David Flory (AP)
(
)
This physics professor was a little too interested in human anatomy.
A college teacher from the Upper West Side known as a nerdy scientist and doting grandfather had a shocking second life — running a New Mexico-based prostitution ring that sold high-priced hookers to randy rednecks, police said yesterday.
David Flory, 68, of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey — a specialist in quantum theory and its relation to astronomy — will need more than an advanced degree to beat the 40 felony counts of promoting prostitution that landed him in an Albuquerque jail cell on $100,000 bail.
“I’m floored. This would be the last person on earth I’d expect to hear this about. This isn’t the same David Flory I knew,” said Alexia White, a city teacher who once sublet part of Flory’s apartment.
“I’m completely shocked. It would be like my own mother doing this.”
Flory’s high-security “Southwest Companions” had an impressive client list of about 1,400 johns, whom he hooked up with a stable of 200 cybersluts. They included Phoenix hooker Andrea Moorehead, who offered a $1,400 date that promises “two hours out/two hours in,” police said.
The pervy professor, who reportedly told cops it was merely a “hobby,” conducted all his risky business out of a luxurious adobe vacation home in Santa Fe called Casa de Los Arboles, or “House of the Trees” — and right under the nose of his psychotherapist wife, Sharon.
In Manhattan, the couple lives in the posh Belnord Building on West 86th Street, where they count Matt Damon among their neighbors.
“Everyone’s talking about this, no one can believe it,” said one resident. “He comes out in a big cowboy hat and wears a Western medallion on his belt. He thinks he’s a cowboy but he’s nerdy, really nerdy.”
Word spread like wildfire across the FDU campus, where he has taught for 42 years.
“I met him at a social event at the university. He was a very nice man, very scholarly, soft-spoken. He would talk about his daughters and his grandchildren; he was very proud of his family. This is shocking to us all,” said a colleague who didn’t want to be identified.
The news didn’t sit well with FDU parents who shell out $45,000 a year in tuition and fees.
“For a parent, to pay all this money to send our children here to a private school and find out about this, it’s unbelievable,” said Valerie Locke, whose son and daughter are undergraduates. “He could have been prostituting girls here for all we know.”
“I feel it ruins the reputation of the school. It’s very upsetting,” said her son, sophomore Brian Locke, 19.
Flory’s own Web site portrays him as a devoted family man, boasting of his wife, two daughters, stepdaughter and four grandchildren.
Sharon Flory, who specializes in treating eating disorders, is his second wife. The mother of his two biological daughters died in 1997.
Neighbors say the Florys love to cook, dance and host parties.
Cops got a break in the case in December when they busted a hooker known as “Juicy Gin” — and Flory, using the handle “David8” — posted the news and quickly dropped the hooker from his Web site.
The move alerted cops that “David8” — whom they later identified as Flory — was the pimp running “Southwest Companions,” according to a criminal complaint.
He was arrested at a Starbucks in Albuquerque Sunday, and cops immediately executed search warrants at his FDU office and homes in New Mexico and New York, carting off a computer and two boxes of evidence.
Flory bizarrely told cops “he was not in this for the money,” said Albuquerque Police Lt. William Roseman.
“He flat-out told us his thing was he wanted to create a safe place for prostitutes and johns to get together. He called it a hobby.”
Roseman said Flory “had dates set up” with the prostitutes when he came to New Mexico but couldn’t say for sure what happened during those encounters.
Cops said the kinky cowboy ran his Web site as scientifically as he taught his classes.
There were three security levels for johns: probation, verified and trust.
“In order to get off probation you had to sleep with one of the prostitutes featured on the Web site and she in turn would tell [Flory] what acts occurred, how much they paid, and any comments,” Roseman said.
“That opened you up to verified status. Once you got into verified status, that opened you up to different girls available.”
Johns eventually moved into trusted status, which let them use code to rate the girls and the services they offered.
Detectives managed to become “trusted” members — and set up encounters with hookers, the complaint states.
Some were busted; others agreed to cooperate.
Girls who advertised on the site included Konia Prinsler, aka “Russian Emma,” a 5-foot-6 busty blond who billed herself as a “Playboy Bunny” type whose services included three-ways.
New Mexico based escort Hailey Comet — a 5-foot-7 dirty blond — charged $350 for two hours, and claims she’s “the very essence of erotic escapism” with “the face of an angel [and] a body to excite your sinful side.”
Another woman from the site, Reva M. Sibley, was one of several others named in the criminal complaint.
In a statement, FDU said the school community “is saddened by the news of the arrest of David Flory and is concerned about these serious charges. Since becoming aware of the arrest, the university has cooperated with law-enforcement authorities.”
Additional reporting by Lilian Dregalla in Santa Fe, NM, Perry Chiaramonte in Teaneck, NJ, and The Associated Press