The dean of students at tony Scarsdale HS used cocaine for 20 years and abruptly retired in June after he was caught smoking crack with a prostitute in his White Plains home, authorities said today.
David Mendelowitz was the only john named in a sweeping probe of a three-state prostitution ring that employed 40 girls and ran its own advertising firm to lure wealthy patrons.
Mendelowitz, 58, retired at the end of June — allegedly for health reasons — in what was considered a surprise. He had been at Scarsdale HS for 15 years as guidance counselor and dean — and also serving on the school’s Drug and Alcohol task force.
But a criminal complaint unveiled today showed that he told a prostitute on May 21 that he’s been using cocaine for 20 years, usually on Friday nights.
The next day he gave a heads up to the head of the prostitution ring, saying that investigators from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office were on to him and knew he was “smoking crack” and “seeing prostitutes,” the complaint said.
Mendelowitz assured the pimp that he didn’t admit anything but suspected one of the hookers informed on him.
The charges against Mendelowitz include using cocaine and patronizing a hooker at his home on May 4,May 10 and May 18.
Eighteen other people were arrested yesterday as the feds, state and NYPD rolled up the $7 million prostitution ring after a 16-month investigation.
The ring created its own Manhattan advertising agency, Somad Enterprises, to service five escort services. They even gave the pimps advice “at the level of, don’t advertise during the Super Bowl, the johns are not going to be reading your ads then,” Schneiderman said.
The sophisticated operation — which was also into money laundering, human trafficking and drugs — also hired a webmaster in the Philippines who designed a search engine optimizer so that the online ads of the escort services “would rise to the top in Google and other search engines,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.