State Troopers Posed As Prostitutes, Now Say They're Paying A Nasty Price

The New Jersey State Police once assigned a team of female troopers to go undercover as sex workers and infiltrate the city’s prevalent sex trade industry.

The four-day operation in May 2011 netted the arrests of several prostitutes and their pimps. But some allegedly paid a nasty price for taking part of the operation, and at least one has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual discrimination, according to a MyCentralJersey.com report.

According to Politico and The Daily Record, those incidents include:

• One trooper said she’s been the subject of vicious rumors portraying her as promiscuous at orgies during the prostitution operation.
• The prostitution bust ended her marriage to another state trooper, upended her career, led to a death threat against a colleague and resulted in internal affairs investigations and criminal.
• Kenneth Franco, a detective sergeant first class who oversaw the prostitution detail, was rumored to have had sex with Trooper Georgina Sirakides, who played the part of an Atlantic City prostitute and has now filed a lawsuit.
• One such tale, Franco says, had him locking the female troopers in a hotel room, getting them drunk and “almost… raping them.” Franco says he was also threatened with murder.

The Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the State Police in the litigation, has denied the lawsuits’ accusations in court filings, according to the media reports. A State Police spokesman did not answer questions about the litigation.

The troopers involved said they complained to superiors about their treatment, both found themselves the targets of criminal and internal investigations. Authorities accused Sirakides of hacking into her ex-husband’s email but Sirakides said it was joint account she held with her husband, according to the media reports.

Franco was also accused with leaking embarrassing photos to the press in 2012 depicting Sirakides’ husband and other troopers waving a Puerto Rican flag over a mound of confiscated drugs, according to the media reports.