Peralta wants Roosevelt Ave cleaned up

From the Daily News:

Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Queens) wants to clean up a stretch of 20 blocks along Roosevelt Ave. that bring in a “bad element” at night.

“It’s a vibrant place in the day ... but at night all kinds of illegal activity occurs, prostitution, human trafficking and more,” he said.

Peralta, who represents the area, wants the city to increase its enforcement of existing quality of life laws and up the fines for certain violations from $1,000 to $10,000.

Flushing couple pleads guilty to sex trafficking

From PIX11:

A couple from Queens and massage parlor manager have pleaded guilty in a “cross-county sex trafficking ring” after two women were forced to perform lewd acts on customers for several months, the Nassau County District Attorney said Friday.

Zhaowei Yin 49, and his wife Shuwen Ai, 47, of Flushing, pleaded guilty on Friday to two counts of sex trafficking, a felony, and two counts of promoting prostitution in the second degree.

Parlor manager Li Fei Leng, a 33-year-old also from Flushing, pleaded guilty to the same charges Tuesday.

Massage parlors proliferating everywhere

From WPIX:

On a rainy Monday approaching midnight, PIX11 Investigates took a drive along Northern Boulevard in Little Neck, Queens, heading east toward the Great Neck border. We noticed blinking, neon lights in two storefronts standing side by side. One of them was called “Relax Station,” and the blue and white sign indicated it was open. The next store had a red awning; the sign advertising $19.99 rubs for 30 minutes.

These are the spas of Little Neck and Douglaston in eastern Queens, and in the last couple of years, the name FOOT SPA has appeared increasingly on the signs.

PIX11 took note of the trend in our travels and decided to look into the phenomenon.

Special court for sex trafficking victims

From the NY Times:

In the hallway, they speak mostly in Mandarin, in accents from across China. Some speak Korean. They meet with their court-appointed lawyers in the hallway, often helped by an interpreter born in Fujian Province and hired by the city courts. A snazzy dresser, the interpreter bounces from one defendant to the next; he has found himself adding terms to his usual vocabulary: prostitution (“maiyin”), illegal massage (“feifa anmo”), unlicensed massage (“wuzheng anmo”).

This is the Human Trafficking Intervention Court in Queens, which is marking its 10th anniversary next month, and which serves as a model for a statewide 11-court program that began last year. The intention is to change the legal conversation around the multibillion-dollar sex trade by redefining the women in it as victims instead of criminals. Most are offered a deal: Take part in a set number of counseling sessions, usually five or six, and the charges will be dismissed and the record sealed.

After 13 months, the five New York City courts are still a work in progress, their success tracked more in individual stories than statistics.

“This court is not devised to solve the problems of trafficking,” Judge Serita said of the program, “but to address one of the unfortunate byproducts, which is the arrest of these defendants on prostitution charges.”

All defendants in the specialized courts are presumed to be victims at risk, the first of many assumptions made, in part, because of the silence surrounding sex trafficking. That silence also makes it tougher to shift social mores. Not only do the police and the justice system still treat prostitution as a crime, but the women themselves, most undocumented, often don’t define themselves as having been trafficked — whether out of fear, shame or choice.

The Queens court has changed significantly in the decade since Judge Fernando M. Camacho founded it. Dismayed at seeing the same American-born teenage girls reappearing in his court for prostitution, Judge Camacho said he wanted to break the cycle by offering them alternatives to a criminal record or incarceration.

Now, a majority of the defendants who sit in the worn walnut benches are either Latin American women or, even more often, older, undocumented immigrants from Asia, ranging in age from 30 to 50. According to statistics Judge Serita’s court has kept, Asian defendants represented 27 percent of the cases in 2010. In 2014, they have made up 40 percent.

Nothing has changed on Roosevelt Ave

From DNA Info:

Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights is “a mecca of human trafficking” where women from countries including Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are being sexually exploited, elected officials said Thursday.

