Prostitute Held Hostage by Facebook Killer has Regrets

My guilt at letting that evil man walk free: Prostitute held hostage for 15 hours by Facebook killer speaks of regret

By James Slack and Paul Sims

A former prostitute who was held hostage by Facebook murderer Peter Chapman and repeatedly raped at knifepoint during a 15-hour ordeal has spoken of her bitter regret at allowing him to walk free.

The woman, who wishes to stay anonymous, was a 26-year-old drug addict when she was picked up in Liverpool's red light district by the serial sex attacker in 2003.

He took her to a squalid flat nearby where he raped her over and over again - threatening to kill her with a 12-inch knife if she refused to give in to his depraved demands.

Chapman, then 26, was already a high-risk sex offender. He was charged with kidnap and rape but when it came to a trial she could not bear to see his face again and the case collapsed.

In October last year the double rapist, who was jailed for seven years in 1996 for attacking two other prostitutes, lured 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall to her death after 'meeting' her on Facebook.

Chapman should have been monitored by the police but had been missing from his registered address in Liverpool for more than a year.

Yesterday, as Merseyside Police referred their supervision of Chapman to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, his earlier victim spoke of her regret at not being strong enough to face court. Had he been convicted it is likely he would still be in prison and Ashleigh still alive.

'I wish I'd gone through with the trial,' she told the Mail. 'When the police told me what he'd done my initial feeling was guilt. I felt I was kind of responsible for a young kid losing her life. I didn't deserve what happened to me, but at least I was an adult and I knew the dangers of what I was doing. She was a baby.'

'I'd come to see it as closure,' she said. 'I wanted to stand up in the witness box and look him in the eyes. That way he'd know that I was the one in control now.

'He's a horrible, twisted, evil little man who should never be let out again.'

When Chapman picked her up, they agreed a £60 fee for sex.

He drove her to a nearby block of flats. Once inside the shabby apartment he told her to undress. When she demanded payment first he pulled out a knife.

'He put silver-coloured duct tape over my mouth and tied my hands together with some more. I was crying and begging him not to do it, but he was so much stronger and taller than me. I was only about six-and-a-half stone then and wafer-thin.'

Within minutes he was raping her. Bizarrely, near the end of her ordeal he told her how sorry he was and that he had not meant to hurt her. He then raped her again.

Chapman forced his victim back into the car and dropped her off close to where he had picked her up.

Detectives were able to trace him from her description of the flat.

Chapman would later be downgraded from a high-risk sex offender to medium risk. He stayed in Liverpool and began a relationship with 25-year-old single mother Dyanne Littler.

Miss Littler, who has a son but not with Chapman, ended their relationship when she discovered he was on the sex offenders' register.

original article here

Craigslist Isn't Liable for Erotic Services Ads

By Eric Goldman

Dart v. Craigslist, Inc., 09 C 1385 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2009)

Yesterday, Judge John F. Grady of the Northern District of Illinois federal court dismissed Cook County Sheriff Dart's lawsuit against Craigslist for user-posted advertisements in Craigslist's erotic services/adult services category on 47 USC 230 grounds. This is hardly surprising, as I wrote in March that "this lawsuit is almost certainly preempted by 47 USC 230." However, it was nice to see such a clean and decisive opinion--and a little ironic, as our law enforcement officials, who are supposed to enforce the laws rather than bypass them, got schooled in the limits of their legal authority.

With respect to the 230 analysis, the court characterizes Sheriff Dart's claims as alleging that Craigslist negligently published the user-supplied ads. The court says that the Seventh Circuit implicitly said that 230 preempted such claims in the 2008 CLC v. Craigslist case. To get around this, Sheriff Dart tried a Roommates.com styled attack, arguing that Craigslist induced the users' advertisements by creating an erotic/adult services category and letting users do keyword searches. These arguments go nowhere (making this yet another case where Roommates.com is cited for the defense). An adult services category can legitimately contain postings for legal services, and the keyword search functionality was agnostic about the illegality of the search and therefore a "neutral tool" (whatever that meant from Roommates.com).

