Sex Work After Gilgo: Part One

Music: Midnight Atroll by AK

TANIA LOPEZ: One thing that gets erased out of this whole thing, is that it’s not just a story, these are people, these are somebodies’ daughters, this is someone’s child. You know, these victims, you know whatever they did for a living, they were young women.

NEWS 12 ‘GILGO BEACH: UNSOLVED’ CUT: Suffolk police officially identified the four women as sex workers, who vanished from 2007 to 2010.

ROB TROTTA: The moral dilemma, is how does the county executive keep a guy whose been on the cover of Newsday for having sex with prostitutes in a police car, in a marked unit and keep him as the chief of police.

JOHN RAY: You can actually sense the real presence of evil in anybody that's done this if say otherwise has no idea what they're talking about that is threatening. That can be powerful.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: So, there’s a whole uncovered story here about how police do in fact murder sex workers. And it’s very difficult to talk about people people’s lives at risk.

Music: Midnight Stroll and Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: Ten years ago, in late 2010 and 2011… the remains of 10 bodies were found along

oceanside parkway on Gilgo Beach in Suffolk county, long island.

Seven of the victims were confirmed to be sex workers on and around the island. Sex workers are adults who receive payment in exchange for consensual sexual services.

The remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and Shannan Gilbert were found in a similar nature along the south shore.

All of these women were sex workers.

The murderer, or murderers, of these women have taken the infamous name of the Long Island serial killer.

I’m Alexandra Whitbeck, and this is Sex Work After Gilgo.

In this four-part series, we’ll be taking a look at how vulnerable populations are impacted by traumatic events.

Specifically, the scope of sex work on long island and what has changed socially, politically, and legally since remains of 10 people were found on Gilgo Beach.

In this first episode, we’re going to look back to 2010 and 2011 with Tania Lopez, a Suffolk County crime reporter who covered the case as it happened.

We’ll also hear from Penelope Saunders; a sex worker’s rights activist who attended a vigil held for one of the victims and explains how the murder of these women is linked to systemic societal issues.

I also spoke with the attorney who has represented victims’ families, John Ray, about his fight to bring these women justice.

In later episodes, we’ll look at the Suffolk County police’s investigation of the case and be introduced to some individuals who played a major role in its development and potentially why it ran cold.

We’ll look at why every layer of this case is claimed to uncover further corruption in Suffolk County.

I’ll be speaking with sex workers rights advocates who break down the complex relationship between sex workers and police.

We’ll hear from past and current members of the Suffolk County pd about how their experiences have changed their policing.

Once again, I’m Alexandra Whitbeck and this is Sex Work After Gilgo.

Please note that this series contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing.

Music: Mystic Forrest by AK

Sound: Ocean waves

WHITBECK: Gilgo Beach is located on a barrier beach on the south

Shore of long island with Ocean Parkway being the only way to access the area.

Ocean Parkway stretches over nearly sixteen miles passing through Jones Beach State Park and Tobay Beach Park in Nassau County.

Once the beaches of Tobay come to an end, you’ve entered Suffolk County and Gilgo Beach.

It is fairly desolate; plants grow unruly in the marshland and the occasional biker pedals down the bike path running parallel to the road.

As you drive east on ocean parkway, the Atlantic Ocean and the beach itself sits to your right, and until 2011, the remains of Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, and Shannon Gilbert were to your left.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: It’s eerie out there. And I’ve actually never been back. It was just too much, and I would consider myself a fairly tough person and it was unnerving going out there, and the one piece to hold onto was the vigil.

WHITBECK: That was Penelope Saunders, she’s an advocate for sex workers rights and the

director of the non-profit organization, The Best Practices Policy Project. She was

describing her trip to Gilgo Beach to attend a vigil held for the victims.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: In early 2012, the mother of Shannan Gilbert organized a vigil, out on Gilgo Beach, and that was the first time I’d ever been out there, and I took my young child with me, the babe in arms with me, it felt very remote out there. It was extremely cold, actually I true to form got lost, we were driving around and around, and I had some other advocates with me, it was dreary out there, you know the wind is blowing it’s very cold. After a long period of time, we found the vigil, and the vigil I remember, it was, the scape was gray, cool blues, that winter landscape, and they had beautiful neon-colored signs and balloons, holding this vigil. And It was like this vibrant vigil, honoring their child.

News 12 CLIP: Suffolk police found the bodies, not during a training exercise, but while looking for 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, an upstate New York woman living in Jersey City who vanished in May of 2010 after working as an escort for an Oak Beach man she met on Craigslist.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: It all started with Shannan.

Shannan Gilbert disappeared on May 1st, 2010, after leaving a client’s home in Oak Beach, located on the southern shore.

Seven months into the search for Shannan, the Suffolk County police found the remains of Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman and two unidentified victims in December 2010, just south of Thatch Island in the brush on Gilgo Beach each less than a mile from one another.

Later in March and April of 2011, the remains of Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack and those of an unidentified woman were found further east down ocean parkway.

The victims were found by the Suffolk County PD in a similar manner; nude, wrapped in burlap and dismembered.

All of the women identified were sex workers advertising their services on Craigslist.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

TANIA LOPEZ: I mean the first victim, Melissa, Melissa Barthelemy she was only 24 years old. I have a 24-year-old. 24 is, you’re just starting your life, you’re just beginning and to have that put in a situation where your life is snatched from you like that, you really want to make sure you’re sensitive to that.

WHITBECK: That was Tania Lopez, a former Newsday crime reporter in Suffolk County. Tania

spoke with the families of these women and reported on the case in 2011.

Local Long Island news outlets like News12 and Newsday have covered the situation extensively over the past decade.

TANIA LOPEZ: I started, I believe I started January 30th, 2011, and I believe I had come after they had found the first four bodies.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: The first to be found was Melissa Barthelemy. She went missing on July 10th, 2009, was 24 and originally from Erie County, New York, but living in the Bronx.

News 12 CLIP: 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy reported missing from the Bronx, July 2009.

WHITBECK: Maureen Brainard-Barnes was last seen on July 9th, 2007. She was only 25, a

mother and lived in Norwich, Connecticut.

News 12 CLIP: 25-year-old Maureen Brainard Barnes reported missing from Norwich, Connecticut, July 2007.

WHITBECK: Megan Waterman disappeared from Hauppauge, New York on June 6th, 2010. She

was only 22 and from South Portland, Maine.

News 12 CLIP: 22-year-old Megan Waterman, reported missing in Maine, June 2010

WHITBECK: Amber Lynn Costello was 27 and went missing on September 2nd, 2010. She was

from North Babylon, New York.

News 12 CLIP: 27-year-old Amber Lynn Costello, who was last seen in Babylon, New York, September 2010.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: In March and April of 2011, two more women were identified after linking partial

remains found years earlier with the remains the police found on Gilgo.

Jessica Taylor’s torso was found in Manorville, New York in Suffolk County on July 26th, 2003.

Nearly seven years later on March 29th, 2011, her skull, hands and right forearm were found just over a mile from the other victims.

Jessica was 20 years old and worked in Manhattan.

Valerie Mack’s head, right foot and hands were found on April 4th 2011, while the rest of her body was found a decade earlier in November of 2000. She was 24 and from Philadelphia.

Valerie was known as jane doe number 6 until she was officially identified on May 28th, 2020.

Newscasts: May 2020 video Hart announcing the identification of Valerie Mack.

WHITBECK: That was the former Commissioner of the Suffolk County PD Geraldine Hart, I spoke with her about the use of DNA evidence in identifying Valerie Mack.

GERALDINE HART: When I came aboard, uh, in April of 18 is when they did the golden gate cereal case and I thought, wow, that's interesting. So how do we use genetic genealogy to identify unidentified victims? And just starting that process, which is very laborious and partnering with the FBI who had an expert in it. Um, and, and successfully did it first in New York State to identify, um, anybody who seems to have a genealogy.

So, we're able to identify a victim. And that was very rewarding because that family didn't know what happened to the daughter. And the idea of that is just. Mind blowing, right? Uh, your daughter's gone, and you have no answers, but what's more impactful for me was, uh, had her son was now an adult grown and in prison and not knowing what happened to his mother, thinking that she left him.

And as a child thinking that your mother left, it has to be devastating. And to give him that closure of saying she didn't leave. And it's not the answer that you hope for. It's certainly horrific and tragic, but it is. It's not what you thought it was. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully that gave a little bit of peace to the family, which is really what it's all about.

And this was, um, Valerie, Valerie, Mack. And then we did a lot of work on the two other unidentified, but, um, it's a little more difficult. The DNA's degraded a deal, but there's some other avenues that we're trying to pursue when I left. Um, so hopefully, I mean, you know, The energies behind it. And hopefully it comes in one day, hopefully.

WHITBECK: Shannan Gilbert’s body was found on December 13th, 2011, in the Oak Beach

marsh, 19 months after she went missing from that very area.

Shannan’s cause of death was officially ruled inconclusive by the Suffolk County medical examiners in May 2012 and not officially linked to the remains found on Gilgo Beach.

Music: Mystic Forest By AK

WHITBECK: The night Shannan disappeared, she called 911.

Aside from law enforcement and select Suffolk officials, only one person has heard the recording of that 22 minute 911 call made by Shannan as she ran for her life.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: In his Miller Place law office with bookshelves and a child’s artwork lining the

walls, long island attorney john ray sits at the head of a large desk with neat stacks of legal documents and not one computer screen around him.

I met with John Ray to discuss his involvement in the case.

We started our conversation discussing how he began representing Shannan’s case in 2011. A friend and reporter urged him to meet with Mari Gilbert, Shannan’s mother after he spoke in court on the behalf of an unrelated victim.

JOHN RAY: They were all sitting in the jury box and one of them is a fellow named Steve Barcella and he was a, um, uh, a reporter photographer for the daily news. He knew me, I knew him for years and he buttonholed me afterward.

And he said, there's another woman who needs your help. And it was Mari Gilbert. Uh, you know, I knew the case, so I didn't know her name, but I remember that he said, can you meet her with him at a bar over in Islip? And she would like to see if you could be of help to her own, what was the nature of the help?

Well, Mari Gilbert, wasn't getting, um, anywhere with the police and she felt that the police were covering up her daughter's murder. So, she needed somebody to speak for her.

WHITBECK: John Ray then held a press conference in January 2012 on Gilgo Beach alongside Mari Gilbert.

Behind them, posters expressing their only goal.

JOHN RAY: I'll hold a press conference. And, um, the idea being to get the federal FBI in it, in the United States attorney, uh, because the police weren't doing a job, that was the goal and the only goal.

WHITBECK: Shortly after John Ray held the press conference urging federal agencies to get

involved in the case, a Suffolk County detective investigating Shannan’s death named

Vincent Stephan sent ray a letter.

JOHN RAY: The police did a very odd thing, which to this day is in explicable, the police, uh, uh, treasurer, I believe he was a vice president of the Detective’s Association that basically the police detectives union writes me a letter a few days after that press conference, his name was Vincent Stephan.

And he writes this letter to me saying that, um, uh, I was all wet in my press conference and I had no idea what I was talking about. And it was odd. It was that first of all he, he was one of the detectives who investigated Shannon's case. And he said, so he wrote me a two-page single space to tell me what I just said and in it, he actually revealed what he said was on the tape that the 911 tapes of Shannon Gilbert. And he claimed that she was all at all times calm. He claimed that there was never any threat of murder. He claimed that, um, everybody was calm, uh, that there was absolutely no reason for this to have happened.

And he claimed a few other things as well. And so, uh, he claimed personal knowledge. He heard the tapes.

And you might wonder what this has to do with what we’re talking about, but it has to do with Burke. Police Chief Burke.

WHITBECK: After receiving this letter, John Ray began to fight for the tapes of Shannan’s 911

call to be released.

Due to the graphic nature of the tapes and its evidentiary status in an investigation, the Suffolk County police kept this recording tight to the vest.

JOHN RAY: And you might ask yourself at this point….the police have never once said why they want the tapes never once in any of their papers, why in God's name, are they still holding back on this? When they claim that Shannon Gilbert was not murdered, uh, or that they don't know if she was or not, and that she's not connected to the other Gilgo people, how in God's name, can they then still insist upon holding back these tapes?

