neither does most of the underlying activity in this case—consensual hookups between adults; providing a platform for sex-worker speech; letting people pay for services with Bitcoin, and so on.

The Department of Justice claimed this was about “keeping women and children across America safe” from sex trafficking. But behind that bravado, the government’s actual case was clearly something less noble. A performance of protection. A publicity stunt. A massive scapegoating set against the backdrop of a moral panic. And a politicized prosecution against people who engaged in and defended the most dangerous thing to any government: free speech.

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Texas School District Removes Convicted Prostitute From Multiple Roles, Including Sex-Ed

The Godley, Texas, school district removed a woman appointed to assist with deciding things like age-appropriate material for sex education after learning she was a convicted prostitute.

FOX 4 in Dallas reported that the woman, identified as Ashley Ketcherside, also advertises online as an escort, with one site listing one of her personas as active last month.

While the idea of having a convicted prostitute work for a school district may have some scratching their heads, the issue raises concerns for others about background checks in the Godley Independent School District (ISD) and across the state.

“We had no idea what was going on in her personal life. She was always very friendly and personable,” Godley ISD School Board trustee Kayla Lain told the station.

Mary Lowe of the nonprofit group Families Engaged for Effective Education commented on Ketcherside being a convicted prostitute and working on a council that recommends “appropriate grade levels and methods for human sexuality instruction” within the district.

“I don’t see any community wanting that to be the standard for their school district,” she said.

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County Eminent Domains the Strip Club Next Door to Make Room for More Parking

North Carolina strip club patrons might not be able to touch the dancers, but nothing stops the government from seizing the building they work in.

That’s the revealing truth in an eminent domain case out of Wilmington, North Carolina, where the New Hanover County government (which contains Wilmington) is trying to seize the neighboring Cheetah Premier Gentlemen’s Club to build what it claims is much-needed parking.

“The county identified a need to expand parking facilities to better accommodate our citizens when visiting the newly constructed government center. Exercising eminent domain to acquire the neighboring property is a legal and measured step towards fulfilling this need,” said County Manager Chris Coudriet in an emailed statement to Reason earlier this month.

The county commission voted to authorize eminent domain of the Cheetah Club during its late Monday night meeting on November 6. The resolution authorized the county to spend $2.36 million acquiring the club.

Conspicuously, the resolution authorizing the seizure of the club wasn’t on the commission’s agenda, and was only introduced in the final minutes of the meeting by Coudriet, reports local public radio station WHQR. The station also reports that Coudriet referred to the property only by its tax ID number and didn’t mention why the property was being seized, other than to say it was for public use.

That left the owners of both the business and the underlying property blindsided.

Property owner Jerry Reid describes the eminent domain resolution as “coming out of the blue.” Michael Barber, a lawyer for the owners of the Cheetah Club likewise said the first time he heard about the seizure was early Tuesday morning, after the commission vote.

The presence of such an “adult” business next to the county center of government has caused its fair share of embarrassment. One county commissioner told the local Port City Daily that “the optics have always been an issue.” North Carolina State Treasurer Dale Folwell also criticized county commissioners about their offices’ proximity to a strip club at a hearing earlier this year.

The sudden, seemingly surreptitious effort to seize the club has Barber speculating that the eminent domain effort has more to do with public appearances than public facilities.

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Backpage: The Monumental Free Speech Case the Media Ignored

After a dozen years of legal tussles, seven years in the crosshairs of ambitious prosecutors, and five-and-a-half years fighting a federal case that saw his business forcibly shuttered, his assets seized, and his longtime partner dead by suicide, alt-weekly newspaper impresario Michael Lacey was found guilty Thursday on just one of the 86 criminal charges levied against him in connection with the online advertising platform Backpage. But the government’s fanatical pursuit of Lacey and his four other Backpage co-defendants is far from over. 

Lacey, an award-winning investigative journalist, was found guilty of international concealment money laundering, which could land him in prison for up to 20 years, and not guilty of international promotional money laundering. But after a week of contentious deliberations, the jury could not come to agreement on the other 84 charges, prompting U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to declare a second mistrial in this case. That means Lacey could face a third federal trial essentially for the crime of running a classified ads site that knowingly enabled and profited from illegal, if consensual, transactions involving sex.