And Queens is the center of the city's trafficking problem, with nearly 60 percent of the city's victims who come forward looking for help.

Roosevelt Avenue has a number of brothels, state Sen. Jose Peralta, who represents Corona, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, said at a press conference where he discussed an initiative to provide foreign-born victims of sex trafficking with free legal representation on immigration issues.

“Roosevelt Avenue is a mecca of human trafficking in Queens and throughout the five boroughs,” Peralta said.

There are gangs “that are participating in bringing women from all over the world," he later told DNAinfo New York.

“They bring them right to Roosevelt Avenue,” the state senator said. “It’s really a hub and epicenter of human trafficking.”

Yes we've known about this for quite some time, yet it still hasn't been cleaned up. Why is that?

If they could do it in Bay Ridge, why not Flushing?

From WPIX:

NYPD officers arrested 19 people in a prostitution crackdown on various “day spas” and “massage parlors” in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, authorities announced Thursday.

“In this case, there were 19 massage parlors in a relatively small area,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Now we know that the people of Bay Ridge have back pain, but we don’t think it’s enough to sustain 19 massage parlors.”

The arrests come after a year-long investigation that began after neighbors complained of “suspicious and disruptive activities,” according to the D.A.’s office.

“I hope that these arrests will send a message not only to the communities of Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge, but throughout Brooklyn, that I share their concerns regarding these purported “day spas” and “massage therapists” and we will not tolerate illicit operations that exploit women and blight neighborhoods,” said D.A. Hynes.

The bust was the culmination of a joint investigation by the Kings County District Attorney Special Investigations Unit and the NYPD’s Brooklyn South Vice Unit. Using undercover detectives, surveillance and search warrants, the operation revealed “substantial evidence of prostitution” and a string of work-related and zoning law violations.

The arrests included both workers and owners at 12 different establishments.

Sex traffickers busted

From NBC New York:

Federal agents raided four brothels in New York and arrested 13 people in an alleged sex trafficking and prostitution ring dating back to 2008, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the suspects exploited dozens of women, trafficking some from Mexico to New York, to force them to work as sex slaves.

NBC 4 New York cameras captured the raid on one of the brothels in Yonkers Tuesday. Search warrants were also executed at brothels in Queens, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh.

The criminal complaint alleges the suspects lured women to the U.S. by engaging them in romantic relationships and promising a better life in New York. Once they arrived, the victims were forced to work as prostitutes under "abhorrent conditions," often subject to abuse and threatened with harm to them and their family members

In a typical day, a Mexican sex trafficking victim in New York had sexual intercourse with 20 to 30 customers, with each customer usually paying about $30 to $35 for 15 minutes of sex, according to authorities.

Of that money, half typically went to either the driver who took the victim to the client or to the residential brothel where the woman worked. The other half went to the victim, who was then typically forced to turn over all the money to the trafficker.

Roosevelt Avenue underworld

From the Times Ledger:

Trafficking happens all around the city and the country, but the Queens neighborhoods of Jackson Heights, Corona and Flushing have been identified as key centers for the crime. City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) said with the cleanup of Times Square in the 1980s and 1990s, the criminal element moved down the No. 7 line into Queens. In these neighborhoods, johns have access to prostituted women not only from houses set up for the purpose, but from the back of vans and at bars that advertise $2 dances.

In recent years, Queens lawmakers have pushed legislation and conducted campaigns to combat sex trafficking. When asked, advocates do not have numbers for how prevalent it is in the borough, but Ferreras said she has heard often from constituents at Council hearings, at community meetings and in her daily life of sex trafficking going on in her district, especially around Roosevelt Avenue.

She said girls can be trafficked from as young as 12 and boys from as young as 10.

“It’s here. It’s a problem,” she said in an interview. “I think it happens behind closed doors. It happens in small areas of the community.”

