From "Your News Channel 3", Hampton Roads, Virginia May 10, 2007:
The first man was from Suffolk. He gave his cell number and used his real name.
The second drove from Virginia Beach. He is a Little League coach who gave his real name and sent e-mail from his company account.
The third man is also a Little League coach who, even though married, is looking for a long-term affair.
They were among dozens who answered an ad on the Hampton Roads version of CraigsList, an online marketplace where users buy and sell homes, housewares, and sex. Your NewsChannel 3, working with the Portsmouth Sheriff's Office, placed the online ad in the "Erotic Services" section as part of an undercover sting.
"There are more than 1,700 ads (in 'Erotic Services') on that website you mentioned," said Newport News police Capt. Marvin Evans. But he said, police spend most of their limited resources tackling street prostitutes, not online hookers.
"Those typically are going to be the people who are more actively involved in narcotics, who have a drug problem," Evans said. "With that comes maiming, aggravated assaults, shootings and stabbings. It's a question of priorities."
Newport News was the only city police department willing to talk candidly about online prostitution and the difficulties tracking it. In Virginia Beach, home to the largest numbers of Internet-connected call girls, according to online listings, members of the police department flatly refused to discuss the issue.
Evans said it can take 40 to 50 man hours to set up prostitution stings that result only in tickets and fines for the hookers and johns.
Perhaps for that reason online prostitution is flourishing in Hampton Roads. Every day hundreds of women post ads in the CraigsList "Erotic Services" section.
They call themselves "providers." They use code words to talk about sex acts. They ask for "donations," not in dollars, but in "roses" or "kisses."
Evans says no matter what they say, it's all illegal.
"This isn't a wink and a nod," he said. "This is blatant."
Within five minutes of placing the ad, a half-dozen men sent emails. By Friday morning, it had grown to more than 30. The emails came from Navy computers and company computers, from Suffolk to Virginia Beach.
Working with the Portsmouth Sheriff's Office, Your NewsChannel 3 rented furniture for a vacant house and placed five hidden cameras on the property.
The video caught men who had met women like this before.
"As far as anybody is concerned right now, we're just two people being friendly," one man says. "That's all, you know. As long as money is exchanged afterwards, you just leave it on the table and walk out or whatever."
The man says he is married, but his wife is not attentive. He visits Craigslist regularly looking for companions. He recently had a long-term affair, but she moved.
"She was actually a military wife, which worked out really good because her husband was at work," he told the undercover deputy. "I would stop by her house. It was fun. We saw each other for a long time."
The johns came so quickly they created a law-enforcement log jam. One john parked his truck behind another john's truck. To clear the house, deputies checked two men for warrants and let them go with a warning. The third lied to deputies about his ID, and they charged him with soliciting a prostitute.
Your NewsChannel 3 decided against revealing their identities to protect their families.