There isn't a single good reason for that at all. So why there is another reason and it's a good one, except we don't know it.

WHITBECK: John Ray started by filing a freedom of information act, otherwise known as a

FOIA, to obtain the tape.

JOHN RAY: We went by freedom of information, act demand for the tapes, which, um, ordinarily you would get, if this was not a crime, remember the police were saying this was not a crime. They were saying she disappeared by the natural causes. So, um, different things they said about that. But, um, depending on what day of the week they were speaking about it, you know, but she was, you know, that was clearly by their lights, not a murder. So, I should've gotten the tapes by the nine 11. Um, and by the freedom of information, Act, um, demand. Instead, they fought me on it, which was surprising.

WHITBECK: Nevertheless, he kept pushing.

JOHN RAY: So, I fight. That's what I do all my life. That's what I still do for a living. And I no longer fight in bars. I fight in court, but it's kind of the same. All right.

WHITBECK: John Ray spent the next year filing motions and subpoenas to get the tapes

released as Suffolk County fought him each step.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: Until he finally won in an appeal in May 2020.

JOHN RAY: I had to go through an appeal, full blown appeal, and I won the appeal. And so they had to give up the tape.

JOHN RAY: The detective sergeant in charge of the tape, his name was, uh, um, Pat Portellos. I told my, a guy that was helping me form of Suffolk County homicide, detective named Bill Mahoney, who'd stepped up to help me. And Portella told Mahoney to cops talking to each other. Um, John Ray will get those tapes over my dead body, quote unquote.

So, uh, why? I mean, what, the reason they're holding these tapes up. So arduously, I don't know. So, one, when I finally won and they had to give up the tapes, he had to deliver them to my office…

I said to him. Hey, detective, how are you? We're friendly, I'm friendly with the guy, nice to the guy. And, uh, um, you know, as sort of an arm’s length relationship. And I said to them, gee, I’m still alive, I can't figure that one out, you know, because he said over my dead body.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: John Ray currently has the tapes in his possession and compares what Suffolk

County detectives previously stated was on the recordings with what he heard.

JOHN RAY: Many years later, um, when I came to know for sure that the police story of Shannon's disappearance was a thread of, uh, maybe more than a thread, but, um, a knitted, a coat of lies, willful deliberate, outright lies.

They weren't just mistakes or questions where reasonable people can differ. For example, you say, well, I heard the tape and he, maybe this guy was right. They weren't that excited. And I say, no, I heard the tape. And they were excited. Um, you know, you could debate that. That's not what happened here.

MUSIC TRANSITION: MYSTIC FORRESTS BY AK

WHITBECK: In 2020, Netflix released Lost Girls, a movie about Mari Gilbert’s fight to find justice for her daughter, Shannan.

It details the vigil Penelope Saunders spoke about before and shows how the families of the victims relied on one another for support.

It looks at the role of Doctor Peter Hackett in the disappearance and murder of Shannan Gilbert.

Charles Peter Hackett was the former head of the Suffolk County emergency medical services.

He resided on Oak Beach, a private community where he was well known for his work in local emergency services and the security of oak beach.

Hackett was also known for running a home for what he called wayward women.

Oak Beach only covers 3.7 square miles of Suffolk County. In this small, gated area, the community is tight knit, sort of like a microcosm of Suffolk County itself.

Shannan Gilbert ran through Oak Beach screaming for help, on the phone with 911 for 23 minutes in May 2010 only to wait an hour for police to arrive.

She was in Oak Beach that night to meet a client named Joseph Brewer, a neighbor of Peter Hackett.

Before Shannan was declared missing and the search for her began, her mother Mari received a phone call from Hackett asking about Shannan.

Mari’s claim that Hackett called her was later corroborated through phone records.

Hackett denies seeing Shannan the night of her disappearance in May 2010 and claims that he was asked to make the phone call by Shannan’s driver that night according to CBS’s 48 hours.

The Long Island Press reported that some of Shannan’s belongings were found in the Oak Beach marsh, near Hackett’s house.

And Oxygen reported SCPD found that Shannan appears to have entered the marsh right behind Hackett’s house.

Shannan’s body was then found in the Oak Beach marsh in December 2011.

In 2012, the Gilbert family filed a wrongful death lawsuit with the help of Attorney John Ray against Hackett.

Mari Gilbert denied Hackett’s claims of not being involved in Shannan’s disappearance until her own death in 2016.

Peter Hackett now supposedly resides in Florida, and Shannan Gilbert is still without justice buried in the Amityville Cemetery.

Music Fade Out

WHITBECK: Shannan’s death was determined inconclusive by Suffolk County medical examiners in 2012 and is not officially linked to what law enforcement refers to as the Gilgo case.

However, Shannan’s disappearance led to the discovery of 9 bodies alongside ocean parkway.

Melissa, Maureen, Amber-Lynn, Megan, Shannan, Valerie, and Jessica were not the only victims of the long island serial killer that were found, just the ones that were identified.

On April 4th 2011, the same day that the rest of Valerie’s remains were found but not yet identified, Suffolk county pd discovered the body of a young male known as john doe.

They determined his time of death was 5-10 years prior to his discovery according to the SCPD’s Gilgo news website where public information on the investigation is housed.

His remains were found west of hemlock cove alongside Ocean Parkway.

John Doe was found a little over half a mile west of Jessica Taylor and less than a third of a mile from Megan Waterman.

A toddler was also found on April 4th. The SCPD believes the child was roughly 2 years old at time of death and a female.

NEWSCAST

WHITBECK: On April 11th, the skull of a young woman who is referred to as Jane Doe #7 was

found west of Tobay Beach.

This discovery was later linked to the legs of fire island jane doe found in 1996 and are believed to be the same person.

In June 1997, the remains of a woman who became known as peaches was discovered in a wooded area of Hempstead Lake State Park in Lakeview, New York.

According to an FBI VI-cap unidentified persons alert released in January 2021, her torso was found in a Rubbermaid container with a time of death three days prior to her discovery in 1997.

She also had a tattoo of a peach on her chest.

On April 11th, 2011, the same day the other unidentified bodies were found, dismembered skeletal remains were discovered and later, in December 2016, were linked to peaches.

According to the same FBI alert, in December 2016, DNA analysis concluded that peaches was the mother of the toddler found in 2011.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: The remains of the toddler found were nearly twenty miles away from the torso of

its mother, but close to her arms, legs and skull on Gilgo Beach.

JOHN RAY: It's not like any other kind of evil. It has its own discrete characteristics. And, um, I'm not talking about, you know, uh, the kind of homicide where somebody, you know, in a fit of rage or something manages to do something they never really intended. That's a typical crime.

I'm talking about the kind words, presuppose, where it's planned, where homicide is meant, uh, you know, for revenge, for sex for a hundred other things for perversion, for nothing more than the pleasure of killing, um, the perverse pleasure. You can actually sense the real presence of evil in anybody that's done this.

It says otherwise has no idea what they're talking about that is threatening, that can be powerful.

Music: Mystic Forest by AK

WHITBECK: What links these murders together is the proximity and nature in which they were

found leading Suffolk County pd to believe they are connected.

TANIA LOPEZ: This isn’t just a quote-on-quote story, these are people’s lives. These are 10 people whose bodies were brutally murdered; they were brutally killed. It’s an open case, it still remains a mystery who the killer or killers are, they may still be out there, maybe not. But we always have to keep in mind when doing these kinds of stories that they were human beings first, and now they happen to be victims and they deserve justice.

WHITBECK: Sex work on Long Island, like sex work in a lot of other places, faces deep-rooted

stigmas like the idea that sex work isn’t a form of employment and that it’s inherently

degrading.

Molly, a chapter representative from the sex workers outreach project or SWOP Brooklyn explains these stigmas.

MOLLY (24:11-26:22): “The way to bring it back to the victims is really decriminalization and criminalization and what people are allowed to get away with when we are criminalized. Right? Like that's why that's a huge part of the reason why so many sex workers are abused and murdered is because people know that no one cares because the dominant narrative of a sex worker is, um, that. You know that they chose it or that they're dirty or that, um, like they must have been addicted to drugs and their life was in shambles and like terrible anyways, you know? Um, so one is like getting away from this narrative that, um, Victims have like, who are sex workers have this like inherently, um, like tragic life, uh, that led them to this like inevitable end.”

WHITBECK: These concepts threaten the lives of sex workers, as they actively work against the push for decriminalization which provides access to health and legal services, two things that protect sex workers and their families, clients, and employment.

One of the common and misconstrued tropes that circulates around this topic is that a person doing consensual sex work put themselves in a position to be assaulted or murdered simply because of their employment.

The media’s depiction of what was then called prostitution aids to this trope. Women standing on street corners offering sexual services under a dimly lit streetlamp is just not the reality of sex work.

The term prostitution or prostitute carries connotations of criminality and immorality while the term sex work or sex worker recognizes that sex work is work. Using the term prostitute contributes to the overall stigma as well as the exclusion from health, legal and social services.

Commonly, people confused sex work with sex trafficking.

The term sex work refers to an individual willingly (consensually) taking part in selling sex, the individual’s human rights are not affected. Sex trafficking/human trafficking is defined as a person taking part in the sale of sex through threat, abduction, or other means of coercion. The individual’s huma rights are affected. Visit stop the traffik for more information.

Like Tania said, when discussing and covering these stories, it is essential to exemplify the voices of vulnerable groups such as sex workers, who cannot turn to police for safety or support.

In later episodes we will be hearing from sex workers who share their experiences.

In many cases, crimes committed against sex workers are not held to the same investigative standards by law enforcement because of the deep-rooted stigmas I mentioned before or the scary reality that police officers might be the people killing sex workers.

There’s this idea that crops up in this case that sex workers do not deserve justice simply because they were selling sex, a criminalized practice in New York State.

We will speak more on this in the second episode when we look at the actions of former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke when he was tasked to act on the Gilgo case.

Due to this, sex workers are more susceptible to being the victims of violent crimes.

Once again, Penelope Saunders.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: As a sex worker’s rights organizer there are so many cases that I know of that sex workers have reported that police are killing them, killing colleagues. And people are very fearful. So, there’s a whole uncovered story here about how police do in fact murder sex workers. And it’s very difficult to talk about people people’s lives at risk.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

WHITBECK:

We’ll be hearing more from Penelope Saunders, the director of the non-profit organization, the best practices policy project in the third part of this series as well as Molly, a chapter representative for SWOP Brooklyn, an organization dedicated to ending violence and stigma against sex workers through education and advocacy.

In part two of sex work on Gilgo… we’ll discuss how the Suffolk County police department handled the case, and the suspected involvement of their former chief of police.

We’ll hear from Christopher Loeb who explains how being victim to a civil rights violation at the hand of the Suffolk County PD exposed political and police corruption and inherently links him to these murders.

We’ll hear more from john ray about the larger implication of the letter he received from Suffolk County detective Vincent Stephan.

Tania Lopez recounts interviews she had with prominent Suffolk County figures and explains their involvement with the investigation.

Rob Trotta, current Suffolk County legislator and former police and FBI task force officer speaks about the involvement of the Suffolk County pd in the case and the corruption he has seen in the county as both an officer and a political figure.

We’ll also be hearing from Geraldine Hart, former Commissioner of the Suffolk County police department and FBI officer who breaks down how the case was handled internally and the challenges the investigation presented during her time leading the force.

To hear my full conversations with all of our guests, visit alexandrawhitbeck.com.

Again, I’m Alexandra Whitbeck and thank you for listening to part one of Sex Work After Gilgo.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

Sex Work After Gilgo: Part Two Reader Script

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: “I think about these cases on Gilgo Beach and I do wonder what was the engagement of the police here. Whether they stood by and let one do this because they didn’t care, because it was sex workers and immigrants and a young black mother, or were they involved….”

TANIA LOPEZ: So, there was all sorts of violations in terms of the law there and the fact that burke had the audacity to actually cross all those legal lines, unethical it was all unethical, was beyond. It had to be told.