Leticia Brown, of Girls Education and Mentoring Services, an organization aimed at helping victims, said during a panel at the Long Island University-C.W. Post in Brookville, L.I., earlier this year that the girls who are trafficked are often minorities and low-income, if not homeless or runaways.

“The girls, women I work with are deemed ‘less than’ in our society,” Brown said.

People are trafficked into the city both domestically and internationally, with victims coming into Queens from as close by as Brooklyn to as far away as Latin America and Asia via John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Advocates say the pimps offer their victims the promise of a better life: an opportunity for work, a green card, a boyfriend.

Nassau County Police Detective John Birbiglia said pimps often set themselves up as a girl’s father, giving them gifts of clothes and jewelry or dinner before demanding they earn these gifts by sleeping with men for money of which they never see a dime. Once the pimps have the girls, they can keep them intimidated either through rape, physical abuse or threats to themselves or their families.

Some women who have been trapped in the lifestyle for years also grow up to become “top girls” who run prostitution rings, Ferreras said.

“You think this must be the movies,” Ferreras said. “This is someone’s reality.”

Backpage operation busted

From Forest Hills Patch:

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced a big bust on Tuesday, saying an in-depth investigation had resulted in the breakup of a prostitution ring that stretched as far as the Philippines.

Christopher Fairbarn, a 24-year-old Forest Hills man, was one of 19 people arrested in the operation, which also caught residents from Flushing, Bayside, Pennsylvania and Southeast Asia.

According to Schneiderman, the Attorney General's office worked with the NYPD during a 16-month investigation to monitor the advertising agency Somad Enterprises, which created both online and print advertisements in publications like Backpage.com and the Village Voice to prostitute women.

All told, the agency took in more than $3 million for its role in facilitating meet-ups between often unwilling female victims and the men paying for their services, Schneiderman said.

Those arrested include employees of the advertising agency who accepted money to place the ads, pimps, drivers and more. During the course of making arrests, NYPD officers also took two human-trafficking victims into custody, both of whom are now in a safehouse.

Anti-sex trafficking campaign started

From the Daily News:

A Queens official is spearheading a campaign to raise awareness of the plight of human trafficking victims in an attempt to curb the problem in western Queens.

The office of state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) has been distributing hundreds of posters in English and Spanish to small businesses in Corona, Jackson Heights and parts of Elmhurst. The posters encourage victims of human trafficking and prostitution to call 311 for help.

“So many women from around the world and the country are brought here to New York, and particularly on Roosevelt Avenue, to be enslaved and forced to have sex with strangers,” Peralta said.

“We have to dispel the notion that prostitution is a victimless crime and the way to do that is by providing information and raising awareness,” he said.

Prostitution pipeline leads back to Mexico

From the Daily News:

In this small Mexican town that sends sex slaves to New York, little boys dream of growing up to be pimps.

Gaudy gabled houses that rise above gated walls are proof of the profits to be made from funneling “delivery girls” to Roosevelt Ave. in Queens.

It’s a family business, and through the decades, the pimps have perfected methods to coerce women into sexual slavery using romance, lies and the threat of violence. Over the last 20 years they have branched out of Latin America, sending sex workers to New York and other U.S. cities, experts said.

Each family sends its youngest and most handsome men across Mexico to pose as salesmen with nice clothes and fancy cars, Munoz Berruecos said.

They woo rural women waiting at bus stops or taking Sunday strolls in the park. Once the women are seduced, they are coerced into prostitution.

The women are held inside the Tenancingo “security houses” — where some say they were repeatedly raped. If they have children, the kids are kept in the town for leverage after they are dispatched to red-light districts.

Some go to Mexico City. Many end up in Queens, where johns can order them for delivery by calling numbers advertised on cards, key chains or bottle openers, authorities say.

Jawin's letter to Schenkler

To The Editor (Queens Tribune):

Think global and act local! The issues of sex trafficking and domestic violence require this approach. My role, representing the Center for the Women of New York on this issue, has been mentioned in what has developed into a public discussion between two of our community newspapers, the Queens Tribune and the Queens Chronicle.

