7 Charged With Promoting Prostitution by Working on Rentboy.com, an Escort Website By STEPHANIE CLIFFORDAUG. 25, 2015 Photo Jeffrey Hurant of Rentboy.com, after his arraignment in Brooklyn on Tuesday, said the site brought “good people together.” CreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times Continue reading the main storyShare This Page · Email · Share · Tweet · Save · More The terms of service on the website Rentboy.com said that people could not use it to exchange money for sex. But federal authorities, who called it the largest online male-escort service and arrested the site’s chief executive and several other employees on Tuesday, said that was exactly what was happening. The chief executive, Jeffrey Hurant, 50, and six other current or former employees appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon on charges of promoting prostitution. Although the site, founded in 1997, required visitors to accept the terms of service, the criminal complaint said visitors would arrive at a home page stocked with escorts’ profiles listing sexual services and fees. Escorts pay to post the profiles, and the site’s visitors contact them directly to arrange meetings. The site, whose headquarters are on 14th Street at Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, has had $10 million in sales since 2010, the criminal complaint says. “As alleged, Rentboy.com attempted to present a veneer of legality, when in fact this Internet brothel made millions of dollars from the promotion of illegal prostitution,” Kelly T. Currie, acting United States attorney for New York’s Eastern District, said in a statement. Photo Michael Sean Belman, the director of the website, is among those charged. CreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times Charles Hochbaum, the lawyer for Mr. Hurant, said outside court that the case represented a First Amendment issue. “My client advertises for people who are willing to be escorts, to accompany people for their time and be paid,” he said. “He’s upset and confused about how this legitimate business could become the subject of a Homeland Security investigation,” he said. The Homeland Security Investigations arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was involved in the investigation, apparently because it believed the site promoted prostitution across state and national borders. “I don’t think we do anything to promote prostitution,” Mr. Hurant said. “I think we do good things for good people, and bring good people together.” Putting up profiles costs escorts $59.95 to $299.95 a month, depending on how visible the ads are, according to the complaint. Website members then contact them. Escorts list “primary interests,” ranging from “vanilla” (“nice and clean”) to leather to role play to other fetishes. “A user can filter by a number of categories,” from primary interests to preferred sexual position, the complaint says. There are also fields for the escort’s pay rates, the complaint says, including overnight and weekend rates. A separate website, .

1. 7 Charged With Promoting Prostitution by Working on
Rentboy.com, an Escort Website
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORDAUG. 25, 2015
Photo
Jeffrey Hurant of Rentboy.com, after his arraignment in
Brooklyn on Tuesday, said the site brought “good people
together.” CreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
· Email
· Share
· Tweet
· Save
· More
The terms of service on the website Rentboy.com said that
people could not use it to exchange money for sex. But federal
authorities, who called it the largest online male-escort service
and arrested the site’s chief executive and several other
employees on Tuesday, said that was exactly what was
happening.
The chief executive, Jeffrey Hurant, 50, and six other current or
former employees appeared in Federal District Court in
Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon on charges of promoting
prostitution.
Although the site, founded in 1997, required visitors to accept
the terms of service, the criminal complaint said visitors would
arrive at a home page stocked with escorts’ profiles listing
sexual services and fees. Escorts pay to post the profiles, and
the site’s visitors contact them directly to arrange meetings.
The site, whose headquarters are on 14th Street at Fifth Avenue
in Manhattan, has had $10 million in sales since 2010, the
criminal complaint says.
“As alleged, Rentboy.com attempted to present a veneer of
legality, when in fact this Internet brothel made millions of