ROB TROTTA: I mean if Christopher Loeb didn’t break into that car, he might still be the chief.

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: I knew the cop lived in the neighborhood, but that was fucking Burke. I didn't know it was, I didn't know. It was Chief Burke that is.

GERALDINE HART: I think there's a saying that culture eats policy for breakfast.

JOHN RAY: Those corruptions are real. They are real everywhere, time

Immemorial, but here they they've managed to find their way deep into the grain of the police society.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: It’s not the case of a few bad apples, it’s the system working as it was designed to.

Music: Midnight stroll by ak

Music: Bankruptcy by a.k.

Narration:

In 2010 and 2011, the remains of 10 adults were found on Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County.

Seven of the bodies were identified as sex workers on and around Long Island.

Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Megan Waterman, and Amber Lynn Costello were found in December 2010.

Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack were found March and April of 2011.

Shannan Gilbert, who is not officially linked to the others, was found in December 2011.

The remains of these women were all found within close proximity to each other along Ocean Parkway on Gilgo Beach in a similar nature.

Their discovery led to one of the most controversial criminal investigations in long island’s history, one that to this day is still not solved.

Allegations of police corruption, stigmas against sex workers and the culture of a powerful county has kept justice from the 10 victims found on Gilgo Beach.

Music transition: bankruptcy by a.k.

Narration:

Welcome to part two of Sex Work After Gilgo: I’m Alexandra Whitbeck.

In our first episode, we talked about the victims of the Gilgo Beach murders, and some of the dynamics of the case.

We looked at who the victims were and how important information was withheld from legal advisors by the Suffolk County police department

In this second episode, we’re looking at the role of the Suffolk County Police Department. Specifically, the allegations of corruption that were brought to light throughout the case.

We’ll discuss the story of Christopher Loeb who explains how being victim to a civil rights violation at the hand of the Suffolk County PD exposed political and police corruption and unexpectedly links him to the Gilgo murders.

We’ll hear from John Ray, an attorney representing one of the victims, talk about the larger implication of the letter he received from Suffolk County Detective Vincent Stephan.

Geraldine Hart, a former FBI agent, who served as commissioner of the Suffolk County police department for 2 years speak on her experience with the murders and the actions of prior police administrations.

We will discuss key figures in the case how they both hindered and helped the investigation

And question the relationship between sex workers and law enforcement.

Please note that this series contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing.

Music: Bankruptcy by AK

WHITBECK:

Suffolk County is home to nearly a million and a half people, making it the fourth largest county in New York State by population.

The Suffolk County police department is one of the largest in the country with 2500 sworn officers apart of seven precincts covering 10 towns.

In 2009 there were even initiatives by Suffolk lawmakers to turn the county into its own state.

Many Long Islanders look at Suffolk County as this big, impenetrable entity out east where police and politics move together.

Farah Stockman writes for The New York Times; “It’s sometimes said that the county doesn’t run the police; the police run the county.”

The 2012 scandal involving the former disgraced police chief James Burke that we’ll discuss later in this episode made Suffolk County the star of national headlines.

A decade later, Suffolk County police corruption is still a topic of coverage in local and national media.

News clip

WHITBECK:

Years ago, Suffolk County wasn’t known for allegations of police corruption and conspiracy charges, nor was it populated enough to even be considered its own state.

Long island attorney John Ray describes Suffolk County in the 1950s as a vacation land, a suburb of queens and a backwater place from the city that later grew into what we see it as today.

Before he began practicing law on Long Island, John Ray was in the complex world of Suffolk County politics.

JOHN RAY: So, I had a sense of politics. Uh, here when Suffolk County was becoming a booming residential community, uh, from all the spill off from the city and from Nassau County. You know, it was entirely a different, more active, uh, place, you know, with, with all of the, uh, perhaps, you know, all of the sins and, and so forth that came out of city life, shall we say?

WHITBECK:

According to John Ray, in 1970 the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association became involved with the newly formed conservative party.

JOHN RAY: The police did a peculiar thing that peculiar to New York in politics that made them powerful and therefore also susceptible to corruption.

WHITBECK:

John Ray explains how in 1970, a conservative party branched off from the republican party in Suffolk County.

JOHN RAY: 1970, a conservative party was formed in New York. A third-party right-wing break off from the republican party.

When I first came here in that month Europe, they were the key party with. With Watergate in the Vietnam debacle, the republicans were losing ground.

So, the conservative party was becoming that much more powerful. And so, although they never were a major party in this, you know, I'd like to republicans and democrats are republican, could not get elected any longer in Suffolk County after Vietnam and, and, uh, Watergate without the support of the conservative party.

So, um, it was important to get that control. What does that all have to do with what we're talking about?

This.

Music: Mystic River by AK

JOHN RAY: By 1978, from 60 to 76 78, the police union became very cleverly astutely aware that the conservative party being a third party was what we call a paper party. If you go to the republican party, back in my day and the democrat party, back in my day, there were 212, uh, voting districts just in Brookhaven, alone, biggest township in Long Island.

…each voting district from each party gets two committee people. Those committee people's job is to go out and bring out the vote and basically represent their party in their community, in their one little district. Right?

…the conservative party…they didn't have any real committee people. They had some but tiny little group. It's all on paper. It's all fake. And so, anybody could take over the conservative party if you went out and just simply registered as a conservative and then became a committee, person said, I’m a committee person. There's nobody else.

They find you're a committee person. And that's what they did. Who did that? The police PBA. So, the police department took over the conservative party. That's what really happened here.

Music: Mystic River By AK

WHITBECK:

Geraldine Hart is currently the Director of Public Safety at Hofstra University. Prior to being appointed to her university position, she was a former FBI supervisor and commissioner of the Suffolk County police department.

When joining the SCPD as commissioner, Hart noticed this connection between the police and politics.

GERALDINE HART: I am not a political person at all. And, uh, I was quite shocked at the politics and Suffolk. I'd heard about them then, but to a degree, I think I wasn't prepared for it because. It just doesn't happen in the FBI that way. And, um, I thought I'm a law enforcement executive, and that's my role. And that's what I do.

I don't comment on legislation or politics. It doesn't interest me, but the reality is you're just, you're thrown into it.

WHITBECK:

Suffolk County police officers, much like some Suffolk County politicians, are born and raised on Long Island.

The roads they patrol as officers are the same roads, they rode their bikes on as kids.

JAMES MURPHY: I remember, uh, sidewalk streets, riding my bike for hours on end through the day, going to the local park with my friends. Um, being out of the house for seven or eight hours having to be home. So, it was like a very suburban sort of like family-friendly area.

WHITBECK:

That was detective sergeant James Murphy of the Suffolk County police department’s anti-human trafficking initiative.

James Murphy grew up around policing as the son of retired chief, Tom Murphy. Murphy and both of his siblings all found careers in law enforcement.

JAMES MURPHY: It's all I knew growing up. And my father was very open about the job he was doing and what he was seeing. He didn't hide anything from us. So, at the dinner table we ordered, we heard all the stories.

Good, bad, and ugly. Um, that's, that's really all I knew, and I didn't think I would actually do anything else. That that was just the job I was going to have. I didn't even look at any other direction.

WHITBECK:

Being a police officer is a generational occupation in Suffolk County.

This family nature murphy speaks of may be one of the reasons the SCPD is so interwound in county politics and even industry.

Current Suffolk County legislator, Rob Trotta worked as a Suffolk County police officer for 25 years.

During this time, he was assigned to the FBI violent crimes task force for over 10 years and in 2013, he retired with the rank of detective.

In his current position as a legislator, he is dedicated to eradicating corruption in Suffolk County that he first noticed when he was on the police force.

ROB TROTTA: You get in there and you think you’re invincible, I guess.

WHITBECK:

Trotta says he witnessed first-hand how police officers in Suffolk County would take advantage of their position of authority during his time serving.

ROB TROTTA: And then you start doing things and then you can’t get in trouble because you’re the police.

WHITBECK:

In October 2021, Trotta held a press conference criticizing Suffolk County legislators for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions made by the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association.

He accused the PBA of allocating member fees to campaigns despite New York state electoral law requiring union members to specifically approve this spending.

Suffolk County PBA spokesman Tim Sini, who at the time was District Attorney, denied Trotta’s claims alongside current county executive Steve Bellone.

News clip

WHITBECK:

Trotta is not the only one in Suffolk County witnessing and speaking out against police corruption.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: I started getting in trouble and, um, yeah, started, I was doing drugs. And then to support my habit, I was selling drugs. Um, and that was my life. It was an international, it was jail and trouble. And, um, the cops did what the hell they wanted, man. They fucking shook you down. They planted the drugs on you. They have sex with the informants. Um, they would treat you.

Crimes in order to get certain arrests, they would allow other dealers that will push their drugs, certain informants for federal informants, so that we never get in trouble with the cops. Y'all it was just that lifestyle was just crazy, and they just did what the fuck they want. Suffolk county is bad, bro. It's worse. It's worse than the city, man. It's just, it's there they're their own entity. They’ve just, they've been getting away with it.”

WHITBECK:

That’s Christopher Loeb, a Smithtown man who was the victim of a civil rights violation at the hands of Suffolk County police in December 2012.

Specifically, Loeb was beaten by former chief of police James Burke while in custody.

This is the part of the story that inherently links Loeb to the murders on Gilgo Beach.

What led to this violation was the theft of a duffle bag.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

WHITBECK:

After seeing countless front-page stories about the remains of the women found on Gilgo Beach, Loeb felt drawn to the case.

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: It was on the front page, and I grabbed it. I saw the newspaper, I saw the faces and I was just immediately connected, like my spirit, my intuition. I was just connecting to the girls and. I opened the paper and I start reading it.

And um, I’m like, yo cops. This, I know, I know cops did this. Like, so I went to my mother in the kitchen. I'm like, oh mom, I’m like, I know cop said this. She's like, how do you know Christopher? I'm like, I just know. I said, and I said to him, like, I’m going to be the ones who exposed this three days before I broke into his truck, which is crazy.

WHITBECK:

This premonition led him to the Smithtown home of former police chief James Burke who served from 2012 to 2016. Here, Loeb stole the duffle bag from Burke’s vehicle.

According to Loeb, he was informed of a cop living in his hometown of Smithtown that was involved in nefarious activities like he mentioned before.

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: I knew a cop slipped in the navy part. I knew the cop lived in the neighborhood, but that was fucking Burke. I didn't know it was, I didn't know it was Chief Burke that is.

WHITBECK:

What Loeb found inside this bag raises questions of Burke’s involvement in the Gilgo murders.

We’ll discuss who James Burke is and how he conducted the investigation as police chief in a bit, but it is important to first understand Loeb’s role in this case.

Loeb claimed the duffle bag he stole from Burke’s car had pornographic videos and sex toys inside.

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: I went back to my house and then, um, I put the, there was DVDs in the bag, whatever it was five days. DVDs. Most of them are blank. Obviously, I’m going to put the blank one in, because I don't put the blank one in because, um, it's blank and it's not, it's not telling me anything. So, on that DVD, I played my co-defendant was there. He saw it. So, he got scared.

He told me to bring this stuff back to the shock. I didn't, I recorded it. I recorded it on a cell phone.

WHITBECK: What was happening?

LOEB: A girl was being tortured. She had a chance. I couldn't see if they were handcuffed behind her back, but she was on a bed. It was a dark room, and the guy was wearing a mask.

WHITBECK: And then what happened with that recording on the cell phone?

LOEB: It's hidden. It's been hidden for a long time.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

Shortly after Loeb was in possession of the duffle bag, the entire force of the Suffolk County PD was in his home, including burke, who in this situation was the victim.

Former Newsday crime reporter Tania Lopez recounts this night.

TANIA LOPEZ: Not only did they go into a crime scene, this victim, because this is how they were seeing it. Not only did the victim go to the crime scene, but he went to the crime scene and took evidence. Not only did he go there but he then went to the prescient and then he goes to the squad room, clears the squad room, which is unprecedented for them to do, and proceeds to go see the suspect and physically assault him.