The topic of sex trafficking, prostitution and legislation on Violence Against Women has been featured in recent issues in the national press and by various coalitions of women’s groups working against domestic violence and sex trafficking. Nicholas Kristof, a feature writer of the New York Times writes frequently on this issue and in the April 1, 2012, issue states that the problem of sex trafficking has reached epidemic proportions and lists the internet site, Backpage.com, as a major source for advertising underage girls!

Our Center for the Women of New York has been working on the issue of domestic violence for many years and most recently highlighted the problem of sex trafficking at a NYC Hearing called by Councilwomen Julissa Ferreras, Chair of Women’s Issues. The Center also held a panel discussion at our general meeting at Queensborough Hall on Oct. 19, 2011, with representatives of women’s organizations and Mr. Ciminiello, the Chair of the Vice Squad of the Queens District Attorney.

Citing the presence of ads featuring “adult services,” which are thinly disguised ads for prostitution, the group decided to start a campaign at the local level, asking the publishers and editors of the English speaking community papers in Queens to sign a pledge to voluntarily agree not to accept ads promoting prostitution or were degrading to women.

Many of these women and girls are kidnapped, beaten and raped to secure obedience for sexual acts. Some of the women are lured from outside the country to promise of good paying work at hotels and their legitimate jobs. Many of the girls are from all around the country who are escaping violence and difficult conditions at home or have been kidnapped and brought here. The proximity of airports, Port Authority, and railroads make it a rich resource for predators to find innocent victims! The existence of Internet advertising and newspapers as the Village Voice and AM newspapers listing blatant ads for “adult services” feeds this ugly chain of supply and demand.

The problem is huge and our discussion focused on what local community groups could do to try to deal with it. A decision to focus locally on community newspapers was made and a campaign to start with English language Queens media was made. The straightforward request was made to all of the publishers and editors to voluntarily stop accepting the ads that featured adult services or were demeaning and degrade women.

The first publisher, Mark Weidler, of the Queens Chronicle, was the most cooperative and supportive and immediately agreed and promised to help with the goals of our project. The rest of the local media followed. One editor had not realized that his advertising section did contain two or three and immediately stopped accepting the ads. The only publisher who had the most blatant and prolific series of advertisements, often covering two pages in its back section was the Queens Tribune.

A delegation of the Coalition composed of myself, representing CWNY, John Tandana, president of the Queens chapter of the United Nations Association and Karen Siegel, Chair of the Zonta Club of Greater Queens, visited Michael Schenkler and his editorial staff. We explained the problem and requested his voluntary cooperation. He refused with the reasoning that he was concerned with the problem of protecting freedom of speech.

We countered his reasoning with the fact that the services advertised were illegal and he was not required by law to accept ads that were legal or otherwise. His paper was earning money as a result of the ads that the other publishers were sacrificing.

Mr. Schenkler was adamant about both his concern about eliminating sex trafficking and what he considered his responsibility to protect freedom of the press by taking the ads. He offered to give me space in his paper to write about the problem of violence against women and sex trafficking.

I regret to say that after writing an article (with the approval of the other two members of the committee), the editor refused to print it because he was disappointed with the content. Mr. Schenkler refuses to stop accepting the offensive ads!

The celebration of the Center’s 25th anniversary on April 28, 2012, has unexpectedly brought the issue into focus. The Center has invited as its honorees two public officials, Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley and Assemblywoman Grace Meng because of their concern and repeated positions of women’s rights and against violence against women. The sudden vacancy of a congressional seat in the new 6th Assembly District produced two honorees who became candidates for the same seat! But the issue which became explosive was an attack on me by an anonymous writer for honoring one of the candidates, Grace Meng, who was using the publishing company of the Queens Tribune in her campaign and therefore subsidizing sex trafficking. By associating this unexpected coincidence, the writer accused me of lending my support for sex trafficking!

