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Metro manager accused of prostitution agrees to life skills, education program
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Metro station manager Sharon Waters is accused of running a prostitution ring out of the Red Line’s Dupont Circle station. – Eric Salzberg /The Examiner
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The Metro station manager accused of running a prostitution ring out of the Dupont Circle station is avoiding criminal charges by signing up for a program that teaches life skills — including entrepreneurship — and provides therapy to prostitutes.
Sharon Waters, whom some transit agency employees have dubbed the “Metro madam,” was arrested last month on prostitution charges after an undercover Metro Transit Police investigation found she was arranging sexual trysts for money from the Red Line station. At one point she used Metro’s loudspeaker system to facilitate an arrangement.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Rafael Diaz decided Wednesday to allow the U.S. Attorney’s Office to drop the charges against Waters if she successfully completes a four-month, six-hours-a-week outpatient diversion program called Angel’s Project Power.
Waters, who earned a base salary of $56,647 at Metro in fiscal 2006, will be offered anger management, sex addiction and entrepreneurship classes.
She will attend sessions from 1 to 3 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and submit to a weekly drug test.
Waters was hired by Metro in 1990 and fired by the transit agency June 30.
Angel’s Project Power is offered through the D.C. court system to people charged with solicitation if program director Jacqueline McReynolds determines they qualify for it.
McReynolds said she qualifies just about anybody who is charged with prostitution as long as the person is physically able to attend the sessions and is willing to accept help.
The prosecutor and the defendant must both agree to the arrangement.
“It sort of is a way to circumvent a trial in the matter,” Waters’ lawyer Nicholas Kourtesis said.
Waters, 42, whose husband is also a Metro station manager, was charged with one count of solicitation after she allegedly arranged a $150 sex transaction between an undercover police officer and a Metro custodian named Pam Goins. Goins is scheduled to appear in court Friday.
But charging documents say Waters also was running sex trips to Brazil through the “Blossom Express” travel agency and that she had pictures of the women who would be available for pay on the naughty excursions.
The documents also said she told the officer she was throwing a “sex party” in the area for a $100 cover charge, and at one point referenced another, unnamed, Metro employee who would be available for sex at the officer’s hotel room.
“In all criminal cases, we bring charges only upon what we reasonably believe the evidence can prove beyond a reasonable doubt at a trial,” said Channing Phillips, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.
Phillips declined to comment further on why no other charges were brought against Waters, citing the case’s pending status.
Transit police said they were still investigating the affair to determine whether any other Metro employees were involved.
tluntz@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
6:45 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 10, 2008 re: "Metro manager accused of prostitution agrees to life skills, education program"
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Examiner Reader said:
This is a sick twist of justice. She doesn't need a life skills program to teach her how to be a better madam. She already held a decent job and wasn't prostituting herself. She shouldn't qualify for this program and should instead sit behind bars for a few years to rethink her life goals.
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