Two other interesting doctrinal notes from the opinion: * In FN 6, the court reiterates that 230 preempts a civil action to enforce a federal criminal statute. See Doe v. Bates.

* the court rejects arguments that Craigslist "arranges" meetings for prostitution, "directs" people to prostitution or "provides" contact info for prostitutes because, in all three cases, the user-supplied ad (if anything) satisfies those verbs. Similarly, Craigslist's role in "facilitating," "assisting" or "aiding and abetting" these user activities is governed by 230. I believe this is consistent with my view that 230 should preempt any claim that one party "endorses" third party online content.

Given some ambiguous language floating in Seventh Circuit 230 jurisprudence from the CLC v. Craigslist case and the old Doe v. GTE case, it wouldn't surprise me if Sheriff Dart tried an appeal. However, this opinion was solidly reasoned and completely consistent with that jurisprudence, so I wouldn't expect a different result on appeal.

original article here

Boston Hunts for the "Craigslist Killer" of Online Escorts

Boston police are searching for a man who may be using Craigslist to lure masseuses and escorts to posh hotels to rob and even kill them.

Police released a surveillance camera photo on Wednesday showing a man walking in the lobby of the Marriott Copley Place hotel while typing on a Blackberry the previous night, around the same time a New York City woman was found dying in the hotel.


Investigators said the man was "a person of interest" in the case.

"What we believe is that there are a series of independent operations that are occurring, and it’s very difficult for the hotels to police them because they don’t know who it is that’s coming in to use their rooms," Boston Police Superintendent Edward Davis told The Boston Globe. "We've been monitoring it very closely, but it's very difficult to completely eliminate it."

Police said 26-year-old Julissa Brisman of New York City was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, Davis said. She was rushed to Boston Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

Davis said police believe Brisman was a victim of an attempted robbery.

Police said the same man was photographed Friday at the Westin Hotel in Boston, where a 29-year-old Las Vegas woman was found bound and robbed.

Investigators said both victims offered massage services on the Craigslist.org Web site.

A massage table was found set up in Brisman's room. Authorities believe she had been in a struggle at the door of her 20th-floor hotel room before she was shot.

Lucy Slosser, a spokeswoman for the Marriott Copley Place, said the hotel has beefed up security following the shooting.

"We haven't seen an increase in crime at the hotel, so we believe this to be an isolated incident," Slosser said.

Slosser said the hotel was not fully occupied Tuesday night.

PICTURES of the Alleged Killer from the BOSTON GLOBE

More from FoxNews on the victim

SOURCE

Thanks to OneofSeven for this tip!

Trying to Recruit Prostitutes - Through MySpace

By Helen Croydon

Ordinary women are being lured into prostitution through networking sites with offers of glamour and cash.


After a friend was approached through her MySpace profile with the promise she’d “earn £100 an hour having fun”, I went undercover to find out exactly what these girls are being lured in to.

The flattering email – from “Jules” – complimented her on her appearance and told her she’d be able to “select the type of clients she sees and approve every appointment”.

It also assured her that security checks would be taken care of.

So, to expose the reality, I emailed Jules, calling myself Charlotte and pretending to be interested.

Two days later I turned up to meet her at a London Tube station, armed with a small bag of clothes.

She’d asked me to bring a selection of sexy outfits so she could take photographs and put my “working” profile up on the web right away.

Jules reeked of alcohol and later apologised for “being a bit tipsy”. She’d been with a client that day and had been drinking champagne. “You get a lot of that in this job. So if you like champagne you’re on to a winner,” she laughed.

We settled into a nearby Starbucks and she immediately reassured me: “You’ve got the job by the way. This is not really an interview – if we like the look of you, you can start.”

She didn’t ask about my background, my age, whether I’d done this before and she didn’t question my emotional state.

The only questions she asked me in the course of our two-hour meeting were what sexual acts I was uncomfortable with and what days I was unavailable to work.