Although I believed the writer’s logic was flawed, I did contact Grace Meng who, to her credit, had a meeting with Michael Schenkler.

I am writing this article because I believe that the result was a poor response by the Queens Tribune. As a legislator, Grace Meng promised to try to get legislation passed to license massage parlors and escort services so that the publishing of such services would be illegal. Mr. Schenkler thinks that is an ideal solution and suggests that the center and similar organizations should work very hard to get this passed. According to his reasoning, he doesn’t violate free speech by taking these ads. Meantime he can continue to make money and publish all the ads he wants!

First of all, I liken this solution to many difficult problems in Congress when they appoint a committee to study a problem and then forget about it!

Second of all, Grace Meng and other women legislators have had press conferences trying to prevent the national Violence Against Women Law to get continued without removing some of the guarantees for immigrant women that already exist. While we are in favor of a New York State law with guarantees for immigrant women, the passage of such laws take a very long time and the abuse of women is happening daily and right in our own neighborhoods!

The third reason we are disappointed with this meeting is that Michael Schenkler refuses to take any responsibility for his practices. He gives everyone else the job of solving the problem.


He refuses to be part of the solution. A new law will not prevent his ads from promoting “Hot Asian Kisses,” or “sweet Asian girls @$50.00 per hour.” They don’t even mention massages! These are all obvious ads for sex without mentioning the word “sex.” In the words of a famous Supreme Court decision about obscenity, “you know it when you see it.”

All we ask you to do, Michael Schenkler, is to think about your community and the lives of these young girls and women and stop taking the money and printing the ads. Live up to the standards of our most prestigious newspaper in our country, the New York Times and their motto, “All the News that Fit to Print!”

Ann Jawin,
Founder, Center For the Women of New York, Kew Gardens

A gem of an editorial, part 2

From the Queens Chronicle:

Last week my son took copies of the Chronicle to his second-grade class for a project he had. If my newspaper ran adult services ads, I would be embarrassed for him to bring it to school. I would be ashamed to show his teachers and classmates what I do for a living. Does the management of the Tribune feel any shame?

Some have said that the Queens Chronicle must be supporting Lancman or Halloran and that our coverage has been “biased.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Grace came into the Chronicle offices last Friday for an interview, as we are planning to have with all of the major candidates in the race. Readers can view the story about her interview in this edition or at qchron.com. She is certainly qualified to represent our great borough. We may or may not endorse in this race. The decision will be made after all the candidates are interviewed.

“Not 4 Publication,” is the title of Schenkler’s column every week. I humbly suggest that it is the “adult services” ads in the classified section that are really “not for publication” in a community newspaper.

In closing, I hope that Schenkler will invoke the last word of his headline — “Leadership” — by taking a stand for women in Queens and ending the running of these despicable ads.

Meng supporter says sex ads are 1st Amendment right

Excerpt from Nadler/Maloney press release:

U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY) today sent a letter to Village Voice Media, LLC expressing concerns about the frequency with which that company's Backpage.com website is used to advertise minors and trafficked persons and urging it to shut down its notorious "adult services" section.

In a statement accompanying the release of the joint letter, whose full text is included below, Congresswoman Maloney said: "Law enforcement authorities and anti-trafficking advocates agree that the adult services section of Village Voice's Backpage.com is the single busiest online marketplace for the sexual trafficking of minors and trafficking victims anywhere in the United States. It is high time the Voice lived up to its reputation as a beacon of progressivism, and shut down this cesspool." Rep. Maloney serves as Co-Chair of the bipartisan Congressional Human Trafficking Caucus, which works to educate people about the reality of the trade in human lives and toward its eradication.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler said, “The Village Voice must ensure that it is not in any way assisting in the horrific business of sex trafficking. Clearly Backpage.com has not done enough to prevent human trafficking on its site. They should shut down their adult services page immediately, before it is used by criminals to further promote human trafficking.”

