This Day In History

Jun 27 1988
Hillel Slovak, original guitarist from sock-friendly rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers dies of a smack overdose in Hollywood.

Jun 27 1995
The LAPD arrests streetwalker Divine Brown on Hawthorn Ave. where she is discovered giving British movie star Hugh Grant oral sex in his white BMW. To be fair, they also arrest Grant for procuring said oral sex.

Jun 27 2001
Police arrest comedian Paula Poundstone in Malibu, California on charges of lewd conduct with a minor. Poundstone's pending criminal trial remains front page news for the next three months, until it is overshadowed by the World Trade Center attacks in September. Soon thereafter, she pleads guilty to a lesser charge, and the details of her indictment are never disclosed to the public.

This Day In History

Jan 5 1919
The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei is founded by Anton Drexler and others at the Furstenfelder Hof tavern in Munich. So much of early Nazi history seems to center around beer halls and homosexuals.

Jan 5 1967
Two buses of pilgrims collide south of Manila, Philippines, killing 83 in the worst traffic accident thus far.

Jan 5 1981
The Yorkshire Ripper, murderer of 13 women, is arrested. Peter Sutcliffe concentrated mostly on hookers, but still managed to terrorize mainstream England in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Jan 5 1995
Connie Chung broadcasts Kathleen Gingrich's opinion of Hillary Clinton: bitch. We suspect it's merely a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and you can include Connie Chung in that.

Jan 5 1996
In Gaza, Israeli intelligence agents blow off the head of terrorist Yahya Ayyash, The Engineer, with a remote control cellphone bomb using plastic explosives. Ayyash purportedly ran the Hamas military wing, and was a proficient bomb maker; 100,000 people attended his funeral.


Jan 5 1998
Congressman Sonny Bono dead from blunt force trauma to his head after a direct collision with a pine tree at Heavenly Valley Ski Area. He is survived by his daughter Chastity and three other children.

Remains Found on Long Island Aren't Those of Missing Woman

New York (CNN) -- Searching for clues to the disappearance of a missing woman, authorities made a grisly discovery: the bodies of four women in various stages of decomposition, stuffed into bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Long Island.

But the remains of Shannon Gilbert, the woman they sought, weren't there, the Suffolk County (New York) Medical Examiner's Office said Thursday.

Gilbert, 24, of Jersey City, New Jersey, was last seen alive on May 1, CNN affiliate WABC reported.

Suffolk County Detective Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky told WABC that Gilbert worked as a prostitute and had last arranged to meet a client on Fire Island about a mile from Oak Beach, where the bodies were found, he said.

"Common sense tells us it's not a coincidence," Pelkofsky said.

A Long Island resident -- who lives a few miles from where the bodies were found -- said a young woman who "looked like she was partying all night" came to his door at about 5 a.m. on May 1.

"She was screaming 'Help me, help me!' and said somebody was chasing her," said Gustav Coletti, who lives in the town of Oak Beach.

He described the woman as a "young, light-brown-haired person in her early 20s."

Coletti said he called 911 after opening his front door to the woman, prompting her to flee into the weeds along an embankment near his house.

Moments later, Coletti said, an Asian man driving a dark-colored sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside his home, looking for the woman.

"Things got out of hand at a party and I'm just looking for her," Coletti quoted the man as saying.

When Coletti informed him that he had called the police, the man said that he "should not have done that" and drove off in the direction of where girl had fled, Coletti said.

Authorities were searching in the area on Saturday when they found the first body, and three more were found Monday, Suffolk County police said.

All were discovered on a quarter-mile stretch of Oak Beach, "which indicates they were dumped there by the same person or persons," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said. "It's too coincidental that there were four bodies in the same location."

Investigators broadened the search Thursday, but no additional remains were found, according to Suffolk County Police.

Dormer said police could be dealing with a serial killer but have not been able to sufficiently link the bodies to make that determination.

Federal agents have joined police in their Investigation, according to Dormer.

