Rentboy.com CEO Jeffrey Hurant defended his business Tuesday (25 August) hours after being arrested by federal authorities on money laundering and prostitution charges.
‘I don’t think that we do anything to promote prostitution,’ Hurant
told reporters outside federal court in Manhattan. ‘I think we do good
things for good people, and we bring good people together.’The site’s Twitter account describes Rentboy.com as ‘The Original & World’s Largest Male Escort Site’ and has some 11,000 followers.
If convicted, Hurant could be sentenced up to five years in prison and fined up to $250,000. Six others were arrested as well.
According to the full criminal complaint, 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.
Users of the site pay a minimum monthly fee of $59.95 to search for a rentboy or masseur on the site by country and city. Escort’s profile pages generally detail the sexual acts each escort is willing to perform and the price.
The criminal complaint calls the site’s disclaimer a ruse. It reads: ‘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.
The complaint also mentions that Rentboy.com each year holds the International Escort Awards which are better known as The Hookies.
Despite what Jeffrey Hurant says, Rentboy is online prostitution, the real question here though, why should it be illegal, it's just sex between two consenting adults (or more, depending on what you can afford)
But the even bigger question here is, what the hell does this have to do with Homeland Security and why are my tax dollars going to fund this kind of witch hunt when we were told this security task force was put in place to protect us from potential terrorist threats?
3 comments:
This is terrible and I agree an absolute witch hunt which will put many sex workers out of business - at least for a while. I don't see how this great site can recover from this.. We keep going back to the dark ages in this country--one step forward three steps back.. Who filed a complaint after all these years?
It seems pretty fishy to me. In fact it fucking STINKS.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY A MONTHLY FEE TO SEARCH-- THE FEE IS FOR SPECIAL SERVICES YOU CAN CHOOSE TO GET OR NOT. IT WAS AN ADMIRABLE SITE- EASY TO NAVIGATE AND RATHER CLASSY. I CANNOT SEE HOW IT HURT ANYONE. I THINK NOW THAT ALL SUCH SITES STRAIGHT AND GAY -DATING AND HOOK-UP SITES WILL BE CHARGED WITH PROSTITUTION LEST THE GOVERNMENT BE ACCUSED OF DISCRIMINATION. BUT HOMELAND SECURITY BRINGING THE CHARGE IS QUITE A STRETCH--HOW IS THIS IN THEIR DOMAIN? I THINK THIS CASE SHOULD BE THROWN OUT. ONLINE PROSTITUTION IS REALLY A VICTIMLESS CRIME-- WHICH MEANS IT IS NOT A CRIME.
it's only a theory, but one or more of the boys may have been involved with ISIS or something like that, or the ownership/revenues may have been going off to somewhere they shouldn't. Isn't ISIS supposed to be the wealthiest terrorist organisation ever? And couldn't this site be a source of information? eg the gay men thrown off the rooftop in Homs? I'm not making accusations, just saying that when intelligence is involved you don't normally read all about it in the morning papers
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