But CEOs, top bankers and lawyers in shame list are not prosecuted
10 February 2009
You have read about how the fat cats in Wall Street were using company funds to splurge on lavish parties and even expensive holidays.
Here’s another instance of excesses that will cause more people to see red - top lawyers, investment bankers, CEOs and media executives apparently used their corporate credit cards to pay for sex with high-class prostitutes who charged US$2,000 ($3,000) an hour.
The revelation of the sleaze came from a woman who ran one of New York’s biggest and most expensive escort services until it was busted last year.
But prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office chose not to pursue any of the corporate titans, says Kristin Davis, who pleaded guilty last year to charges of running a prostitution business that used more than a hundred women.
In an interview with ABC News, Davis said: ‘Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards.
‘I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants.’
A spokesman for district attorney Robert Morgenthau denied to comment on the case or Davis’ allegations.
To support her story, she provided ABC News with a print-out of her computerised client list, the same one she says that was offered to the district attorney.
The document shows Davis kept meticulous notes about her clients, their credit card numbers and mobile phone numbers.
Some of her clients reportedly included the CEO of one of the country’s largest private equity firms and a major New York real estate developer who, according to the list, ‘will come to the door wearing women’s panties’ and who spent nearly US$100,000.
The ‘shame’ list also included an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who reportedly had four girls on the same day.
Davis says one CEO ordered her to send him invoices for ‘roof repair on a warehouse’ to disguise the payment for prostitutes from corporate funds.
She operated her escort service as a prostitution conglomerate, with five different ‘brands’ over a four year period, each with its own ‘price point’ and websites.
She recruited top fashion models who charged up to US$2,000 an hour.
Her lower cost services charged US$400 an hour for a ‘body rub’.
Good business
The ‘best little whorehouse on Wall Street’ was located just a few blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. The escort business took in as much as US$200,000 a week, Davis estimated.
She was busted last year in the crackdown that followed the revelation that then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was client #9 of a rival escort service.
Ms Patricia Pileggi, a defence attorney who has represented a Madam, said that targeting the Madam and not the clients does nothing to deter prostitution.
‘The DA’s office has some ability to prosecute the clients. If there’s a real interest in deterring this kind of conduct you don’t simply target the Madam, you make an effort to target the clients as well.’
Ms Pileggi added that there is a provision for the different degrees of culpability in the law: ‘She was prosecuted for a felony and the clients would be guilty of misdemeanours.’
She says she has not yet decided whether to release the full client list to the public.
1 comment:
Wall Street execs put sex on company tabs
But CEOs, top bankers and lawyers in shame list are not prosecuted
10 February 2009
You have read about how the fat cats in Wall Street were using company funds to splurge on lavish parties and even expensive holidays.
Here’s another instance of excesses that will cause more people to see red - top lawyers, investment bankers, CEOs and media executives apparently used their corporate credit cards to pay for sex with high-class prostitutes who charged US$2,000 ($3,000) an hour.
The revelation of the sleaze came from a woman who ran one of New York’s biggest and most expensive escort services until it was busted last year.
But prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office chose not to pursue any of the corporate titans, says Kristin Davis, who pleaded guilty last year to charges of running a prostitution business that used more than a hundred women.
In an interview with ABC News, Davis said: ‘Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards.
‘I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants.’
A spokesman for district attorney Robert Morgenthau denied to comment on the case or Davis’ allegations.
To support her story, she provided ABC News with a print-out of her computerised client list, the same one she says that was offered to the district attorney.
The document shows Davis kept meticulous notes about her clients, their credit card numbers and mobile phone numbers.
Some of her clients reportedly included the CEO of one of the country’s largest private equity firms and a major New York real estate developer who, according to the list, ‘will come to the door wearing women’s panties’ and who spent nearly US$100,000.
The ‘shame’ list also included an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who reportedly had four girls on the same day.
Davis says one CEO ordered her to send him invoices for ‘roof repair on a warehouse’ to disguise the payment for prostitutes from corporate funds.
She operated her escort service as a prostitution conglomerate, with five different ‘brands’ over a four year period, each with its own ‘price point’ and websites.
She recruited top fashion models who charged up to US$2,000 an hour.
Her lower cost services charged US$400 an hour for a ‘body rub’.
Good business
The ‘best little whorehouse on Wall Street’ was located just a few blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. The escort business took in as much as US$200,000 a week, Davis estimated.
She was busted last year in the crackdown that followed the revelation that then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was client #9 of a rival escort service.
Ms Patricia Pileggi, a defence attorney who has represented a Madam, said that targeting the Madam and not the clients does nothing to deter prostitution.
‘The DA’s office has some ability to prosecute the clients. If there’s a real interest in deterring this kind of conduct you don’t simply target the Madam, you make an effort to target the clients as well.’
Ms Pileggi added that there is a provision for the different degrees of culpability in the law: ‘She was prosecuted for a felony and the clients would be guilty of misdemeanours.’
She says she has not yet decided whether to release the full client list to the public.
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