"I held a meeting between members of my staff and the FBI's New York office today concerning the discovery of four bodies in Gilgo Beach during the past several days," Dormer said Wednesday. "The FBI has offered all available resources in support of our investigation."

The FBI was not immediately available for comment.

Authorities say investigators will continue to search the surrounding area Friday.

L.A. Police Seek Public Help With Women's Photos in Grim Sleeper Case

-View the photographs released by the Los Angeles police.-

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Los Angeles authorities expanded their investigation into the Grim Sleeper serial killer case Thursday by asking for the public's help in identifying women in 180 photographs whose images were found in the suspect's home this summer.

Police are trying to determine if there are additional killings among the more than 100 women depicted in the photos.

Last July, 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested and charged with 10 murders and one attempted murder dating back to 1985, and Los Angeles police spent hundreds of hours sifting through thousands of photographs, Polaroids and videotape found in Franklin's house.

The bodies of victims, many working as prostitutes, were all found in close proximity to each other in a neighborhood formerly known as South Central Los Angeles.

Franklin, a mechanic who once worked for the LAPD, was arrested in July after police say they matched his DNA with DNA left on some of the victims. Police were led to Franklin after his 28-year-old son got arrested and gave a DNA swab, authorities said.

Authorities said they narrowed down the confiscated images down to 180 photographs, some of them duplicates of the same women.

At a media conference attended by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck, authorities said they had difficulty determining whether some of the women were alive or dead in the photos.

"We cannot tell," Beck said. "Obviously, as all of you can see, some of them are animated and some are not. It's impossible to tell by the photographs.

Robbery Homicide Detective Dennis Kilcoyne said police have a responsibility to try to determine the whereabouts of the women.

"These are clearly photos of women that Mr. Franklin had contact with," said Kilcoyne. "We have a responsibility to identify these women. They may be alive and well, but we need to be certain."

"If there's nothing we glean from this, we are able to fill in the timeline of Mr. Franklin's life, and that's one of our goals as well," Kilcoyne said.

He declined to talk about the context in which the women's images appeared.

"The lifestyle or the situation that these women are in would defeat our plea with the public," Kilcoyne said.

Police are not sure where the women in the images resided, because Franklin's movements throughout his life are not yet ascertained, authorities said.

"His travel habits are unknown to us," Kilcoyne said. "We believe he spent the majority of his life right here in the city of Los Angeles."

Porn Actor's Positive HIV Test Disrupts Filming as Clinic Traces On-Screen Sex Partners

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Homicide of Thera Wilson, also known as Theresa Wilson and Mona Williams - January 1997 - Hartford

On Friday, January 14, 1977, the body of Therea Wilson , age 26, was found in the garage of the then-Statler Hilton Hotel at 10 Ford Street in Hartford.

The victim, also known as Thera Wilson , Theresa Wilson and Mona Williams, had been stabbed to death. At the time of her death, the victim had been engaged in prostitution.

In 1977 numerous leads were pursued by the Hartford Police Department , all with negative results. In April of 1977, Governor Ella Grasso authorized a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Ms. Williams death. The reward was increased to $50,000 in November 2006 by Governor M. Jodi Rell at the request of James E. Thomas, then State's Attorney for the Judicial District of Hartford.

In March of 2006, at the request of the Hartford Police Department, the case was re-opened with the assistance of the Cold Case Unit of the Office of the Chief State's Attorney.

Anyone with information is requested to call the tip line at the Office of the Chief State's Attorney at 860-548-0606, toll-free at 1-866-623-8058 or e-mail the Cold Case Unit of the Chief State's Attorney's Office by following this link. All calls and e-mails will be kept confidential.

NFL Great Lawrence Taylor Charged in Rape Case

(CNN) -- Hall of Fame football linebacker Lawrence Taylor was charged Thursday with rape and patronizing a prostitute in a case involving a 16-year-old girl, police in Ramapo, New York, said.

Taylor's attorney said the former New York Giants star denied the charges and will fight them.

"My client did not have sex with anybody. Period," Arthur Aidala said, adding: "Lawrence Taylor did not rape anybody."

