Holocaust lawyer in Austrian sex scandal

[emad]

Holocaust lawyer in Austrian sex scandal
By Barbara Jungwirth in Vienna
Published: 17 September 2005

A high-profile US lawyer who forced European governments and companies to pay compensation to slave labourers from the Second World War, says he is being deliberately smeared by an investigation into whether he had sex with under-age prostitutes in Austria.

Ed Fagan, who has brought class-action suits over the treatment of Holocaust-era slave labourers and over a train fire in the Austrian ski-resort of Kaprun, is among several men who have been connected with an exclusive call-girl ring involving underage girls from eastern Europe.

Mr Fagan told the Austrian weekly NEWS he had paid for sex with a woman from Lithuania, but says she assured him she would be 22 this year. He says he met the woman, Inga, through a man who has since been sentenced over the escort service affair. Mr Fagan says when he "noticed that the guy was running a call-girl ring, I didn't really care. I was more interested in getting to know this Inga".

The lawyer is quoted by the magazine as saying it would have been a crime not to have slept with the woman. He says he later had sex with her when no payment was made and she accompanied him on several trips and visited him again in Austria.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article313184.ece

[ShockediSay]

1. Am I the only one aghast at the ironies here?

"lawyer is quoted ... saying it would have been a crime not to have slept with the woman"

"connected with an exclusive call-girl ring involving underage girls from eastern Europe"

"US lawyer who forced European governments and companies to pay compensation to slave labourers"

?!?!?

[Robeson]

2. Is there any wonder as to why this guy is trying to be put out of....

...business? This paragraph says it all:

"Mr Fagan's lengthy class-action compensation cases for Holocaust victims and their descendants have long been a thorn in the side of European governments, banks and companies. He has also represented the descendants of slaves against three US companies, led a suit against the South African government for apartheid victims and taken on a case against Thai and US authorities for victims of the Boxing Day tsunami."

Also, the article says, "Knowingly having paid-for sex with a woman under 18 carries a sentence of up to three years in Austria." The key word there is "knowingly". How are they going to prove he knew, if he didn't know?

It does sound suspiciously like a smear campaign.

[The Sushi Bandit]

3. Why is this on DU??

I might as well post football scores...

[Fluffdaddy]

4. "It would have been a crime not to have slept with the woman"..... Funny