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View Full Version : SF-based escort website MyRedbook seized by FBI, 2 arrested



Bobzz
07-01-2014, 12:20 AM
Did someone else post this already? Sorry if it's a dupe.

The San Francisco-based escort website MyRedbook.com was shut down by federal authorities Wednesday.

Eric Omuro, 53, and Annmarie Lanoce, 40, were arrested during a FBI raid at a home in Mountain View. Both are charged with one count of interstate travel in the aid of a racketeering enterprise, and Omuro is charged with an additional twenty-four counts of money laundering. The suspects were arraigned in federal court in San Francisco this afternoon.

At Wednesday's court session, Lanoce pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released by Judge Nathanael Cousins on a $250,000 unsecured bond, according to the court docket.

Omuro, who did not enter a plea, is due back in Cousins' court at 9:30 a.m. Friday for identification of a defense attorney and entry of a plea. He was released on a $500,000 unsecured bond.

Both were ordered to appear July 10 before U.S. District Judge William Orrick, the trial judge assigned to the case, in San Francisco for a status conference.

Federal prosecutors say the pair used the mail and the Internet to facilitate prostitution. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Omuro ran two websites, sfredbook.com and myredbook.com, with Lanoce's assistance. Both domains were seized by the FBI today.

In a statement posted on MyRedbook's homepage, the FBI said the domain was subject to civil and criminal forfeiture. "This seizure is based on probable cause to believe that this domain name was involved in money laundering derived from racketeering based on prostitution in violation of state and federal law," the statement says.



http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/sf-based-escort-website-myredbook-siezed-by-fbi/Content?oid=2830030

http://www.myredbook.com/

saifan
07-01-2014, 12:47 AM
Yup... posted already.
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=87545

Bobzz
07-01-2014, 04:05 AM
My bad... thanks. Fucking outrageous in any event! The FEDS don't anything better to do? I guess we must have won the war on terrorism.

natina
07-01-2014, 04:47 AM
Backpage.com and the prostitution law that could take down Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia

If you want to pay for sex in the United States — or offer sex services for a fee — and you’d rather not troll derelict city street corners late at night, chances are you’re going to use backpage.com.

Of course, Backpage’s adult classifieds are cloaked in the coy poetry of online sex advertising; you’re searching for an “escort” instead of a “prostitute” or a “full body sensual mutual touch” instead of something more crudely sexual. But recent studies from the Advanced Interactive Media Group (AIMG) cut through coyness to offer at least one blunt statistic: About 70 percent of the revenue generated from online sex transactions in the U.S. goes to Backpage. Last year, AIMG figured Backpage generated around $2 million in revenue every month from online sex sales.

To put it another way: The Village Voice Media-owned online classified ad service could be seen as the main source for online sex in the U.S.

And with Craigslist no longer offering sex services on any of its 700 sites around the world (Craigslist dropped its “adult classifieds” section in 2010), Backpage’s adult market share has nowhere to go but up.

But there’s a hitch. And that hitch not only threatens to put Backpage out of business. It also threatens to completely change the way websites handle third-party content.






While few government agencies seem particularly concerned about the criminal ramifications of adults offering sex with other adults for sale online (prostitution is legal only in some parts of Nevada), at least one high-profile case shined an unflattering light on Backpage for allowing users to traffic children for sex.

That high-profile case involved a 15-year-old from St. Louis identified only as “M.A.”


“Imagine Twitter without real-time posting,” he said. If Washington State’s law is allowed to pass, it “will destroy the user-generated content community.”


http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/18/3093146/backpage-com-prostitution-law-take-down-youtube-twitter-wikipedia