ORLANDO, FL — Faced with charges of racketeering and aiding prostitutes that could have scuttled the newspaper and sent at least three employees to jail, the Orlando Weekly did what any sensible Florida publisher would do.It plea-bargained its way into a dismissal of the charges by agreeing never again to run “adult services” ads. In addition, the three employees who sold the ads will perform 100 hours of community service and the Weekly will reimburse the city for almost $10,000 in “investigative costs.”
The investigation, since dubbed “Operation Weekly Shame” began in December 2005 when representatives of the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation began posing as “sellers of prostitution” and meeting with the paper’s sales representatives in order to buy classified ads. According to court documents, the undercover operatives made clear they were offering illicit sex for sale. Covert video shot between December 2005 and April 2007 shows three of the paper’s representatives explaining how to word the ads so they would not attract the attention of law enforcement.
The three employees were arrested in October and charged with 16 counts of aiding in the commission of prostitution and one count of sharing in the proceeds of prostitution. Court documents revealed the prostitution-related ads generated about $2.3 million for the Weekly over the past five years.
Publisher Rick Schreiber claimed both that the arrests were retaliation for the Weekly’s unfavorable coverage of the MBI and that they violated the paper’s First Amendment rights. Shortly after charges were filed, he told the Orlando Sentinel he was confident the charges would be dismissed.
They weren’t — until the Weekly agreed to stop running the kinds of ads MBI officials said led them to the 80 prostitutes they’ve arrested since 2003.
William Sheaffer, the attorney representing the Weekly, called the deal “a win for all of us.”
According to MBI Director Bill Lutz, his department “got everything we wanted and more.”
The case wasn’t the first involving adult entertainment to be pursued against the paper. According to court documents, the MBI was on the verge of charging the Weekly and four other employees with similar charges in early 1997 when the paper’s management agreed no longer to run ads for escort services, “relaxation sessions” and other similar businesses. At that point, the MBI deactivated “Operation Do the Right Thing.”
However, within 10 years the paper had more “adult services” ads than ever, authorities said.