WHITBECK:

The ‘he’ tania is referring to is James Burke.

Burke was the victim of the duffle bag theft.

Loeb stole Burke’s bag, making burke the victim in this instance.

Burke then went to Loeb’s house, being a crime scene.

He then took the duffle bag which was the evidence.

According to reports, when Christopher Loeb was brought back to the Suffolk County police department’s fourth precinct, James Burke entered the interrogation room where Loeb was being held.

Reading from U.S. Attorney’s office press release, Loeb was quote “handcuffed and chained to an eyebolt fastened to the floor. Burke then punched and kicked Loeb in the head and body,” end quote.

TANIA LOPEZ: So, there was all sorts of violations in terms of the law there and the fact that burke had the audacity to actually cross all those legal lines, unethical it was all unethical, was beyond. It had to be told. Imagine, you’re a reporter and you’re getting this information from a really good source, and you trust this source, how do you prove it? How do you go about proving it?

TANIA LOPEZ: you’re going to get blocked a lot. But the first thing I did, and what any reporter should do is just call the family directly. Call the mom. Luckily Mrs. Loeb told me everything that went down, and I was able then to find the records, you know court documents, obviously shows that Loeb’s in custody. Then you look at his bail, half a million dollars?! How do you get a half a million-dollar bail for a smash and grab? So, you start digging and digging and digging and that’s how the Loeb story came to light.”

WHITBECK:

Here is an excerpt from Tania Lopez’s June 2013 article for Newsday:

Music by AK

NARRATION:

One of the men accused of taking Suffolk Police chief of department James Burke's gun belt, ammunition and handcuffs from a department-issued SUV last year has told his family that the Suffolk top cop punched him while they were alone at the fourth precinct, the suspect's mother said.

Christopher Loeb, 26, said the incident occurred in the precinct's squad room on dec. 14, 2012, hours after Loeb had been apprehended, according to his mother, Jane Loeb. Burke Tuesday said he did nothing wrong.

From his Suffolk jail cell, Loeb wrote his mother earlier this year that he was "beat up" both in his home and then "even worse at the precinct." then, during a conversation in the Suffolk County jail, she said Loeb, who was convicted in April 2012 of grand larceny, told her that burke was the person who punched him.

Loeb told her that burke punched him in the stomach and said, "

That's what you get for taking somebody's property," Jane Loeb said.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

Burke stepped down from his position as police chief in October 2015 and in 2016, four years after Loeb was detained, James Burke was sentenced to 46 months in prison.

He pled guilty to a civil rights violation and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

However, Burke was not alone in covering up the beating of Loeb, nor was he alone in a slew of other incidents that questioned his creditability as law enforcement.

Music by AK

Former district attorney Thomas Spota was convicted in 2019 to 5 years in prison for witness tampering, obstruction of justice and conspiracy in effort to help Burke hide his crimes against Loeb.

Not only do the actions of these individuals speak to police corruption in Suffolk County but the deep connection between politics and policing.

In Suffolk County, politics and policing have a mutually beneficial relationship.

Like many counties in New York, the Suffolk County police department financially supports political candidates whose views align with those of the SCPD through the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association.

The Suffolk PBA endorses federal, state, and local candidates that, according to their website, support “law and order in our communities.”

Campaign contributions are made by the Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association to the politicians who will work in ordinance with their views.

This is not an unusual practice for police benevolent associations because all they really are is a labor union representing law enforcement.

In March 2021, Newsday reported that 450 thousand dollars were donated by the Suffolk County PBA to candidates and political parties since 2010.

Again, a labor union making donations to a campaign or political party is not uncommon. But it shows how policing and politics work together.

Politicians get large sums of money donated to their campaign by a police benevolent association and in return, these politicians support legislative initiatives that benefit law enforcement.

Recently, current Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone heavily supported a deal made between the county and the Suffolk PBA that asked SCPD officers to wear body cameras in return for a $3,000 stipend.

In 2019, the long island law enforcement foundation, a super PAC run by police unions spent $830,000 on Bellone’s campaign according to campaign finance records.

This relationship between police and politics is not exclusive to the eastern end of Long Island, but many people in Suffolk County feel that the relationship has grown to be toxic.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

Some link the mentor like relationship disgraced former district attorney Thomas Spota had with James Burke to long before Burke entered law enforcement.

As a teenager, Burke was a key witness in the 1979 murder of 13-year-old John Pius in Smithtown, New York.

Pius was found with six rocks jammed down his throat and burke was a witness. The prosecutor for this case was none other than Thomas Spota.

Later in 2011, James Burke allegedly paid for sex at an Oak Beach party.

The sex worker he paid for services provided an affidavit about that night five years later in 2016 to John Ray, the attorney representing Shannan Gilbert and family.

Ray then publicly made the connection between this supposedly drug fueled night and Burke’s involvement with the Gilgo murders explaining how Oak Beach is the same gated community Shannan Gilbert was last seen the night she disappeared.

Ray explained at the press conference that this is the first connection between Burke, Oak Beach and sex work as reported by The Long Island Press.

News clip

narration

According to Trotta, and SCPD officer’s claims in news 12 reports, in the 1990’s an internal affairs investigation began after Burke was caught having sex with a sex worker in his patrol car while in uniform.

Once again Rob Trotta.

ROB TROTTA: That was the big scandal, with burke. He was shockingly, on the cover of Newsday for having sex with prostitutes in his police car, when he was a sergeant, lieutenant, whatever, and they kept him. The moral dilemma is how does the county executive keep a guy whose been on the cover of Newsday for having sex with prostitutes in a police car, in a marked unit and keep him as the chief of police, what kind of message does that sending the rank-and-file cops. Not a very good one I don’t think.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

Burke was appointed to Suffolk County Police Chief in 2012. Roughly a year after the remains of the 10 bodies were found on Gilgo Beach.

Tania Lopez reported on the case for Newsday as it unfolded and recounts the odd manner Burke stepped into his position as chief.

TANIA LOPEZ: How it works normally is, you basically appoint the commissioner first, and then all the other ranks that are lower, they get appointed afterwards. But you know, they were doing things differently.

Narration:

Burke took over the position of chief shortly after Spota, who was serving as district attorney, and the late Police Commissioner Richard Dormer had a public disagreement in 2011.

News 12: Well look, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that four bodies were found in this area. Certainly, we’re looking that we may have a serial killer.

WHITBECK:

That was the voice of police commissioner Richard Dormer. Dormer served the Suffolk County police department from 2004 until his retirement in 2011. He died in 2019.

In this clip, he was speaking at a press conference discussing the bodies found on Gilgo Beach.

In November 2011, he talked to Tania Lopez.

TANIA LOPEZ: He didn’t really grant too many interviews to discuss this case, because it was, it still is a very sensitive case, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they do keep stuff very close to the vest to this day, and when they do release something, everyone clamors for the information.

TANIA LOPEZ: And that’s when he told me that he believed that it was one serial killer that maybe was responsible for the dumping of the ten remains along ocean parkway. Now, I mean that’s up for scrutiny, but the fact that he actually said that, again all the information at that time was incredibly tight, in fact if I remember correctly, the former district attorney Tom Spota, he held a joint press conference with dormer to announce details of the remains that were found in the spring. He announced that the dumping’s may be the result of at least 3 killers. Now this was on May 9th of 2011. Now Dormer had this interview with me and says that he believes it’s one. That’s a huge deal to contradict what the former district attorney was saying. So, there was something amiss there, at the time I took the interview with dormer and I didn’t realize that that was going to cause a huge stir, I mean literally.

WHITBECK:

The thought of one killer being responsible for the 10 murders at Gilgo Beach was a shocking and new theory.

At the time, Dormer’s theory went against the claim of former district attorney Thomas Spota that multiple killers were involved like Tania stated.

Spota was one of the first to dismiss Dormer’s idea of one killer being responsible.

Shortly after his interview with Tania Lopez of Newsday, Dormer faced backlash from Spota.

TANIA LOPEZ: November 30th, 2011. That’s when we actually got an interview on the front page. It wasn’t until December 15th that Thomas Spota when before the members of, I believe it was a public safety committee with the county, and he basically blasted dormer for saying the theory that he believed it was one.”

TANIA LOPEZ: So that caused some kind of riff, and of course Dormer retires at the end of December, a new administration comes in, and right as the new administration took over, they announced these guidelines that they will not release any information on the Gilgo case, unless it’s something new or something that adds to the case. And that was like the standard line for a very long time. It was shut down after that. They didn’t really talk to give any info on the case after that.

WHITBECK:

This new administration Tania is talking about is the Suffolk County Police Department under Burke.

When Burke took over the SCPD and therefore the Gilgo case, all information was kept extremely close to the vest and key detectives were removed from the investigation.

TANIA LOPEZ: I think that this new administration that came in they were not taking any information or guidance from the previous people. Dormer and the commissioner and the chief of detectives were forced to retire, and what happened was they didn’t take any of his notes, they never talked to him about the case, and he’s widely talked about this, and it’s public knowledge.

WHITBECK:

Before Suffolk County legislator Rob Trotta retired in 2013, he witnessed some of Burke’s unusual changes to the department and its affiliates.

ROB TROTTA: You know I was in the FBI at the time, assigned there for about 10 years, and he took us out. There was an opiate epidemic he took 5 guys out of the DEA. There was a gang, huge MS-13 problem he took three guys out of the gang taskforce, there was a gun problem, he took two guys out of the ATF. It defies logic what he did.

WHITBECK:

Attorney John Ray saw similar events take place that Tania reported on.

JOHN RAY: Dormer, uh, was made to, uh, resigned because of this situation with Shannan and the, and the Gilgo case and his chief of police, uh, investigator on the case, Dominic Varone was also driven out. And so, there was an opening, there was a gap, right?

Narration:

Spota had a public disagreement with commissioner Dormer in late 2011 immediately before he retires.

In 2012, Burke is appointed to police chief in an unusual manner.

JOHN RAY: So who fills in the gap only a few days later, Burke gets appointed as the chief of police of Suffolk County.

WHITBECK:

The laundry list of Burke’s questionable actions doesn’t end here.

In part one, John Ray mentioned a letter he received after holding a press conference in 2012 urging law enforcement to look further into Shannan Gilbert’s case and bring the FBI into the investigation.

JOHN RAY: The police did a very odd thing, which to this day is in explicable, the police, uh, uh, treasurer, I believe he was a vice president of the detectives association that basically the police detectives union writes me a letter a few days after that press conference, his name was Vincent Stephan.

WHITBECK:

The Detectives Association is similar to the Police Benevolent Association, except it is a union that represents detectives exclusively.

And at the time, Vincent Stephan was secretary treasurer of the Detectives Association and formerly a Suffolk County detective. Stephen also worked on the Gilgo investigation for three months.

Ray explains how this letter written by Stephen denied the actuality of the contents heard in Shannan Gilbert’s 911 call made the night of her disappearance.

JOHN RAY: And he writes this letter to me saying that, um, uh, I was all wet in my press conference and I had no idea what I was talking about. And it was odd. It was that first of all, he, he was one of the detectives who investigated Shannan's case. And he said, so he wrote me a two-page single space. To tell me what I just said.

WHITBECK:

A few days after ray received that letter written on Suffolk County Police Detective stationary, the letter was released to Newsday.

According to the letter published by Newsday in 2012, Stephen writes:

“Her demeanor on the tape was calm. You can hear male voices on the tape, and they were calm. At no time during this call was she desperate. From what I heard on the call, Gilbert was not speaking as if she were in danger.”

JOHN RAY: And in it, he actually revealed what he said was on the tape that the nine 11 tapes of Shannan Gilbert. And he claimed that she was all at all times calm. He claimed that there was never any threat of murder. He claimed that, um, everybody was calm, uh, that there was absolutely no reason for this to have happened.

And he claimed a few other things as well. And so, uh, he claimed personal knowledge. He heard the tapes and off you went, he writes this letter to me on the stationary of the Suffolk County Detectives Association, not on county, uh, Suffolk County Police stationery, which was odd. And you might wonder what that means.