Excerpt Bob Turner press release:

Congressman Bob Turner (NY-09) introduced House Resolution 646 putting pressure on Backpage.com, which is owned by Village Voice Media, to eliminate the adult entertainment section of their classified ad website. Many cases have been reported of the site being used for the sex trafficking of young boys and girls as well as adult prostitution.

“The adult section of Backpage.com has been shown to be a hub for the despicable act of human trafficking. We cannot allow the site to continue to serve as a means of advertisement for criminals and sexual predators. The executives at Village Voice Media cannot continue making a profit off of this illegal activity. This section of Backpage.com should be taken down immediately.”

What about the Trib?

Dear Editor (Queens Chronicle):

Your article “Meng knew firm’s ties to adult ads” (May 3, multiple editions) about the Queens Tribune newspaper printing ads promoting “Adult services” while having a consulting and printing firm, Multi-Media, had important information missing. The information that was missing was that Congressman Gary Ackerman is a part-owner of the Tribune.

There is certainly something wrong with this picture. While Meng and others were testifying in front of Congress to pass a bill that would end the exploitation of non speaking women, trafficking, and prostitution, the congressman’s newspaper “featured 37 ads promoting adult services, including 23 promoting the use of Asian women.”

The congressman started the Tribune in the 1970s and continues to have a stake in it.

Would publishing those ads be called procuring?

Here is just another example of a congressperson putting monies before morals and the protection of women.

Joyce Shepard, CSW
Bayside

Does he still own a stake in it? Not sure. Let's see what Schenkler has to say...

From the Queens Tribune:

Although I don’t speak for the Assemblywoman, I believe we agree on certain basic issues.

1) We both respect and advocate for the rights of women.

2) We both will take whatever steps that are within our power to end sex trafficking here and/or abroad.

3) We both recognize that “freedom of speech” is a cherished constitutional right that must not be trampled.

4) That “commercial speech” is speech and as such, should be respected, protected and not trampled.

5) The responsibility of righting societal wrongs rests with the legislature – in New York State, the State Legislature.

Therefore, Assemblywoman Meng and I agreed to cooperatively develop a legislative solution to address the concerns that some women’s groups have about newspaper advertising and sex trafficking.

Last time I checked, the Queens Tribune was a privately owned newspaper and therefore could print or censor whatever it chose to. In other words, no one is forcing them to print whore ads for money. I doubt that Schenk would print an ad that said, "Hitman for hire" or "Heroin for sale."

And if the whore ads are "protected speech," then how would Meng be able to legislate against them? His entire editorial makes no sense whatsoever and was a laughable attempt to try to downplay the fact that Meng hired someone to run her campaign that makes money off the exploitation of women - most notably, Asian women.

Photo from the Queens Tribune

Meng lies about her relationship with Multimedia

Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:55:30 -0700
From: centerwny@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Sexual exploitation of women in Queens
To: georgetheatheist@hotmail.com

Thank you for contacting me about the use of Grace Meng of the Multi=media company which is connected with the Queens Tribune.

If you have followed our Women's Center activities, you would know that we have had a campaign against the use of community newspapers for exploiting women and featuring ads that encourage prostitution.

I learned of the fact that Grace Meng is using this company through an editorial of the Queens Chronicle. Mark Weidler, the publisher, was the first one to cooperate with the Center's campaign to voluntary agree never to publish these ads!

I do not know if Grace Meng is aware of the connection with her campaign advisors and the Queens Tribune. I have left message for Assembly Meng today to talk to her in her district office. She is probably in Albany and it may take a day or two for me to reach her.

I respect Grace Meng and have heard her champion rights for women and I do not for a minute believe that she is aware of the connection. I do not want to harm her campaign and believe she has the right to be informed of the issues.

I appreciate your letter and your efforts. You can be of enormous help by sending your complaint to her. I can assure you that I will follow up. I am personally acquainted with all of the Democratic candidates for the Congressional seat. They all are very sensitive to the issue of sex trafficking and domestic violence and have concern for women's rights.

