by Patrick H. Moore
In a rather unusual case, a Pennsylvania father and son prostitution management team consisting of Vincent George Sr. and Vincent George Jr. were sentenced last Monday in Manhattan to three to nine year prison terms. At trial, they were acquitted of sex trafficking after several prostitutes testified on their behalf but were convicted for “promoting prostitution” and “money laundering.”
As is true of many cases in our adversarial system, the prosecution and the defense had distinctly different takes as to what transpired. The prosecutors stated the the reason the prostitutes would not admit that Vincent Jr. and Sr. had abused them was because the abuse had been so harsh that they were too traumatized to admit it. Although this tortured, circular logic may be somewhat unconvincing, there seems to be little doubt that the two men laundered literally millions of dollars that the women had earned for them by turning tricks.
The prosecutors alleged that the prostitutes made as much as $500,000 a year working for the Georges but were doled out only a few dollars per night and had no bank accounts and owned no property. What was particularly damning to the Georges was the fact that based on wiretapped conversations presented as evidence at the trial, it seemed clear that the prostitutes were threatened with beatings when they didn’t bring in as much money as had been demanded of them or were late getting home after the long night’s work
Nonetheless, in their testimony, the women painted a very different picture, stating that they were treated to nice cars and vacations in Florida and received much affection from their pimps. They appear to have lived together as “family” in a house in Allentown, Pa., about 90 miles from New York. Each night they drove together to New York to service “johns” for $300 a pop.
One witness, Heather Keith, testified that before meeting the Georges, she was a drug-addicted 19-year-old stripper from upstate New York. She testified that George Jr. moved her into the house in Allentown and helped her kick her cocaine habit.
Heather, now 26, stated:
“I would say that I make my own choices. I am not a dumb person. I know what I’m doing.”
Heather has George Jr.’s nickname, King Koby, tattooed on her neck.
Another of the witnesses, 24-year-old Desiree Ellis, denied allegations that George Jr. abused her, calling him her “teddy bear.” She followed this up, however, with a rather peculiar tale stating that she once thought about leaving him but changed her mind at the bus station and requested to be readmitted back into their “family.” Unsurprisingly, George Jr. welcomed her back with open arms.
“We kissed,” she testified. “We made up. We had a love session.”
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It seems clear that the Georges did treat their charges better than is often the case with male pimps. Although the women were threatened on occasion, there appears to be little evidence that they were physically abused. On the other hand, the women were clearly exploited. The Georges made a great deal of money from the arrangement and the women got very little for it. If the Georges had truly cared about them, they would have taken them off the streets and arranged for them to go to college, get job training, or something of that sort. This is clearly not what happened.
On the other hand, my sense is that the 3-to-9 year indeterminate sentence both father and son received could be seen as a bit steep. The jury was clearly convinced that the women were not held against their will which is why they acquitted the Georges on the sex trafficking charge. The charge of promoting prostitution seems a bit vague. Money laundering is what prosecutors generally fall back on when they can’t make anything else stick, and is apparently what happened here.