Taylor appeared at an afternoon court hearing where a judge set bail at $75,000. Taylor was not asked to enter a plea and left the courthouse after posting bail.

Seeing television cameras outside the courthouse, Taylor said, "I'm not that important" as he walked away.

Taylor, 51, was arrested in a Holiday Inn room a few hours after the alleged rape took place, according to Christopher St. Lawrence, the town supervisor and police commissioner in Ramapo, about 30 miles northwest of New York City.

Police Chief Peter Brower said Taylor was charged with third-degree rape, a felony, for allegedly engaging in sexual intercourse with someone younger than 17. Taylor also was charged with third-degree patronization for allegedly paying the underage victim $300 to have sex, Brower said.

According to Brower, the rape charge carries a possible four-year prison term, and the patronization charge, a misdemeanor, could bring up to a year in prison.

Asked whether Taylor knew that the victim was underage, Brower said "ignorance is not an excuse" for having sex with a minor.

Aidala said after the bail hearing that Taylor "is denying and preparing to fight each and every one of those charges."

Aidala said that "no violence, no force, no threat, no weapons" was involved in the case. He noted that the rape charge against Taylor was for consensual sex with a minor and said Taylor denied it.

St. Lawrence and Brower said the alleged victim, since March a runaway from New York's Bronx borough, was allegedly brought to Ramapo by a pimp on Wednesday night.

When the pimp and the girl returned to New York early Thursday, she texted an uncle who notified the New York police, St. Lawrence said.

New York police arrested the pimp and called Ramapo police, and Taylor was arrested in his hotel room at around 4 a.m., according to St. Lawrence.

The alleged victim had facial injuries that police determined occurred before she entered the Holiday Inn room, St. Lawrence said.

Detective Lt. Brad Weidel said police knocked twice on Taylor's hotel door and identified themselves before entering the room. Weidel and St. Lawrence said Taylor was cooperative with authorities.

Taylor was a 10-time All-Pro linebacker for the New York Giants from 1981 to 1993 after earning All American honors at the University of North Carolina.

A punishing tackler and pass rusher known by his initials "L.T.," he was on two Super Bowl champion teams and was inducted into the National Football League's Hall of Fame, which noted that he "redefined the way the outside linebacker position was played."

However, Taylor was twice suspended by the NFL for substance abuse and battled a cocaine addiction long after retirement, resulting in several arrests and a downward spiral that he chronicled in a 2003 autobiography.

After kicking drugs, he worked as a sports commentator and appeared as a contestant on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" in 2009. Taylor and his dance partner on the program, Edyta Sliwinska, were eliminated in the seventh week of competition.

Brower said that police found a bottle of alcohol in Taylor's hotel room but that Taylor showed no sign of inebriation. Brower said that no drugs were found in the room.

Mark Lepselter, Taylor's agent, said Taylor was very upset about the charges against him.

"He's worked very hard over the last 12 years to change perceptions about him," Lepselter said.

This Day In History

Aug 31 1888
Jack the Ripper kills his first known victim, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, slitting her throat from ear to ear.

Aug 31 1997
Lady Diana, and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, killed in car crash inside a Paris tunnel.

Aug 31 1999
A video game machine explodes at an underground Moscow arcade, injuring perhaps thirty people and killing several others.

Kidnapping Suspect Being Investigated for Prostitute Murders

VOA News- California authorities probing the case of a registered sex offender accused of kidnapping an 11-year-old and forcing her to live in a tent in his backyard for 18 years are now searching for possible links to the unsolved murders of several prostitutes.

Phillip Garrido was arrested in Contra Costa County on Wednesday, accused of kidnapping Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29 years old, and fathering her two children.

Now, police from the neighboring township of Pittsburg are investigating whether the 58-year-old Garrido, a convicted sex offender, was involved in the murders of several prostitutes whose bodies were found near where he worked in the 1990s.

Garrido and his 54-year-old wife, Nancy, have been charged with kidnapping and pleaded not guilty in court on Friday afternoon.