The issue needs to get public attention and we have to raise the public awareness of the exploitation of women for the sake of advertising dollars!

Let us see what her response will be. Thanks for your concern on this issue.

Ann Jawin
Center for the Women of New York (CWNY)
Queens Borough Hall
120-55 Queens Boulevard, Room 325
Kew Gardens, NY 11424
Phone 718 793 0672
Fax 718 793 0020
___________________________________________________

Subject: Fwd: Assemblywoman Meng & Sex-trafficking
From: gracemeng@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:08:04 -0400
To: georgetheatheist@hotmail.com

Multi media is not receiving any consulting fees from my campaign. They are printing some of our posters/fliers.

Thank you for inquiring.
Sent from my iPhone


___________________________________________________

What does that mean? Why exactly does Meng feel compelled to use Multimedia for her printing considering their seedy rep and connection to sex trafficking ads?

Let's recall the Queens Chronicle's March 29th editorial:

The Meng campaign just hired Multi-Media, the consulting firm the Tribune claims acts independently of the newspaper, even though it’s headed by the paper’s associate publisher, Michael Nussbaum.

So what does she get for hiring Multi-Media? Political advice, mailers and, just maybe, last week’s Tribune front page, which focused on Meng’s “making history” with her campaign (she’s Asian, you see), and relegated her competitors to inset-style photos.

And let's also revisit the first paragraph from a recent City and State article:

A spokesman for Assemblywoman Grace Meng’s congressional campaign confirmed this morning that its main campaign consultant, Michael Nussbaum, urged a Jewish state committeeman in Queens to run for the same congressional seat as Meng.

Why would someone who's "just a printer" be contacting other candidates and asking them to be vote splitters?

From City and State:

Assemblywoman Grace Meng unveiled her congressional campaign team today, which is notable as much for those involved as it is for those not.

Team Meng includes the following:

Multi-Media, Strategist and Consultant; Michael Nussbaum, executive vice president and associate publisher of the Queens Tribune, is the principle at Multi-Media. The Tribune was founded by Congressman Ackerman back in 1970.

GRACE MENG IS A TERRIBLE LIAR.

I threw in Jawin's "Grace must not know" response for comic relief. I could see how she could miss these ads in the Trib every week:


Why does this "women's group" have a boro hall office address unless they are an arm of the Queens Machine?

Pols outraged over backpage.com, but not the Trib

From CBS New York:

Lawmakers held an emotional hearing Wednesday, calling on Village Voice Media to shut down the adult section of its classifieds website.

City Council members choked back tears as a girl named “Briana,” now 13, testified from behind a screen. She described her ordeal as a 12-year-old sex slave being advertised on Backpage by her friend’s brother.

Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras’ voice grew loud as the attorney for Village Voice Media testified that keeping the site up helped identify missing and exploited children.

“You’re making a profit off these pimps putting these girls on your website,” Ferreras said.

The Gateways Progam’s director even testified Wednesday that 75 percent of the young women in the program have been trafficked on Backpage.

Brooklyn DA Charles “Joe” Hynes also testified that 70 percent of his sex trafficking cases come from Backpage.

Why wasn't the Queens Tribune put on the hot seat at the hearing? Could it be because all the pols on the council kiss Schenkler's ass in return for endorsements and positive coverage? Or because the tweeders hire Multimedia for their campaigns?

They pimped more than just their rides

From the NY Post:

A father and son from Queens ran a lucrative — and cruel — brothel on wheels for two decades, using six livery drivers to deliver hookers to hotels and apartments, Manhattan prosecutors said today in announcing the ring’s breakup.

In a sick twist, the dad, Vincent George, Sr., 55, not only taught Vincent, Jr., 33, how to pimp, but may at one point have either employed his own daughter as a hooker or pawned her off on yet another pimp, prosecutors said, declining to elaborate.