She never once made any reference to safe sex or asked if I’d had sexual health checks myself.

She told me the going rate is £100 an hour. She charges a £25 booking fee plus a £10 fee for every hour.

But for the first five bookings, she takes an extra £10 per hour because she claims it takes extra time to push the profiles of new girls. That means her recruits are expected to perform a series of sexual acts for just £55, and to arrange their own transport.

“We used to be able to charge more, but with the credit crunch it’s gone down, and there are much less overnight stays,” she said. “You would have got a lot for those – around £800.”

Jules explained that the price could vary from week to week.

“If we find you’re getting loads of inquiries we might put your prices up but if you’re not getting much response from the website, and it does happen, we’ll have to put your prices down.”

I asked her how the security checks were done. “Oh, that’s Jonathan, he does all the client side of things, I don’t know how he checks, but trust me, he does.”

Having supposedly calmed my fears about safety, she went on to paint a glamorous picture of a life full of luxury hotels and gifts. “I’ve not bought perfume for two years,” she bragged.

“You’ll meet so many interesting people. I’ve had all sorts of clients from High Court judges to electricians.”

After a half-hour chat, she was keen to get me to the hotel to do the paperwork. She had a room booked that she’d used to entertain a client earlier.

She wanted to use the room to photograph me. I asked if we could do the paperwork in the hotel bar – unwilling to have my photos taken by a stranger.

Jules ordered a large glass of wine and water for me then produced three sheets of paper.

The first page asked for my real name, a “working name” and physical details such as height, bra size and eye colour.

I gave a false name but she never checked my ID. If I ever went missing on a job – how would anyone find me?

The second page was to select the type of male client I’d prefer. The third listed the sex acts I may be expected to perform. They were colour coded: white for what was “normal”, yellow for “what I can refuse to do” and blue for what would merit “extra payment”.

The “extras” included “unprotected sex” and “unprotected sex until completion”. There were some phrases I’d never heard before. Jules didn’t offer to explain them.

After half an hour another girl joined us for the photo session. Jules had recruited her the day before.

Jane (her “working name”) was mouse-like. “I’d never normally do this,” she confessed as Jules went outside for a cigarette, “but so many things are bad in my life right now.

“I split with my boyfriend and then I lost my job and I just can’t get anything. I went to two other agencies from an advert on the internet. But both of them ripped me off.”

She reluctantly told how she’d given them an “appointment fee” of £200 or more then the so-called agencies disappeared without trace. “I have bills to pay, and this could just be what I need,” she concluded.

Worryingly, she seemed to genuinely believe that escorting was a good way of getting out of a bad situation.

Even more alarmingly, despite admitting she was in a very vulnerable state of mind, she was willing to be represented by a stranger who contacted her on the internet.

Certain types of prostitution are legal in the UK but for girls who chose to do it there is a significant risk to personal safety and emotional stability.

Chris Student from the International Union of Sex Workers warns: “I’d never encourage this type of work. But if people are going to do it they need to know exactly who they are working for, get ID, ask to meet other workers. This is an industry where there is a particular danger.”

Jules was persuasive and charming and it’s easy to see how girls hungry for money could trust her – and her reassurances that male clients go through security checks.

But what she does is another argument against having an open profile online. Anyone could be studying your photos, sizing you up as a possible sex worker.

Jules told me MySpace kept deleting her account when they found out she was contacting potential recruits. But it didn’t deter her. “I just start a new profile up again,” she laughed.

A MySpace spokesperson said: “We have measures to monitor emails, but unless something in the language triggers an alert, we can’t investigate. If someone reported a potential abusive email, we’d look into it.”

Excerpt from the MySpace email:

Hiya, you seem like an adventurous, fun-loving girl… perhaps you’d be interested in this?

Would you like to earn over £100 an hour having fun, part-time, with flexible hours to suit you? Working as little or as much as you want?

