A Florida mother brought her 15-year-old daughter to New York City this week to make quick cash with a pimp. When she was arrested, Yolanda Ostolaza told police that she knew she would be subjecting her child to “escorting and prostitution.” Dammit, Florida — it’s only Monday!
The child was caught by vice detectives who found her ad online and said they would pay $200 for sex in a Manhattan hotel. When they arrested the teen, she said her mother was waiting for her not far away. Ostolaza, who was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and is still behind bars touting a $2,000 bail, said she just thought her kid was going to do “the fetish stuff.”
In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, authorities say their arrest numbers have increased and nearly two dozen women were arraigned in one day for prostitution in a Manhattan court last week. The court also had to request more social services workers to sort out the higher number of clients who needed their attention.
The Super Bowl’s impact on host cities’ underground sex industry is explored every year, as thousands of fans pour into town. People who work in the industry say the week leading up to the game is among the most profitable. But reliable data on the sex trade — legal or illegal — during Super Bowl week does not exist.
The Police Department said it had made 298 prostitution-related arrests this year through Jan. 26, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2013.
Leading up to the big game, conversation volleyed back and forth between whether there was or wasn’t a significant increase in sex trade workers in the New York and New Jersey area during the Super Bowl. But doesn’t an increase in the legal and illegal sex trade seem like common sense economics?
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