Thanks to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, the speech and conduct of website consumers is considered to be the legal responsibility of the speakers themselves, not the owners of the platform. This has been a thorn in the side of politicians and other would-be censors ever since. In 2013, Kamala Harris and 46 other state attorneys general sent a joint letter to Congress urging a rollback of Section 230; the letter started like this: “Every day, children in the United States are sold for sex. In instance after instance, state and local authorities discover that the vehicles for advertising the victims of the child sex trade to the world are online classified ad services, such as Backpage.com.”

Seven weeks before her election to the U.S. Senate, Harris, along with her Texas counterpart Ken Paxton, brought the first criminal case against Lacey, his partner Jim Larkin, and other executives at Backpage, who were paraded in a Sacramento courtroom cage wearing orange jumpsuits. That case was tossed out by a judge who pointed out: “Congress did not wish to hold liable online publishers for the action of publishing third party speech….It is for Congress, not this court, to revisit.” 

But just three days before leaving the A.G.’s office for the Senate, Harris filed yet another Backpage case, which was yet again thrown out (partially) because of Section 230. Once in Congress, Harris helped push through the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, which does peel back Section 230 to make websites liable for the “facilitation” or “promotion” of prostitution by their users, even though prostitution itself is not a federal crime. 

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Oregon Democratic candidate vows to ‘reclaim her sexuality’ after footage of her working as a $500-per-hour dominatrix at Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked, leaving her ‘hyperventilating and crying’

A Democratic Congressional Candidate is ‘reclaiming her sexuality’ after a clip of her working at a Manhattan BDSM dungeon was leaked.

Courtney Casgraux, 41, is a self-described ‘international businesswoman’ who is running for a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Oregon‘s first district.

The single mother of a teenage son was exposed in a video leaked on Reddit for working as a dominatrix in Manhattan during hers 20s and 30s. 

Casgraux would charge clients $500 for playing the dominant role in BDSM activities.

The California native returned to the BDSM industry when she began working at Donatella’s Dungeon – a hidden S&M club in Midtown Manhattan, The New York Post reported.

She launched her campaign to represent Portland‘s western suburbs on June 7 – a few months later she discovered provocative footage of her working as a BDSM dominatrix had been leaked to the public on Reddit.

The bombshell August 31 leak shocked Casgraux and left her in a state of panic: ‘I was like, “Who did this?” and I just started calling every single person that I pretty much knew from my past … I was like hyperventilating, crying,’ she said.

She described the upsetting moment she saw the video: ‘My heart just kind of sinked in and I went psycho.’

The political candidate never discovered who exposed her in the Reddit post – she thinks that whoever is responsible was attempting to ‘shame’ her.

‘To shame me for something that helped create the life that I have today where I have opportunity … made me really mad. Because it felt like an attack on women, not just an attack on me,’ she said.

She is now reclaiming her sexuality – starting with a Playboy campaign collaboration.

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OHIO SERIAL KILLER ARRESTED: Woman Charged in Deaths of Multiple Men, AG Says

A 33-year-old Columbus woman who allegedly met men for sex and drugged them so she could rob them has been indicted in four murders, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant announced today.

Rebecca Auborn faces four counts of murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, five counts of aggravated robbery, five counts of felonious assault, five counts of corrupting another with drugs, one count of tampering with evidence and four counts of trafficking in drugs – all felonies.

“Don’t buy sex in Ohio – it ruins lives and could cost you yours,” AG Yost said.

The indictment, handed down today by a Franklin County grand jury, stems from a joint investigation by homicide detectives from the Columbus Division of Police and special agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI).

“These indictments are a result of our close collaboration with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation,” Chief Bryant said. “The Columbus Division of Police remains dedicated to ensuring justice for all victims and their families affected by the actions of a single individual.”

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GERMANY: Pro-Prostitution Picture Book Offered To Children By Government Officials

The city of Berlin has prompted outrage from locals after offering a graphic picture book on prostitution to children via its official website. The book, titled Rosie Needs Money (Rosi sucht Geld), is advertised as a resource for youth aged 6 to 12 years old.

According to Equal Opportunities Officer Kerstin Drobick, the book is a “helpful tool” for explaining prostitution to children of families residing in a red-light district of Berlin, located in Kurfürstenkiez, known as Kurfürstenstraße.

“In the years in which the Tiergarten Süd and Schöneberger Norden neighborhood management offices dealt with the issue of street prostitution and also had many conversations with residents, this was one of the topics: What do I say to the child? The Tiergarten Süd district management has faced this courageously,” Dobrick says in her defense of the book.

“An order was placed for a children’s book that tried to explain to the children what was happening there. Interestingly, extensive research has shown that educational books for children aged 10 and over avoid this explanation.”