Dugard was reunited with her family on Friday.

Jaycee Lee Dugard was snatched from a bus stop near her parents home when she was 11-years-old. Her stepfather saw the abduction take place and got on a bike to chase her kidnappers, but was unable to keep up.

Reunited with her mother and sister, she was said to be doing well.

A spokesman for the sheriff's department that arrested Garrido on Friday expressed regret that the suspect was not arrested earlier. He said officers have been by the property where Dugard was held captive twice in the past three years, including once to investigate the tents where Dugard and the children lived. But they never went inside the structure.

Garrido's father says that his son has always suffered from psychiatric problems and in his youth began taking illegal drugs which worsened the problem.

'John Schools' Try to Change Attitudes About Paid Sex

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- The accused came from all walks of life: Retirees, dads and twentysomethings. An engineer, a business owner and an auto worker. A man in a wheelchair. Men in need of Spanish or Farsi translators.

About 40 men somberly entered a classroom on a recent Saturday morning. About half of them wore shiny wedding bands.

All had tried to buy a prostitute's services and were caught by police. It was their first offense, and a county court referred them to a one-day program called the John School. It's a program run by volunteers and city officials in conjunction with Magdalene House, a nonprofit that works to get prostitutes off the streets.

"Prostitution doesn't discriminate," said Kenny Baker, a cognitive behavioral therapist who is the program's director. "Most of these men don't have a prior criminal history, so our goal is to help these folks understand why they put themselves in a bad position, to prevent it from happening again."

Set in a church in Nashville, Tennessee, the John School is led by former prostitutes, health experts, psychologists and law enforcement officers who talk to -- and at times berate -- the men about the risks of hiring a prostitute.

Prostitution is based on the law of supply and demand. The thinking is: Women won't stop selling sex until men stop buying.

So Nashville and a growing number of cities are shifting their focus from locking up suppliers to educating buyers. Across the country, about 50 communities are using John Schools. Atlanta, Georgia, and Baltimore, Maryland, are among dozens more cities that plan to launch similar programs by the end of the year.

"It will make them [offenders] see that this is not a victimless crime, and they are contributing to the exploitation of women," said Stephanie Davis, policy adviser on women's issues at the mayor's office in Atlanta. "It's hurting them, the man, and it's hurting their families and its hurting the community."

No comprehensive effort has been made to track the numbers, but experts estimate 1 million to 2 million prostitutes work in the United States. The FBI's 2007 Uniform Crime Report lists about 78,000 arrests for prostitution and commercialized vice, but experts say those numbers are extremely conservative because many sex workers and johns aren't caught.

Experts add that easy accessibility to prostitutes and pornography on the Internet are feeding the problem.

In most communities, prostitution has been a one-sided battle focused on the women who offer sex. Their customers, when they are arrested, are usually cited for a misdemeanor and fined.

By comparison, prostitutes are often charged with more severe sentences and jailed for months, depending on the offense.

But in Nashville, the johns' faces are shown on a police Web site.

For decades, Nashville battled prostitution by arresting women on the streets and through stings. Still, the problem persisted, irritating business owners and residents.

In the early 1990s, Nashville's mayor helped launch the John School with the help of the Magdalene House, public defenders, prosecutors and police officers. Nashville became one of the first major cities in the U.S. to focus on the customers, predominantly men.

Only first-time offenders who solicit an adult are eligible for John School. Johns who pick up minors are not eligible and face much tougher sentences.

"If you get caught again and you get me, I will guarantee to put you in jail," warned Antoinette Welch, a local prosecutor, in speaking to the men in the class. "I've had men cry to me that they will lose their jobs or their wives, but you're all grown up and you make your own decisions."

The men listened carefully as Welch talked about their records; many had not yet told their wives or significant others about their arrest.

If the john pleads guilty, pays a $250 fee and completes the course without re-offending, the charge can be dismissed after a year. The money paid by the john goes to Magdalene House; the program doesn't cost taxpayers any money. John School models in other communities may differ.

