Rentboy shut down---7 emplyees arrested

[fedssocr1]

calling the site an "escort agency" seems like a pretty big stretch.

 

Are they going after straight escort sites as well?

It's comforting to know that there's no real crime happening in NY so they had all of these extra resources to put on this case.

[JDXXX]

I'm wondering if the FEDS are only focusing or targeting the escorts and clients in NYC or all across the globe since they are a Worldwide site.

[+ augustus]

I'm wondering if the FEDS are only focusing or targeting the escorts and clients in NYC or all across the globe since they are a Worldwide site.

 

Probably only local to NYC. But be very careful not to say anything provocative, as the Feds are monitoring this website. This website was mentioned in at least 2 newspaper articles. Have you affairs in order (tax wise, for example) and watch what you text and email. You can assert your legal rights and make an opinion but don't say anything nasty about the prosecutors or law people. They can be vindictive.

[Lawkid3889]

Hey Lawkid, do you have any idea why this indictment was unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court, which is in the Eastern District, and not in Manhattan Federal Court, which is in the Southern District? The Rentboy offices are in lower Manhattan.

 

~ Boomer ~

 

The indictments says the activities were "within the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere". The first few profiles they quote are from Brooklyn as well. It's really up to them to choose the forum since its federal law being broken and if they can get a judge to sign a search warrant there. The defense could also move for change of venue but I doubt it.

 

If you recall, the big FIFA indictments also came out of EDNY and I promise none of those guys were hanging out in Brooklyn or Long Island.

[LookingAround]

The risk is nil. They may need to subpoena some clients and escorts to prove that prostitution took place, but there are tens of thousands of them out there. Just say nothing. You have the right to remain silent. My guess is that the Feds have already collared the witnesses they want. You haven't done anything evil.

 

If you're one of the "some clients and escorts to prove.." You're risk isn't nil.

[dutchal]

This is a federal investigation. Prostitution per se is not against federal law, you have to move money or a person across state lines as part of it. So, unless you've done that, you have at most the state authorities to worry about.

 

While the U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the president, it is highly unlikely that the White House knew anything about this. There are almost 100 U.S. Attorney's offices in the country (four in New York State), each with hundreds of cases and hundreds more investigations going on at any given time. It is simply impossible for the president to be involved or even know about any of them except the very biggest and the most sensitive.

 

Prosecutors make their careers by making headlines, getting convictions, and collecting big money. Cases that offer all three are irresistible. If you read today's NY Times story, it looks like Rentboy got big and careless and managed to turn themselves into low hanging fruit, and the feds snapped.

[Kenny]

Is that the office our new Attorney General came out of?

 

Kevin Slater

Yes, it is.

[+ WilliamM]

Wow. I usually stay out of the politics forum, and now I see why. This thread is getting really nasty, really fast. Please take it outside, boys.

 

Augustus does not post in the politics forum -- at least not yet

[+ Charlie]

I wonder how many non-U.S. citizens who have come to the U.S. and have advertised on Rentboy are going to find it much more difficult to get visas now, if the govt. can connect their real names to their Rentboy identities through their payments for ads.

[fedssocr1]

http://reason.com/blog/2015/08/25/six-thoughts-on-the-rentboycom-bust-from

[+ quoththeraven]

According to the complaint, Soto Decker, the accountant who is the last-named defendant, was the named beneficiary of two applications for an H-1B non-immigrant employment visa, one from 2010 and another from 2013, sponsored by Easy Rent Systems, Inc., the corporation doing business as Rentboy.com. The applications had to have been made by Easy Rent or by attorneys on its behalf.

 

Why attachments to the applications delved so deeply into its business practices is unclear, but applications for such visas require documentation about the position for which the visa is requested and the employer making the request. Either they made an unwise choice as to what to attach or there wasn't anything discreet to use. Given the openness with which the place operated, it wouldn't surprise me if it were the latter. As a non-public, presumably closely-held company, Easy Rent wouldn't have an innocuous annual report to use for this purpose.

 

It also wouldn't surprise me if the H-1B applications were how DHS, under whose wing all immigration functions now shelter, got involved to begin with. The timing fits. We don't know for sure how long the investigation has been going on, but it can't have been longer than Ruiz's DHS career, which began in 2010. The first H1-B application was also in 2010. But perhaps it didn't begin until the subsequent 2013 H-1B application. (H-1B visas last for three years and don't renew automatically; they also can't last more than six years in total for a specific employee.)

