Palpitus wrote:
gbaji wrote:
That's not the madam's point. Her point is that she's using her business list for her legal escort business as blackmail to try to wiggle out of her illegal prostitution operation.
Hm, no. Didn't you see his "confession" of a sin? Massage, going out to dinner, aren't sins. That confession plus his name on a list of clients plus her service being prosecuted for prostitution = a serious investigation at the least, holding the Senator for questioning/arrest at the most.
Um... Not all sins are illegal. You are aware that to many strongly religious folk, going to a strip club is a sin, right? That's not illegal.
Hiring an escort isn't illegal either. But might be frowned upon by the wife. Hence the "sin" statement.
That's not to say I'm assuming that he didn't pay for a prostitute. My point is that we can't assume that based on the information we've been presented. The list of names the madam handed to ABC were specifically from the "legal" escort service she ran. We can speculate that *some* of those names may or may not have been involved in illegal activities, but we can't make an assumption just because a particular name appeared on that list.
Remember, her alleged purpose for sending that list of names to ABC was *not* to provide evidence of illegal activity. The purpose was to show the list of her "legal" clients, supposedly so that they'd step up and stand up in support of her allegation that she's running a completely legal business and that the charges of prostitution are bogus. Of course, we all know just how well that will ever work, so it's pretty obvious that the real point is that she's releasing a small number of names as a threat that she'll release a larger number if someone doesn't magically make her problems go away.
None of those names on the list can be detailing truely illegal behavior, or she'd be condemning herself (admitting to running a prostitution ring). She's playing some semantic games to maximize the effect of what she's doing, but she can't actually say "this is a list of people who purchased prostitutes from me", or she sinks her own boat. Of course, she can *imply* that that's what they are, and the media will do her strongarming for her...
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You can't publicly imply you screwed some chick who worked at an escort service under investigation for prostitution and not expect to get arrested or questioned for it. Oh wait, in this case you can because her point is valid. The laws are not universally enforced.
Publically "imply"? Um... I can walk right up to a police officer right now and imply that I smoked a big bong of pot last weekend and he'll probably laugh and tell me to make sure to keep it off the streets. I could regail the same police officer about how many hookers I bought during my MJ binge as well. Same result.
Like it or not, these are vice offenses. Vice rules work differently. They have to pretty much catch you in the act, or there's no crime. Someone claiming that someone else hired a hooker is going to be a pretty impossible sell to any judge. Of course, it sells quite well in the media if the person involved is a celebrity or politician.
Again. Don't take any of this to mean I magically know that this particular person didn't hire a hooker and have sex with her. I have no way to know that. I'm just saying that the information presented in the article does not present suffficient information to be charging him with a crime. The only way that's going to happen is if she does get nailed and does decide to testify about which names are associated with illegal activities. And unless she's got another hidden set of files somewhere with actual transaction records and lists of "services", I'm not sure how well that will work. Because the escort service was a legal business. We have to assume that the set of books for that business are "clean", or she'd be in much hotter water then she is already.