I’m an escort working together with part-time girls from 18 to 35 who earn on average over £100 an hour. Everyone works flexibly with hours to suit them – some work up to 10 hours a week, others only a couple of hours a month – it’s entirely up to you.

All the girls choose the kind of client they see and approve every appointment before it’s finalised.

The agency does all the marketing, sales and security so you have nothing at all to bother about except the appointments.

Thanks

Kisses, Jules

SOURCE

PROSTITUTION THRIVES ON THE INTERNET

(posting this in light of our boy "J"/GRIDNEY/ YidwithLid's sex-addiction and his love of high-price hookers [remember once he lost his job and couldn't go to hookers.... he turned someone he hadn't bothered with in 27 years just to use & toy with her, and subsequently her friends. Target #1 said she asked him about hookers in one of their FIRST conversations and he just lied to her repeatedly. Internet sex addicts see others as sex-toys.... not people]

Sex addiction is progressive - the addict needs more and more and doesn't care who he hurts or uses. The internet has made it far too easy for johns/ hobbyists/ addicts... and their objectified view of other people carries into the real & online 'lives' affecting everyone they come in contact with, sooner or later. - Fighter)


by Mike Brunker

Demonstrating the adaptability that helped earn it the title of "world's oldest profession," prostitution is thriving on the Internet, slipping into comfortable new guises like sex-for-money chatrooms and Web sites showcasing fancy call girls and boys (escorts or providers).

But with the continued expansion of the online sex trade, and the appearance of numerous civilian vigilante groups determined to halt its spread, pressure is building to rein in the hustlers and hookers of cyberspace.

The use of the Internet to advertise prostitution has received far less attention from law enforcement, politicians and the media than its notorious cousin, online pornography.
But workers on the front lines of cybercrime say it is a growing concern, particularly when it involves minors selling their bodies to the highest bidder in chatrooms.

Crusaders like Pete Hampton, a former lawman who established the Web Police to serve as an online clearing house for complaints of online criminal activity, say that when they attempt to bring prostitution cases to the attention of authorities, they are often met with indifference. (Dorsky had sites of scantily dressed women, lingerie bots and 'schoolgirl' type photos in his internet repetoire - as part of his SCRIPT)

"We find very few will even touch it," Hampton said.

A difficult issue

"It's hard to bring this issue to an investigative agency's attention," agreed Linda Fairstein, chief of the sex crimes prosecution unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. "...Government resources, especially with local police agencies, don't begin to compare with what what Web-literate people can do in terms of crime, prostitution in many ways being the least of it."

Federal authorities, however, insist that they have quietly been pursuing the most serious cases for some time.
Peter Gulotta, head of the FBI's Innocent Images task force in Baltimore, told MSNBC that the bureau is currently pursuing several cases involving online prostitution rings that extend across state lines, a prerequisite for federal involvement. Similar cases have been brought in Dallas, Miami and Boston over the past several years, he said.

Federal cases have almost exclusively focused on cases involving children, but local authorities are beginning to demonstrate a limited interest in virtual vice, such as on Craigslist.

Police in Florida, Nebraska and New Jersey have in recent months busted at least five online "escort" services that allegedly were providing sex for money. Only one involved minors: A case in Palm Beach County, Fla., in which 27-year-old Jay Ryan Quinn stands accused of prostituting underage runaway girls through his Web site.


Though there are no numbers to quantify the prevalence of prostitution operations on the Internet, as neither the federal government nor the states keep track of such cases.

But Hampton, of the (now defunct) Web Police, says he and his staff receive an average of 50 to 75 reports of prostitution each week out of a total of 1,500 complaints.

Echoing the complaints of police departments around the world, Hampton says he and his staff engage in triage to focus on the most important cases -- those involving children.

"We have to prioritize," he said. "... If this is simply a matter of a call girl service or an individual female advertising her services on the Internet, and she's of legal age of consent, this is not a priority case. If this is someone advertising child prostitution or selling children on the Internet, it does become a priority case."

