Rentboy CEO Hurant pled guilty

[+ VeryHappyCustomer]

He's going to prison.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-rentboy-idUSKCN1271YE

[caliguy]

"The website, which was founded in 1996 and targeted gay men, carried disclaimers saying its advertisements for escorts were for companionship and not sexual services. But prosecutors said Rentboy.com was intended primarily to promote prostitution."

 

Funny not a peep of the money laundering or the sex slave stuff they originally made a big deal about which is also the reason the DHS was involved. Seems the one and only reason they went after them was the prostitution after all.

[+ Keith30309]

I'm curious to hear the opinions of the legal folks here on the terms of the plea deal: is the agreement favorable in the context of the original filing?

I recall the original inditement had all sorts of accusations across a spectrum of legal areas with all sorts of salacious detail.

[coriolis888]

 

Funny not a peep of the money laundering or the sex slave stuff they originally made a big deal about which is also the reason the DHS was involved. Seems the one and only reason they went after them was the prostitution after all.

 

 

 

The reason there was no more mention of the supposed "money laundering or the sex slave stuff" (initially charged in the indictment) is easy to explain. Quite simply, those charges had been fabricated by the federal employees who raided rentboy and who arrested its owner/employees.

 

The bogus money laundering and sex slave charges were fabricated by federal employees solely to sensationalize federal involvement and subsequent destruction of a gay enterprise that had been in existence for decades.

 

Now that the case has wound down to a plea status and rentboy no longer exists, the homophobic federal agents must feel very proud of themselves for shutting down that "vicious homosexual" enterprise.

[maninsoma]

"The website, which was founded in 1996 and targeted gay men, carried disclaimers saying its advertisements for escorts were for companionship and not sexual services. But prosecutors said Rentboy.com was intended primarily to promote prostitution."

 

Funny not a peep of the money laundering or the sex slave stuff they originally made a big deal about which is also the reason the DHS was involved. Seems the one and only reason they went after them was the prostitution after all.

 

I am confused. The second paragraph of the article linked indicates he "pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering." Seems like awkward reading to me, but perhaps that's just the correct legalese. As to the "sex slave stuff," I assume that charge was dropped because it would have been very difficult to prove and Durant (wisely) refused to plead guilty to it since there isn't any legitimacy to that charge.

[LADoug1]

Now I'm REALLY scared!

[+ quoththeraven]

I am confused. The second paragraph of the article linked indicates he "pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering." Seems like awkward reading to me, but perhaps that's just the correct legalese. As to the "sex slave stuff," I assume that charge was dropped because it would have been very difficult to prove and Durant (wisely) refused to plead guilty to it since there isn't any legitimacy to that charge.

 

Hurant pled guilty to promoting prostitution. Easy Rent Systems Inc. dba Rentboy.com pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering, which, as was discussed way back when, occurs whenever funds earned in connection with illegal activity, such as prostitution, circulate in the financial system, thus criminalizing the use of the proceeds of sex work for any reason.

 

Under the plea deal, Hurant's maximum prison time is two years. Easy Rent faces a maximum fine of $10 million. Sentencing is on February 2nd.

 

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/ex-rentboy-com-ceo-pleads-guilty-in-u-s-prostitution-case/

 

Not sure about the $10 million fine, but a maximum of 2 years in prison is an improvement on what he had been facing, which I believe was 10 years.

[caliguy]

guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering, which, as was discussed way back when, occurs whenever funds earned in connection with illegal activity, such as prostitution, circulate in the financial system, thus criminalizing the use of the proceeds of sex work for any reason.

Yet the outright fraud of the Wallstreet bankers that caused the economy to crash are completely free and even wealthier today. Where was the DHS then? Seems to me they fit the very definition of homeland terrorists. What good is an organization we pay 65 Billion a year when the real threats to our national security are completely ignored.

[+ saminseattle]

a maximum of 2 years in prison is an improvement on what he had been facing, which I believe was 10 years.

 

I've read different things in different places, but according to this article he was actually facing the potential of 20 years in prison. https://www.queerty.com/ex-rentboy-ceo-jeffrey-hurant-nears-plea-deal-prostitution-sting-20160822 It is an unfortunate reality of our current “justice” system that defendants often feel compelled to plead guilty, even if the government’s case against them is weak. There was an article about this phenonmenon recently in the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/nyregion/jury-trials-vanish-and-justice-is-served-behind-closed-doors.html?_r=0 It noted that 81 percent of federal convictions in 1980 were the product of guilty pleas, but recently, that figure has climbed to 97 percent. Why? As the article explained:

 

