Police Sting in Video Store: Gay Entrapment?
A gay New Yorker says he was entrapped and arrested for prostitution by the NYPD as he browsed at a local video shop. The cops say the man offered sexual services to an undercover officer for a fee.
The Gay City News related both sides of the story in an OCt. 30 article.
Robert Pinter, 52, was at Blue Door Video in the East Village when, he says, an attractive young man came up to him.
Describing the young Asian-American, Pinter said, "He is smiling, he's really a cute guy, very friendly."
Added Pinter, "He initiated the conversation and drove the whole conversation."
Pinter's side of the story is that the young man claimed to be 29 and consented to a sexual encounter with Pinter, offering his car as a place for the rendezvous.
As the men left the video store, Pinter said, his new acquaintance made a monetary offer for the encounter that Pinter says they had already agreed would take place.
Said Pinter, "He sort of threw in 'Oh, I want to pay you $50 to suck your dick.'
"When he offered me the money my first thought was he wanted me to pay him the money.
"When I realized that it wasn't that way I thought it wasn't logical."
By then, it was too late: as the men stepped out onto the sidewalk, a number of police officers appeared.
Said Pinter, "At first I thought it was a gang because they didn't say anything, they didn't identify themselves as police."
Added Pinter, "They took my bag, started going through my possessions.
"I must have asked them four or five times, 'Why are you putting me under arrest?'"
Pinter had to wait, handcuffed, in a van as the group of policemen continued their work at various spots in Manhattan.
Then he was booked and charged with prostitution before being arraigned the day after his arrest, the Gay City News item said.
Pinter was advised by a lawyer from the Legal Aid Society to plead guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct; he received an order to go to classes on health, and fined.
The article said that the Manhattan South Vice Enforcement Squad had made other arrests at the video store during 2008, and have made similar arrests in at least one other shop since 2005. At the start of this year, Blue Door Video was the site of ten arrests for alleged prostitution; the shop closed temporarily last summer.
The article said that one aspect of the arrests was consistent across the board: the arrests took place after the undercover officer broached the subject of payment.
The article quoted Legal Aid senior staff attorney Russell Novack, who said that some of the arrests at Blue Door were of European men.
Said Novack, "I really don't think that European tourists are coming down to the Bowery to be prostitutes."
Added the lawyer, "The police send undercovers in there to solicit guys."
Other men allegedly guilty of prostituting themselves at Blue Door included a 19-year-old from Virginia and a California man, aged 53.
The article said that all ten men arrested in Jan. and Feb. of this year did as Pinter did, and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, because that was the least expensive way both in terms of time and money to clear the matter up.
The records of all those arrests will be sealed in 2010, the article said, disappearing from public view.
But the question is whether the police are luring and then entrapping gay men in the first place.
Said Legal Aid supervising attorney Linda Poust Lopez, "You really do have to walk away" in order not to get arrested and charged with prostitution in such a case.
"Say very clearly 'No, thank you' and walk away," Lopez advised.
In response to inquiries about the arrests, NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne wrote in an email message, "Robert Pinter was arrested for prostitution on October 10 after he asked the officer how much money he had, and then offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $50."
Continued the email, "The location, Blue Door Video, has been the subject of prostitution complaints previously.
"It's currently enjoined by the court from conducting, permitting, or promoting prostitution."
Added the message, "Blue Door Video and the landlord paid $2,500 in settlement costs stemming from the injunction."