 

If that is the case, Easy Rent may have bought itself this trouble. It also raises the question of how an H-1B visa, which requires a demonstration that no US applicants were available, applied to an accounting position in Manhattan, of all places. It shouldn't be because the employer was unwilling to offer a decent salary because payment of prevailing wages is a condition of the program and something the sponsoring employer must demonstrate.

 

Yup, I did immigration work for awhile until we got more attorneys on board who knew what they were doing. Not my favorite area of the law because what was then INS (now ICE) was more secretive and arbitrary than the IRS, the government agency I had the most experience with.

[+ Gar1eth]

H-1B visas last for three years and don't renew automatically; they also can't last more than six years in total for a specific employee.

 

Not that there is any reason I should know. But I didn't know that. I would have thought they were infinitely renewable.

 

Gman

[+ quoththeraven]

Which, of course, raises the question of what Soto's status has been since 2013 - since he appears to still be employed by Easy Rent Systems - even though it doesn't sound like his H-1B visa was renewed in 2013.

 

This is starting to sound like an immigration matter that somehow managed to morph into something else.

 

My assumption would be that it was renewed. But I agree there's a good chance this started as an immigration investigation that snowballed, so to speak.

[+ quoththeraven]

Not that there is any reason I should know. But I didn't know that. I would have thought they were infinitely renewable.

 

Gman

 

They're non-immigrant visas. Meaning they don't lead to permanent residence or the like. Just the opposite, in fact. So they would never be infinitely renewable.

[+ purplekow]

Again, another one with a comprehension problem. Where did I say BO is overseeing this investigation?

I feel that the comprehension problem is yours. I never said that you said he was overseeing the investigation. I said that the President oversees the DOJ as God oversees the Baseball game. Technically but not directly and most likely not in an interested manner. I can make this simpler for you if you are still confused.

[+ Gar1eth]

Not that there is any reason I should know. But I didn't know that. I would have thought they were infinitely renewable.

 

Gman

 

They're non-immigrant visas. Meaning they don't lead to permanent residence or the like. Just the opposite, in fact. So they would never be infinitely renewable.

 

I meant infinitely renewable as long as the job qualified one for the visa.

 

Gman

[+ José Soplanucas]

I meant infinitely renewable as long as the job qualified one for the visa.

 

Gman

As an immigrant myself, I know by experience that all the legal details shared above about H1b visas is correct. I started my immigration plan holding that visa. However, even if it is a non-immigrant visa, most people I know use as the gate for permanent residency. I myself applied for permanent residency while under h1b. All you gave to do is getting a permit labor from the DOL certifiend there is a shortage in your field, and then it is easy to get the green card.

[down_to_business]

Maybe everyone has already talked about it, but the one aspect of this case that I just read about today was that the feds are seeking the forfeiture of the domain name rentboy.com. On the surface, this appears to me that it might be more than just about the $ after all.

[+ augustus]

I feel that the comprehension problem is yours. I never said that you said he was overseeing the investigation. I said that the President oversees the DOJ as God oversees the Baseball game. Technically but not directly and most likely not in an interested manner. I can make this simpler for you if you are still confused.

 

LOL....I can't make my point any simpler to some of you I suppose. The POTUS has almost weekly meetings with the US Attorney General. He is her boss. Every POTUS has, and will, influence the direction, policies and objectives of the DOJ. To say a POTUS has no idea or influence ("and most likely not interested" according to you) as to what the DOJ does is pure naivete.

[+ quoththeraven]

As an immigrant myself, I know by experience that all the legal details shared above about H1b visas is correct. I started my immigration plan holding that visa. However, even if it is a non-immigrant visa, most people I know use as the gate for permanent residency. I myself applied for permanent residency while under h1b. All you gave to do is getting a permit labor from the DOL certifiend there is a shortage in your field, and then it is easy to get the green card.

 

In law school, I knew a Hong Kong native who obtained permanent resident status in the US by working as an accountant (with CPA qualifications) for a lumber company in the farthest reaches of Minnesota where qualified US citizens with the right credentials didn't want to live. But that's a far cry from such a position in Manhattan. Plus there's no indication that Rentboy/Easy Rent was looking for a CPA.

 

Maybe everyone has already talked about it, but the one aspect of this case that I just read about today was that the feds are seeking the forfeiture of the domain name rentboy.com. On the surface, this appears to me that it might be more than just about the $ after all.

 

But forfeiture of the domain name would be standard procedure in a case like this. See, for example, what happened to Silk Road, which the feds probably consider a roughly analogous case.

