NYC Madams Profit From Oldest Profession

More than two decades after her high-priced service was shut down, police are cracking down on a new generation of Manhattan madams who allegedly became wealthy by running prostitution rings for big spenders. And like Mayflower Madam Sydney Biddle Barrows, one of them wonders what all the fuss is about.

"It's the oldest game in town," Julie Moya said before surrendering to a vice squad late last month. "We don't hurt anyone. We just offer pleasure."

Also last month, Jason Itzler, 27, a New Jersey law school graduate, was arrested at a swank Manhattan hotel and charged with making a fortune by selling sex. In December, Jennifer Paulino, 44, was accused of raking in millions of dollars through pricey prostitutes.

Prostitution "has become the crime du jour," said Moya's attorney, Dan Ollen.

"There's a tremendous amount of money involved," said Inspector James P. O'Neill, head of the New York Police Department's vice enforcement division.

Streetwalking has waned in the Big Apple, but Internet sex has flourished. In each of the three recent cases, the defendants used provocative Web sites to advertise their escorts and arranged dates by phone, authorities said.

Itzler's NY Confidential service offered customers "The Ultimate Girlfriends experience." A date with one of his 100 escorts didn't come cheap: Authorities say one agreed to have sex with an undercover officer for $990 at a fancy hotel, billed to a credit card under "Gotham Steaks."

Paulino allegedly made $2.5 million over five years -- enough to afford a condominium in a Donald Trump high-rise on the Upper East Side and a vacation home in Miami. She and other defendants kept records with names of rich customers willing to pay up to $2,500 an hour for prostitutes who could pass for lingerie models, police said.

Although escort services can operate for years without attracting attention from law enforcement, some operations have been exposed after annoying neighbors, not paying taxes, dealing drugs and, in Moya's case, allegedly employing underage girls.

Investigators say Moya, the madam of an escort service known as Julie's of New York City, provided a 15-year-old prostitute with fake identification and told her she "had to be a thoroughbred," which meant having unprotected sex and doing drugs with johns, said prosecutor Matthew Brassiur. He said Moya made $3 million to $6 million a year while telling people she ran a catering business.

"I'm sure she wasn't referring to food," he said.

Moya faces up to 15 years in prison; Paulino could get 25 if convicted of both prostitution and money-laundering charges. Itzler also faces up to 25 years.

Barrows -- a descendant of an original Plymouth Bay colonist who was dubbed the Mayflower Madam by the tabloids -- ran her brothel like a respectable business, police said at the time. Her call girls were sent to carefully screened clients in apartments and hotel rooms by operators manning a phone bank in her Upper West Side town house; some even carried charge slips and credit-card machines.

Her business acumen was undone by wire taps and other surveillance. "Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn't want your mother to hear at trial," she said.

Barrows pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution, paid a $5,000 fine and wrote an unrepentant memoir.

The 47-year-old Moya, in an interview with the New York Daily News, admitted being a madam. But she also adamantly denied using underage sex workers and suggested authorities were wasting their time by trying to police prostitution.

"It's something that will never stop no matter what," she said. "So if it's run properly, I don't understand why they don't legalize it."
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