September 5th, 2009

NEW YORK – The ladies of New York have hit back at high-priced Eliot Spitzer escort Ashley Dupre’s claim that the average NY woman is no better than a prostitute as she strives to marry a wealthy man.

Ashley Dupre

Dupre, 24, had posted an online diatribe on September 2 on rap impresario Russell Simmons’ Global Grind Web site, stating that she has seen a lot of women toy with men, go on dates to get good food, beg for clothes and ask for rent money. “I don’t agree with what she said-I would totally never do anything like that,” the New York Post quoted a disgusted Justyna Cichon, 29, of Long Island City as saying.

“She did it, [and] she thinks that every woman is like that.

“When she says that all women are that way, I’m included. So I think that’s offensive,” she stated.

Another lady, who was outraged by Dupre’s statement, was Lena Herdoon, a 21-year-old student from SoHo.

“What she said about all women isn’t true. I think it’s offensive. In today’s society, you shouldn’t have to put yourself out there to get ahead,” Herdoon said.

“It’s disheartening she feels this way about women. When she says that women have to do that to get ahead, I completely disagree. As a woman, you have to have self-respect,” she added.

But while some city women were incensed, others agreed that there are some women who go about doing exactly what Dupre said.

“I agree. There are a lot of women like her. It’s expensive to live here,” Jasmin, a 20-year-old Queens woman, said.

Kristen, 24, of Manhattan, who asked her last name not be used, said she was on the same page as Dupre.

“It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man, so why would you go with the poor guy?” she said.

“This city is filled with very wealthy men, and it’s not difficult to do. It’s a certain type of girl who will do that. There are girls who will play that game. [That's why] you’ve got those services like Sugardaddy.com,” she added.

Autumn, 29, a Manhattan woman who also asked to remain anonymous, said Dupre exposed one of the city’s ugly truths.

“It’s reality in New York. It’s true. I’d like to say it’s not, but it is,” she said.

“There is many a story: When you move to the city, you meet rich, 40-year-old guys who buy you drinks and offer to put you up in a hotel room.

“They are not giving you direct cash, but you’re getting things for sleeping with them. You’re getting something you want, and he is getting someone he wants,” she added.

Meanwhile, Dupre spoke out on September 4 on Twitter thanking supporters and saying that she was only speaking the “ugly truth”.

“I am only fighting to be who I really am,” she tweeted. (ANI)

MINNEAPOLIS – Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has lost his latest attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in the Minneapolis airport men’s room sex sting that effectively ended his Senate career.

A three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected the Republican’s bid to toss out his disorderly conduct conviction.

Craig still has the option of appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and he said Tuesday he was considering future options.

Craig was arrested June 11, 2007, by an undercover police officer who was conducting a sting operation against men cruising for gay sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

He quietly pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor and paid a fine, but changed his mind after word of his arrest became public that August. Craig insisted he was innocent and said he was not gay. His attorney argued that the police officer misconstrued Craig’s foot-tapping, hand movements and other conduct.

But the case brought widespread ridicule and effectively ended his political career.

Craig lost several GOP leadership positions in the wake of the scandal, and the Senate Ethics Committee said in February that Craig had brought discredit on the Senate. The committee members said they believed he was guilty, and that his attempt to withdraw his plea was just an effort to evade the legal consequences of his own actions.

He did not seek a fourth term in last month’s election. He will be replaced in January by Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch, a Republican.

Craig’s attorney, Billy Martin, argued before the appeals court in September that there was insufficient evidence for any judge to find him guilty.

In its 10-page opinion, the appeals panel said that Craig failed to show that Hennepin County District Judge Charles Porter abused his discretion by denying his petition to withdraw his plea. Porter had said the plea was “accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and … supported by the evidence.”

Tuesday’s opinion also said Craig failed to show that the state’s disorderly conduct law was unconstitutionally overbroad.

“I am extremely disappointed by the action of the Minnesota Court of Appeals,” Craig said in a statement. “I disagree with their conclusion and remain steadfast in my belief that nothing criminal or improper occurred at the Minneapolis airport.” He said he and his attorneys were reviewing into the possibility of further appeals.

After the story became public, Craig had initially said that he would resign from the Senate, but he changed his mind about that, too, and vowed to fight to clear his name.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which runs the airport, said the appellate decision again confirms that Craig knew what he was doing when he entered his plea. He said the agency hopes it’s the end of the case.

