In the background emailing with EW and BMAz yesterday, I made the following comment on the RentBoy bust in particular, and prostitution busts in general:

Well, hell, of course they were [aware of the existence and business of RentBoy]. I mean, I knew years ago that such a site by that name existed – back when that prominent expert witness against gay marriage got “busted” on his arrival back from a European trip with, as Maddow put it on her show, a very cute boy. As I recall the story, that arrangement – the anti-gay expert insisted the boy was his assistant, and the boy just went “yeah, right” – and the news reports noted the reviews on the site of his performance.
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The point is, this has been going on quite openly for a long time. Why only now do they get around to busting, not the johns, but the boys?
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Thinking like a cop, there’s 4 reasons to bust a hooker, whatever flavor:
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1. to turn them into an informant on their clientele,
2. because they stop producing information on their clientele,
3. to get some back at them for exposing a client they didn’t want exposed or who’s connected to someone important,
4. the partying just got too damn loud and some bluenosed pol got his nose out of joint over it.
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The latter was the only reason high-end hookers were getting busted in NYC – when their business cards landed on Bloomberg’s desk, he got shirty about it and had only those pros busted. http://nymag.com/nymetro/nightlife/sex/features/12193/
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That, and in this case the cops get to put the gays back in their place.

I think the Silk Road case was another example of Reason #4, with Gawker as the precipitating neighbor complaining about all the noise and Chuckie as the bluenose.