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Feds: Search engine bride was tax evading prostitute

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The wife of Ask.com co-founder David Warthen is facing felony charges after allegedly failing to pay taxes on more than $133,000 she earned as a high-priced interstate prostitute.

Federal court papers filed on Tuesday accuse Cristina Warthen - nee Cristina Schultz - of operating "an escort business, in which she exchanged sexual acts for money." According to the San Jose Mercury News, Schultz's life as a purported hooker was first revealed several years ago when the feds searched her Oakland home and found more $61,000 in cash.

Since then, she married David Warthen, who helped found Ask.com - nee Ask Jeeves - in 1996. Lawyers have claimed that the IT entrepreneur gave Schultz all that cash before they wed - for "vacations, wedding and/or honeymoon."

According to court papers, Cristina Schultz advertised her escort services from a website called TouchofBrazil.net, which included pricing, travel schedules, erotic photos of herself, and information on paid memberships to the site. Under the stage name "Brazil," the documents say, she traveled to cities across the country to meet with clients, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Washington, D.C.

All this allegedly occurred in 2003, after she had graduated from Stanford Law School. Courts papers say she grossed $133,717 that year from her escort business and did not have additional sources of revenue.

Schultz's lawyer told the Mercury News in 2006 that it was easier for the feds to target her for tax fraud than prostitution. But he was sure to say "We never conceded she was an escort." ®

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Latest Comments
Anonymous Coward

Re: OMG

nternet archive is your friend. You will need to guess some URLs as the pages use java-script navigation so they no longer work directly through the archive.

However, looking at that she should be sued either for false advertising or using the statutes for pimping and running a brothel (with which she as a law graduate should be familiar) with.

There are at least 3 different women on those pictures and I think I have seen one of the pictures somewhere before around the net so she probably is in the frame for copyright violation as well.

Paris, as she does all of that without a law degree and does not try to use other people's pictures to represent her (cough, cough...)

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@ I've always found it odd

Indeed - Makes me wonder how long before someone starts a chain of brothels, instead calling them "Adult Film Studios" and offering people to fund and star in their own flick...

Of course if they were funding they'd need to pay the other Actor/Actresses wages.... and the crew and facility fees too of course....

Might well be a legal alternative to a 'brothel' - it would be harder to go after them without causing problems for the adult film industry...

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Bluenoses

Have been in control in most of the states for a long time so prosty's are illegal almost everywhere (I'm not for or against...it's just another business to me...I just don't happen to buy at that store).

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