Quote:U of M professor arrested after seeking prostitution
Photo: Olmsted County Jail
Solen Feyissa.

March 21, 2019 02:59 PM

A University of Minnesota educator is facing possible charges after authorities say he responded to a false prostitution ad, according to a report from KAAL-TV in Rochester, a Hubbard-owned station.

Police identified the man as Solen Feyissa of Rochester, according to KAAL.

Police said someone responded to the ad placed by police and made arrangements to meet at a local hotel.

The police report said Feyissa told officers he was a professor of web technologies at the University of Minnesota and claimed he was doing research as a part of his job.

KAAL reports Feyissa was charged with engaging in prostitution in public, a gross misdemeanor.

Quote:U of M professor caught in prostitution sting
Friday, March 22, 2019 1:26 p.m. CDT

Solen Feyissa

ROCHESTER, MN - A University of Minnesota professor claims he was doing research when arrested in Rochester responding to a fake prostitution ad.

Police took out the false ad two years ago to find suspects looking to engage in sex and someone contacted them Wednesday afternoon. Investigators say 36-year-old Solen Feyissa arranged to meet at a hotel and pay $150 for services.

Feyissa was arrested based on the online conversation setting up the meeting for sex. He told detectives he was a U of M professor of web technologies and was doing research as part of his job.

Feyissa is charged with a gross misdemeanor count of engaging in prostitution in a public place.

Quote:Big Ten removes name of athlete-turned-prostitute Suzy Favor Hamilton from trophy

The Smoking Gun website in December first reported that Favor Hamilton, a track star at Wisconsin and in three Olympics, had worked as a $600-an-hour escort in Las Vegas. She described it as a “coping mechanism” tied to depression and other personal issues.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tuesday, July 2, 2013, 12:29 PM


Suzy Favor Hamilton reveals her secret life as a $600-a-night call girl in December.

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — The Big Ten female athlete of the year award no longer is named for the Olympic track star from Wisconsin who later acknowledged working as a prostitute.

Big Ten spokesman Scott Chipman said Tuesday that Suzy Favor Hamilton’s name was removed from the award after discussions between the league and Wisconsin.

Minnesota hockey player Amanda Kessel was named the winner last week. Kessel was also the national player of the year after leading the Gophers to an undefeated season and a second straight NCAA title.

Favor competed in the Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000. The Smoking Gun website in December first reported that Favor Hamilton had worked as a $600-an-hour escort in Las Vegas. She described it as a “coping mechanism” tied to depression and other personal issues.

Favor Hamilton, 44, was the Big Ten’s female athlete of the year three straight times beginning in 1988 and one of the most celebrated athletes at Wisconsin. She won seven U.S. national titles, her last in 1999.


Suzy Favor Hamilton is the Big Ten’s top female athlete for three-straight years while at Wisconsin.

Before her double life was revealed, she had been hired for speaking engagements at Disneyland and was pitchwoman for the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association.

Favor Hamilton said in a series of tweets last year that her work as an escort provided an “escape” for her.

“I do not expect people to understand,” she tweeted. “But the reasons for doing this made sense to me at the time and were very much related to depression.”

Favor Hamilton had told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2012 that she dealt with anxiety, an eating disorder and struggled with postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter.

At the time of that interview, she was doubling as a call girl going by the name “Kelly Lundy.”

Quote:Both he and she denied having "intimate relations" and claimed the thousands of euros he gave her were simply the support of a generous friend.

Quote:The person asking the question should first prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the boss's degree is fake. If s/he doesn't know how, that s/he needs to find an expert, like me (and, incidentally, I'd happily do it for free, just to help out). Once it is proved, positively, that the boss's degree is fake, then someone (not necessarily the employee who asked the question here) needs to report it to Human Resources, with a copy to the head of the company). The reason that perhaps the employee who has discovered it, and who asked the question, here, should not do the reporting is because no matter how in-the-right s/he may be, there can sometimes be weird and unexpected consequences later on. HR people are just people; and if the HR person is young, and wasn't raised right, and didn't grasp the message of the ethics courses s/he took in college, s/he (the HR person) may have the "don't be a snitch" mentality and may somehow hold that against the employee who rats-out the fake-degree-holding boss.

That's part of the reason why I, as part of what my consulting firm does, am happy to do the reporting for the employee, on my consulting firm's letterhead, out in the open, honestly and honorably, where I can stand behind what I write because as an activist I have the courage to so do. So if the person who asked the question, here -- the one who has the fake-degree-holding boss -- would like to contact me, I will be happy to help him/her completelly for free, and completely in confidence. I will first verify (in a manner far more comprehensive and accurate than s/he could likely do) that the boss's degree is, in fact, "fake." If it is, then I will then report him to both the company's president, and the HR department, on my letterhead, with a copy to the fake-degree-holding boss. Said boss would never, then, know which, if any, of his employees "ratted him out," as I'm sure he'd see it.

