Online Hooker Ring Busted

MARCH 6--An international call girl ring that solicited wealthy male clients via a web site that rated its hookers on a scale of diamonds (and charged accordingly) has been busted by federal agents.

The operators of the New York-based Emperors Club were named in a felony complaint unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Before the Emperors Club web site was taken down this afternoon, TSG grabbed a screen shot showing part of the firm's hooker menu. Another page from the site described how its rates were based on a woman's rating (which ranged from three to seven diamonds) and noted that "Gift Certificates Available Upon Request."

A detailed FBI affidavit provides other details about the Emperors Club operation, which charged up to $5500 an hour for one of its 50 prostitutes, who operated in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, and Paris. The affidavit notes that one prospective hooker, who declined to work for the company because it did not pay enough, complained that a friend of hers had sex twice in an hour with an Emperors Club john who did not even spring for dinner beforehand. In one wiretapped conversation, Mark Brener, the ring's leader, complained that one of his hookers looked like a "butcher."

During another call, Emperors Club employees discussed the "baggage" a hooker carries when she is a mother who has to leave appointments early to pick up her kids from school. The affidavit also includes the musings of one self-aware prostitute who remarked in a phone call, "I know what my purpose is. I'm not a...moron." (6 pages)