Tourist and out of towners, please read this recent local article.
Remember, be cautious, don't let your guards down, don't become a victim.
In addition to all the other risks of consorting with a prostitute, consider trick rolls
By DAVID KIHARA
REVIEW-JOURNAL
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On Feb. 16, around 6:30 in the morning, Arnulfo Rodriguez stepped out of Caesars Palace a winner. Dressed in black slacks and a brand-new button-down blue dress shirt, the Texan, who was in Las Vegas for a trade show, had spent the night playing blackjack.
He walked out of the casino with $5,000 in his right pocket and $10,000 in his left. Months later he would tell a Clark County grand jury he thought the night was a success.
He caught a cab and headed back to Wynn Las Vegas, where he had a room. But before he reached the lobby, a couple of women pulled up to him in a white SUV, and they began talking.
Rodriguez and the women bantered about going out for drinks, and, with money bulging in his pockets, he got into their SUV, and the group headed for a bar.
By the end of the morning, Rodriguez's new shirt would be torn and much of his bankroll would be gone. The women who picked up Rodriguez at the Wynn had lured him to the bar by telling him they were prostitutes, but they ended up beating and robbing him, he told the grand jury in April.
Though police don't have hard statistics on such crimes, they say the scenario is becoming more common in Las Vegas. The Metropolitan Police Department's vice unit estimates that hundreds of men each year are robbed by prostitutes, who often target tourists, preying on the intoxicated, said Detective Don Fieselman.
He said the women also scout out foreign tourists because language barriers make it easier for prostitutes to play dumb or claim there was miscommunication if an officer questions them, he said. It's also harder to prosecute such cases because "it's hard to get someone back from Sweden" or elsewhere to testify.
"The subculture of prostitution breeds theft. They want to get as much as possible for as little as possible," Fieselman said.
Sgt. Gil Shannon with the department's vice unit told the Las Vegas City Council this month that trick roll victims have reported almost $1 million in thefts from prostitutes in the first six months of this year.
But Shannon estimated that the actual amount that hookers stole this year could be 10 times more because many victims don't report the crimes. Only 10 percent of trick rolls are reported, he estimated.
"The reason that it's not reported, typically, is because a majority of the individuals (victims) are married, and they don't want to get involved in" filing complaints, Shannon said.
Police said there are many ways that women rob their johns. They drug them and clean them out when they are passed out. Other times, a prostitute will get into a hotel room with a john and then, when he is in the bathroom, will take his money and his clothing.
And there are robbery victims such as Rodriguez where prostitutes use brute force. A Clark County grand jury indicted the three women: Jacquelyn Yearby, Lakrisha Richard and Nifataria Bell. They are charged with robbery, first- degree kidnapping and battery, among other charges.
Fieselman said these three women and a few other small, organized groups were responsible for a lot of the recent trick rolls in the valley.
According to Rodriguez's grand jury testimony, he went with the women in their sport utility vehicle to a bar near the Wynn. Once at the bar, the three talked about exchanging money for oral sex, he said. They got back into the car and started driving, but Rodriguez said he started to sense something was wrong.
At a stoplight, he demanded to get out of the SUV and tried the car's back doors but they were locked, he said. That's when things turned very bad.
Yearby began attacking him and tried to steal his money, he told the grand jury, adding she punched him so hard he had the wind knocked out of him. Rodriguez also noticed that a third woman whom he hadn't seen before had emerged from the back of the SUV. But Rodriguez struggled enough to work his way out of the vehicle.
Once out of the SUV, one of the women threw a wad of bills at him and yelled, "Here's your money, get out of here," he said. He said he later realized the women had taken the $10,000 from his left pocket and threw out a wad of $1 bills as a decoy.
"I was thanking God that I was out of the vehicle and I was in a parking lot," he said.
As Rodriguez was trying to catch his breath, he saw the SUV driving back toward him. He realized that the women were coming back for the remaining $5,000 in his right pocket. He ran but tripped and fell. The three women caught up to Rodriguez and hit and kicked him while he was on the ground.
Las Vegas police arrived and took the three women into custody.
Variatons on an illicit theme
There are a few new twists to the same old tricks prostitutes use to rob johns. Ben Little, assistant city attorney for Las Vegas, told the City Council on Aug. 1 that prostitutes are using anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants to dope their clients.
"When I was in the DA's office back in the '80s, they used to use Visine and that would knock them out if they gave them enough. They would use that to trick roll," Little said. "Well, now they're onto Xanax and some of these other benzodiazepines and other drugs."
A few drops of Visine into someone's drink was once thought to cause diarrhea, though that largely has been discounted. But the product warns that people should get medical help if they ingest it.
Little and Shannon gave a presentation to the City Council when it was considering changes to the prostitution loitering ordinance. The new ordinance has since been adopted and is now in effect, said Brad Jerbic, city attorney for Las Vegas.
Fieselman said prostitutes are also stealing pin numbers from clients when they use an ATM and later steal their credit cards.
"Credit card theft and ATM theft are definitely becoming more frequent" trick roll methods, he said. "But it runs the entire gamut."
Yearby and her crew are also accused of stealing a john's pin number. On March 16, Kevin Brooks was in Las Vegas from Baton Rouge, La., to attend a friend's bachelor party. He was staying at Mandalay Bay but had been gambling at the Luxor, he told a grand jury.
Brooks left the Luxor and was on his way back to his hotel room at about 6 a.m., when he was approached by two women -- later identified as Yearby and Tineka Knight -- who offered sex for money. The two convinced him to go to a nearby ATM to withdraw cash "to prove that I wasn't a police officer," he said, and he withdrew $200. He also had more than $3,000 on him when he left the Luxor, he said.
When the three were in an elevator going up to his room, Brooks said, one of the women started hugging him in a tight and aggressive way. The three went to his room, but the women didn't go in and left.
Brooks later discovered, while sitting at a bar that same morning, that he no longer had his bankroll. Police said they later found Brooks' ATM pin stored in Knight's phone after she was arrested.
Bell and Knight have a trial scheduled for next month. Richard pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy to commit grand larceny. An arrest warrant has been issued for Yearby, who failed to make court appearances.
Fieselman said that it's always risky to let a stranger into your home, car or hotel room for an illegal act because the person will always know that you will have a harder time reporting any possible crime.
"I hate to blame the victim, but I think they make themselves vulnerable to the theft," he said.
Found a definition of Casino Girl
Makes sense, one has to sort of wing it when trying to figure out which women are working and which are not inside the casinos.
Either way, there is still a distinct chance of offending a housewife from Iowa, ain't there?
LOL!