They took their sweet time didn't they.  Wonder if they didn't have enough for a case until recently.

How dare he get "free sex" ....??? Is he supposed to PAY for it?

ah, but don't we pay for everything in life?  instant karma--we all shine on!

about not posting links with names in them? So can we or can't we?

I wonder if Mr. St. Marie will decide to fight these charges to the bitter end. If he can afford it, he might well do so. It's unlikely he'll ever go to prison, whatever the outcome. Not at his age and in his physical condition.

All of the Mann Act claims, soliciting women to cross state lines for immoral purposes, have apparently been dropped as they would be brought in Federal Court. I'll bet a lot of the delay was due to the Federal DA waffling on whether he could really make a Federal charge stick.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for "promoting" charges to stick St. Marie had to have profited from the enterprise. Free or reduced-rate sexual services is pretty thin. It may come down to what testimony they can produce, i.e., which of the cooperating prostitutes will actually come back to Minnesota to testify that she fucked him for free, or cheap, because he lined her up with a bunch of guys. What is their incentive to return to Minnesota and testify?

"Ran a web site that advertised prostitution services... ." First I've heard of that. Was there a Nice Guys web site? They can't mean MFP!

I wonder who the "informant who had patronized the prostitution services" will turn out to be. If St. Marie fights the charges and goes to trial, I don't see how that name can be kept confidential.

Being charged in state court still does not prevent the US Attorney from pressing charges in Federal Court.

If Mr. St. Marie profited (in cash) and did not report such profits when he filed his taxes, the feds would take an interest.

At trial, Mr. St. Marie might well win some sympathy because of his age and health. And do prosecuting attorneys really relish nailing one of their own in public? And what about the lawyers in "Nice Guys" who might get outed in a trial? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... could a plea deal be in the works?

This link doesn't out any TER member. If it had given his board handle or identified a provider by her working name and real name it would have been pulled. It's a story that has significance to the community.

It's obvious from another articles details, who were involved.  

I'm seeing in some articles there could be more arrests of Nice Guys in Hennepin County.

but everything I have seen so far has been close to the standard press release from the AP or links to local news articles.

I have yet to see any article detailing who else was involved or making it obvious. Closest I have seen is an article indicating that Ramsey will handle John's case while Hennepin will handle prosecution of the other hobbyists. This is the closest I have seen that anyone involved in this club might not be in the clear yet.

I have also seen several articles incorrectly tie MNG to the MFP website. Maybe there was a deeper involvement between MNG and MFP when most of the hobby crowd believed there were separate entities. I still believe they were separate but you never know.

You must be a member of the Skull and Bones Society or something.

-- Modified on 7/30/2010 2:11:35 AM

I guess nice guys really do finish last.  I saw St Marie in file footage about 6 yrs old on one of the local news stations.  The guy looks very disabled.  Hard to believe he had the energy to get involved in something like this. I doubt that theyll lock him up because it would cost a fortune to incarcerate him.

Sending love, light and prayers to one of the most positive, loving guys on the planet!!!

The IRS and the MN Dept of Revenue are always going to be interested if they believe you didn't pay all your taxes.

At some point I would think that would come into play.

From the most recent article I've read -

"County Attorney Susan Gaertner said the charging delay was due to the case's complexity and her office's need to place a higher priority on cases with a higher public safety concern."

Not really.  The Federal Charges would be a completely different offense that is under federal jurisdiction.  

Double Jeopardy only means you can't be tried more than once for the same offense.

And even if they can, they would have to decide it was worth their while.

I was only making the point that being tried in state court does not prevent the US Attorney's office from filing charges for federal crimes committed at the same time.

The Federal charges carry higher penalties. Plus, state prosecutors are generally happy to let the Feds spend their money on cases like this. Unless they think there is good publicity to be had, and I doubt they do in this case. Picking on an elderly cripple is not real glorious. Also, he may have been more likely to spend some jail time with a Federal conviction and as noted elsewhere, that would be very expensive given his invalid condition.

For all those reasons it is likely that much of the delay was caused by the state attorneys waiting on the Federal DA to make up his mind if he would prosecute. When he said no, they reluctantly decided they had to do something just to keep all their other assistant county attorneys in line.

Double jeopardy would not apply, though. Soliciting women to cross state lines is a separate act from pimping them once they are here. So I could be wrong.

she's saying you can use the details from the articles to figure it out.

they did publish the dates.

if you look at the ter posts from those dates, you can see who was coming to town.

There is another article that I don't want to link to showing dates of events.  

I don't understand the connection of MFP and Nice Guys either.  

-- Modified on 8/2/2010 9:02:01 PM