School Teacher Arrested for Prostitution Speaks Out

NEWS ALERT Contact: Katya Komisaruk, Attorney
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 12/11/03

School Teacher Arrested for Prostitution Speaks Out

A plea bargain has been reached in the case of Shannon Williams, the 37-year-old former Berkeley High School teacher charged with prostitution. Ms. Williams’s arrest last August brought the issue of decriminalizing prostitution into national focus. Today in court the charge of prostitution was dismissed and Ms. Williams, who pled no contest to disturbing the peace, was sentenced to unsupervised probation.

Statement of Shannon Williams
In the midst of this difficult experience, I have been uplifted by the support of so many people: school administrators, other teachers, students and their parents, my friends and family, the activist community, and other sex workers. However, this case has put a great deal of pressure on those who care about me, so I have decided not to prolong it, since I have raised the issues that are most important to me:
• I chose to do sex work as a second job because it made good business sense. I was able to work for myself, choose my own hours, choose whom I worked with, take as much time off as I wanted, and get paid well for my time.

• Where prostitution is legal, sex workers receive the same police protection as other citizens. But where prostitution continues to be criminalized, any predator knows that he can attack, rob, rape, or kill a sex worker and no one will come looking for him. And that’s what the Green River Killer said, in explaining why he murdered 48 sex workers.

• This year, in Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sex between consenting adults in private is not the government’s business. Eventually, the Supreme Court will rule that paid for sex between consenting adults in private is not the government’s business.