By Tom Brady Security Editor
Friday December 05 2008

Katie David
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: Commentary

The world’s oldest profession seems to be very “in” right now. Between the Eliot Spitzer scandal, an NBC special on “The Business of High-End Prostitution,” a Showtime series about a London “escort” entitled The Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Ashley Dupré’s (Spitzer’s infamous call girl) media tour, the American public is very interested in prostitution. However, the media is not showing images of what many consider the typical victim of the sex trade, such as an impoverished and malnourished woman selling her body for crack. Clearly, that image is too disturbing for the middle-class American living room. Instead, the media focuses on “high-end” prostitution, where women are paid thousands for their services, which range from sex to compliments (seriously). While the data for this industry is difficult to track, the media is most likely not focusing on these “escort services” because they pose a deep societal problem. Instead the media probably sees what many young women today observe when examining the dynamics of high-end prostitution: how closely it resembles the dating situation for young women today.

Ashley Dupré and I have something in common. Neither of us has a degree in sociology or is really qualified to make sweeping statements about cultural movements. But we do it anyway. In Ashley’s recent interview with People magazine, she explains how the dynamics of prostitution have permeated the mainstream.

“This wasn’t any different than going on a date with someone you barely knew and hooking up with them,” she reasoned. “The only difference is I can pay my rent.”

In short, the relationship between sex and money is apparent outside the industry of high-end prostitution. Many young women today often joke about becoming trophy wives. I must admit that once I realized that no profession I was interested in could make me rich, that lifestyle seemed appealing to me. Women who “marry up” or “marry rich” are only lightly chastised by public opinion when what they are doing, offering up their bodies and looks for wealth, is not so different from high-end prostitution.

More pervasive, however, is how young women are responding to offers of wealth in exchange for the “hook-ups” Ashley describes. In our parents’ generation, women could expect men to pay for them and it was considered chivalrous. Today for us young women, when a boy buys dinner for us, we often feel guilty if we don’t give him something in return. In this post-feminist era, women are having trouble finding their place in the relationship balance and money only complicates that dilemma. Women are no longer burning their bras, but instead finding men who will buy them expensive ones.

According to CNBC, the most popular item offered by escorts today is called the Girlfriend Experience (or GFE). While there isn’t a standard definition, most in the industry agree that it involves some facsimile of real romance, including dinners, vacations and gifts in addition to original payments. With the advent of online dating, reality shows like The Girls Next Door (documenting the lives of the ultimate high-end prostitutes, Hugh Hefner’s three girlfriends) and the sex trade evolving into the “relationship trade,” more and more people are approaching dating like a business transaction instead of a search for companionship. And the media’s glamorization of high-end prostitution is not helping. If our society, especially young women like myself, continue to think this way, perhaps all relationships will simply become glorified “girlfriend experiences.” Chivalry may not be dead, but it could come at a hefty price.

By Mark Dagostino
updated 8:04 a.m. ET, Thurs., Nov. 20, 2008

She was the tabloid sensation at the center of the sex scandal that brought down New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. But in her very first interview, Ashley Alexandra Dupré tells PEOPLE, “I am a normal girl.”

“Everyone knows me as ‘that girl,’ but I’m not just ‘that girl,’ ” the 23-year-old former escort says in the new issue of PEOPLE, on sale Friday. “I have a lot of depth, a lot of layers.”

Enduring a media spotlight that included seeing her MySpace photos splashed on front pages “has been really hard,” the New Jersey native explains. “But I’m a survivor.”

Spitzer was unknown to her
Her descent into tabloid mayhem began the night of Feb. 13, 2008, when Dupré — who had worked as a high-end escort to help pay the bills on and off since 2004 — met a client who turned out to be the Governor of New York.

Dupré claims she had no idea who the man was that night. What she does recall is that “Client 9,” as Spitzer was reportedly known at her escort service (which was shut down in March), “was polite.

“Some guys, they want to have conversations and really get to know each other. With him, it clearly was not like that. It was more of a transaction. Strictly business.”

Casually dressed and with no entourage in tow, Spitzer didn’t strike Dupré as someone important. Besides, “I was there for a purpose — not to wonder who [he] could be.”

FBI steps in
In fact, she didn’t find out who he was until March when, just days after learning she was mixed up in some sort of FBI investigation, she saw the Spitzer apologizing on TV. “It was surreal,” Dupré says of seeing the client she had met a month before. “I felt like I was sinking.”

As for the former governor, “I think he’s been punished enough.” Asked what she might tell his wife, Silda, who stood at Spitzer’s side when he announced his resignation, Dupré offers, “I’m sorry for your pain.”