A woman who called herself Alexis, a 35-year-old former prostitute with dark hair and bright blue eyes, spoke to the men as the class came to an end. Four years ago, she left the streets and now works at a factory.

By the age of 10, Alexis had learned to barter with sex with her stepfather. In her 20s, she found herself hooked on drugs and selling her body. She was arrested more than 80 times. She was hospitalized after someone shot her on the job.

As she told her story, the men were silent. A few blushed, while others stared at the floor.

"These gentlemen are no different than I was on the streets," she said. "I think everyone has to look at the void they are trying to fill."

One john, a father of two with salt-and-pepper hair, found himself near tears after Alexis spoke. In July, he tried to pick up a prostitute through Craigslist. He said he was depressed and having problems with his wife.

"I'm so embarrassed," he said. "These girls are somebody's daughters. I have a daughter."

Some evidence suggests that John Schools are working. A study released in 2008 by Abt Associates Inc. for the federal government looked at the John School program in San Francisco, California. It's one of the largest programs in the country; more than 7,000 johns have attended since 1995.

According to the study, the re-arrest rate fell sharply after the school was launched, and stayed more than 30 percent lower for 10 years afterward.

But critics call John School a slap on the wrist. On Saturday, one john abandoned the classroom.

Carol Leigh, a member of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a group that promotes legalizing prostitution in California, said she doesn't believe the program is an effective deterrent. Last year, she helped advocate on behalf of a law known as Proposition K that would legalize prostitution in San Fransisco. The proposal was rejected by the city.

"John School doesn't do that much," said Leigh, who has worked as a prostitute. "The reality is they aren't spending that much time on the johns and they will just go to other venues. This also doesn't target the violent offenders who are the real problem."

Melissa Farley, head of the nonprofit group Prostitution Research and Education in San Fransisco, believes johns deserve stronger punishment like longer prison sentences.

A recent study she conducted among johns in Chicago, Illinois, found that 41 percent of them said John School would deter them from buying sex, compared with 92 percent who said being placed on a sex offender registry would scare them from re-offending.

Nashville officials said they haven't tracked recidivism rates in their city, but the school's program director said it's probably deterring a third of the offenders in each class.

At least one college educated, 47-year-old john's attitude appeared to change on a recent Saturday.

After class he wrote, "There is no good part. I would rather be with my wife. This was quick but it wasn't worth it."

Drew Peterson On Brothel Reality Show?

CHICAGO -- A former Illinois police officer suspected in his wife's disappearance may have a new job - on a TV reality show set in a Nevada brothel.

Drew Peterson said he's considering an offer to appear as an employee at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch near Reno for an HBO adult series called "Cathouse."

Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hoff on Wednesday said Peterson was invited to spend the upcoming weekend at the brothel to discuss working there. Hoff said he has proposed hiring Peterson to head the brothel's security detail.

Peterson publicist Glenn Selig said there would be nothing wrong with the role for the former police sergeant in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook.

Selig pointed out that Peterson hasn't been charged in Stacy Peterson's 2007 disappearance and that brothels are legal in Nevada.

A similar offer didn't work out for ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He faces federal corruption charges and a judge wouldn't let him leave the country for a reality show taped in Costa Rica.

Authorities have named Drew Peterson a suspect in Stacy Peterson's disappearance, but he has not been charged.

Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, died in 2004, and the death was later ruled a homicide. Peterson has not been named a suspect in Savio's death, but her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him last month.

Peterson has denied any involvement in either case.

I Hate John Edwards.

Campaign cad John Edwards' cheating ways made his wife, Elizabeth, sick to her stomach - literally.

After the former presidential hopeful confessed his betrayal, Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book, "I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up."

Elizabeth, 59, who is terminally ill with cancer, speaks in far more detail than before about her husband's infidelity in her new memoir, "Resilience," due to be published May 12 by Broadway Books. A copy was obtained by the Daily News.

Despite feeling deeply deceived, Elizabeth Edwards nonetheless publicly stood by her husband's side, lending his candidacy the aura of a warm, loving family life.

But she had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family. Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 - almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it.

