ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A website that authorities say two aging professors used to run a multistate prostitution ring is legal, a state judge has ruled, highlighting the difficulties thatprosecutors face in using decades-old laws to combat a modern phenomenon.
The ruling comes as prosecutors were scheduled to present to a grand jury their case against formerUniversity of New Mexico President F. Chris Garcia, who is accused of helping a physics professorfrom New Jersey oversee a prostitution website called “Southwest Companions.”
State District Judge Stan Whitaker ruled that the website, an online message board and Garcia’s computer account did not constitute a “house of prostitution,” the Albuquerque Journal reported.
Whitaker also said the website wasn’t “a place where prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed.”
The ruling means that prosecutors will now have to decide how to proceed with a case involving Garcia, retired Fairleigh Dickinson University physics professor David C. Flory and others.
Do I want to study business and entrepreneurship in college? Yes. Am I looking for new ideas and programs? Yes? Is UNM what I am looking for? Hell no.
One thing I have learned from looking at colleges is that many of them are trying to be the first in new programs, but I think that former UNM President Garcia was really pushing it.
