Free Republic

A judge has dismissed charges against two New York men accused by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of promoting prostitution through "sex tourism" in Asia. Douglas Allen, 59, and Norman Barabash, 58, were indicted last year on felony and misdemeanor counts of promoting prostitution in the operation of Big Apple Oriental Tours. Spitzer accused them of using their tour business -- run from Allen's Poughkeepsie home and Barabash's Queens home -- to solicit customers for prostitution rings operating in the Philippines and Thailand. Dutchess County Court Judge Gerald Hayes dismissed the charges, finding prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that...

After making his first court appearance on Thursday, 50-year-old James Michael Broomas is out on a $10,000-bond. State District Judge Carol Davies also ordered Broomas to stay at least 200 yards away from the intersections of Montrose and Westheimer where many of his alleged victims congregate. The news of his release has made Montrose street kids extremely worried. “I am terrified, honestly, because I had piercings in my back, and he whipped me and he tore every piercing out of my back,” one Montrose teen named Terry says. Broomas was arrested Wednesday after police received a tip from Sen. Rodney...

<p>Aug. 18 issue — Like many teenage girls in Minneapolis, 17-year-old Stacey liked to hang out after school at the Mall of America, Minnesota’s vast shopping megaplex. Cute, blond and chatty, she flirted with boys and tried on the latest Gap fashions. One day last summer, Stacey, which isn’t her real name, says she was approached by a man who told her how pretty she was, and asked if he could buy her some clothes. “He was an older guy, dressed really well,” she recalls. “He said he just wanted to see me in the clothes.” Stacey agreed, and went home that night with a $250 outfit.</p>

<p>NEW YORK, Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the last year, local and federal law-enforcement officials say they have noted a marked increase in teen prostitution in cities across the country, reports Assistant Editor Suzanne Smalley in the August 18 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, August 11).</p> <p>Law-enforcement agencies and advocacy groups that work with teen prostitutes say they are increasingly alarmed by the trend lines: the kids are getting younger; according to the FBI, the average age of a new recruit is just 13; some are as young as 9. And, while the vast majority of teen prostitutes today are runaways, illegal immigrants and children of poor urban areas, experts say a growing number now come from middle-class homes.</p>

Two flights are due into Montego Bay Airport, one from Toronto, the other from London. Clinton waits on the beach for the new arrivals, hoping that one of them will bring him good fortune. "I look for the milk bottles," he says, explaining how ultra-white skin is a giveaway, "the ones who've just arrived. Milk bottles that need filling ..." Negril, with its 11-kilometre stretch of pristine sand and turquoise sea, attracts the majority of Jamaica's 1.3 million tourists every year, primarily from the United States, Canada and Europe. It is known as a "swinging" resort. Many white Western women...