Last week Alex Andrews of SWOP Behind Bars asked me to spread the word about this serial predator, or more specifically the effort to bring him down. If you have information and would like to talk to the lawyer she describes below, please Twitter DM SWOP Behind Bars or see the lawyer’s contact info below. If you’re not on Twitter, I can forward your email to Alex. I’ve also attached all the info on this monster people have shared on Twitter; his email address and physical address are here, and a few of the many phone numbers he’s used here. As you can see, there would be more than enough had he not cunningly chosen to target a group cops consider subhuman.
Joey the Player has been a predator in the sex worker community for many years; barely a month goes by without a horror story of his assaulting an unknowing provider. Just last week there was an incident in Las Vegas. And of course since sex workers were kicked off the internet in the FOSTA debacle, its been really hard to continue to warn each other about dangerous and abusive clients. And because of criminalization – we can’t go report these horrific assaults to police because they would probably put a target on us, rape us themselves or do some kind of harmful cop shit that would make our lives harder than they are. His victims have been working on a strategy for a long time and SWOP Behind Bars wants to support their efforts, especially since most of his crimes have taken place in New Jersey and NYC. If you have been victimized by this sleaze or have information and would like to talk (pro bono) to the lawyers, please contact Noam (nbiale@shertremonte.com) or Anna (aestevao@shertremonte.com) or call 212-202-2600.
I admire your constant willingness to put yourself out there for the protection of the sex workers that our criminal system reduces to little more than civil asset forfeiture, free undercover sex and money/media making human trafficking tropes.
As you’re aware, in New Zealand this guy would be off the street tomorrow with one call from a sex worker assault victim, but in the US police have effectively terrorized sex workers into not reporting these horrendous crimes. For a time customers tried to fill the gap by reporting and trying to stop bad customers on their own, but with the introduction of the Nordic Model the clients that report assault are now criminally liable. Not at that moment, but very soon down the road now that they are known to the police for reporting the crime.
This is not theory or speculation. In King County, WA in 2012, three thugs (plus a former Seattle prosecutor named Danford Grant that King County prosecutor’s conveniently started referring to simply as “a former Seattle attorney” after his arrest) targeted a series of Thai massage parlors for rape and robbery. These women had previously worked in larger groups in store front massage parlors for their own protection, but constant King County Sheriff raids between 2008 and 20012 drove them into isolated incalls with little screening where the they were open to exploitation with impunity.
When these rapes/robberies happened in 2012, a prominent member of a now defunct review board TRB (who was also a client of these women) called the King County Sheriff special victim assault unit to report the crime, but the detective simply said told him that unless the Thai women reported it to him in person themselves (which they would never do out of fear of the police and immigration, especially if they knew this vice cops history with sex workers) he was not interested. Ultimately one of the victimized Thai women was assaulted and reported it to a different police department (Bellevue) that responded and arrested the individual. Despite the police promises of immunity to the Thai women who cooperated at the time of the arrest, however, the police came back a year later with a list of incall locations they had collected during the assaults to arrest and seize the assets of all these women. I think anyone with half a brain also knows what the police did to these women in the months long undercover operation leading up to this “rescue” mission.
The TRB community concluded from this experience that the police could not be depended on to protect sex workers, so organized to work with screeners to stop dangerous clients. Prosecutors Dan Satterberg and Mark Larson responded by charging these clients with felonies while doing nothing to arrest or stop the actual violent men they had identified to screen out of circulation.
Understand, from the evidence they had the names, phone numbers and personal information of the violent clients that was used to screen them out, but did nothing to investigate them. They instead invested all their time and resources into investigation and arresting the clients who worked to stop the bad clients from victimizing the workers.
I share all this not as an exercise in historical masturbation, but to show how the police and prosecutors choose to use their resources in this area. Please be careful. the police may have little interest in stopping sexual assault, but they are hell bent on arresting anyone who works to prevent those assaults from taking place.
Decriminalize prostitution and we could get him put in a cell with Bubba, who would look at him and say, “Your my little puppy now. Guard, get me a rubber!”
I know, I know, probably not the proper attitude, still. . .
Yeah, I’m not exactly a fan of rape jokes.
Yeah I know, but this guy got me to the boiling point quickly, as men who assault and take advantage of women, children, and the weak always do. So my humble apologies, and please feel free to remove my post.