Legal experts attribute the decline primarily to the advent of the congressional sentencing guidelines and the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences, which transferred power to prosecutors, and discouraged defendants from going to trial, where, if convicted, they might face harsher sentences. ‘This is what jury trials were supposed to be a check against — the potential abuse of the use of prosecutorial power,’” said Frederick P. Hafetz, a defense lawyer and a former chief of the criminal division of the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, who is researching the issue of declining trials. Former Judge John Gleeson wrote that because most pleas are negotiated before a prosecutor prepares a case for trial, the “thin presentation” of evidence needed for indictment “is hardly ever subjected to closer scrutiny by prosecutors, defense counsel, judges or juries. The entire system loses an edge,” he added, “and I have no doubt that the quality of justice in our courthouses has suffered as a result.”

 

Indeed.

[+ Eric Hassan]

The reason there was no more mention of the supposed "money laundering or the sex slave stuff" (initially charged in the indictment) is easy to explain. Quite simply, those charges had been fabricated by the federal employees who raided rentboy and who arrested its owner/employees.

 

The bogus money laundering and sex slave charges were fabricated by federal employees solely to sensationalize federal involvement and subsequent destruction of a gay enterprise that had been in existence for decades.

 

Now that the case has wound down to a plea status and rentboy no longer exists, the homophobic federal agents must feel very proud of themselves for shutting down that "vicious homosexual" enterprise.

 

I'm not one to ascribe much value to conspiracy-type theories, but I give this explanation a huge, hard, throbbing +1

[+ quoththeraven]

Swimming upstream, I know, but I honestly do not believe the DHS agents were homophobic or that this was some vendetta against gay and bisexual men. It had that effect, yes, but I doubt that's why it happened.

 

This stems from my belief that Rentboy's in-house finance guy's H-1B visa applications are what started all this. If that's the case, the agents probably felt that backing off because this was not your typical escort bust would be treating male escorts differently from female escorts (something arguably unconstitutional) and looked at it as just doing their job.

 

One thing the bust did was underline the need for decriminalization.

[Kevin Slater]

Hurant pled guilty to promoting prostitution. Easy Rent Systems Inc. dba Rentboy.com pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering, which, as was discussed way back when, occurs whenever funds earned in connection with illegal activity, such as prostitution, circulate in the financial system, thus criminalizing the use of the proceeds of sex work for any reason.

 

Under the plea deal, Hurant's maximum prison time is two years. Easy Rent faces a maximum fine of $10 million. Sentencing is on February 2nd.

 

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/ex-rentboy-com-ceo-pleads-guilty-in-u-s-prostitution-case/

 

Not sure about the $10 million fine, but a maximum of 2 years in prison is an improvement on what he had been facing, which I believe was 10 years.

 

My understanding is that the feds already seized all of Easy Rent's assets, and in such a situation one rarely gets that back, even if not convicted. So does a $10M sentence matter, other than formalizing that which has already transpired? Won't Easy Rent simply become (further) insolvent and that sentence have no real effect?

 

Kevin Slater

[+ quoththeraven]

My understanding is that the feds already seized all of Easy Rent's assets, and in such a situation one rarely gets that back, even if not convicted. So does a $10M sentence matter, other than formalizing that which has already transpired? Won't Easy Rent simply become (further) insolvent and that sentence have no real effect?

 

Kevin Slater

 

That occurred to me too. I was just too lazy to go look up the sum total of the seizure.

[Kevin Slater]

That occurred to me too. I was just too lazy to go look up the sum total of the seizure.

 

I seem to recall somewhere in the magnitude of $2M.

 

Kevin Slater

[+ stevenkesslar]

So does a $10M sentence matter, other than formalizing that which has already transpired?

 

This is sad. It started with a bang, and it is ending with a whimper. Add the arrest of the CEO of Backpage and the message could not be clearer.

 

I'm not a lawyer, but the terms of the plea bargain surprise me. What the Travel Act says (I think) is that you can get a fine and "not more than 5 years" of slammer time for non-violent crimes. (I believe it's up to 20 years for violent crimes and life for murder). So for a victimless crime that still sounds like a war on Gay sex, possibly 2 years and $10 million sounds harsh.

 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1952

 

My take away is that this is being fought, successfully, as a sort of Trumpian campaign on sex workers, except in this case Trump style thinking is working.

 

We all know that globalization is bad and we know its bad because it's bad and abusive of workers and it hurts people and its bad. There are people who say they are hurt and this has been going on for a long time and because it hurts people and is bad it has to be stopped and we have to not have this anymore.

 

Of course, nobody believes that Trump is going to actually restore the jobs and middle class lives of all the people voting for him out of fear and resentment, but who gives a shit?