I've done this many times. I've stopped political candidates from obtaining office. I've stopped elected candidates from continuing in office. I've helped to shut down degree/diploma mills, and put their owners/operators in prison. And I've helped to put in prison those who've obtained fake degrees, then sworn they were real on applications for public office or state-issued professional licensure. I'm not afraid to do it. It's an honorable and important thing to do. I do it all the time, and I do it well.

And if the boss in this scenario really has a "fake" degree, then I'll be only too happy to do it to him. For free. In fact, whenever I do this sort of thing, I always do it for free... as part of my activism.

Quote:
Stephen Millhouse
top: Stephen, left, chats with Gregg DesElms, an advocate for homeless veterans in the Vallejo, Calif., area.

Quote:Lives in Napa, California
In a domestic partnership with Gregg L. DesElms
From Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte
Knows English, Tagalog

Quote:Pasuquin town is noted world wide for the Sunflower Festival, an annual drag (costume)pageantry. It was organized in 1975 by a group of gay men who call themselves the Sunflowers, and attracts a large audience from the surrounding countryside. The name Sunflower was conceptualized because of its bright and attractive yellow color. The petals of the sunflower always follows the direction of the sun and it relates to a gay life being multi talented and truly excels in fields of expertise.

As to the imperative need to preserve, develop and promote the Ilocano way of celebrating the Santacruzan, the Sunflower Organization of Pasuquin formally showcased the very first Gay Stacruzan Festival in May 1975. The association grew from year to year. More members evolved and the association became an instant toast. Part of the goal of the organization is to develop camaraderie among gay population of Pasuquin; more specifically to develop and discover young talents in the field of Performing Arts; to develop gays to be more responsible and useful citizens in their own field of endeavor.

An American film, Sunflowers (1996), directed by Shawn Hainsworth, an Independent U.S. Film Director, has made the Sunflower Festival internationally known. The film garnered critics recognition in the 1997 Chicago Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and other Film festivals in North America.

Members of the Sunflower are all professionals - doctors, nurses, musicians, teachers, engineers, accountants, lawyers, marines, naval officers, Federal employees, beauticians, morticians, couturiers, businessmen, interior designers and writers. Members who are residents in Pasuquin are mostly teachers, beauticians and businessmen.

Sunflower members are also active in participation of the annual town fiesta in December, the Mayflower festivities and religious celebrations like Holy Week. Indeed, they may be gay but they are truly and undoubtedly assets to the community.

Quote:Tonight, at Mary-Anne's family's annual Christmas get together, I promise you that every young person will have his/her nose buried in his/her smartphone, texting away. They don't want to be there, but their sense (be it imposed or otherwise) of Filipino family obligation demands their presence, and they WILL, bygod, accommodate. I can't help but notice, though, how not part of the moment they are; and I can't help but worry what will happen to such moments in the future, when the elders are gone and all that's left is their memory of not wanting to be there in the first place, and so their naturally wondering why even continue.

Quote:Prostitutes Flood Vallejo as Bankrupt City Slashes Police Force by a Third
By Alison Vekshin - Aug 21, 2011 9:01 PM PT

When Ruth Rooney moved in 2005 to a two-bedroom house in Vallejo, California, near Napa Valley’s famed wineries, the historic St. Vincent’s Hill neighborhood attracted young professionals and there were few vacancies.

Things began to change in 2008 after Vallejo, a city of about 116,000 that had lost its biggest employer, the U.S. Navy’s Mare Island shipyard, filed for bankruptcy, said Rooney, a 54-year-old marketing consultant.

“I see prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers out my front window,” Rooney said in a telephone interview Aug. 5. “There’s two on the corner right now.” Her property value has dropped 70 percent in six years, she said.

Vallejo’s experience comes as Central Falls, Rhode Island, proposes $5.6 million in budget cuts after seeking Chapter 9 protection this month and Jefferson County, Alabama, negotiates with creditors to avoid what would be the biggest government filing in U.S. history. There have been five municipal bankruptcies this year, compared with six in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Prostitution became a growth industry in Vallejo as the San Francisco Bay city slashed its payroll, cutting police by a third, to 90 from 134. The largest municipal bankruptcy in California since Orange County in 1994 has forced law enforcement to focus on violent crime at the cost of so-called “quality-of-life” issues, residents and officials said.

‘Half the People’

“When you have half the number of people, you can only do half the amount of work,” Robert Nichelini, Vallejo’s police chief, said in an Aug. 15 telephone interview. “Where it’s taken a toll is the lower-priority crimes, which have had to take a back seat.”

Prostitution and drug dealing used to be fought by a crime- suppression unit of 12 officers and a sergeant, Nichelini said. Since it disbanded in 2010, arrests for solicitation have dropped from about 96 a year to about 24, he said.