In the interview, Dupré also opens up about her troubled past — running away at age 17 into a non-stop life of drinking and partying and how a girl from the suburbs could fathom becoming a prostitute: “This wasn’t any different than going on a date with someone you barely knew and hooking up with them,” she reasoned. “The only difference is I can pay my rent.”

Mother finds out
Once the FBI told her they were looking into one of her clients, Dupré says she was forced to confide in her homemaker mother, Carolyn, that she was turning tricks.

“It was extremely painful for her,” Dupré says, though “my mother wasn’t angry. She was supportive.”

Now living with her mother and stepfather in New Jersey, Dupré says she has learned her lesson, and then some.

“I’m 23 years old,” she says. “I want to do music, to do fashion, to write books — there’s so many things.” One thing she won’t be doing: selling her body to make ends meet. “No,” she says. “Never again.”

Posted: 12/2/2008 12:31:54 PM by Jaymo

Reports surfaced last week via The New York Post that 50 Cent’s manager, Chris Lighty, would be handling the singing career of former hooker Ashley Dupre.

Dupre was the woman at the center of the prostitution scandal that lead to the resignation of former New York Mayor Eliot Spitzer. The mayor used to shell $1,000-an-hour to get serviced by Dupre and other girls.

Lighty and his Violator management released a statement today (December 2) denying the reports saying: “Despite media reports, Chris Lighty and Violator Management do not represent Ashley Dupre. Lighty helped negotiate an interview for Dupre with Diane Sawyer, and has no further involvement in Dupre’s career.”

Its an interesting story about how an honour student, turns to the escort business to make money.  Its the usual hard luck story, father left at 3, brotherran away and arrested for dealing, fell in with the wrong crowd.  Ashley Dupree comes across very sympatheticly. If you ever wondered why how someone gets caught up as an escort she told it convincingly.

Diane Sawyer tried to make her say that she was a prostitute, but she would only say sh was an “escort”. W When asked what the difference was she said time spent.  Apparently she spent lots of time “talking”.  Uhuh. Smart girl though, the word prostitute never escaped her lips.

On legal advice she did not answer any detailed questions about the Spitzer affair, but she did say she didn’t know who he was when she met him.

Her reaction to the huge controversy which ended Governor Elliot Spitzer’s career mainly revolved around her feelings over Spitzer’s wife.   She says she feels nothing towards Spitzer either positive or negative and that she is not at fault for bringing Spitzer down. “if it wasn’t me it would have been somebody else,” she said. “Its not my fault”.

She also said she wants out of the life she had and has turned down both a reality TV series and a million dollar offer from Hustler – Spitzer and prostitution aside, maybe she does have some class.  It will be interesting to see how she pulls her life together, as this reputation is going to follow her around.

See the six minute highlight video below.

November 18, 2008
Call girl to Spitzer’s wife: ‘I’m sorry’
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this image released by ABC, former call girl Ashley Dupre, whose tryst with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, led to his resignation, is seen in New York. (AP/ABC, Heidi Gutman)

NEW YORK — The prostitute at the centre of the scandal that brought down former New York governor Eliot Spitzer has apologized to his wife.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre tells People magazine that the FBI informed her in early March that it was investigating one of her clients. A few days later, she found out which client when she recognized Spitzer on TV — resigning.

That was March 12, after revelations Spitzer had used Emperors Club VIP, where Dupre worked.

She says she was stricken by the pained expression on Silda Wall Spitzer’s face.

“I try not to revisit that place too often, but when I think about his speech, I think of her face, her eyes, the hurt,” Dupre said.

Her message to Silda Wall Spitzer: “I’m sorry for your pain.”

Dupre, 23, said Spitzer was polite and businesslike when they met. “Some guys, they want to have conversations and really get to know each other. With him, it clearly was not like that,” she said. “It was more of a transaction. Strictly business.”

Dupre, who was known then as Kristen, said she practiced safe sex with all her clients, including Spitzer. On her lawyer’s advice, she would not elaborate on their liaison, or say whether Spitzer visited her more than once. She did say that he dressed casually and she did not see his security detail.

Dupre also sat down with Diane Sawyer for an ABC “20/20“ segment to be aired Friday. In that interview, ABC said, she describes how an “upper middle-class, girl next door got into the profession and the psychological journey she continues to experience.”

Four people have pleaded guilty to running the prostitution operation. Last week, federal prosecutors said they wouldn’t bring criminal charges against Spitzer.

