A man’s planned $120 bed romp at the Back Bay Hilton turned into an armed robbery that ended with the prostitute and another john arrested immediately – and him being summonsed into court on a charge of sex for a fee – BPD detectives told the Boston Licensing Board this morning.
Police say the man’s bad day started between noon and 1 p.m. on Dec. 21, when he was at the Fields Corner T stop and he got to talking to another guy, Lt. Det. Adrian Troy said. The topic, as it does, turned to where to find a hooker and the guy suggested a particular Web site.
The guy then shared a drink with the man, before the man went to the site, called the listed number and spent an hour talking and texting with a woman at the other end of the line. They settled on a price of $120 and she told him to come on up to the 23rd floor of the Hilton on Dalton Street.
Shortly after 7 p.m., Troy said, the man hopped in an elevator at the hotel, went up to the 23rd floor and knocked on the woman’s door. And then, he said, Danine Simpson, 27, opened the door to a darkened room, displayed a knife and demanded $200, adding that she warned him that if he refused, “I’ll stab you.”
He handed over the money and as he left, he thought he heard at least one man’s voice inside the room, Troy said.
The man then went downstairs and reported the robbery to the front desk, which called police, which arrived en masse. Officers went up to the 23rd floor, to try to keep anybody in the room from leaving. The first officers up there noticed a man, wearing a Louis Vuitton fanny pack, who, as soon as he spotted them, took off down the hallway. They caught up with him, he “bladed” his body away from them and then began to “sweat profusely” when they asked if he had any weapons on him. Knowing from experience people without weapons don’t tend to erupt in sweat or blade, they searched his fanny pack and found a handgun loaded with eight bullets – and $9,580 in cash, Troy said.
Meanwhile, other officers, including women officers in plain clothes, arrived with the victim for an impromptu ID session. Troy said the victim – whom he also called a suspect – quickly identified Simpson.
Police, thinking the man captured down the hall might have been a pimp, advised her of help she could get if she were being trafficked, but, Troy said, she said no, she wasn’t being trafficked, she “sells herself for living” and likes to flit around the country, from city to city. She said she’d already had 45 “dates” in the two days she’d been in Boston, denied she pulled a knife on the guy from Fields Corner and said that, in fact, he tried to rape her and then made up the story about the robbery.
The other guy? He was another john, who had paid her $300 for unspecified sexual acts – and who, she claimed, had opened his fanny pack to show her all the cash he had.
Police identified him as Robert Santana, 28, and said he was already wanted on a warrant out of Lowell for the armed robbery of a jewelry store there the week before, Troy said.
Simpson was charged with armed robbery. At her arraignment at Boston Municipal Court, she had bail set at $1,500.
Santana was charged with illegal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of a loaded firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and possession of a large-capacity feeding device, although that charge was later dropped, court records show. He had bail set at $10,000 following a dangerousness hearing, records show.
The man who allegedly got robbed of $200 was summonsed into court for attempting to arrange sexual conduct for a fee.
On Thursday, the licensing board decides whether the Hilton could have prevented the alleged paid assignations, robbery and illegal gun possession.
Hotel General Manager Doug Koenig told the board that hotel workers receive regular training – twice a year – on how to recognize potential human trafficking and what to do about it. However, he said that because the hotel is “open” – anybody who knows a particular room number can go up to it – it can be difficult to recognize illicit activities in the making.
Innocent, etc.