A decoy's view
Donna, a volunteer undercover decoy who lures chatroom pedophiles into the arms of police, says anyone who doubts how widespread the online sex trade has become should try posing as a 15-year-old girl in an adult chatroom like AOL's "Barely Legal" forum.

"I can count to 10, and by that time I'm already being hit on," said Donna, who asked that her last name not be used to diminish the threat of retaliation from those she has helped prosecute. "... Individuals are coming in and sending me private messages asking me, 'Do I like 40-year-old men?' ... and asking me about different sexual situations. I've had them mail me plane tickets. I've had them offer me their condo on the beach if I just come stay for the week. Anything, anything that a child will want.

"If you're a troubled teenager, it's an absolutely easy way to make quick money. ... You can almost have an auction. You can sit there and say, 'Well, this guy just offered me 50 bucks.' 'Well then, I'll offer you $100.' And she can barter herself and set the time and place. How easy is that?"

In the Quinn case, the tip that launched the investigation came from one of the alleged hookers. But more and more often, citizen vigilantes like Donna and agencies that focus on sexual abuse of children are playing a key role in bringing prostitution cases to the attention of authorities -- and in particular, those that involve minors.

Ruben Rodriguez, director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tipline, said his staff has seen substantial growth in the number of pedophiles using chatrooms to lure unsuspecting children teens into situations where they are likely to turn to prostitution.

"We do see ... (situations where) children are actually enticed by individuals on the Internet to come meet them," he said. "Then they realize ... that the individual falsely represented themselves, they're stuck somewhere ... They have to find food and shelter and the only basic commodity they have to sell is themselves."

Staff members at the center process the leads received on the tip line, then forward the information to the relevant law enforcement agency, Rodriguez said.
A question of priorities
The question of law enforcement priorities is often central to debate over prosecution of prostitution, and the issue already has surfaced in connection with the case of "Nancy of Nebraska," an Omaha woman arrested in January for running an "escort service" in cyberspace.

According to testimony at the trial of Nancy P., 46, a vice squad officer posing as a visiting businessman arranged a date with her, had a limo to pick her up and drive her to the airport, where he emerged from a waiting Lear jet. Then, after serving her several glasses of Asti Spumante during the ride back to his hotel, he took her to his room and offered her cash in exchange for sex.

No sooner did Nancy agree, according to the testimony, than six police officers burst into the room with guns drawn and placed her under arrest.

Though it turned out the limo and jet were donated for use in the sting, a taxpayers group has accused the Omaha vice squad of going to excessive lengths to dismantle Prout's one-woman operation.

"The Nebraska Taxpayers Association does not condone what Nancy P. did or is doing with her Web site," said the organization's president, John Folsom. "Our position is that the police department ... were not good stewards with the taxpayers' dollars in spending the resources that were spent to have her arrested on a misdemeanor charge."

Nancy P. was sentenced to only four months probation, an $800 fine and 48 hours of community service. (also most johns or hobbyists - are charged with solicitation, which is a class B misdemeanor and can be dealt with by paying a fine or lawyering your way out of it. And if you are the client of high-end hookers? The chances you will even have to go to 'john school' or do any community service? Nil. Therefore the demand-side goes on unscathed.)
Eliminating the middle man
Not surprisingly, such tactics also are viewed as excessive by prostitutes, who say the Internet gives them the ability to take control of their financial situation and eliminate the middle man.

"I was without a job, then worked briefly for $5 an hour while I was going to graduate school and working on my master's," Rachel, who set up her own Web site to advertise her escort service in the Midwest, told MSNBC. "I just wasn't making ends meet so I thought 'I'll try this.' "

After initially placing an advertisement on a Web site that hosts numerous escort ads, she learned HTML and designed and built her own home page, which drew an average of 10 to 20 inquiries a day from potential customers.

"I learned a lot about working for myself, marketing, sales," said Rachel, who spoke on condition she not be identified by her real name.

But others say that few prostitutes are in a position to take advantage of the technology.