She was afraid of the destructive questions Edwards' affair with videographer Rielle Hunter would raise.

Later events proved her right. "He should not have run," she says.

Edwards did not publicly admit the affair until last August - seven months after he quit the race, and the National Enquirer had reported he was the father of Hunter's infant daughter.

Edwards denied paternity, and his wife's book doesn't address that issue.

But it does highlight Elizabeth Edwards' anger and sorrow at being duped by a man whose four children she'd borne and whose political ambitions she'd passionately supported for so many years.

Hunter initially seduced Edwards using a worn come-on line, Elizabeth writes:

"You are so hot," Hunter told him outside a swank New York hotel. The campaign ultimately paid Hunter $114,000 to produce a batch of short films on his candidacy.

She lashes out at Hunter, now 45, whose name she never actually uses in the book, as a parasitic groupie who invaded the Edwardses' life.

Her own life may be tragic, she concludes, but Hunter's is "pathetic."

Even when Edwards confessed to his wife, he lied, claiming he had slipped up just once, Elizabeth writes. His original version of the story "left most of the truth out," she writes.

While Elizabeth still hasn't fully come to terms with her man's roaming, the memoir is laced with a powerful dose of forgiveness.

"I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters," she writes.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, and by the way- John Edwards is now facing federal investigation:

RALEIGH, NC (AP) - His once-prominent political career is buried and the turmoil of his marriage is playing out in public. Now, John Edwards is facing a federal inquiry.

This Day In History

May 2 1972
J. Edgar Hoover dies in his sleep at the age of 77.

May 2 1997
At 4:45 a.m., L.A. County Sheriff's deputies pull over a car in West Hollywood driven by comedian/actor Eddie Murphy. In the passenger seat is one Atisone Seiuli, a 20-year-old pre-op transsexual prostitute. Murphy informs the officers that he was just trying to be a "good samaritan" and give his she-male acquaintance a ride home. Seiuli is taken into custody for an outstanding prostitution warrant, but the officers allow Murphy to leave without any further ado.

Markoff's Family Visit Craigslist Suspect In Jail

BOSTON -- The parents, brother and sister-in-law of Philip Markoff visited the accused killer in the Boston jail for the first time Friday since his arraignment this week on murder, kidnapping and robbery charges.

Dr. Richard Markoff and Susan Haynes arrived early in the afternoon at the Nashua Street Jail to see their son, who has been charged in connection with the April 14 death in a Boston hotel of a woman offering erotic massages, and the robbery of a Las Vegas prostitute the week before that. Both offered their services on Craigslist.

Markoff's parents stayed at the jail for about two hours and left without making any comments to media gathered outside. Markoff's brother and sister-in-law also visited him on Friday. It was unclear when or if Markoff's fiancee, Megan MicAllister, would visit.

Markoff was arraigned on the charges Tuesday, but his attorney John Salsberg said he was under the impression Markoff's parents were not allowed to see their son right away.

"What I was told was that he couldn't have any visitors until he was classified, that that's the rule of the jail, and so my understanding was that the first day they could come was going to be today and so I asked them to wait until today," Salsberg said.

"This is difficult for them, they would really request that they have some privacy ... They love their son very much. They are supportive of him, that's what they would say if they were speaking themselves," Salsberg added.

Authorities were so concerned about Markoff's mental state that he was moved to an isolation cell on Thursday after a possible suicide attempt.

Markoff was separated from the other inmates at the jail and was wearing a special restraining suit to keep him from harming himself, the Boston Herald reported.

Law enforcement sources said Thursday that shoelace marks were found on Markoff's neck, consistent with a suicide attempt.

There was a preliminary match between a gun found in Markoff's Quincy apartment and the bullets used to kill JuLissa Brisman, 26, the erotic masseuse who was shot to death in Boston's Marriott Copley Square hotel April 14.

Markoff's fingerprints were also found on duct tape at one of the hotel crime scenes and on plastic restraints used in one of the attacks, ABC News reported.

