Arrest of 3 Ad Managers in Prostitution Case: Retaliation?

By: The publisher of a weekly publication said the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation arrested three advertising executives in retaliation for unfavorable coverage of the agency by the paper.

Orlando Weekly's director of classified advertising Jarrell B. Martin, 43; line account executive Katherine Casey Miller, 27; and display account executive Christopher M. Whiting, 37, were taken into custody while at a job fair representing the newspaper Friday. They were charged with facilitating prostitution and benefiting from its proceeds.

The trio sold ads to undercover officers posing as representatives of prostitution, who explicitly said they wanted to promote their prostitution business, the MBI said.

Publisher Rick Schreiber said Monday the charges against the three are "outrageous" and he was confident they would be dismissed.

"We suspect that the MBI has targeted our company because we are the only newspaper in the area that has been critical of the MBI in a series of investigative articles over the past several years," Schreiber said.

Lt. Paul Zambouros, head of the MBI's vice and organized-crime squads, said the agency has video and audio recordings of each meeting.

"They violated the law and we charged them with it," he said. "I hope the Orlando Weekly thrives and makes a billion dollars. I just want them to do it legally."

Schreiber also said the arrests violated the paper's free speech rights.

"The arrests are a blatant attempt to infringe upon the First Amendment rights of this newspaper and its advertisers," he said. "This newspaper will not consent to censorship under the pain of prosecution by the MBI."

Telephone messages left after hours Monday at the offices of Orlando Weekly and the MBI were not returned. The three workers arrested have been released from jail.

Orlando Weekly earned more than $750,000 from ads in its "adult services" section and more than $1.25 million from its "massage" section ? common destinations for prostitution ads, according to the affidavit.