Prostitutes

The last that Cassidy Vickers' street friends saw of him was about 10 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2011, outside the Donut Time shop on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. He was waving and saying he'd be back in a bit. A transgender prostitute whose legal name was Nathan, Cassidy had come down from the San Francisco Bay Area to work the Hollywood streets. That night, on Lexington Avenue, 10 blocks from the doughnut shop, Vickers was shot to death by a man on a bike. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier online version of this article contained a typographical error inserted during initial editing of the text, referring to Cassidy Vickers as "heshe.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court was asked Monday whether Congress violated the 1st Amendment when it required global groups fighting AIDS to explicitly oppose prostitution and sexual trafficking as a condition of receiving federal grants. Several of the groups, including the Alliance for Open Society International, objected to the requirement, not because they favored prostitution. They said it would interfere with their work. They seek to encourage women, including prostitutes, to come to their clinics for testing and treatment.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a key player in the effort to overhaul immigration laws, denied allegations that he consorted with prostitutes during trips to the Dominican Republic with a longtime friend and campaign donor whose South Florida office was raided by the FBI. FBI agents carted away records from the West Palm Beach office of Dr. Salomon Melgen, an ophthalmologist, on Tuesday night. A federal law enforcement official said Melgen was “one of their targets” in an investigation into healthcare fraud by the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

A man and a woman who allegedly forced a 14-year-old runaway to walk the streets near Knott's Berry Farm as a prostitute have been charged under a recently approved law that toughens penalties for human trafficking. Under the new law, Chuncey Tarae Garcia, 33, could face life in prison if convicted of human trafficking of a minor by force or fear. He and Cierra Melissa Robinson, 27, Garcia's alleged accomplice, are in the first wave of people in California and the first in Orange County to be charged with human trafficking since the state's adoption of Proposition 35. Garcia is accused of being a pimp and teaming with Robinson, who prosecutors say worked for him as his highest-ranking prostitute.

About a dozen Philippine prostitutes infected with the AIDS virus have vanished and health officials said today they fear the women have gone underground to continue working in the sex trade.

Cardinal Jaime Sin of the Philippines is a hypocrite! Moreover, his denunciation of prostitution in the Philippines as a moral failure of the Aquino government is undermined by his reluctance to acknowledge the major cause of the world's oldest profession. Blind to the rampant unemployment that daily squeezes hope from so many Filipinos, "his eminence" self-righteously admonishes prostitutes to "look for other employment, another way to work." Yet, he offers nothing concrete concerning the work these poor women might find.

An FBI agent who investigated a weapons smuggling case denied Wednesday allegations from defense attorneys that he used public funds to knowingly pay for the suspects to have sex. The agent, Charles Ro, said that while undercover in the Philippines he frequently took three Filipino nationals accused of weapons smuggling to karaoke bars where scantily clad and sometimes topless young women worked as hostesses. Ro said the defendants never told him they had engaged in sex with prostitutes at the clubs, nor did the bills he paid indicate that sexual services were being provided.

Apolice sting on Sepulveda Boulevard resulted in the arrests of 34 men and two women on suspicion of prostitution-related offenses, the Los Angeles Police Department reported Monday. Undercover policewomen walked along on the boulevard near Rayen Street in Sepulveda for about seven hours Friday night, and arrested men who solicited them for sex, Sgt. Frank Reynoso said. Male officers arrested two women for prostitution and lewd conduct, Reynoso said. Police set up the sting in response to residents' complaints that men driving along the boulevard were harassing neighborhood women, mistaking them for prostitutes, Reynoso said.

I realize that it must be difficult to find important news copy on the Tuesday after Labor Day, but how could you justify the article "Status Jobs," about a USC/UC Irvine "prestige" survey? I noticed that college professors rated high, but school teachers were omitted. To me, the teachers that deserve the most "prestige" are those that return to inner-city schools year after year. As for the "least prestigious jobs" ranking (dishwashers and prostitutes ranked 17th and 14th respectively)

Police in Anaheim and Stanton have stepped up their arrests of female prostitutes and their male customers along Beach Boulevard, where authorities say street prostitution has been on the increase since last summer. Recent large-scale arrests by both police departments have focused on the "Johns"--the male customers who cruise the north-south thoroughfare lined with motels and convenience stores as it passes through the two cities.