Markoff, 23, a Boston University medical student, was charged with murder in connection with Brisman's death and was also charged with robbery and kidnapping in connection with an attack on a Las Vegas prostitute in Boston's Westin Hotel the week before Brisman died. Both women had advertised erotic services on Craigslist.

Markoff's attorney has maintained Markoff's innocence, as has his New Jersey fiancee Megan McAllister, whose father said she remains "confident in Phil."

Salsberg would not confirm the suicide attempt but said his client is having a "tough time" adjusting to being in jail.

“It's difficult for anybody to make the transition from a life of freedom to being incarcerated or detained, particularly the first few days,” said Salsberg. “However, I have a tremendous amount of confidence that the Sheriff's Department of Suffolk County is going to make sure that he’s well taken care of and looked after.”

Prosecutors who used computer forensics to trace Markoff are now turning to Craigslist to search for other possible victims in the case.

Markoff is also suspected in an attempted robbery in Warwick, R.I., of a woman who had posted a Craigslist ad as a stripper.

Investigators are looking into whether Markoff had developed a gambling habit.

"As we explore various motives for the robberies, gambling is certainly a motive that we will look at," Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said Tuesday.

Markoff opened a line of credit at Connecticut's Foxwoods Casino in 2008. His visits there increased in March and April of 2009, ABC News reported.

Two days after the attack on the prostitute in Westin Hotel that netted $800, Markoff was at the casino on April 12. Two days later, on April 14, Brisman was killed at the Marriott Hotel. Two days after that, Markoff was back at Foxwoods, collecting winnings of $5,300.

Craigslist Killer N Me

You never know.. Your med student prince charming sweetheart could be a prostitute robber and killer! What a world.

Corruption, Corruption, Corruption!

Judge cited in prostitution case-
PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. -- A local judge accused of harassing and patronizing a prostitute has been found guilty of violating the Code of Judicial Conduct by the state Commission on the Judicial Conduct, according to a statement of charges released Wednesday.

The commission found Pierce County Superior Court Judge Michael Hecht engaged in illegal or otherwise indecorous and inappropriate behavior, namely patronizing prostitutes, harassing or threatening persons whom he believed were discussing his interactions with and payment of prostitutes, using racist language in public conversation and engaging in unfair campaign conduct.

The commission has charged the judge with paying a male prostitute to perform sexual acts on numerous occasions over a five-year period beginning in 1997, when the prostitute was still a minor. Hecht is also charged with patronizing two other male prostitutes from 2000 and 2002, and from 2007 to 2008. In all three cases, the sexual activities took place in Hecht's office, the commission said.

The commission said in 1996, Hecht provided legal services in exchanges for sexual activity with a male client.

Hecht is also charged with using the "N" word in a conversation in 2007, as well as stealing his opponent's campaign signs during the 2008 judicial campaign.

Hecht has 21 days to file a written response to the charges, the commission said. A lack of response will be interpreted as an admission of guilt.

The commission, which work to protect the integrity of the judicial process, can recommend the suspension of a judge to the Supreme Court.

Last month Hecht, 58, temporarily stepped down from the bench after pleading not guilty to felony charges.

Prosecutors said Hecht threatened to kill a 24-year-old man, whom Hecht had paid for sex years ago, in Tacoma on Aug. 30, shortly after he was elected to the $148,000-a-year job. Hecht also paid a 20-year-old man for sex on numerous occasions, prosecutors said.

But Hecht last month told KOMO News all the allegations are simply not true.

"Looking forward to being vindicated. I'm leaving it the hands of my consul and I think a lot of facts will come," he said.

The presiding judge for the county said Hecht is cooperating with authorities, and voluntarily decided to take a leave.

"We are very respectful of the fact that there's an election process that put him in this position. At the same time we are also concerned about the appearance here and the integrity of the court. And that's why he stepped away at this time and we agreed," said Presiding Pierce County Judge Bryan Choshcoff.

Hecht had only been hearing civil cases since he became a judge. He was to see out the remainder of the cases currently before him.

Hecht's trial is scheduled to start on June 9.