Well, it has significance later on. All right. It has to do with Burke, Chief Police Burke.”

WHITBECK:

At the time, Ray didn’t link Burke to this letter as his focus was accessing the 911 call made by Gilbert like we discussed in part one.

JOHN RAY: I didn't really pay attention to Burke. I had no idea that this letter had some connection to burke, but later on many years later, um, when I came to know for sure that the police story of Shannan's disappearance was a thread of, uh, maybe more than a thread, but, um, a knitted, a coat of lies, willful deliberate, outright lie.

They weren't just mistakes or questions where reasonable people can differ.

For example, you say, well, I heard the tape and he, maybe this guy was right. They weren't that excited. And I say, no, I heard the tape. And they work sighted. Um, you know, you could debate that. That's not what happened here. Okay.

There are outright lies told by Detective Stephan in that letter made public in news day. I didn't make it public. Why? And the answer goes back, I think to Burke. Um, I can't prove it, but I don't need to prove it. I'm not suing him. But what I do need to know is the truth.

WHITBECK:

Ray began to learn who detective Vincent Stephen was and concluded that he would not have sent a letter containing sensitive information about the Gilgo case without being told to.

JOHN RAY: He's not a guy to go and put in writing evidence in an, in an ongoing case, display it to the public like that as he did on as to the nine 11 tapes. That was extremely unlikely for these to take that upon himself to do that.

And why would he, who's a very rigid, bureaucratic guy. Write a letter on police stationary instead of unofficial stationary. Why did he step out of bounds like that? Somebody told them to do that. Somebody urged him to do that.

WHITBECK:

Ray questioned why this letter claiming the exact opposite of what he heard on the tapes themselves was written on Suffolk County Detective Association stationary rather than on Suffolk County Police stationary.

He then made the connection to police chief James Burke. This letter was sent to ray and Newsday the same month, January 2012, as Burke was appointed to be chief of police.

JOHN RAY: How did that happen? Well, that's one question, but it happened and I believe it's pretty clear to me that Burke comes in, right? When that letter was written that letter was put out there through the guy who's in charge of the detectives association, de facto James Burke. Okay. He spun this story now. So that matters.

Doesn't it? Because if you put it out officially, if, if the police put it on official stationery of, of the Suffolk County police department, they're responsible for what has said, aren't they, but if they let a detective put it out personally through the detectives association, they're not. That's the theory.

So, this is somebody very cleverly is maneuvering all of this in the background. Why else would they do this?

So, yeah, I see Burke behind that. So why is he telling a willfully false story?

WHITBECK:

Ray speculates that this letter that denies Shannan’s distress on the 911 call the night she disappeared, was on detective association stationary so the Suffolk County police department could avoid accountability.

The letter published by Newsday clearly states the author as Vincent Stephen of the detective association and makes no mention of the Suffolk County PD’s views on the 911 call.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

To recap from episode one, John Ray fought relentlessly to have the tapes of Shannan’s 911 call released to him, and he was fought by the county every step of the way.

The Suffolk County police department has not officially elaborated what was on the tapes.

Except for in this one letter…

Sent directly to John Ray once he held a press conference calling out the discrepancies made by police in the case…

Written on detective association stationary by one specific individual as if to take the responsibility off of the police department…

The same month James Burke was appointed as chief of police.

JOHN RAY: And you might ask yourself at this point….the police have never once said why they want the tapes never once in any of their papers, why in god's name, are they still holding back on this? When they claim that Shannan Gilbert was not murdered, uh, or that they don't know if she was or not, and that she's not connected to the other Gilgo people, how in god's name, can they then still insist upon holding back these tapes?

There isn't a single good reason for that at all. So why there is another reason and it's a good one, except we don't know it.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

Geraldine Hart grew up on long island, and before she left the FBI to serve as the commissioner of the Suffolk County PS in 2018, she was a part of the decision on what to do about James Burke’s method of investigation.

GERALDINE HART: He was, uh, emboldened. He had taken his, uh, task force officers off of our gang task force. Uh, and it's really just trying to navigate this where we are on this and knowing that it's not over, um, we were able to move the case to long island and then have these district, uh, re-examined reopened the case again.

Um, and really just talking to my higher ups because our assistant director who runs the New York office, came out with me to sit and talk about our relationship with Suffolk. And basically, you know, to say to him, we cannot engage with this individual at the helm. And our only, our only response to this should be an indictment.

It shouldn't be any sort of, you know, handshaking or, you know, so they understood that to their credit and it really was no relationship at all. Um, professionally. Was a big deal because our office actually sat in Suffolk. Um, we had no, no task force officers on the, on the task force. And, um, and just to really work cases in a county where you're, you're basically not welcome is, is different.”

WHITBECK:

When Hart stepped into the position of police commissioner in 2018, Burke had been out of the department for two years and she remembers how people felt with his absence.

GERALDINE HART: I will say for the most part, um, it was a huge wave of almost relief when he was gone. Yeah. It was almost palpable. Uh, the idea that, and we would hear the stories of how he just, his entire focus was not on fighting crime, but I’m just building this empire and humiliating people.

Uh, he would hold meetings and just, um, not, not to develop strategies, but to just embarrass other people. And it was to hear the stories was, and people would actually come into a meeting with me in the conference room where he did this and they would kind of just have almost PTSD of just like, this is, this was a horrible place before you came.

WHITBECK:

Why would Burke act in ways that hindered the investigation of this case? Removing key detectives like Lopez, Trotta and Ray stated as well as creating an uneasy environment for officers as hart said.

Why did he react the way he did over Loeb stealing the duffle bag?

Why would Burke not want to find justice for Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Shannan Gilbert, Amber Lynn Costello and the three other unidentified remains?

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

TANIA LOPEZ: The whole reason this story even came to the light of day because a source, contacted me and told me that they were absolutely floored because unlocked, and it was department issued and made out with a bag. Took it home, and the chief then within hours showed up to this perp’s house to retrieve a bag that had, rumored to have dildos and pornos. God knows what kind of pornos they were.

ROB TROTTA: It’s very ironic that a drug addict took down the chief of police. If Christopher Loeb didn’t break into that car, he might still be the chief.

ROB TROTTA: Burke was out of his mind.

Music by AK

WHITBECK:

The actions of law enforcement in the investigation of the Gilgo case are representative of a much larger issue. One that puts sex worker’s lives are at risk.

Penelope Saunders of The Best Practices Policy Project says the alleged corruption present in the Suffolk County police department is representative of the policing system across the country.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: It’s not the case of a few bad apples, it’s the system working as it was designed to.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: So, there’s a whole uncovered story here about how police do in fact murder sex workers. And it’s very difficult to talk about people people’s lives at risk.

WHITBECK:

And this is not the first case of sex workers being murdered on Long Island.

From 1989-1993, infamous serial killer Joel Rifkin targeted sex workers and was convicted for the murder of nine women.

More recently in 2014, John Bittrolff was convicted of the murders of Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee. Two sex workers working on the island.

John Hopkins University found in a 2019 study that the more violent interactions sex workers have with police leads to a higher risk that they will have a similar violent experience with a client.

Murderers like Bittrolff and Rifkin target sex workers because they know that sex workers will be unlikely to turn to the police in fear of facing repercussions themselves.

They know that sex workers experience difficulty accessing health and social services.

They know sex workers are susceptible to stigmas that make them seem less worthy of receiving help.

In Part Three of Sex Work After Gilgo, we’ll look more at the legal and social restraints on sex workers that threaten their safety.

We’ll look at the history of sex work in New York through labor laws that have developed in the past decade as well as recent efforts toward decriminalization.

You’ll be hearing more from Penelope Saunders from The Best Practices Policy Project as well as, Molly, a chapter representative from SWOP Brooklyn.

We’ll also discuss where the Gilgo case currently stands, and how recent elections might impact a future investigation.

Again, I’m Alexandra Whitbeck and thank you for listening to Part Two of Sex Work After Gilgo.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

Sex Work After Gilgo: Part Three Reader Script

Alexandra Whitbeck

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

MOLLY: Sex work is exploitative because of the societal conditions that surround sex work. When sex work is exploitative, it's exploitative because we're a criminalized class.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: Sex work is work. People are out there in various kinds of work to make money. There are labor rights abuses, and there are abuses by state agents, such as police officers imported gods, right. That problems happen.

GERADLINE HART: These are not, these are not criminals. These are victims.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: But those problems would not happen. If sex work is recognized as work and people can then seek labor protections, right? That's what's happening all around the world. And the idea that films are still being made and, and shows are still being made with this older idea.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: What ultimately would strengthen the community of sex workers is labor protections.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: Um, It, you know, like everybody get with the times, it's time to make the new representations of sex workers and a pathway.

WHITBECK:

I’m Alexandra Whitbeck and welcome to Part Three of Sex Work After Gilgo.

In the last episode, we discussed the Gilgo murder case and the allegations of corruption found in the Suffolk County Police Department’s investigation.

In the final installment of Sex Work After Gilgo, we’re going to look at the troubled relationship between sex workers and police with sex workers rights advocates.

We’ll discuss the recent push for decriminalizing sex work made in New York as well as previous initiatives made toward legalizing sex work.

A rhetoric and labor rights expert will break down how labor can be inherently exploitative and the role language plays when referring to vulnerable populations.

We’ll also look at the future for the Gilgo investigation and where some of the people we heard from before are now.

Once again, I’m Alexandra Whitbeck and this is Part Three of Sex Work After Gilgo.

Music: Midnight Stroll by AK

WHITBECK:

In our last episode, we discussed corruption allegations within the Suffolk County Police Department and their investigation into the 10 bodies found on Gilgo Beach.

We looked at former disgraced police chief James Burke, whose actions throughout the Gilgo investigation raised numerous questions like…

Why did he remove key detectives from the case?

Why did he shut out the FBI?

Why did he beat Christopher Loeb for finding something that is believed to link Burke himself to the murders?

What role did he play in interfering with the call for justice for the victims at Gilgo Beach: Maureen Barinard-Barnes, Shannan Gilbert, Melissa Barthelemy, Amber Lynn Costello, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Megan Waterman and the three sets of unidentified remains?

All of these questions beg another: is the lack of justice brought to these women due to their profession?

The seven identified women were confirmed to be sex workers on and around Long Island.

Sex workers are adults who provide consensual sexual services in exchange for a form of payment.

Penelope Saunders is the executive director of The Best Practices Policy Project, an organization dedicated to supporting sex workers and advocacy initiatives.

Like many Long Islanders, she too questions the involvement of police in the Gilgo investigation.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: I think about these cases on Gilgo beach, and I do wonder what the engagement of the police was here? Whether they stood by and let someone do this because they didn't care because of it was sex workers and immigrants and a young black mother, right. Or were they involved?

WHITBECK:

IN NEW YORK STATE, SEX WORK IS A CRIMINALIZED PROFESSION…MEANING THAT INDIVIDUALS WHO SELL SEX CAN POTENTIALLY FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES AND PENALITIES FOR DOING SO.

BECAUSE SEX WORK IS CRIMINALIZED, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLICE AND SEX WORKERS IS PRECARIOUS.

SEX WORKERS CANNOT TURN TO LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR PROTECTION WITHOUT FEAR OF FACING REPERCUSSIONS THEMSELVES, OR BEING VICTIM TO PHYSICAL VIOLENCE.

MOLLY: As long as sex work is criminalized, you know, the relationship between sex workers and the police will be inherently violent, right? And incredibly out of balance, the relationship between any non-police officer and a police officer is already out of balance.

WHITBECK:

According to a systematic review of research done by the Sex Worker Project, on a global scale sex workers have a 45% to 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence on the job.

In 2004 a handful of sex workers advocacy organizations submitted a report to the United Nations finding that police violence against sex workers has a pattern.

This pattern usually includes assault, sexual harassment, public ‘gender searches and rape.

These figures are precisely the reason why there is a growing call for decriminalization of sex work.

The decriminalization of sex work means removing all the criminal and administrative penalties that apply specifically to sex work.

Decriminalization creates an environment that supports and enables safe and healthy sex work. It allows sex work to be protected under labor laws and gives sex workers access to better healthcare and legal services.

