Friday, May 4, 2012

Escort in Secret Service

Escort in Secret Service scandal says her life is 'ruined by this'





(CNN) -- Book publishers and modeling agents, take note: The woman at the center of the U.S. Secret Service prostitution scandal is embracing her notoriety and spilling colorful details about that infamous night.

At a bar in Cartegena last month, Secret Service agents were "buying alcohol like it was water." The same agent who refused to pay also liked to dance in a "disorderly" manner in which "he lifted his shirt to show off his six-pack." Agents were dancing on the bar.

Dania Londono Suarez, the escort who unwittingly sparked investigations that have ensnared roughly two dozen members of the Secret Service and U.S. military over reported use of prostitutes in Colombia in the days before President Barack Obama visited last month, gave a lengthy, wide-ranging interview to Colombia's W Radio on Friday.

It attracted international attention, with reporters from as far away as Europe calling in to press for more details.

She retold the story of the disagreement in the hallway of the Hotel Caribe, of her fear after the fallout and what she envisions for herself in the future.

Her days of selling her body are over, she said, but she is open to appearing nude in men's magazines.

"My life is already ruined by this," she said.

Suarez said she considers her reputation shattered but is looking for opportunity by voluntarily stepping fully into the limelight that has been chasing her.

If a magazine offered the "right price," she would pose nude, she said.
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In the interview, she also presented a more nuanced view of herself. Amid her fears that the U.S. government might retaliate and do her harm, she is also nervous about what her crush thinks about this.

She doesn't have a boyfriend, she said, but "I'm interested in someone. I don't know how he's taken all this. I wish I could go inside his head."

She also said that she would not have told police about the incident if she had known they were agents, and that their behavior hypothetically could have put the agency's work at risk.

She didn't see any schedules or plans regarding Obama, she said, but if she had been someone wanting to do harm, "while I was with them, I could have done a thousand things."

Details of what happened on the night Suarez met the Secret Service agent had surfaced before Friday, and she confirmed the narrative.

A friend at the bar introduced her to a man who was interested in her, Suarez said.

She watched as the man and his friends ordered bottles of vodka. She saw them dance on the bar. They didn't speak the same language, but when the man mentioned "sex," she answered in her basic English, "Baby, cash money."

They agreed on $800, she said, and went to his hotel.

The next morning, she was awakened by a call from the front desk alerting her that it was time for overnight visitors to leave the hotel, she said.

She woke the man up, and he refused to pay, telling her "just go, bitch." It was a completely different personality than the night before, when he was very loving, she said.

"When he was drunk, he was a different person than when he had his wits about him," Suarez said.

The escort walked across the hall to the room of another man who had brought her friend to the hotel. That couple came out and tried to sort things out with the first man, but he refused to open the door.

Now it is known that the two men were Secret Service agents, though at the time she had no idea. The only hint that the man was some sort of official was a uniform inside his room, which led Suarez to presume that he was in the military.

She spent hours trying to persuade the agent to open the door and pay her, but she finally gave up around 10 a.m.

As she was leaving, however, she came across a local police officer who encouraged her to share what was bothering her.

More agents wandered into the hallway and pleaded, "please, please, no police, no police," Suarez said.

Three agents pooled their resources and gave her $250, she said.

She took the money and left the hotel.

It would be two days before Suarez would learn what scandal had ignited that day.

Today, Suarez says she would have let the man off the hook if she knew he was Secret Service. But that sentiment is not out of respect.

"They are idiots," she said. "They were protecting President Obama, and they didn't see the magnitude of the problem."

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