RentBoy.com CEO Jeffrey Hurrant
Rentboy.com CEO Jeffrey Hurant defended his business last week after being arrested by federal authorities on money laundering and prostitution charges. Hurant told reporters outside federal court in Manhattan.
“I don’t think that we do anything to promote prostitution. I think we do good things for good people, and we bring good people together.”
Rentboy.com describes itself as…
“The Original & World’s Largest Male Escort Site”
Hurant could be sentenced up to five years in prison and fined up to $250,000, if convicted. The company had more than $10 million in gross proceeds in the past five years. More than $1.4 million has been seized from six bank accounts in connection with the investigation. The criminal complaint calls the site’s disclaimer a ruse:
“This site may not be used for the advertising of sexual services or to engage in activities requiring the payment of money for sex or other illegal activities.”
It details several profiles of male escorts which included reviews of their sexual performance and details about which sexual acts took place and how much was paid. Does, sound like prostitution in the legal sense, not that there’s anything wrong with it. But this has been going on out in the open for YEARS and there are scores if not hundreds of “straight” escort sites – so why RentBoy? And why now?
Penelope Saunders, coordinator for the Best Practices Policy Program (BPPP), a sex worker advocacy group that develops policy and facilitates research, told ThinkProgress.
“These arrests are taking place against the backdrop in Amerca where it is entirely clear that the police’s relationship with people of color [involves] incredible violence and that environment is true for sex workers.
This is a high-profile case sitting on a mountain of evidence that no one cared about because [the perception that] sex workers lives don’t matter. But sex workers’ lives DO matter. The trafficking and abuse of women is so normalized it doesn’t make the papers…. [Rentboy] is really blowing the lid off of this because this is men having sex men.”
“Money laundering” is cited and this is where they may get them. But it’s a vague term and those illegalities must be proved. The Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Glenn Sorge said in a news release;
“The facilitation and promotion of prostitution offenses across state lines and international borders is a federal crime made even more egregious when it’s blatantly advertised by a global criminal enterprise,” and DHS will use its authority to “to disrupt and dismantle such organizations and seize the millions of dollars in illegal proceeds they generate.”
But online escort websites have been a save-haven for giving adult workers of all varieties a platform where they can screen clients and escape the predatory third parties (pimps) who may take their money or physically abuse them.
To many, myself included, this does seems like a gay witch hunt. What do you think? Sound off on our Facebook page.
(via ThinkProgress)
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