 

This is the same shit to me.

 

We all know that sex trafficking is bad and we know it's bad because it's bad and abusive of women and kids and it hurts people and it's bad. There are people who say they are hurt and this has been going on for a long time and because it hurts people and is bad it has to be stopped and we have to not have this anymore.

 

Of course, nobody believed that taking down Rentboy was going to stop escorting. It didn't. Nobody believed it was going to stop sex trafficking. It hasn't. Nobody proved Rentboy engaged in sex trafficking. There are laws that actually are designed specifically to fight sex trafficking, and the federal government is funding and cooperating on that just about as successfully as it is cooperating on everything else it does.

 

Like Trump, you don't get the sense that any of this actually adds up to a strategy. It's just a game of picking on the most vulnerable targets to create the impression that you are doing something. Which you're not. :(

[rossthebosssf]

My guess is that the plea deal is only because the cost of going to trial is outside Mr. Hurant's means. This is very sad. I think the government will have a much more difficult time with the Backpage CEO as their servers and I'm assuming their assets are located outside of the country and cannot be seized. He'll have millions of dollars at his disposal for his defense. I believe Hurant could have prevailed if he had enough money to defend himself.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I believe Hurant could have prevailed if he had enough money to defend himself.

 

Thank you for saying that.

 

I didn't want to, but it's at least possibly true.

 

For me, this compares unfavorably to the way we poured our hearts and passion into same sex marriage. On that issue, it felt like we all had an addiction to beating our head against a wall, for years, until suddenly we won. There was a tipping point, but that only really became clear to me in retrospect. We just never gave up.

 

On this one, we barely even engaged the fight. I know that comparing the legal battle for same sex marriage to defending Rentboy is so apples and oranges that many felt intuitively it wasn't even in the same basket. That's partly why fundraising and legal defense never really got off the ground. The common ground to me is of course you can argue that sex work encourages sex trafficking. But you can also argue that same sex marriage encourages same sex abuse and divorce. At the end of the day whether it was because of shame or ambivalence or whatever, we came together and were relentless on one issue, but not on the other.

 

It's hard to put how this complex reality makes me feel in words. I'm proud of what we are, and I'm sad for what we weren't able to do.

[+ WilliamM]

It's hard to put how this complex reality makes me feel in words. I'm proud of what we are, and I'm sad for what we weren't able to do.

 

Other people worked with you, especially QTR, but your leadership and inspiration are/were invaluable, Steven.

[TruthBTold]

If he ended up pleading to charges different than were actually in the original complaint, it may be because they told him that they would amend the complaint and have him plead guilty or simply drop the original charges and file new ones. As was noted, it simply would mean more lawyers fees (always good for the lawyers) and in most cases defendants can't afford it. So pleading is their only out.

[seaboy4hire]

I'll read the article later but Imma just say, you get the government and "leadership" you vote for. Enjoy the shit show.

 

Hugs,

Greg

[Michael Wayne]

Certainly this illegal prosecution of Rentboy along with the rise of the APPS has basicly destroyed a once fun, exciting and profitable business for thousands of us who provided a safe and discreet alternative to ten of thousands of closeted married men and out gay men who did not want to deal with the risk, dangers and bs of other opportunities. Rentboy continues for those clients who kept our numbers , info and email addresses. Unfortunately a very high percentage of guys who hired only went to the site directly and kept no backup data................. Rentboy was known in popular culture and had a name recognition that rentmen or m4rn will never have.

[TruthBTold]

Certainly this illegal prosecution of Rentboy along with the rise of the APPS has basicly destroyed a once fun, exciting and profitable business for thousands of us who provided a safe and discreet alternative to ten of thousands of closeted married men and out gay men who did not want to deal with the risk, dangers and bs of other opportunities. Rentboy continues for those clients who kept our numbers , info and email addresses. Unfortunately a very high percentage of guys who hired only went to the site directly and kept no backup data................. Rentboy was known in popular culture and had a name recognition that rentmen or m4rn will never have.

 

But I guess that's the point, they were gay.

[jimboivyo]

the moral of this story is you get too comfortable thinking youre in the mainstream and it bites u in the butt.

 

always be aware that you're operating on the edges of society. protect your interests.

[dlee02]

Just read this article on vice, don't recall it being posted here:

 

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/how-has-the-male-escort-industry-changed-since-its-biggest-website-was-shut-down

 

Not so much the legalese mentioned in this thread, but some interesting comments none-the-less.

[cooldemo03]

So the CEO of Rentboy has to go to jail for simply providing a service that we all can enjoy, but the CEO of Wells Fargo gets a multi million dollar bonus package and gets to retire in style. That's America for you.