A 33-year-old man accused of forcing a 14-year-old girl into prostitution is the first person in Orange County to be charged under an anti-human-trafficking law passed by California voters in November. Chuncey Tarae Garcia has been charged with felony counts of human trafficking of a minor by force or fear, pimping a minor and forcible rape, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Garcia is accused of being a pimp and working with Cierra Melissa Robinson, 27, who is accused of working for him as a prostitute.

An insurance agent was sentenced to 20 days in jail for his role in a large-scale prostitution operation housed in a Zumba studio in the scenic beach community of Kennebunk, Maine, officials said Thursday. The Zumba prostitution case attracted national, even international, media attention because of its size. It attracted more than 150 clients, some prominent, in the town of about 10,000. Many of the details, including the sale of sex in a fitness studio and the filming of some of the encounters, rattled the bucolic town, down the road from the Bush family compound.

A Moreno Valley school board member who was convicted of running a prostitution ring out of his home - once flashing his district business card to recruit a young woman - was sentenced Friday to 14 years in state prison. Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Brusselback said Mike Rios' actions and his total lack of remorse called for a stiff prison sentence. Rios continues to insist he was the victim of a political vendetta, which Brusselback said was evidence of a "warped sense of reality.

SAN DIEGO - James O'Keefe, the conservative activist whose hidden-camera stings have been aimed at liberal targets, has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former employee of the group ACORN, according to documents filed Thursday in federal court here. As part of the settlement, O'Keefe says he "regrets any pain" suffered by Juan Carlos Vera, who was interviewed by O'Keefe and an associate in ACORN's office in National City, near the U.S.-Mexico border, on Aug. 18, 2009.

A woman found dead face down in the sand in Newport Beach faced prostitution charges in three states and gave birth shortly before a stint in jail earlier this year, according to public records and interviews. Tina Hoang, 20, had been arrested on suspicion of prostitution-related crimes in California, Nevada and Florida, court papers show. The Bellflower resident, whose death was listed as "suspicious" by police, was arrested as recently as December on suspicion of prostitution and had at least a dozen open cases against her in Orange and Los Angeles counties, her attorney said.

It's one of the world's oldest punishments, often used in Babylon, Greece and Rome. Now city officials in Atlanta want to impose it on the oldest profession. New legislation proposed in City Hall would prohibit convicted prostitutes, pimps and "johns" from returning to certain areas of the city for any reason. In other words, banishment. "Right now, my mind's a little boggled," said Mona Bennett, programs coordinator for the Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, an outreach group that works with sex workers.

Prostitutes in the Turkish town of Nazilli expect trade to pick up since they helped to buy AIDS diagnosis equipment for the local hospital. The Anatolian news agency quoted the hospital chief, Dr. Hasan Yildirim, as saying the women contributed over half the cost of the $650,000 equipment. He said none of the women tested positive for the virus which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

An Orange County sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty Friday to falsely imprisoning prostitutes to sexually touch and photograph them under the guise of police work. Richard Rodriguez, 44, of Chino was convicted of two felony counts of false imprisonment by fraud and deceit in Orange County Superior Court. While in uniform, the deputy, assigned to the Orange County Transportation Authority, approached prostitutes along Harbor Boulevard in Garden Grove between November 2005 and March 2007, according to Orange County prosecutors.

The last that Cassidy Vickers' street friends saw of him was about 10 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2011, outside the Donut Time shop on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. He was waving and saying he'd be back in a bit. A transgender prostitute whose legal name was Nathan, Cassidy had come down from the San Francisco Bay Area to work the Hollywood streets. That night, on Lexington Avenue, 10 blocks from the doughnut shop, Vickers was shot to death by a man on a bike. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier online version of this article contained a typographical error inserted during initial editing of the text, referring to Cassidy Vickers as "heshe.