 

LOL....I can't make my point any simpler to some of you I suppose. The POTUS has almost weekly meetings with the US Attorney General. He is her boss. Every POTUS has, and will, influence the direction, policies and objectives of the DOJ. To say a POTUS has no idea or influence ("and most likely not interested" according to you) as to what the DOJ does is pure naivete.

 

I really doubt this prosecution was part of some initiative that was discussed at that high a level. In fact, if it started as an investigation of the facts behind an H-1B visa, I can almost guarantee that no one consulted with Washington about this.

[dutchal]

This probably more a matter of Homeland Security having more people than can be kept busy by more serious concerns and eager to justify their existence and budget.

[+ stevenkesslar]

THIS IS A FEDERAL HIT!! .. the Feds are after the CEO and the people that were profiting MILLIONS of dollars & eveyone knows when Uncle Sam not getting their cut.. then you are a target... I believe the FEDS have been investigating them for awhile & today was the day they went in to make the bust..

 

THIS WHOLE THING IS ABOUT M.O.N.E.Y.

 

Sorry, Ricardo, but I am now in full rant mode, and I want to make a point of suggesting that we NOT fall into "blame the victim" mode here. In other words, let's not blame Rentboy.com for doing something that is NOT proven, or even alleged. Let's instead blame the DHS for engaging in a WITCH HUNT that tarnishes all gay men by subtly inferring that their alleged sexual practices are threatening somehow.

 

When I first heard about this, I made the same assumption you and others are making. Maybe there was tax evasion, or money laundering, or sex trafficking, or something like that involved. And maybe there is, and it's just not part of the case yet.

 

What the case amounts to at this point is that the Department of Homeland Security believes Rentboy.com is a threat because they are an alleged "internet brothel." While that may play well to the Mike Huckabees of America, I'm not sure they have a case that this is about homeland security, or even money.

 

I doubt that anyone that works for Rentboy.com is a millionaire. The one person I met briefly is Lady Coco, and as I said on a different post my heart goes out to her. She lives in NYC which is very expensive and no matter what else happens now she needs to hire a very expensive lawyer with money she probably doesn't have. If at some point we need to start donations for contributions to a legal defense fund for innocent victims like her we should all do so. I will happily give. Let's be clear. They are innocent until proven guilty, and so far this case is a WITCH HUNT.

 

This is about MONEY, as in a waste of taxpayer's money, and THAT is typical of the DHS, the TSA, and the NHS. They are spending a huge amount of taxpayer money without a whole lot to show for it, and since they have NOT done a particularly good job of getting the terrorists, like the recent murderers who killed innocent victims in Tennessee and South Carolina, maybe they figure this kind of bullshit rationalizes their existence.

 

To be clear, I think there are real threats and real heroes, and they are the people who work their asses off behind the scenes and with little or no public credit to catch terrorists and murderers. Since I'm not an expert on this issue, I'll point to two movies that I loved and that speak to what real terror and real heroism are: Zero Dark Thirty, and American Sniper. I assume what we saw in those movies was the Hollywood version of reality. But it was reality, and it involved real people doing horrible and deadly things. What Zero Dark Thirty made me feel is that you have to view the people who spend years tracking down murderers like bin Laden as real American heroes. And as much as I thought the Iraq War was a huge and horrible blunder, I have to see Chris Kyle as a true hero, and I have to applaud the fact that he inserted himself into a deeply ambiguous war and did his best and saved American lives, and his wife and children and family will probably always suffer because of the sacrifices he made. All of that is what speaks to me to real threats, and real heroes.

 

This fiasco is about as close to the opposite of all that as you can get. All it proves to me is that the DHS is engaging in a boatload of misdirected and mostly incompetent activity that has nothing to do with real threats. It is a waste of taxpayer money.

 

To that point, here's some other factoids about how these agencies just waste our money.

 

Recently in an article in TIME about Mayor DeBlasio, TIME claimed that while the NHS bulk data collection had stopped "zero" terrorist attacks, the NYPD's counter-terrorism division had been very effective in stopping a number of terrorist attacks in NYC, which has been and still is a Ground Zero target for terrorists. I tried to link that article here, but to get it you have to be a digital subscriber, so instead I am linking a different article that goes in the opposite direction, and questions how effective the NYPD's counter-terrorism division is:

 

http://www.propublica.org/article/fact-check-how-the-nypd-overstated-its-counterterrorism-record

 

This article, while tilting to being anti-NYPD, actually makes my point better than the TIME article. Anybody who is fair has to admit that stopping terrorists is like finding a needle in a haystack. I think the people who devote themselves to doing this, which is to say they spend their lives trying to protect you and me, deserve the utmost respect. Even if you assume, like this article does, that the NYPD spends a lot of taxpayer money to stop terrorism and they exaggerate their effectiveness, my answer is: who cares? They are on the right track, they have a difficult job, and I am not going to fault them for at least trying to stop things like what happened in Tennessee and South Carolina that are incredibly difficult if not impossible to prevent.