Dupre, 23, envisions a future for herself in music, fashion and “writing books” — but not prostitution. “Never again.”

By GLENN COUNTS / NewsChannel 36
E-mail Glenn: GCounts@WCNC.com

Sally Saxon Interview on video

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Who is Sallie Saxon? The simple answer is that she is a criminal. But nothing was simple in the life of this very complicated woman.

“Your whole life is a lie. Everything is a lie,” Saxon said in an exclusive interview with NewsChannel 36.

On Aug. 27, the life that this south Charlotte mom knew changed forever.

“I made a lot of money, but I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not worth the money to have lived like that,” Saxon said.

Saxon was sent to federal prison for two years for running “Hush Hush,” the largest Internet-based prostitution ring in America.

“If I provided the list then it’s got the names of high profile people throughout the United States,” Saxon said.

Saxon’s business was high-end — wealthy men, expensive dinners, flowers and gifts. But her start more than 20 years ago was nothing like that. There was precious little glamour and a lot of danger when she worked as a call girl.

Her first husband was sent to Vietnam. When he returned from the war, Saxon said he had psychological issues and physically abused her and her son.

She was desperate when a prominent Charlotte businessman and his group of friends made her an indecent proposal.

“The food was getting low. It really was and they knew that I was in that situation,” Saxon said.

With just $25 to her name and two kids to support, she felt she had no choice but to sell her body.

“I felt terrible about myself when I did that. I did. I was nervous. I was afraid. I was upset,” Saxon said.

After she left that abusive marriage, Saxon says she got out of the business for a while and got a job in sales.

“I was not making enough money,” she said. “By then your children are getting older, then they need more.”

Sallie says she made the decision to return to the life of a call girl, but instead of working independently she found employment with a couple of escort services.

“That was terrible, absolutely terrible,” she said.

Saxon says the services only cared about one thing — money.

Extended Audio:
•  How Saxon started ‘Hush Hush’
•  Saxon on living a double life
•  The client list: Powerful, rich men
•  Saxon’s relationship advice and why men cheat

Blog:
•  My jailhouse interview with Sallie Saxon

Related Stories:
•  Part 1: Who is Sallie Saxon?
•  Part 2: Saxon’s powerful client

“If you did not give the client what he wanted, everything he wanted, then you had to pay a fine. So I ended up owing the agency more than I made because I had fines everywhere,” she said.

There was one night at a Charlotte motel that changed Saxon’s life. She ended up having to fight for her life.

“The gentleman opened the door and I walked in and I looked to my right, and I could see silhouettes behind the shower curtain, and I got out without my shoes, my blouse was torn, my pocketbook, I don’t know where it went,” Saxon said.

At that point, some women might have gotten out of the business for good, but not Saxon. It was at that moment that she decided to become a madam.

The money, the flowers, expensive dinners, fancy clothes and cars — Sallie Saxon enjoyed all the trapping of a successful, albeit illegal, business.

“I liked the way I was treated because people thought I had money,” Saxon said. “I liked the power it represented and the respect that it gave.”

Last November that life came to an end when FBI agents raided Saxon’s house on Coatbridge Lane and took her away in handcuffs. She pleaded guilty to money laundering charges and was sent to the federal medical center in Lexington, Ky., a minimum security prison for women.

“I started off very small,” Saxon said. “I worked with one lady or two ladies.”

That was more than 15 years ago. Saxon was one of the first madam’s to see the potential of the Internet.

“I was able to hide behind the Internet,” she said. “I was able to screen the clients. I was able to research the business and find out what mistakes other people made.”

By screening the clients Saxon was able to better protect her girls and generate lots of money. Her business took off.

“I decided that I wanted to be the best at whatever I did. I wanted to be very selective about the ladies I worked with,” Saxon said. “I also wanted clients that I considered gentlemen. Because of what I had been through in my life I was able to discern of who was and who was not a gentleman.”

These gentlemen had two things in common — money and power. Saxon says a lot of them would be nationally recognized.

“Washington politicians?” we asked.

“I’m just going to say that you would know them. You would know them. I’m not going to say yes or no, but the people I have affiliated with are people in high positions that make laws. They’re people that you watch on TV.”

Saxon’s clients were looking for more than just beauty. For every girl who applied, she says she only hired one out of 10.

“I wanted someone with a college degree. Someone who could carry on a conversation,” Saxon said. “I expected them to workout, to be in physically good shape, mentally, emotionally.”

When a gentleman would call or e-mail, Saxon’s first priority was to learn all that she could about him using Internet skills that could rival any computer hacker.

