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Gay Activists Fight
Back Against Porn Shop Sting Operations

Gay Activists Fight
Back Against Porn Shop Sting Operations

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Activists in New York are rallying against a series of arrests targeting gay porn shops. Undercover cops are allegedly posing as prostitutes and targeting middle-aged men.

Gay activists in New York are fighting back against a series of arrests targeting middle-aged men in gay porn shops throughout the city. According to Gay City Newsreporter Duncan Osborne , 30 men have been arrested over the past year by undercover cops posing as male prostitutes throughout Manhattan.

The Coalition to Stop False Arrests, an activist group born out of the surprising rise in arrests throughout the city, has organized a rally this Saturday in Manhattan's Sheridan Square to protest the arrests. Last Saturday the group targeted the home of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg

The group was started by Robert Pinter, a Manhattan-based licensed massage therapist who works primarily with AIDS patients. He was arrested in a sting operation on October 10.

Pinter says he was targeted while shopping for a DVD after work at the Blue Door video store. He says he was approached by a handsome Asian man about half his age and that after a brief conversation, the two agreed to leave together for consensual sex.

"While we were leaving, he quickly offered me $50 to perform oral sex on him," Pinter told Advocate.com. "At first I thought he wanted me to pay him, which would have made a lot more sense -- I'm 53, and he was about half my age."

Pinter didn't respond and decided that if the guy continued to act odd, he'd get out of the situation.

He says he never had a chance to change his mind. By the time the two had crossed the street, he adds, he was shoved up against the fence by a group of men who failed to identify themselves as cops. He says he was cuffed and loaded into a patrol vehicle.

Nearly 24 hours later, sleep-deprived and with no food in his system, Pinter was advised by a lawyer from legal aid that the easiest way to make the whole experience go away would be to plead guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

In the month since Pinter's arrest, Osborne has managed to dig up numerous other reports of arrests following a similar pattern -- middle-aged men offered money for sex and then arrested before they have a chance to respond.

The arrests have given the city of New York an excuse to file suit against at least seven adult shops throughout Manhattan for allowing prostitution. At least two of those shops have been forced to close down in the past year, according to New York University's Washington Square News .

New York City council speaker Christine Quinn has stepped forward, calling these "false arrests." So far, Mayor Bloomberg's office has had no comment.

Saturday's rally is scheduled to take place in Sheridan Square at the corner of Christopher and Grove streets at 4 p.m. For more information e-mail StoptheArrests@aol.com . (Ross von Metzke, Advocate.com)

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