The arrest rate “is very low because it’s labor intensive,” Nichelini said. “You have to have a minimum of five people to make the prostitution arrest, which is a misdemeanor and they’re out of jail within an hour.”

Vallejo, located 24 miles (39 kilometers) north of San Francisco, emerged from bankruptcy on Aug. 5. The city’s general-fund spending fell to $66.2 million this year from $87.1 million in fiscal 2008, when it sought court protection.

The recession has also battered the city, eroding tax revenue and leading to a 12 percent unemployment rate as of June. One in every 124 Vallejo homes had a foreclosure filing in July, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based provider of default data.

Safety Worries

Matt Russell, 27, a Vallejo resident and private contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Francisco, said the city’s police presence has declined since 2008 and “prostitution, especially downtown, is huge.”

Russell said he has considered moving because he’s worried about the safety of his mother, sister and grandmother.

Interim Fire Chief Paige Meyer said his department employs 67, down from 122 in May 2008. Three of eight stations were closed about the time the city filed for bankruptcy.

“What that means to our citizens -- there’s no way to sugarcoat it -- you’re going to get longer response time,” Meyer said in a telephone interview.

The sharp reduction in city services has prompted residents to fill the void, particularly in law enforcement.

Neighborhood Watchers

Vallejo has 302 neighborhood-watch associations with 2,552 members, up from 10 groups with 60 people in 2009, said Tony Pearsall, executive director of the Fighting Back Partnership, a Vallejo-based nonprofit social-services group.

“They’re doing crime prevention themselves because there is no crime-prevention unit in the police department anymore,” Pearsall, a retired Vallejo police captain, said by telephone.

Another group, the Central Core Restoration Corp., hired two armed security guards beginning in 2008 to patrol Georgia Street, the city’s commercial center, on bicycles during business hours.

“They help us with the panhandlers, loitering and assist us in calling the police if we have more serious infractions,” Janet Sylvain, the group’s president, said in an Aug. 11 interview at her upholstery shop, Pieced on Earth.

About half the stores along Georgia Street stand vacant and existing shop owners say they are scraping by or relying on the Internet or out-of-town business to generate sales.

While the street was almost deserted on a weekday afternoon in August, around the corner, the Greenwell Cooperative, a medical-marijuana dispensary, had a steady flow of customers.

Pot and Prostitution

“You know the only businesses in town making money? Pot and prostitution -- that’s it,” said Matt Shotwell, 30, who opened the dispensary in January 2010 and keeps a bong on the desk in his office.

Shotwell’s dispensary, which also sells pot-infused barbecue sauce, olive oil and cherry slushies, draws about 250 customers a day, he said.

“I’m bringing foot traffic down here,” Shotwell said in an interview.

Vallejo, which doesn’t have local laws controlling medical- marijuana dispensaries, has seen an influx of about 20 such businesses, according to a city estimate. Three shops are within four blocks of Ruth Rooney’s home.

“They came here and feel they’d be under the radar,” Phil Batchelor, Vallejo’s interim city manager, said in an interview this month at City Hall. “But we’re going to change all that. We’re stepping up enforcement, we’re going to tax them and we’re right now looking at setting up zoning requirements.”

Rebuilding Vallejo

With the bankruptcy behind them, city officials said they are taking steps to rebuild Vallejo and its image.

The City Council has approved a November ballot measure asking voters to add a 1 percent local sales tax for 10 years, in addition to the 7.38 percent levy already on the books. It would raise $9.7 million annually, said Deborah Lauchner, Vallejo’s finance director.

Vallejo’s council has also agreed to put a ballot measure before voters in November to impose a business-license tax on the dispensaries of as much as 10 percent of gross sales.

The city has created an economic development department, formed a prostitution task force, and is hiring back some firefighters and police officers.

Kaiser Grant

Kaiser Permanente, the largest U.S. nonprofit health management organization, gave the city a grant of about $736,000 that will be combined with federal funds to hire three police officers, Batchelor said. Kaiser operates the Vallejo Medical Center. The city also got a federal grant to hire nine firefighters and reopen a fire station.

On Georgia Street, a sign in the front window of the Procyon Gallery depicts a pair of women’s boots and reads “Prostitution Free Zone.”

The owner, Greg Leopold, 64, said he earns just enough from his art and framing business to pay the bills and has no plans to move despite the city’s problems.

“I’m stupid and I’m stubborn and I still think the same way about Vallejo as 20 years ago, which is this place has so much potential,” Leopold said. “It can’t stay like this. You’re in the Bay Area for God’s sakes. It can’t stay like this even by mistake.”

