Gay City News: NYC's war on porn shops claiming gay and bisexual victims

FROM THE GAY CITY NEWS:

By Duncan Osborne

Questionable Prostitution Charges Rock Video Stores

The city's continuing war on porn shops has claimed gay and bisexual men as victims as nearly 50 of them have been arrested on questionable prostitution charges in seven Manhattan porn shops over the past four years.

And in lawsuits brought against six of those businesses, the city has cited those prostitution arrests as the primary justification for trying to shut those shops down.

"It seems as though there is a pattern of arresting innocent men in an effort to try and close these places down," said Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old massage therapist who was among 12 men arrested this year in Blue Door Video on First Avenue in the East Village. "It's extremely troubling that the police have so little regard for the gay citizens of New York that they use them as pawns to try and close these porn shops down."

The city sued Blue Door in June after ten men were arrested for prostitution there. The business paid a $2,500 fine and installed video cameras to monitor the premises. Since then, Pinter and a 42-year-old man were arrested, and the city is now seeking to close the shop. Pinter denies that he engaged in prostitution and forcefully disputed the account of a policeman involved in his arrest.

The 42-year-old man is contesting his case while the rest pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and received small fines and minor sentences. Those arrest records will eventually be sealed, which suggests they had not been arrested before. For most defendants, such deals are the quickest and easiest way to make the cases end.

Also this year, police arrested four men at BH Connections at 557 Eighth Avenue, two men at the DVD & Video Center at 218 West 35th Street, and six men at Gotham City at 687 Eighth Avenue. All the men were charged with prostitution.

The city sued these three Midtown West businesses. In an agreement with the city, the DVD & Video Center was closed in July while the other two remain open. The men were not named in those suits, so Gay City News was unable to determine the disposition of these 12 cases.

In October, one man was arrested outside the Rainbow Store at 207 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea after allegedly agreeing, inside the store, to have sex for $60 with an undercover officer from the Manhattan South vice squad who made some of the arrests in Blue Door. That man pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Rainbow Store has not been sued by the city.

~ ~ ~
For the entire post, please CLICK HERE.
~ ~ ~

NOTICE: This posting is meant as a courtesy to the LGBT community at large to direct individuals to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender items of interest. We do not post full articles, so if you wish to read an entire story you should follow the link to its original author/publisher. We in no way, stated or unstated, claim to be the authors of any content posted here unless we say so explicitly. All content should be considered intellectual property of the original publisher, and should not be redistributed without full back-links and proper citations.

BE SURE TO CHECK OUT OUR OTHER NEWS LINK SITES:
On Wordpress: 1 ||| 2 ||| 3 ||| 4 ||| 5 ||| 6 ||| 7 ||| 8 ||| 9 |||
On Blogger: 1 ||| 2 ||| 3 ||| 4 ||| 5 ||| 6 ||| 7 ||| 8 ||| 9