"There are so few ... women who are in control of what's happening to them," said Donna M. Hughes, director of women's studies at the University of Rhode Island. "And I think the idea that there are lots of high-class call girls out there that are total in control of their own lives is either a myth or only represents a very tiny minority of the women. The vast majority of women that we're talking about around the world are much closer to conditions of slavery."

The worldwide sex trade
Hughes, who has studied the Internet's role in furthering prostitution as education and research coordinator for The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, a consulting agency to the United Nations, said that traffickers in sex have been quick to utilize the benefits of the Net.

She said that in addition to prostitutes and pimps, the sex tourism industry, which organizes trips centered around visits to brothels in countries like the Philippines and Thailand, and some so-called mail-order bride operations are using the Web and news groups to attract. In many cases, she said, their advertising is "encoded" in order to avoid scrutiny from authorities, but it's clear what product they are offering.

She said attempts to persuade U.S. authorities to prosecute two companies offering such tours have so far been unsuccessful.

One of the most degrading uses of the Net, Hughes said, are websites in which customers rate prostitutes' performance "as if they are completely a commodity." ("J"/GRIDNEY/ Yidwithlid did this, remember? Showing his blatant misogyny and using women like blow-up dolls. Then he'd be Mr. Religious - Family Man - Political Pundit and smear anyone who spoke up about him. Many times of the online predator is a sex addict - there is more than just an online affair going on!)

Hughes said that the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women has recommended that all forms of sexual exploitation -- including pornography -- be considered human rights violations and that action be taken to halt them, "just as we are now taking actions to try to stop the battering of women and sexual abuse or sexual assault of women."

"The view that we take is not to just see this as some sort of speech or expression, but to go what is happening to the women," she said. "No one talks about prostitution as being a form of free speech. It's an actual act that happens. And whether a man is paying a woman in a room or whether he's paying over the Internet, nonetheless he is buying some sort of an act. Therefore we don't see that as being in the realm of free speech."

A Constitutional conflict
But Shari Steele, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said such an approach would not pass muster in the United States.

"At least in the United States, there are numerous laws at both the federal and state level to deal with pornography," she said. "Obscenity is really the purview of the states to make a determination whether it is permitted or not. Indecency is federal protected under the U.S. Constitution. Child pornography is absolutely illegal. So any call for there being extra restrictions are really going to run afoul of the First Amendment here in the United States."

The biggest obstacles to prosecution of international prostitution rings are the patchwork of laws and customs governing sale of sexual services and the Internet, said Hampton of the Web Police.

"Many law enforcement agencies don't even know how to address crime on the Internet, let alone prove whether a child is above or below the age of consent in the country where they live," he said.

With concerted international action unlikely in the foreseeable future, prosecution of Internet-based prostitution rings and individual escorts, massage practitioners and other euphemistically named sex practitioners appears likely to increase in fits and starts as local police agencies become more aware of what is being sent out to the world from their own back yard.
But Donna, the chatroom undercover volunteer, is certain of one thing: No matter how much heat is turned on online "johns," she is in no danger of having to find another way to spend her evening hours.

"In almost every case ... when it's time for the meeting, they get nervous and they'll say, 'I hope to God you're not a cop, but I can’t not meet you.'

(Sex compulsives don't care - Cyberpaths into sexual luring will tell women anything (click here for that) - and if they also spend money on hookers - they will convince their partners, families, jobs, police - it was all a lie or 'just a jealous, scorned woman and go RIGHT BACK and do it again.... just be a lot more sneaky about it!)

We will post more about this issue of sex & the internet -- fueled by phenomena like the 'online disinhibition effect' in coming months. This will be yet another window in the addictive and empathy-less minds of Cyberpaths. And we will continue to talk about some of our past predators and their insidious patterns of use, abuse, conning and running away - Fighter)

THE INTERNET ESCORT'S HANDBOOK

PROSTITUTION ON CRAIGSLIST

The Web Opens a Whole New World to the Sex-Addicted and Rationalizing It

yidwithlid