These girls were anything but a cheap date.
A “high-end” Brooklyn escort services that raked in $7 million over three years by dealing sex and drugs to clients who forked over as much as $10,000 per night has been broken up, authorities revealed today in announcing the arrests of 17 people.
One client of the Sheepshead Bay-based escort service, High Class NY, dropped a stunning $170,000 for its steamy services over just a year, revealed Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
Asked what that guy got for his 170K, Hynes quipped, “God knows.”
“I’m a married man. I don’t want to think about it,” Hynes added.
Named in the 144-count indictment were High Class NY’s owners Mikhail Yampolsky, his wife, Bronislava, his son, Alexander; and his step-son, Jonathan Yampolskaya. Also charged were eleven of their managers and supervisors, as well as two of their largest investors, Efim Gorelik and Yakov Maystrovich.
Charges include enterprise corruption, promoting prostitution, money laundering, and criminal sale of a controlled substance. Two escorts were separately charged with prostitution, criminal sale of a controlled substance and attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance.
No john was being charged at this time, although Hynes ominously said, “We’re considering that.”
“I’ve been informed that customers are all high-end customers, coming from the financial markets many of them, hedge fund people, people with nothing but money, willing to pay these enormous amounts of money for God knows what,” Hynes said.
Rates for the hookers, who provided out-call services, ranged from $400 to $3,600 per hour.
The women hired by the service typically ranged in age from 20 to 30 years old, with 30 being considered old, prosecutors said.
“Because the enterprise sought an upscale clientels, all escorts had to submit photographs and complete a face-to-face interview to ensure they met high stanrds for appearance,” Hynes said.
Senior Assistant DA Rebecca Gingold said that any any time, the escort service had “There were full-service options [of women]. There were Europeans, Americans, Australians and people of all races.”
Hynes then chimed in, with a twinkle in his eye:. “No one Irish.”
The DA said that High Class NY advertised its out-call prostitution services in a range of media outlets, including the online sites Craigslist and Backpage.com.
And Hynes said the service went to great lengths to conceal its true nature, by “creating a series of dummy coportations with misleading names that conducted its financial transactions.”
“They used codes, including calling prostitutes models, referring to their services as time and companionship only.”
“They used discrete credit-card billing practices to help the johns conceal the true nature of the services on monthly billing statements,” Hynes said. “They even went so far as to hire a law firm to draw up employment contracts for employees, particularly their prostitutes, containing bogus clauses forbidding sexual contact between models and clients.”
But Hynes said that in addition to offering women for sexual favors for pay, the service also offered its clients drugs.
Customers would use code phrases, such as “I’d like a bottle of Champagne,” when they wanted cocaine with their hooker — and were charged a steep markup in return.
“Instead of paying 20 bucks for cocaine, they were paying 170 bucks,” Hynes said.
After their arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court, a lawyer for the Mikhail and Bronislava Yampolsky, said the couple “didn’t know anything illegal was going on.”
“The girls are very beautiful, men come to New York, and they need some companionship,” said Albert Y. Dayan, the lawyer, arguing that the Yampolskys were running a legitimate escort service. “Whatever other arrangements the models made have had is a question of fact whether Mr. Yampolsky knew about it.”
Mikhail was ordered held on $150,000 bond or bail, his wife was held on $10,000 bond or bail, Alexander was held on $75,000 bond or bail, and Jonathan Yampolskaya was held on $5,000 bond or bail.