Sting targets newspaper selling escort ads

ORLANDO, Fla. - For years, the back pages of the Orlando Weekly were filled with ads for naughty nurses, sultry coeds and girls with come-hither names like “Rush” and “Roxie.”

But the saucy escort-service advertising came to a halt last month.

Vice squad officers arrested three of the paper’s advertising sales reps in a sting operation and secured an extraordinary racketeering indictment against the Weekly, accusing it of knowingly profiting from prostitution.


The free alternative paper is calling the arrests an assault on the First Amendment - an argument that might not fly in court, given that investigators say they videotaped Weekly employees selling ad space to undercover officers who openly claimed to be prostitutes.

“We couldn’t believe how easy it was to say, ‘We’re a prostitute. I want to put out an ad,’ ” said Paul Zambouros, commander of the vice and organized crime section at the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation.IDIOTS. How are these people, these little ones who have such a strong grasp on the english language, our law enforcers?.

Escort-service ads are common in the nation’s alternative newspapers and bring in big money. Richard Karpel, executive director of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, said he has heard of only one other similar case, and it involved only one employee and no charges against the newspaper.