Johns on the go could purchase and enjoy a sex act without ever leaving the back seat, officials said of the operation, quoting the price scale at $200 to $500 per customer.

Business was good — one woman alone allegedly earned half-a-million dollars for the father and son last year, and the Georges employed five women at the time of the bust, officials said.

But as nice as they were to customers, the alleged father and son pimps were nasty to their prostitutes, threatening them, giving them little money so as to keep them helpless and even branding them with tattoos — including a bar code on one woman’s neck, according to officials.

The father and son “trafficked” their women from Queens and from Allentown, Pa., into the city, forcing them to solicit Johns at upscale hotel bars and outside of strip clubs, officials said.

The women were made to pass out cards reading “Professional Masseuse,” according to court documents.

Placing blame where it belongs

From the NY Times:

After Alissa testified against her pimps, six of them went to prison for up to 25 years. Yet these days, she reserves her greatest anger not at pimps but at companies that enable them. She is particularly scathing about Backpage.com, a classified advertising Web site that is used to sell auto parts, furniture, boats — and girls. Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.

“You can’t buy a child at Wal-Mart, can you?” she asked me. “No, but you can go to Backpage and buy me on Backpage.”

Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of prostitution advertising among five Web sites that carry such ads in the United States, earning more than $22 million annually from prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a media research and consulting company. It is now the premier Web site for human trafficking in the United States, according to the National Association of Attorneys General. And it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media, which also owns the estimable Village Voice newspaper.

Attorneys general from 48 states have written a joint letter to Village Voice Media, pleading with it to get out of the flesh trade. An online petition at Change.org has gathered 94,000 signatures asking Village Voice Media to stop taking prostitution advertising. Instead, the company has used The Village Voice to mock its critics. Alissa thought about using her real name for this article but decided not to for fear that Village Voice would retaliate.

Court records and public officials back Alissa’s account, and there is plenty of evidence that under-age girls are marketed on Backpage. Arrests in such cases have been reported in at least 22 states.

What those little cards really represent

From the Daily News:

A Mexican man pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to working for the family business — an international sex trafficking ring that goes back generations.

Angel Cortez Granados, 25, admitted Friday he wooed a woman and brought her to the U.S. as his “girlfriend” only to enslave her as a Queens prostitute traveling from john to john in a livery cab.

“I threatened her, telling her that she was alone in this country, that nobody would help her, so that she would work as a prostitute,” Granados told Federal Judge Cheryl Pollak.

He said he warned the victim, identified only as Esperanza, that he would call the cops if she didn’t follow orders.

“Since she didn’t have any papers, (I was) scaring her with the possibility of going to jail,” he said.

Six other members of the Los Granados ring have been charged in New York, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Pamela Chen.

The pimps often partner with livery drivers based out of Roosevelt Ave. in Jackson Heights, Queens, where promoters hand out cards and even bottle openers advertising sexy girls for “delivery,” she said.

Mobsters busted for human smuggling

From NY1:

Immigration and law enforcement officials have arrested and charged 20 people, including five Queens residents and three Brooklyn residents, in connection with a human trafficking operation that allegedly brought women from Russia and Eastern Europe and forced them to dance in various strip clubs in the city.

The charges, which were unveiled today at Federal Plaza in Downtown Manhattan, allege that four members of the Gambino crime family and three members of the Bonnano crime family worked with Russian collaborators to bring the victimized women into the country on work and travel visas.

Once the women were brought into the country, they were forced to work as exotic dancers.

Visa rules forbid employment in adult entertainment.

Authorities conducted raids for evidence early this morning at clubs where the women were allegedly forced to strip, including Cheetah's Gentlemen's Club on 43rd Street in Midtown and Gallagher's in Long Island City, Queens.

Other women were forced to marry men in Binghamton, N.Y.

The 20 defendants are facing varying charges, including visa fraud, marriage fraud, racketeering, extortion and transporting, harboring and inducing the entry of illegal aliens.