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that ‘violence against sex workers is often not registered as an offense by the police and in some cases is perpetrated by the police.’

As we discussed in episode two, this was precisely what many observers believe to have happened in the Gilgo case, where sex workers were targeted and the police investigation was flawed.

Throughout her career working in sex work advocacy, Penelope Saunders has witnessed this dangerous relationship between sex workers and police.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: As a sex worker’s rights organizer there are so many cases that I know of that sex workers have reported that police are killing them, killing colleagues. And people are very fearful. So, there’s a whole uncovered story here about how police do in fact murder sex workers. And it’s very difficult to talk about people people’s lives at risk.

WHITBECK:

Saunders says it’s a major challenge to engage directly with police from the position of a sex worker, which is why she says there is a need for reform.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: In terms of engaging with the police where you're at, I have engaged with the police in the district of Columbia, in New Jersey and in New York. And, uh, there is, there are no safe ways that people can raise the issues directly with. Uh, so there has to be structural change in other ways, which I think are the demands right now, nationally because the police do whatever they want whenever they want. And it's a very scary situation when you are one-on-one with a police officer because you alive can be ended, your life can be ended.

WHITBECK:

Molly, a representative from the Brooklyn Chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, or SWOP Brooklyn.

MOLLY: They inherently have more power than, than any average citizens. And so that relationship is inherently violent just because we are a part of a criminalized class, and we have no right and no ability to protect ourselves from persecution or from violence or danger.

WHITBECK:

Advocates like Penelope Saunders and Molly argue that the relationship between police and any vulnerable population can be subject to violence because there is little legal or social recourse for individuals to take for assistance, let alone justice as a member of a so-called criminalized class.

Because sex work is considered illegal, stigmas have grown to misrepresent the industry like the idea that sex work is inherently exploitative.

Molly breaks down some of these stigmas that plague the sex industry and therefore endanger sex workers.

Molly: That's a huge part of the reason why so many sex workers are abused and murdered is because people know that no one cares because the dominant narrative of a sex worker is, um, that. You know that they chose it or that they're dirty or that, um, like they must have been addicted to drugs and their life was in shambles and like terrible anyways, you know? Um, so one is like getting away from this narrative that, um, Victims have like, who are sex workers have this like inherently, um, like tragic life, uh, that led them to this like inevitable end.

WHITBECK:

These misconstrued ideas put sex workers in danger.

The thought that sex workers are undeserving of dignity or respect for partaking in something society has deemed immoral, and the law has deemed criminal fuels the dangers they face.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: We know a prostitute when we see one. We have an image, you know, I'm, I'm saying that ironically, uh, we think we know what a prostitute looks like. We think we know what the, what, what prostitution leads to. These are all statements and caricatures, and the law operates in that same way.

WHITBECK:

As Penelope mentioned, the societal view of sex workers is often misconstrued, with both TV and news showing dramatic depictions and often using terms such as prostitute in their representation of the industry.

These are terms that carry heavy connotations of immorality and depravity such as ‘prostitutes’ and ‘whores’ in lieu of the term sex worker.

Aside from being harmful to the image of who sex workers these terms can hurt the families of victims like those on Gilgo beach.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: You know, sometimes the families feel very angry that their child would be described as a prostitute in the press. Right. Um, and so as advocates, we always want to be sensitive to the family's grief. But also at the same time, not it is scribing stigma. And I can tell you that's, you know, on behalf of the sex worker rights, it's mentally and physically emotionally draining to try and do all of that.

It's not the same as the family losing someone, but, you know, trying to, uh, ensure that people are acknowledged as humans and that sex work is not stigmatized in this and dealing with families that, uh, in great grief, it's very difficult.

WHITBECK:

Saunders directs The Best Practices Policy Project, or B Triple P. The organization refers to sex work as a wide variety of sexual exchanges, including situations where sex is sold for remuneration, or for other basic needs.

B Triple P states that sex work may also refer to exotic dancing and other forms of legal entertainment.

According to a study by the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, many individuals who sell sex do so because of financial difficulties. Many sex workers struggle with unemployment and holding onto steady jobs.

This assumed low-income status of sex workers leads to another common misconception about the sex industry—that sex work is the same thing as sex trafficking.

Commonly, sex work is used interchangeably with sex trafficking like we discussed in part one.

The term sex work refers to an individual willingly (consensually) taking part in selling sex. And the individual’s human rights are not affected according to Stop The Traffic, an organization dedicated to spreading information and awareness about human trafficking.

Sex trafficking is defined by the US Department of State as when a person is required to engage in a commercial sex act as the result of force, threats of force, coercion, or any combination of such means.

Once again, Penelope Saunders.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: You know, a woman downed, trafficked, you know, there are so many films and pieces outdated that sort of eroticize, the violence perpetrated against victims of trafficking, who are also assumed to be engaged in sex work, you know, forced into sexual interactions for money.

It's not work if you're forced.

WHITBECK:

So, let’s be clear: sex work and sex trafficking are not the same thing. However, sex workers are at a higher risk of being trafficked, precisely because of some of the stigmas we discussed before.

Others have an opposing view to Penelope Saunders, Molly, and some of the organizations we discussed before.

Catherine MacKinnon is a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School who focuses on women’s rights and sexual abuse and exploitation through international law.

MacKinnon has been studying sex trafficking, sexual harassment and pornography for most of her career.

In books, seminars, lectures, and essays, MacKinnon has made her view very clear: sex work is not work.

In a September 2021 opinion essay in the New York times, MacKinnon writes quote, “what is being done to them is neither sex, in the sense of intimacy and mutuality, nor work, in the sense of productivity and dignity.”

She continues to explain that quote “the term sex work implies that prostituted people really want to do what they have virtually no choice in doing.”

MacKinnon argues that sex work is not something people do by choice and calling prostitution, sex work diminishes the role that their poverty, homelessness or employment exclusion plays in their form of employment.

I reached out to Catherine MacKinnon, and we exchanged a few emails about discussing her work. After a few communication attempts, I have yet to hear back from her.

The Suffolk County Anti Trafficking Initiative have noticed a similar thing on Long Island that MacKinnon has found in her research.

Detective Sergeant James Murphy of the Suffolk County Anti-Trafficking Initiative (SCATI) has been aiding victims of human trafficking since he helped establish the initiative in 2017.

Music fade in

WHITBECK:

Murphy has found through his work that consensual sex work is a rarity.

He finds that the people he and other SCATI officers are providing services to commonly victims of sex trafficking. He sees little consent, and as we discussed before, major violations of human rights.

JAMES MURPHY: You can go to some stats that the Federal Government have and that's 99% of the quote sex workers are not doing it as a choice. 1% is that's a big difference, you know, 99% of being coerced, being forced being manipulated and only 1%.

But doing it as a choice. Yeah. So, it's not a 50, 50. It's not, well, I wonder if she's no 99% of the time, there's somebody behind this that is taking her money, using her money, and sending her down a very bad path. Torture assault. Beatings, um, keeping food from them, starving them. Uh, so it is having somebody that's doing consensual from money that, uh, it's very hard to find.

WHITBECK:

Murphy’s findings differ from the experiences of Molly and the ideas of SWOP Brooklyn.

SWOP supports the idea that sex work is only exploitative because it is a criminalized profession.

Molly: We at SWOP Brooklyn and I don't support the narrative that, um, sex work is inherently exploitative and organizations that espouse, that mentality tend to be really carceral, right? They tend to be the types of organizations that think all sex work is sex trafficking.

All sex work is rape. Um, the sex industry, they are porn and prostitution. Um, oh crap. What do we call it? Uh, well, they don't believe that corner prostitution should exist. Right?.....

…We don't really support that narrative because it doesn't take into account the complexity of the sex industry and why people are in the sex industry….Like, no, I would never lie. Say that the sex industry is always in great place where nothing bad ever happened.

But that thing happened in the sex industry because we are criminalized. And because we are a uniquely vulnerable population of largely marginalized identities that are already vulnerable to harm, and then we're criminals on top of that.

…and we don't support the narrative that all sex work is inherently exploitative or sex trafficking.

WHITBECK:

This concept that sex work is inherently exploitative takes agency away from sex workers.

Once again, Molly.

Molly: Right? Sex work is exploitative because of the societal conditions that surround sex work, sex work, when sex work is exploitative, it's exploitative because we're a criminalized class. And because we also have no access to other resources, right? Like a lot of sex workers do work to exit the industry and.

What do they need to do that? They need healthcare. They might need psychological care. They might need childcare and, um, a car and access to a job that will be flexible and allow them to work with their schedule. Or they might need secure housing, right? Like. But those are huge things that they might not have access to, or they might not know how to access.

So, they stay in the industry, right? To really help someone exit the industry who doesn't want to be in. It means providing them with like, providing them with access to innumerable resources that most nonprofits and even our government are not equipped to handle.

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WHITBECK:

The Suffolk County Anti-Trafficking Initiative is aiming to provide victims of human trafficking with health, social and legal services on Long Island.

These are similar resources that Molly mentioned would expand if sex work is decriminalized.

JAMES MURPHY: That started on, um, may of 2017. Um, but I was given the task of running the kidnap team along with Lieutenant Massena.

And along with running, the kidnapped team came overseeing any human trafficking in the county. And that started us, uh, looking into the situation that we have in Suffolk and what we're seeing. It was more disturbing than we thought we were done cover because there really weren't any ongoing investigations at that time.

Uh, so the administration allowed us to do, uh, a little bit of a deeper dive. And in October of 2017, they give us six investigators to do an even deeper dive, to see if a unit that would be permanent would be necessary. So, they give us six months to run this temporary initiative. And within four months we prove that there's no question that we needed.

We needed a unit because of what we're seeing out there. So, it became permanent March of 2018.

WHITBECK:

Remember, Murphy himself does not see any difference between sex work and sex trafficking.

For him, both are exploitative, and for the most part coercion is part and parcel of both practices.

Nevertheless, he is still providing and coordinating the same services sex worker advocates feel are essential to making the sex industry a safer place.

JAMES MURPHY: The mission is to train ID victims that are in the lifestyle and get them the needed. Uh, through services, we have an advocacy agency that we deal with.

ECLA, uh, they're available to us 24 7. So, when we find. Uh, a victim that's in this lifestyle and if they want help, we can, we can get them together with a therapist, a counselor. We can get them into rehab or get them mental health assistance. Uh, really just trying to get them out of that lifestyle and kind of a more productive and happy life.

Uh, in turn, when we, when we do that, we're able to see where they are, who they are. And we've been able to make cases against traffickers. Uh, I believe since we started, we for rested a little over 60 traffickers, uh, and that's, that's still with our goal in helping the victims, not necessarily making cases and arresting.

Music transition: Fade in

WHITBECK:

The United States Department of State website links data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

This data found that the top venue or industry for sex trafficking is pornography, with 939 reported cases in 2020 as well as hotel-motel based trafficking with 520 cases.

In Suffolk County, Murphy has found places or venues like this raise the prevalence of sex trafficking.

JAMES MURPHY: I would say that it's probably more prevalent now. It's easier with the. It's easier with sex ed sites. It's easier with the hotels. Um, you know, years ago you couldn't just set up at a hotel because there was no way to get a buyer. There's no way to get a job. So, they had to do, you know what we called street?

It will be out on a street corner. The Johns would troll the neighborhood. Now they troll the sex ed site. They text them; they make the date, and they go to the hotel and they do their business in a hotel room. Uh, that makes it a lot easier. You have a lot more control over this. And the trafficker now has a lot more control and can make a lot more money. So, I think it's more prevalent now than it wasn't at one time.

WHITBECK:

The National Human Trafficking Hotline found that in 2020 alone, there were over 7,500 cases of sex trafficking reported in the US.

This number may seem high, but not when compared to the over 50,000 contacts made to the hotline.

When the Suffolk County Anti-Trafficking Initiative started, it was the first of its kind and responded to what Murphy and colleagues were seeing while on duty.

This was a first for Suffolk County, and even New York which speaks to the severity of the situation on Long Island.

JAMES MURPHY: We were the first dedicated units looking into human trafficking in New York state. Uh, so it just wasn't there. Uh, and to take the leap of faith and understand that if we have one victim, that's one victim to many, I think it was a bold move with the administration. So, I give, I give the administration credit.

So, I think it was everything. Aligning properly, uh, having an advocacy agency there to, to help us build this model. Um, the right personnel, we were able to handpick the investigators, uh, that were able to come to it with some empathy and not judgment and be able to do these interviews and gain the trust of the victims on the street and the administration that, that bought in and understood what we were trying to do.

WHITBECK:

In establishing an understanding of the community, they set out to help, they started talking to individuals in what Murphy refers to as the ‘lifestyle.’

JAMES MURPHY: In doing these interviews and talking to them, we're coming up with. The same stories over and over again. Um, meaning most of them had the same type of background. Most of them had a sexual assault or rape in their background.

And that was usually in their own house. Before they were 12, uh, usually at the hands of their father or stepfather or a father figure. And now this is probably 85 or 90% of mostly the girls we were interviewing were telling us that same story. So, we knew that it had to be a tie into them getting into this lifestyle because of that prior trauma that they had.

And that's how this, this really started getting going that. Understanding that these girls aren't out there as a choice that they're being manipulated. And it's because of their prior trauma that makes them vulnerable to these traffickers and their traffickers know this, and they seek these people out that are depressed, that are lonely, that feel, you know, broken inside.

So that's really what started us going down that road. The goal that we made when we started the unit was to try and get part of the support system that these victims that are out there, that, that they need, which is a lot different than most units in the police department. You know, usually you're looking to make arrests and making cases, and we decided to go down a different path.

And, uh, that's kind of how we started this off.

WHITBECK:

Shannan gilbert wanted to be a singer and was the oldest of four girls. She began working for an escort company to pay for her new jersey apartment. Soon, she was purchasing lavish gifts for her family and her mother questioned where this money was coming from.

After Shannan’s murder, Shannan’s mother Mari fought Suffolk County relentlessly until her own death to have Shannan’s case re-examined and the 9-11 calls released.

Maureen Brainard Barnes was tenacious, she loved poetry and began escorting after being introduced to modeling. She had two children.

Maureen’s sister, Melissa Cann told New York magazine in 2011 that when she told the police of her sister’s disappearance, she was not taken seriously because of Maureen’s work in the sex industry.

Melissa Barthelemy was working toward owning a salon of her own after obtaining her cosmetology license.

Her mother, Lynn and her sister, Amanda, continued to receive jarring phone calls from a man who claimed to be Melissa’s murderer while the SCPD carried out their investigation.

Megan Waterman’s mother, Lorraine Ela, told New York magazine that her daughter was fun, caring and a loving mom.

Lorraine attributes Megan’s entrance into the sex industry to her boyfriend, Akeem Cruz who Lorraine believed to be posting as Megan on Craigslist.

Amber Costello was seeking resources to aide with drug addiction. Her sister, Kimberly Overstreet, also worked in the sex industry and was urging amber to receive treatment.

The families of the victims found on Gilgo beach expressed discontent with the media portrayal of their daughters and sisters.

They saw their loved ones be minimized to a headline, a statistic, a victim.

The families of these women continue to fight for the Suffolk County Police Department to work at the investigation and honor the lives of their loved one.

Music fade out

WHITBECK:

The approach Murphy and the Suffolk County Anti Trafficking Initiative take in Suffolk County aligns with what the Sex Workers Project found in a 2009 report.

This 2009 report found that when law enforcement takes a right based and victim centered approach to anti-trafficking that prioritizes the needs, agency, and self-determination of trafficking survivors, they are more successful in aiding the victims and therefore eliminating trafficking.

When Geraldine Hart first became Commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department in 2018 just as the Suffolk Anti-Trafficking Initiative started, she found that these sorts of initiatives are essential to changing the culture of Suffolk County.

GERADLINE HART: I think there's a saying that culture eats policy for breakfast because you can make all the policy you want, but if you're not changing that culture, it's just not going to take hold.

WHITBECK:

This quote rings true when looking at the sex industry as well.

Changes need to be made to the way we as a society view sex work to fuel better access to health and social services for vulnerable populations.

Hart made these changes to police ideology as Commissioner.

GERALDINE HART: It was, uh, I felt like we really did make some progress, uh, but for a department that big and it's the 11th largest in the nation, it is, it is definitely a battleship that you have to turn solely. Um, but you're just constantly out messaging to, to the folks and, um, and making sure that they understand, you know, what that means, and what's not going to be tolerated.

Uh, what's acceptable and what's not. And you know, for me, I had a, I had an appreciation for the idea of, and we see it here on the success of it is here on college campuses, the idea of active bystander ship and what that means in the police department, because it's one thing to have policies in place where misconduct is to be reported up the chain.

And that's what. But I think what's more effective is to empower the officers themselves, to stop the misconduct before it starts to step in and say, that's not okay. That's not how we do things here. Um, and that to me is more effective. Uh, certainly has to coexist with, um, a strong misconduct policy, but I was really trying to work towards that in the department.

WHITBECK:

Hart was in a unique position entering as Commissioner.

She was not only joining the force after a career with the FBI, but she served as the first female Commissioner in Suffolk County.

Hart also was dealing with the complexities of the Gilgo case and an unsettled department after the actions of former police chief James Burke as we discussed in Part Two.

In 2012, James Burke beat Christopher Loeb, a Smithtown man, in a holding cell after Loeb stole a duffle bag from burke containing items that potentially links Burke to the Gilgo murders.

Once again, Geraldine Hart.

GERALDINE HART: You know, going in before I actually stepped into the role, but I had. In my mind, I was thinking, which is going to be the more difficult challenge being the first woman commissioner or being from the FBI, because we had just arrested their chief of department.

WHITBECK:

However, her ability was not impeded by being a woman or her previous work with the FBI, and she was able to step directly into supporting the Suffolk County Anti-Trafficking Initiative.

GERALDINE HART: Suffolk County did an amazing job with the human resources, human resources on this, on the brain, the human trafficking task force. Um, that's how you get at it. That's when we say you're not going to be put through the criminal justice system, you're going to get services and that's when you have people cooperate with you and that's how you go up the chain and get you and traffickers because it, it, we should not be punishing the women who are left to, to this.

GERALDINE HART: I was very proud of the human trafficking initiative that we had and to get these women, the services that they need and not to criminalize them because it's not useful, it's not useful to them and it doesn't help the investigation if we stop there.

WHITBECK:

Hart and Murphy share a similar sentiment about the mentality law enforcement must maintain when working on task forces such as this.

GERALDINE HART: These are not, these are not criminals. These are victims.

WHITBECK:

The Suffolk County Anti Trafficking Initiative aims to aid victims of human trafficking, and may fail to see that sex work is a form of labor and not always a form of sex trafficking.

Victims of sex trafficking and individuals who consensually sell sex both fall under some of the labels we talked about before.

Language is important when being used to represent those in the sex industry as it can hold strong connotations.

Language in the media and language in the law can shift the entire perception of what sex work is or who sex workers are.

NEWS CLIP: 00:45: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-says-new-evidence-shows-escort-strangled-serial-killer-n517606

WHITBECK:

Once again, Penelope Saunders.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: This whole representations of sex with sex workers going back, you know, more than a hundred years in newspaper story serialized, you know, the fate of the prostitute, you know, and it's, uh, sensationalized, it describes the sex workers physically, but no one else, you know what I mean?

Like the sex workers, image and body is always described and the police officers never is. Right. Um, you know, once you start seeing this, you can't unsee it. So, uh, these tropes have existed for a very long time. And we're at the point now where people are beginning to break out of those narratives.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: Prostitute, I think of skewers, whereas like a term like sex worker or even streetwalker kind of reveal things.

WHITBECK:

Rhetorician Mary Anne Trasciatti, is a professor of labor and women’s studies at Hofstra University.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: Um, prostitute isn't quite as explicitly revealed. So, streetwalker reveals that someone is out in public space, kind of Hawking their wares. Right. Um, sex worker reveals that, uh, this is, uh, labor, right? A, a kind of a, that somebody who is a sex worker is somebody who is actually engaging in a kind of labor but is a labor that involves sex and sexuality.

So, prostitute obscures the nature of the work as work and the nature of the work as something that is sold in public. Right. Um, and I think it is more of a pejorative term. I think the term sex worker is designed to remove kind of the negative connotations and to. Highlight the fact that this is a form of labor.

It's a more neutral term, obviously. So, you can even use prostitute in other areas, right? If somebody is doing something that, um, involves kind of self-exploitation for the purpose of financial rim income, we say, oh, they're prostituting themselves for X. Right. Um, whereas sex work, it's kind of hard to manipulate the term. And I think that that's deliberate, right? That's why the move from, uh, prostitution to sex work, uh, was made was to kind of remove the stigma and emphasize that this is a form of labor.

WHITBECK:

However, Professor Trasciatti says a shift in the language is not enough.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: What ultimately would strengthen the community of sex workers is labor protections.

That means language shifts alone don't accommodate. Anything. There has to be a shift in, in also, you know, material conditions and policy and all these other things to go along with the language shift. And then they're mutually reinforcing.

I think that. Um, that language is important and that terms can be weaponized. But I also think that we're in a moment that may in fact be putting too much emphasis on language. So, you can call sex workers, sex workers, all you want. Um, but if they don't have the right to organize a union, um, and if they don't have, you know, the right to, um, you know, uh, protections under the law, then just changing the language.

Isn't really gonna do that. So, yeah. Okay. Call me a sex worker, you know, call me a food service worker, a fucking pay me, um, and allow me to organize, um, because that will actually strengthen me more”

WHITBECK:

Like Molly and Penelope, Trasciatti finds that the stigmas about sex workers we discussed before act as hurdles in the fight for decriminalization.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: I mean, part of it is, is, uh, an issue of like, um, are you going to be able to get people to sup to, to get over the whatever kind of moral issues they may have with sex work, right.

To actually recognize sex work as work. I think that that's part of the struggle, right. Is recognizing that sex work is in fact a work and that's part of the task that sex workers have to do have to. Haven't before them, right. Is to, to, it's not a kind of a, a terrible, horrible thing that people do, um, giving into the loss of, of, you know, evil men typically, right. Is envisioned as the, as the, um, or recommend. Um, but it is in fact actual legitimate labor. So, I think one of the big hurdles they have to overcome is convincing. And that's part of what I think the language change is designed to do obviously is to convince people that this is in fact legit labor, but you know, it's tied up with sex.

WHITBECK:

When looking at the trope of sex work being inherently exploitative like we discussed before, Trasciatti finds that sex workers are exploited because they are a part of a system that exploits workers in general.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: Well, the first thing is obviously, uh, recognition, right? Uh, self-recognition that, okay, we're a class of workers, I guess Marx would call that class consciousness, right?

The recognition that we are a class of workers, we're not individuals who happen to do a job, but we're a class of workers. Um, and we are exploited, and we are not exploited by individuals or not exploited because of the nature of the work that we do. But we're exploited because we. And work within a system that exploits workers.

WHITBECK:

This idea that sex work itself is not exploitative, but the conditions in which society has created around it make it exploitative, is supported by Molly from SWOP Brooklyn.

MOLLY: A lot of people are in the sex industry because the capitalist society that we live in doesn't allow them to, uh, really exist in anything else.

Right? Like the sex industry has almost no barrier to entry. So, you don't need papers. You can be disabled, you can be neurodivergent, you can be using drugs. You know, you don't have to have consistent access to like medical, um, or like mental health care. Right. All these things that would require someone to get a quote unquote, normal job, you don't have to have.

To enter the sex industry and a lot of people, in fact, most people who are in the sex industry, like aren't capable of like working 40 or 50 hours a week, whether it's for physical reasons or family reasons or childcare reasons. Like it's just not possible for people to go from working a few hours a week to 40 to 50 hours a week, um, you know, for minimum wage to try to support their lives.

Um, so I mean, we find the best, just like a super unsustainable model. We don't support any viewpoint that tries to argue that sex work is inherently exploitative. It's only exploitative because of the societal conditions we've created around it. And we're at to not be criminalized exploitation with one, be easier to spot and to be easier to resolve and like the numbers would decrease dramatically.

WHITBECK:

With decriminalization comes the right to be protected under labor laws.

Laws that would provide sex workers the health, social and legal services without fear of repercussion.

Trasciatti believes one of the first steps to decriminalization and creating a class of laborers is understanding how the system in place works around you, so you can work it.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATI: I think necessarily, uh, developing a consciousness of yourself as a class of workers, developing a consciousness of how the economic system I E capitalism, um, is set up to exploit you. Is the first, the first step then, uh, joining with other workers, um, and articulating to each other this kind of shared understanding and then, uh, figuring out what, or how you are covered or not under the law and how you can exploit whatever provisions exist under the law, um, to your advantage and recruiting public support for whatever, um, organizing and advocacy work you want to do. Um, I think is essential knowing your history. Um, obviously is really important.

WHITBECK:

Sex work is considered one of the oldest professions in history and has continued to face similar challenges that it does today.

Trasciatti links these historical challenges to a labor movement in 1909.

MARY ANNE TRASCIATTI: In the early 20th century, when women workers would go on strike, they would be called streetwalkers and prostitutes because they would go out and play.

There was a big strike in, in 1909 called the uprising of the 20,000. It was 20,000, mostly Jewish immigrant garment workers in the city striking because they were working in dangerous conditions and, and they were called because they walk the streets as pickets. They were called prostitutes because there was this equation of prostitution with being out in the street and publicly advertising that you used her body to make money.

And a woman factory worker was essentially. They were told, doing the same thing. How dare you be out here, you know, advertising that you're a laborer and you want more money. You're like a streetwalker. And so it just, you know, so working women have actually, when they get to quote unquote uppity in demand too much from their bosses, they were called, um, sluts and prostitutes and streetwalkers.

Oh, wow. That's so interesting. Oh, my God, the prostitutes actually said to the workers when, cause they got beaten like one, the organizer of the strike Clara Lemlich had six ribs broken and they would be thrown in the Patty wagon and sent to jail. And the prostitutes that's, what they were called at the time were streetwalkers and what we would now call sex workers said to them, wow, you guys even have it worse than we do because we make more money than you do.

You guys take all this abuse, you get called streetwalkers and prostitutes, but we are actually. Get more money and, uh, and the cops are not as nasty to us as they are to you. So, there's like this historic connection between working women demanding better and being called prostitutes and streetwalkers cause they're out in the street demanding, you know. That's so interesting to watch how it's kind of evolved over the past 100 years now.

WHITBECK:

A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that the legal status of sex work can be a critical factor in shaping patterns of violence against sex workers.

This means decriminalization would shift the level of violence sex workers face as we’ve heard extensively throughout this episode.

The effort toward decriminalizing sex work has grown significantly in recent years, especially in New York.

In early March 2021, Mew York District Attorney Melinda Katz moved to dismiss nearly 700 cases against people charged with loitering for the purpose of prostitution, and on the same day, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed to decriminalize sex work.

NEWSCAST:

BILL DEBLASIO ANNOUNCING DECRMINALIZATION OF SEX WORK

https://abc7ny.com/prostitution-sex-workers-human-trafficking-mayor-bill-de-blasio/10423135/

WHITBECK:

New York State Senator Julia Salazar is currently sponsoring senate bill s6419 along with Decrim.NY, an organization dedicated to fighting for the decriminalization of sex work.

MOLLY: There is a bill on the floor that was introduced by Julia Salazar. SBSTTA, uh, I don't know how people pronounce that acronym. Um, and I know that it's like still kind of in the works and there is some work that needs to be done on it, but we personally feel very, uh, competent about the outlook of like the decriminalization bill in the next year or so.

PENELOPE SAUNDERS: I know that the bill, I haven't done an analysis of it. I know that, uh, activists have worked for a really long time with Salazar, um, on her perspectives, activists coming out of New York city, especially I think it's Decrim NYC and she's being present at a lot of those rallies, so I would assume the bill is good. Um, because this politician is linked to strongly linked to that organizing.”

WHITBECK:

The purpose of this bill is to amend the New York State penal laws around sex work to decriminalize selling sex.

The official legislation of the bill states it is meant to eliminate prior criminal records, repeal certain provisions of the criminal procedure law in relating to the prosecution of sex work.

This bill is the first of it’s kind in the united states and strips criminal penalties from sex work.

However, it maintains penalties related to human trafficking such as holding traffickers and people who seek to buy sex from minors accountable for their illegal actions.

S6419 is currently sitting in the code committee of the New York State Senate.

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PENELOPE SAUNDERS: Sex work is work. People are out there in various kinds of work to make money. There are labor rights abuses, and there are abuses by state agents, such as police officers imported gods, right. That problems happen.

But those problems would not happen. If sex work is recognized as work and people can then seek labor protections, right? That's what's happening all around the world. And the idea that films are still being made and, and shows are still being made with this older idea. Um, It, you know, like everybody get with the times, it's time to make the new representations of sex workers and a pathway.

WHITBECK:

The idea of sex work is changing with the introduction of online platforms like Only Fans which allows users to sell content with a secure transaction of payment.

Many sex workers began using Only Fans as an avenue of sale because it met their needs for dealing with clients.

However, in August 2021, Only Fans announced it was going to ban any sexually explicit content from being sold on the platform because of continued payment transfer issues with banks.

But this policy change was quickly forgotten when sex workers took to social media to speak out.

Catherine MacKinnon, the law professor who studies the sex industry discussed this in her September 2021 article I mentioned before.

MacKinnon has found that consensual sex work is not found commonly in the sex industry and denies the term sex work itself.

She sees the online sale of sex no differently and compares the percentage that the platform takes from its creators as a pimp’s cut.

Although the voices of sex workers are beginning to be heard, but their profession is still criminalized, and they are still being targeting at disproportionate rates.

When looking at the Gilgo murder case, it is important to remember that this is not the only case where sex workers are being targeted.

We could look at the case of Joel Rifkin, who murdered 17 women on and around long island in the late 80s and early 90s that was discussed in Part Two.

When Rifkin was being questioned by authorities, he mentioned he would never have stopped killing if he hadn’t gotten caught.

We could also look at peter William Sutcliffe, better known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Sutcliffe was found guilty of murdering 13 women between 1975 to 1980.

Or Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer that Molly mentioned before. Ridgeway was convicted of killing 48 sex workers but confessed to killing 71 between 1982 and 1998.

The list goes on, as does the disproportionate rate in which sex workers are murdered.

Men like Ridgeway, Rifkin and Sutcliffe target sex workers because they know that sex workers cannot turn to legal authorities without facing repercussions themselves.

If sex work was decriminalized, sex workers would be able to turn to the police regarding men like Rifkin and Bittlroff without fear of legal repercussion.

Bittrolff was only tied to the murders of Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee because of advances in DNA evidence.

But it took twenty years.

Rifkin only stopped murdering women because he was caught, which he has admitted in interviews from prison, where he remains today.

And the murders of the women found on Gilgo beach are still unsolved.

MOLLY: People prey on sex workers because we are uniquely vulnerable in that. Like nobody persecute, nobody really like pays attention when bad things happen to us, they sort of just like blame it on our circumstances. Um, and that's why killers like the green river killer or, um, the Gilgo beach Gilgo beach Are allowed to get away with it for so long because they know that nobody's trying to like, make the connection between like different sex workers who have been murdered.

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WHITBECK:

The future of the Gilgo investigation is now in the hands of newly elected Suffolk County officials like District Attorney Ray Tierney and police Commissioner Rodey Harrison

Newly elected Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison formed a new inter-agency task force in February 2022 which includes FBI state and local investigators.

Prior to this in January 2022, Harrison announced that he plans to release Shannon Gilbert’s 911 call as long as they do not negatively affect the ongoing investigation reported Newsday.

NEWS CLIP: https://www.fox5ny.com/news/911-calls-to-be-released-in-gilgo-beach-serial-killer-case

JOHN RAY: He's got a clear mind about this. He doesn't have any of these positions. And so, uh, he comes in, starts off in. Of the investigation. And first thing he does is pull together all the different police agencies that he could to work on this. I mean, that's, how could that be bad? I don't see how it could be.

And you know what, even Suffolk County, he pledged it. He told me he pledged that, uh, he would bring new eyes in from the county police. So it's Suffolk county, you know, the old, the log jam from the old. It is over Spanish to get different people. What, I think one or two of the people in the same, and they were people, you know, the, uh, the old regime, but they had integrity.

So, he kept them on. No, you brought, you brought it into bed, you would have to imagine. Cause its homicide. So, he brought in the best minds from these different agencies and I'm kind of pleased at his creativity and even bringing in the Sheriff's office as part of the investigation. So how can it be anything but good.

You know, this is a good development. Yeah. If he's best minds, can't solve this and it's not something that's likely to be solved.

WHITBECK:

That was John Ray talking about Commissioner Harrison’s new initiatives in solving the Gilgo case. I recently spoke with the long island attorney who represents the gilbert family we heard from before.

We also discussed the call he so relentlessly fought the SCPD for being released to the public.

JOHN RAY: I mean, the problem that, that the public will have is what inevitably you can't help it.

No, that Shannan's about to be murdered, is about to be murdered and there's the evidence of it as clear as a bell, as soon as they go back and compare that fact with what the police should have that's in writing. How could you, how could you not say that somebody was willfully lying about the event, somebody from the police report.

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WHITBECK:

Ray Tierney was elected to the position as Suffolk County DA in November 2021 and clamed his first order of business upon entering office would be to reassure the families of the victims that he is committed to solving their loved ones murder.

Tierney has made claims that finding justice for Maureen Brainard Barnes, Melissa Barthelemy, Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Megan Waterman, Shannan Gilbert, Amber-Lynn Costello and the 3 unidentified victims found on Gilgo beach is his top priority.

However, sources have hinted that this newly energized search for justice was just a campaign tactic.

Christopher Loeb, the victim of a civil rights violation at the hand of the SCPD who we heard from in Part Two, has begun to take finding justice into his own hands.

Loeb created Unite & Expose, a campaign dedicated to uniting the people of Suffolk County and exposing the political and police corruption he has continually witnessed.

CHRISTOPHER LOEB: The divine forces are strong in the world. Good and bad. And we're in a fight between this black and white it's good and evil. And. The evil is just, it's starting to be, it's becoming real. It's always been there, but it's now just becoming more. I'm seeing it was unseen for so long and people.

Yeah. Right. Only in horror movies. No one is real life. And we need to come together as a unit to expose these criminal actors that are inside the judicial system. We could do it. Listen, I'm one person, right? I single-handedly by the grace of God, because I listened to my intuition. No matter how scared I got my angels were there protecting me and God was there guiding me.

I single-handedly took down the most powerful district attorney's office. United States of America. And I say that it's the most powerful district attorney's office because it's, there's no one else on the other side, looking over at them, controlling them and, and the human trafficking and the, and they said, listen, you have a long island serial killer.

Yeah, Gilgo is unsolved because the players involved are powerful politicians. They control the narrative.

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WHITBECK:

Although the Gilgo case is still unsolved, laws toward sex work are changing in New York however the reality of sex work will only change when destigmatizing and decriminalization begins.

When society begins to change the way we view sex workers from notions that the word prostitute connotates to a laborer, selling a service the same way a nurse or a teacher would, laws will begin to reflect this change.

Decriminalization will open doors to better healthcare and social services for sex workers as well as the opportunity to unionize and gain labor protections.

Sex work is not inherently exploitative but exploited due to the condition’s society has created around the profession.

December 17th is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Each year, sex workers, allies and advocates organize against discrimination and remembering victims of violence.

This day was first recognized in 2003 as a memorial and vigil for the victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle, Washington.

Years later, December 17th is still globally recognized and made to empower individuals through awareness about violence against sex workers.

Thank you for listening to part three of Sex Work After Gilgo.

I’m Alexandra Whitbeck.

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