 

The Rentboy.com bust does not even remotely compare. Even if they end up seizing $1 million + of Rentboy's bank accounts, they clearly are spending a lot of money going after Rentboy. To what end? How can this possibly stop real terrorist activity and real threats to homeland security?

 

It's the same thing with the TSA. When I got a huge bug up my butt in 2010 because they fucked up a trip to Mexico by shutting down LAX for no reason (at least no reason they could actually explain) I spent days researching their effectiveness. They are spectacularly bad at doing their job. As an article in another post pointed out, the Acting TSA Director was recently reassigned because they did such an incredibly bad job (failing 67 out of 70 test screenings) in airports across the nation. We have spent a huge amount of money with almost nothing to show for it, other than as a liberal I actually do feel okay with the fact that we are essentially paying a lot of people in airports middle class wages with union benefits to act like scarecrows in the hope that it actually stops bad things from happening.

 

Here is an opinion piece I agree with that essentially argues it is time to stop wasting taxpayer money and scale some of these efforts back, since they have consistently proven to be mostly useless and incompetent:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/opinions/schneier-tsa-security/

 

One final point. This is total speculation, but I think quoththeraven has come up with the best theory so far, that the Rentboy case may have started in 2010 or so and may have been linked to an immigration visa request that ultimately led to this. I agree with her that if you want to question Rentboy's judgment, you have to wonder why they would say they can't find American born accountants in NYC, and what they actually wrote in documents related to the visa request. It may have been dumb judgment, and if this theory is correct they have now paid a huge price for a relatively minor mistake. My reason to bring this up is that one way or another the Rentboy bust may have started as something that had to do with immigration, and mostly what these security agencies can actually say to rationalize their existence is that they spend a huge amount of money - tens of billions - and mostly what they get as a result is they catch a small number of illegal immigrants.

 

That is certainly the case with the TSA. It's been 5 years since I did the research, so don't take this as credible, but mostly what I think the TSA could actually prove they did was catch hundreds of illegal immigrants in airports. Let's assume I'm wrong and it's actually thousands of illegal immigrants. The TSA has a budget of $7 billion a year. So what the TSA actually does is miss the guns and other weapons most of the time, but occasionally they catch an illegal immigrant who is NOT a threat to homeland security. And that comes at a huge cost to us taxpayers. Depending on what assumptions you make, it's maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, even a million dollars, per illegal immigrant caught. As I said, that's not their main job, which is to be mostly useless scarecrows. But it all just seems like a huge waste of taxpayer money.

 

Bottom line: you are partly right, Ricardo. This is about M.O.N.E.Y. As in wasting taxpayer's M.O.N.E.Y. These agencies are very good at failing, so I have full confidence that they will fail in this latest effort to rationalize their waste of our M.O.N.E.Y.

[BgMstr4u]

Thank you, Fedsoccer2, for this very helpful link, which I will shamelessly promote by repeating it here:

http://reason.com/blog/2015/08/25/six-thoughts-on-the-rentboycom-bust-from

 

This seems to have been in the works for a very long time, in large part at least in the office which Loretta Lynch led before being nominated by the President to be the new Attorney General.

 

Some not-quite random observations:

 

Homeland Security? Looking for something to divert the nation's attention at a bad point for that department's p.r. in immigration (non)enforcement or the TSA?

 

Money: Not a lot involved, actually, as government money goes. Perhaps then seizing the money is really linked to

 

Spreading Fear, as in We can take you down anytime we want. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Of Us. The IRS can go after you if you have the wrong sort of politics, and so can we if you cross the invisible line which we have drawn and which only we can see until the court case is filed, by which time you will have been forced to use up all your assets and mortgage your entire future to get decent legal representation. So we don't have to win in court at all to get what we really want, which is to ruin you. Which we can do by bringing the almost infinite resources of the government down on your heads until you are crushed.

