Escort services’ economic muscle trumped by one cop’s integrity

I was wondering if they were ever going to bust the local escort services. On Tuesday, Sheriff Ron McNesby answered the question.

Yes.

I first saw what a growth industry escort services were when I was the chairman of the Pensacola City Council’s Citizen’s Committee on Adult Entertainment Issues.

During one report to the council committee overseeing the topic, I brought up the idea of adding escort services to the adult issues agenda. They were already proliferating wildly.

But what I thought would be a “mom and apple pie” cultural issue for a Bible Belt community, turned ugly. I’ll never forget the rage in one city council member’s eyes when I brought it up and he shouted it down. Obviously, I hit a nerve.

I’m sure he won’t remember it that way – but it was so startling I’ll never forget it.

It was a message no one could possibly miss: don’t mess with the area’s escort services.

Over the years, other things I saw reinforced the idea that this area is a thriving nexus for the national and international sex trade.

I’m in the computer repair business, and plenty of wives and girlfriends catch their husbands and boyfriends web surfing where faithful lovers don’t belong. They’ll drag the rascals into the store and let them try to explain away those endless sexual pop-ups on the computer screen.

Through these experiences in domestic conflict, I’ve learned that one of the world’s largest hard-core porn sites shoots its movies in this area. The site takes in over $6-million a month – more than $72-million a year - from subscribers, and has 250 top-of-the-line servers in Denmark.

When it makes a movie, it pays out $5,000 for the female “star” of a half-hour film; the men get $100. The site’s owners produce about 20 movies a year.

And they’re only one of several operating locally.

As for the local escort services, the going rate for customers is $150 per hour. Of course, I’m sure the customers only book the escorts so they can have a stimulating discussion about 18th century English authors.

These services cater to doctors, lawyers, students, vacationers, “Working Joes,” convention attendees, top Republican and Democratic politicians and their operatives at every level of government, business owners, civic leaders, lonely old men and inexperienced young men . . . you get the idea – people from every walk of life living as pillars of the community in public.

Many of these customers love to bash the sex trade for contributing to the decadence of our culture – but in private, they become the very people they bash. Think of them as you would Rush Limbaugh buying narcotics from his housekeeper in a dark parking lot while bellowing on his radio show about the need to lock up people who buy narcotics in dark parking lots.

One local escort service even lists in its files a mass media preacher who pays in quarters.

Pensacola’s headlines about a university football coach and an “exotic dancer” from Arety’s Angels nightclub is just one of thousands of sex worker encounters that happen regularly in the Pensacola Bay Area. He just happened to get caught.

But actually, everyone who walks into Arety’s Angels gets caught – on her security cameras. I’m waiting for the up and coming young Pensacola professional in his 30-somethings running for public office on a “family values” platform try to explain what he was doing stuffing dollar bills into the thong of a topless dancer at Arety’s Angels back in his 20-somethings.

Busted – who knows who else is on those locked-up tapes from Arety’s candid cameras?

Given the size and massive dollars the sex trade generates here – and there is no doubt in my mind there are some very big local fish swimming in those waters – I thought no one in law enforcement would have the integrity to bust the game wide open.

It felt good to read about Sheriff Ron McNesby proving me wrong.
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