Crime & Safety
Illinois Man Robbed by 'Escort' and Accomplice
Victim waits overnight to make report of serious crime, then police have to draw the real story out of him because he's embarrassed by the circumstances.
An Illinois man, who police said only reluctantly told them his story, reported being robbed at gunpoint the night of July 29 in Brookfield – right across the street from the police station.
So hesitant was he, he waited 12 hours to make the report.
The reason for his reticence: He had been held up by the prostitute he'd hired, along an unsuspected accomplice who waited while she lured him to a bank drive-through.
At 9:58 a.m. last Tuesday, the Manhattan, Ill., man went to police to say that he’d been robbed the night before in the parking lot of the Ruby Isle Shopping Center by a woman and a man with a gun.
He initially told officers that after they approached him and took all the cash he had on him, then forced him to go through the drive-through at Chase Bank, demanding another $300. He said it happened the night before between 9:30 and 10 p.m., and he didn’t report it until after he went to work in the morning and told his boss what happened, when he was urged to tell police.
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When police pressed him to know why he wouldn't have immediately reported such a serious crime – especially since he was within shouting distance of the Brookfield Police Department – he hemmed and hawed.
"He was reluctant to tell us the whole story," a police spokesman said.
The man finally 'fessed up that he'd called the woman through an online "escort service" number, expecting to pay for sex.
But they got into an argument, he said. He didn't want to pay what she was asking because, he said, she didn't look like the picture posted on the website.
She, on the other hand, wanted more than he was willing to pay for the services rendered, and she threatened him.
Apparently, she won the argument, because he agreed to go to the Chase drive-through to get more money. She insisted on going along so he couldn't skip without paying her.
But, when they got to the bank, her male accomplice showed up, and from there the victim's initial story meshed: The two took the money he had and forced him to withdraw more, at the barrel of a pistol.
The victim was able to describe the gunman only as black, 6-feet to 6-feet-2-inches tall, weighing 200 to 220 pounds, and wielding a silver handgun; he described the woman as black, 5-feet-10-inches to 6 feet tall, 160 to 170 pounds, with dark hair.
Based on a number of recent and similar incidents, police believe there is a group of perpetrators at work, with women posing as "escorts" tricking or badgering their customers into situations where they can be held up by a waiting accomplice.
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