Amerika

Mr. Robert De Niro, unquestionably a talented actor for anyone who has seen Ronin, has recently made the news for his verbal attacks on Donald J. Trump after a leaked hot microphone tape emerged of the latter making lewd statements which were widely misinterpreted as an endorsement of sexual assault.

However, [[[ De Niro ]]] — please excuse our “non-WASP” echo signal punctuation — was in the news fifteen years ago for his role in an underage prostitution ring:

The case uncovers the brutal methods used to snare young women – some as young as 15 – into a call-girl agency specialising in wealthy, high- profile clients.

…Six people are charged with the running of an international prostitution ring, whose call-girls entertained the actor Robert de Niro, the former tennis player, Wojtek Fibak, two senior (but unnamed) French politicians and several Gulf princes. The agency specialised in tricking, or trapping, star-struck teenage girls into selling their bodies with the promise of careers as models or actresses.

At one point, according to the report of the investigating judge, the agency became a kind of approved dealer in girls, operating with the connivance, if not the blessing, of the French foreign ministry and French secret services. By steering Middle East arms clients towards girls from a known, and closely watched, agency, there was thought to be a reduced risk of blackmail, or the leaking of secret negotiations.

Not only does this involve sexual relations with 15-year-old girls, but it is heavily mired in corruption and whiffs of organized crime. While this has no bearing on whether the criticism of Trump by De Niro is correct, it does add some framing to the seemingly perpetual Leftist tendency to use their own crimes as accusations against others.

Tags: corruption, donald j. trump, organized crime, prostitution, robert de niro