“I could find out anything I wanted,” she said. “I found out the names of their children, the mother, their neighbors, their work, how long they worked there, how much they paid for their house.”

If you made the cut as a client — and she says half the men did not — it would cost you $2,500 for a three-hour date, including dinner at an expensive restaurant. Saxon would always spring for a complimentary dessert. If a client wanted some out-of-town company, say to St. Thomas, Saxon would make sure they had an enjoyable time.

“I was the booking agency. I was a psychiatrist. I was a friend. I was a mother, and I was a babysitter,” Saxon said.

In case you’re wondering, it was the men who needed most of the babysitting. Saxon says their egos were limitless.

“Themselves are the main thing they are concerned about. They lose compassion for other people. They couldn’t understand why their wives didn’t want anything to do with them,” she said.

These men were so rich and powerful that even after the bust, they kept calling.

“I’d say, ‘Do you realize my phones are tapped?’ And these are the kinds of people, it just goes over their head. These are the kind of men if you say no to, they say, ‘Wow, that’s a challenge.’”

These were also the kind of men who enjoyed living on the edge, who flirted with being caught, and sometimes they were. Saxon blamed the men when their wives found out.

“When I would tell the client, ‘And by the way, your wife is on the phone, and she has something to say to you,’ I never heard from them again,” Saxon said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Who is Sallie Saxon? It’s a complicated question. Her story began March 30, 1950. She was raised by her grandparents in their Myers Park home.

“Took dancing lessons, went to etiquette school and I felt like I had a very good family. I come from a good family,” Saxon said.

Saxon was one of the first students to walk through the doors of Quail Hollow Elementary School. She graduated from South Mecklenburg High and attended Queens College for a year.

Growing up, she says, she didn’t date much.

“I can’t say that I was a person that was going out and going to a lot of parties because wherever I went I was chaperoned, either by my father or my granddaddy and the granddaddy was the worst,” Saxon said.

Saxon says a bad marriage and a desperate financial situation transformed her from an innocent little girl into the biggest Internet madam in the country.

NewsChannel 36 talked to her at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky. It is a minimum security prison. There are only about 287 inmates here.

“I’m fine with this, and the food is good and the staff is respectful,” Saxon said. “I’ve felt all along that they really want to help me.”

It is a higher power that is helping Saxon adjust to her new life as a convicted felon.

“I was walking through the valley, and none of us come to the Lord Jesus Christ on top of the mountaintop when we’re doing great. That’s when we think we don’t need him,” Saxon said. “But I was in the valley and my life needed to change and my life changed.”

Saxon says her spiritual transformation began four months before FBI agents knocked on her door.

“I just could not get over the fact that I had asked God to get me out of the business and I felt that he had, and I didn’t care how I got out, I just knew I was done,” she said.

Saxon made a lot of money — $3 million according to the FBI’s count — but she says she was never free to enjoy it and she lied to everyone.

At a family gathering her father asked her, “So what do you really do?” And she says she handed him a bunch of fake invoices and claimed she was paid for Internet design.

“I think when he told me that he believed me that hurt me more than anything, because he believed a lie I had just told him,” Saxon said.

Because of her spiritual journey, Saxon says she can clearly see all the hurt that she has caused.

“Do I think it should be made legal? Personally, where I stand now with my faith and what I’ve been through, violating holy matrimony is wrong. It’s totally wrong,” Saxon said.

Because of her cooperation, the government was able to prosecute three Johns. Saxon would like to see more.

“I still feel that the client needs to be held accountable. I really do. It’s time. Otherwise it makes a whole mockery of the whole thing,” she said.

To this point, no girls have been prosecuted. Saxon went to bat for them.

“I have a softer spot in that area. One side of me wants to say no, because I know why many of them got into it,” she said.

Saxon acknowledges that she exploited them, but she hopes they benefited.

“I’m proud that I was able to make them the money that they could put themselves through school and educate their children, buy a home, get out of debt. I’m proud that I provided a safe situation for them,” she said.

What about the list? The 2,200 clients that were at Saxon’s fingertips — the rich, the powerful and the famous, will we ever know who they are?

“My husband and I prayed for a long time about what to do with the list, and I’m not out here to expose those people,” Saxon said. “That’s something they will have to live with. I’m here to serve my time and to pay mankind back for what I’ve done.”

In two years, Saxon will walk out of the doors of FMC Lexington. She says that she prepares for that day every day while she is in prison and she has faith that she will make it.