Rentboy CEO Jeffrey Hurant Officially Indicted

In the ongoing prosecution of former Rentboy CEO Jeffrey Hurant, a federal grand jury has officially indicted Hurant, signaling that any effort at a plea deal in his case may have failed, or been ignored.

Hurant was indicted on charges of prostitution and money laundering, and the indictment also seeks the forfeiture of $1.5 million seized during the raid on the Rentboy office last August as well as bank and brokerage accounts belonging to the business.

The six other former Rentboy employees named in the original complaint — Shane Lukas (Hawk Kincaid), Marco Decker, Sean Belman (Sean Van Sant), Edward Estanol (Eli Lewis), Diana Milagros Mattos (Coco Lopez), and Clint Calero — as the NY Daily News reports, seem to have succeeded in striking plea deals, and presumably may be asked to testify against Durant — but Reuters is reporting that a criminal complaint against the six other defendants is still pending.

But that’s not all…

Per the Daily News:

The indictment contains several new allegations against Rentboy.com, including that the company was not stringent about verifying escorts were not underage and that it did business with an escort agency indicted in Florida for luring Hungarian men into sex slavery.

The additional allegations are probably in response to the public outcry over this case, which included a sharply worded editorial in the New York Times, given that it is 2016, we’re all adults here, and the role of the Rentboy site in our society is not only benign and even beneficial (at least for the safety of sex workers and their clients), but also guaranteed to be filled by other sites and services immediately, and it already has been.

Hurant’s father and friends started a legal defense fund for him, which so far has only raised $32,000 of its $250,000 goal.