Quote:Pair protest city of Vallejo's 'aggressive rush' to uproot homeless, clear out encampments
By Sarah Rohrs / Times-Herald
Posted: 09/25/2010 01:01:16 AM PDT

Claiming the displaced will have nowhere to go and no one to help them, two homeless advocates are publicly protesting the city's plan to clear out five homeless encampments in Vallejo this fall.

Advocates Doug Darling and Gregg DesElms say they were ousted from a city-led group of social service providers after objecting to what they say is an unnecessary and "aggressive" rush to clean up the camps.

"We want to try to stop what's going on," Darling said. "We don't have a problem with eviction as long as it is orchestrated properly. The issue is lack of services.

"If we are going to force these people out, we need to find places for them to go," Darling said.

Meanwhile, DesElms of Napa said the city's code enforcement division and its chief Nimat Shakoor-Grantham should relinquish control to other agencies and individuals with a less adversarial relationship with the homeless.

City staff last month pledged to take a more "humane" approach to relocating homeless people from White Slough, Wilson Avenue, the vacant Mervyns and Bill Lang Pontiac Cadillac dealership buildings, and along the railroad tracks near Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.

In prior homeless encampment sweeps, people were forced out without anywhere to go, something the city wants to avoid, staff have said.

In an upcoming cleanup effort, Shakoor-Grantham says the city will have shelter for homeless people to go to before any camp evictions.

But Darling said the city is not living up to its commitment and that "forced evictions" are in the works without any effort to see that homeless people are treated fairly, humanely and with dignity. He said services aren't available and more time is needed to find them.

Shakoor-Grantham and Housing and Community Development Manager Melinda Nestlerode said shelter is being sought.

"It's my understanding that we are going to have identified all the beds prior to the relocation," Nestlerode said.

In dealing with the homeless encampments, the city is working on two tracts, she said.

The short-term plan is to clean up the camps and place homeless people in shelter beds this fall before the winter rainy season, Shakoor-Grantham said.

Meanwhile, a long-term strategy involves working with social service agencies on a more comprehensive relocation plan that would combine shelter, comprehensive medical services, transportation and other items, Shakoor-Grantham said.

This latter effort also involves working with agencies on developing more homeless shelters in Vallejo, a big need, Nestlerode said.

While the city was planning to clean up the camps on Oct. 4, that date has been pushed back for a few weeks to consult with Department of Fish and Game regarding camps in sloughs and marshes, Shakoor-Grantham said.

Prior to the evictions, code enforcement officers will visit the camps, talk to homeless people and assess their housing, medical and social needs, Shakoor-Grantham said.

Shakoor-Grantham said she disagrees the city is working too fast and without disregard to homeless people.

Staff members are working with Christian Help Center, Mission Solano, churches and other agencies to find up to 80 shelter beds and assure social services are in place, Shakoor-Grantham said.

But Darling said the kinds of beds and services needed are simply unavailable.

Darling said once he began asking questions about that issue, he was shut out of the group and the process.

Shakoor-Grantham said she no longer included Darling in an e-mail distribution list because he distributed an e-mail saying he could no longer support the city's actions.

DesElms said he believed he was part of the process and that his expertise and desire to help was welcome.

However, Shakoor-Grantham said DesElms continuously disagreed with the city's aims and intentions and that his manner in meetings was often disruptive.

Both Darling and DesElms said they will continue to help the homeless. This weekend they will pass out "Warning" fliers in homeless encampments about the upcoming evictions.

The fliers Darling and DesElms will distribute advise homeless people they are under no obligation to answer questions, or provide any personal and confidential information to city staff.

The advocates and Shakoor-Grantham are encouraging homeless people to attend "Project Homeless Connect" in which a wide array of social service and government agencies will be on hand to help them.

Quote:Five myths about prostitution

By Sudhir Venkatesh
Sunday, September 12, 2010
. . .
2. Men visit sex workers for sex.

Often, they pay them to talk. I've been studying high-end sex workers (by which I mean those who earn more than $250 per "session") in New York, Chicago and Paris for more than a decade, and one of my most startling findings is that many men pay women to not have sex. Well, they pay for sex, but end up chatting or having dinner and never get around to physical contact. Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free. Even at the lower end of the market, about 20 percent of transactions don't ultimately involve sex.

Figuring out why men pay for sex they don't have could sustain New York's therapists for a long time. But the observations of one Big Apple-based sex worker are typical: "Men like it when you listen. . . . I learned this a long time ago. They pay you to listen -- and to tell them how great they are." Indeed, the high-end sex workers I have studied routinely see themselves as acting the part of a counselor or a marriage therapist. They say their job is to feed a man's need for judgment-free friendship and, at times, to help him repair his broken partnership. Little wonder, then, that so many describe themselves to me as members of the "wellness" industry.
. . .
Sudhir Venkatesh is a professor of sociology at Columbia University and the author of "Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets."