Local
Gay man says he was robbed by escort at D.C. hotel
69-year-old gay man said he refused to call police about rentboy.com-arranged crime
Capital Hilton Hotel (Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons)
A 69-year-old gay man said he was assaulted and robbed by someone claiming to be a male escort and three accomplices on May 28 in a room at the Capital Hilton Hotel rented by the alleged escort.
The man, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said he responded to an ad placed by the man claiming to be the escort on the site Rentboy.com. He said he called a phone number listed in the ad and the person answering the phone arranged for him to meet the escort at a room at the Capital Hilton.
When he arrived, the man said, the person who let him in the room was not the same person whose photograph appeared in the ad. He said he immediately told the person he wanted to cancel the arrangement.
“He told me I had to pay him,” the man said. When he refused to pay, three other men rushed out of the bathroom and began to assault him, the man said. Before allowing him to leave, the four perpetrators took $300 in cash from his wallet and one of his credit cards, he said.
He said he decided against reporting the incident to police because he’s mistrustful about the way police would handle the situation. He said he reported the incident to the hotel’s front desk staff.
Sgt. Matt Mahl, acting supervisor of the D.C. police Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, said the GLLU would look into the matter but could not make an arrest unless a victim comes forward to press charges against the person or persons who assaulted and robbed the gay man. Mahl said others who may have been victimized in a similar situation should contact the GLLU at 202-727-5427.
Sean Van Sant, director of the New York City-based Rentboy.com, said he takes immediate steps to remove an ad for an escort when he receives reliable information that the escort has engaged in conduct similar to that described by the gay man in D.C. Van Sant said someone from D.C. called his office to report a similar type of complaint, but the gay man who spoke to the Blade about the Capital Hilton incident said he didn’t call Rentboy.com to report the incident.
“My guess is these people are doing this to others,” said the gay man. “This is clearly a scam.”
Greg Brown, the Capital Hilton’s general manager, said the hotel staff offered to call D.C. police when the gay man reported the incident to the front desk.
“He implored the staff not to call police and left,” Brown said.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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