2. dollars from the promotion of illegal prostitution,” Kelly T.
Currie, acting United States attorney for New York’s Eastern
District, said in a statement.
Photo
Michael Sean Belman, the director of the website, is among
those charged.
CreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times
Charles Hochbaum, the lawyer for Mr. Hurant, said outside
court that the case represented a First Amendment issue.
“My client advertises for people who are willing to be escorts,
to accompany people for their time and be paid,” he said.
“He’s upset and confused about how this legitimate business
could become the subject of a Homeland Security
investigation,” he said. The Homeland Security Investigations
arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was involved in
the investigation, apparently because it believed the site
promoted prostitution across state and national borders.
“I don’t think we do anything to promote prostitution,” Mr.
Hurant said. “I think we do good things for good people, and
bring good people together.”
Putting up profiles costs escorts $59.95 to $299.95 a month,
depending on how visible the ads are, according to the
complaint. Website members then contact them.
Escorts list “primary interests,” ranging from “vanilla” (“nice
and clean”) to leather to role play to other fetishes. “A user can
filter by a number of categories,” from primary interests to
preferred sexual position, the complaint says. There are also
fields for the escort’s pay rates, the complaint says, including
overnight and weekend rates.
A separate website, DaddysReviews.com, “contains explicit
reviews of the escorts written by previous customers,” the
complaint says.
In one profile quoted in the complaint, an escort in Manhattan
advertising as Ryan Raz said, “I have a very innocent shy mid-

3. west look, but once you get me behind closed doors it’s an
amazing experience.” He charged $300 per hour for a standard
visit.
Photo
Diana Milagros Mattos is a former saleswoman for Rentboy.com
who, the authorities say, referred to herself on Twitter as the
"escort whisperer."
CreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times
Some of the complaint details “the Hookies,” or the
International Escort Awards, which the website holds each year.
The site’s marketing banter for the awards described them as
“covering all aspects of the oldest profession as presented in the
newest media,” according to the complaint.
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At the 2015 Hookies, held this year at a West 42nd Street hotel,
an undercover agent approached Mr. Hurant, who gave the agent
a business card with the email address [email protected] on it
and explained that the Hookies were about celebrating sex “so
good, you had to tell someone.”
One of the other six defendants is Michael Sean Belman, 47, the
director of the site. According to the complaint, Mr. Belman has
given interviews indicating that he knows the escorts are
offering sex, such as describing the Hookies winners as “sexual
therapists.”
Another of those arrested was Edward Lorenz Estanol, 23, an
escort, Hookies award nominee and former social-media
coordinator for the site. He charged $300 an hour, or $3,000 for
a weekend, the complaint says. On his personal website, he
wrote that “escorting is a great way to explore your sexuality
and get paid doing it,” the complaint says.
Another is Diana Milagros Mattos, 43, a former saleswoman,

4. who had “a Twitter account in which she identified herself as
the ‘escort whisperer’ ” while she worked at Rentboy.com, the
complaint says, and tried to help escorts increase their social-
media presence so they would get more clients.
The others are Shane Lukas, 41, chief operating officer; Clint
Calero, 48, a sales executive; and Marco Soto Decker, 28, an
accountant for the site. (The complaint says that Mr. Decker is
currently employed by the site, but his lawyer, Joel S. Cohen,
said he now worked at a different business.)
All of the defendants except for Mr. Lukas made their initial
appearances in Federal District Court on Tuesday and were
released on bonds ranging from $50,000 each for Ms. Mattos,
Mr. Estanol and Mr. Calero to $350,000 for Mr. Hurant. Mr.
Lukas was arrested and made his initial appearance in South
Dakota.
Lawyers for Ms. Mattos and Mr. Estanol declined to comment.
A lawyer for Mr. Belman, Anthony Ricco, also raised the First
Amendment issue, and a lawyer for Mr. Calero said he agreed.
A lawyer for Mr. Lukas could not immediately be reached. All
the defendants were listed as New York City residents.
Conviction carries a maximum penalty for each defendant of
five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000. The
government said Tuesday morning that it was trying to seize the
domain rentboy.com, which was not loading as of Tuesday
afternoon.
A version of this article appears in print on August 26, 2015, on
page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Escort
Site Is Said to Promote Prostitution. Order Reprints| Today's
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