Drobick also explains that the book on prostitution, which features graphic illustrations, was created “with primary school children and other people [in mind].”

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Just The Tip: AP Gave Dem Porn-Wife Heads-Up Before WaPo Scoop, Allowing Her To Delete Videos

Democratic Virginia political candidate Susanna Gibson, who was outed by the Washington Post for performing sex acts online for cash – and instead of owning up to it cried ‘sex crime!‘, was actually tipped off a week earlier by the Associated Press, which didn’t run the story – allowing her to delete videos before the WaPo piece hit, according to the Daily Wire‘s Luke Rosiak.

Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner and mother of two, streamed various sex acts on ‘Chaturbate,’ where more than a dozen videos of she and her husband were archived on a publicly available site, Recurbate, in September 2022 after she entered the race. The most recent were two videos archived Sept. 30, 2022, however it’s unclear when the live stream occurred.

Rosiak also reports that Gibson’s online sex acts could have exposed her to prostitution charges, lawyers say.

Virginia law states that “any person who, for money or its equivalent … engages in sexual intercourse” or other sexual acts with another person “is guilty of prostitution, which is punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.”

Shawn M. Cline, a former prosecutor and defense attorney in Virginia Beach who represents people charged with sex crimes, said in his view it’s a “chargeable offense.”

“The statute is very clear, you cannot for money or its equivalent perform sex acts,” Cline told The Daily Wire. “It doesn’t matter who’s paying for the act, if it’s an observer or the recipient. You can’t receive money.”

“It would definitely be a chargeable offense,” Cline said. -Daily Wire

What’s more, she could be busted for deliberately causing hotel workers to see her performing sex acts.

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Ads for AI sex workers are flooding Instagram and TikTok

Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have tried to keep a tight lid on sexualized content in recent years, banning nudity outright in almost all cases, kicking off sex workers and even cracking down on some artists and educators who speak frankly about sexual health and safety. 

But a new kind of sexualized content has lately been getting through their moderation systems: ads for scantily clad and dirty-talking chatbots, powered by what their creators say is artificial intelligence. 

Dozens of tech startups have been running explicit advertisements on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook in recent months for apps that promote not-safe-for-work experiences. The ads promise “NSFW pics,” custom pinup girls and chats with “no censoring,” and many of them feature digitally created potential “girlfriends” with large breasts and tight clothing. 

Some ads use memes that include popular children’s TV characters, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Bart Simpson or Cookie Monster, to promote apps with which people can create “NSFW pics.” Others feature digitally created girls who appear to be teenagers or younger, sometimes in the style of anime. 

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“I Just Want To Sell Titty Pictures”: Sex Workers F**ked By Crypto

Sex workers – who frequently face financial discrimination, losing access to payment apps and banking apps such as PayPal, Venmo and CashApp due to their profession – began using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as an alternative for payments, which bypass traditional banking systems and avoid service fees from platforms such as OnlyFans.

According to data by the Free Speech Coalition, 2/3 of sex workers have lost access to a bank account or financial service, with 40% having an account closed within the last year, Wired reports.

“I just want to sell titty pictures,” said Allie Eve Knox, a professional dominatrix and fetish performer. “I never wanted to be an expert in financial discrimination.”

…

Given the systemic discrimination throughout the banking sector, many sex workers have turned to cryptocurrencies as a means of both storing wealth and accepting payment. For a while, things were great. Digital currencies allowed customers to pay discreetly without supplying personal information, while sex workers now had a way to bypass the banking system entirely.

Knox, for example, began accepting crypto in 2014 – holding up a QR code through which viewers could tip her in crypto.

Another sex worker, former escort-turned-porn star Lira Roux, told the outlet that she began to accept crypto in 2015 at the request of clients. Initially, she would exchange the crypto for dollars, however when new laws came into effect – after which many adult-friendly advertising sites were barred from accepting regular money – she began to pay for ads with crypto too.

“By and large, crypto is useful for people that aren’t being taken care of properly by the government,” Roux said. “For sex workers, who aren’t well-served by banks, it becomes a useful option.”

Now, thanks to regulatory scrutiny which has gone into overdrive since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, sex workers are ‘bumping up’ against limitations – and are finding that ‘decentralized’ crypto is no more detached from the banking system than traditional currency – as sex workers are finding it increasingly difficult to convert crypto into dollars. Typically, this is done via an exchange, which then allows one to withdraw to a traditional bank account. Sex workers are now being banned from crypto exchanges.

“You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” said Knox. “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.”

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