 

How clever to have people raise the spectre of Trumpism/fascism in this when the President is a Democrat, the Attorney General is a Democrat, the Secretary of Homeland Security is a Democrat, the United States Attorneys of the various districts are Democrats, the Mayor of New York City is a Democrat, as is the Governor of the State of New York, as presumably is the current head of the NYPD, and on and on. My point is not to smear Democrats but to make it clear that if this is a manifestation of anti-gay bigotry, then consider the chains of influence behind this action. There isn't a Republican anywhere to be seen, except perhaps in the confirmation of Lynch by the Republican U.S. Senate, which did finally confirm her appointment after it was recklessly held up for months by Harry Reid and ... the Democrats.

 

If this is a gay rights issue, then, yes, I would say be afraid. The party trumpeting (pun intended) itself as our friend and champion is the party to whom virtually every legal agent bringing suit, actually or by implication of jurisdiction, in this matter belongs.

[+ DickyF]

Thank you, Fedsoccer2, for this very helpful link, which I will shamelessly promote by repeating it here:

http://reason.com/blog/2015/08/25/six-thoughts-on-the-rentboycom-bust-from

 

This seems to have been in the works for a very long time, in large part at least in the office which Loretta Lynch led before being nominated by the President to be the new Attorney General.

 

Some not-quite random observations:

 

Homeland Security? Looking for something to divert the nation's attention at a bad point for that department's p.r. in immigration (non)enforcement or the TSA?

 

Money: Not a lot involved, actually, as government money goes. Perhaps then seizing the money is really linked to

 

Spreading Fear, as in We can take you down anytime we want. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Of Us. The IRS can go after you if you have the wrong sort of politics, and so can we if you cross the invisible line which we have drawn and which only we can see until the court case is filed, by which time you will have been forced to use up all your assets and mortgage your entire future to get decent legal representation. So we don't have to win in court at all to get what we really want, which is to ruin you. Which we can do by bringing the almost infinite resources of the government down on your heads until you are crushed.

 

How clever to have people raise the spectre of Trumpism/fascism in this when the President is a Democrat, the Attorney General is a Democrat, the Secretary of Homeland Security is a Democrat, the United States Attorneys of the various districts are Democrats, the Mayor of New York City is a Democrat, as is the Governor of the State of New York, as presumably is the current head of the NYPD, and on and on. My point is not to smear Democrats but to make it clear that if this is a manifestation of anti-gay bigotry, then consider the chains of influence behind this action. There isn't a Republican anywhere to be seen, except perhaps in the confirmation of Lynch by the Republican U.S. Senate, which did finally confirm her appointment after it was recklessly held up for months by Harry Reid and ... the Democrats.

 

If this is a gay rights issue, then, yes, I would say be afraid. The party trumpeting (pun intended) itself as our friend and champion is the party to whom virtually every legal agent bringing suit, actually or by implication of jurisdiction, in this matter belongs.

There was no vast Democrat conspiracy led by the president and Harry Reid to get Lorreta Lynch promoted so she can take down rentboy!

[+ Gar1eth]

 

How clever to have people raise the spectre of Trumpism/fascism in this when the President is a Democrat, the Attorney General is a Democrat, the Secretary of Homeland Security is a Democrat, the United States Attorneys of the various districts are Democrats, the Mayor of New York City is a Democrat, as is the Governor of the State of New York, as presumably is the current head of the NYPD, and on and on. My point is not to smear Democrats but to make it clear that if this is a manifestation of anti-gay bigotry, then consider the chains of influence behind this action. There isn't a Republican anywhere to be seen, except perhaps in the confirmation of Lynch by the Republican U.S. Senate, which did finally confirm her appointment after it was recklessly held up for months by Harry Reid and ... the Democrats.

 

If this is a gay rights issue, then, yes, I would say be afraid. The party trumpeting (pun intended) itself as our friend and champion is the party to whom virtually every legal agent bringing suit, actually or by implication of jurisdiction, in this matter belongs.

 

Maybe this investigation was ok'ed by Loretta Lynch as she has led investigations into human trafficking.

 

But

 

#1. My understanding was that it was the Republicans who held up the nomination. Can you site some articles citing differently?

 

#2. I don't really know why this occurred. But you can't actually believe that Republicans would have been our friends in a case like this. We couldn't even get the party of government non interference out of our bedrooms to allow us marriage. And who in Congress are the most rabidly against ENDA? The Republicans may be a Grand Old Party. But it's a party for which most of us don't have an invitation.

 

And don't think because I post this that I'm overly fond of the Democratic Party at the moment. I think Obama and his White House are overly prejudiced in favor of certain Middle East countries against our usual ally. That enfuriates me. But in the final analysis I have to live in the USA, and I have a better future under the Democrats than I do under a fundamentalist far right regime.

 

Gman