from www.detnews.com – Metro Detroiters helped build Miami Companions into one of the country’s largest escort services, paying up to $500 an hour to have sex with prostitutes and porn stars at area hotels.

Detroit also is where the sex ring unraveled.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI busted the international escort service in July, indicted the owners and three employees on various prostitution or money-laundering charges and seized a potentially explosive piece of evidence. Federal prosecutors are threatening to wield the ring’s not-so-little black book bulging with tens of thousands of customer names and possibly call clients as witnesses if the Miami Companions criminal case proceeds to trial in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Federal court records, FBI files obtained by The Detroit News and interviews with defense lawyers illustrate how a husband-and-wife team in Miami ran an Internet-based sex empire that dispatched waves of prostitutes to hotels and beachfront villas around the world and listed Detroit as one of its busiest stops in the United States.

Few tour stops had more clients than Metro Detroit, where johns spent more than $167,000 between March 2007 and January 2009 on Miami Companions prostitutes, according to the feds, despite a prolonged recession, high unemployment and thousands of lost manufacturing jobs.

The clients helped Miami Companions rake in more than $4 million, which fueled a lavish lifestyle for the ring’s accused pimp and madam, according to court records.

The bust, however, wiped away the money, the million-dollar penthouse and a Costa Rican cathouse. Miami Companions owners Greg and Laurie Carr are divorced, broke and pitted against each other in federal court — she’s pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.

“This is a weird way of life, do you understand?” said Laurie Carr’s attorney Oscar Rodriguez. “Things have a way of unraveling when you live in this mode.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said prosecutors will use the black book against Greg Carr, a 44-year-old Dearborn Heights native who they allege co-owned and ran the ring under an alias made for Motown: “Paul Cutlass.”

“Greg had nothing to do with the girls getting caught, doing something they shouldn’t have been doing in Detroit,” Carr’s attorney, Paul DeCailly, said. “He’s not a pimp.”

Yes he is, according to court records.

Prosecutors say he’s a methodical businessman who court records show he and his wife hired an ex-Detroit cop to rob hookers who didn’t turn over money from dates. He used a complex web of firms to launder cash and stashed the black book overseas in a failed bid to avoid law enforcement’s reach, according to the feds.

His trial date on various prostitution conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy charges hasn’t been set.

His attorney says Carr’s a Midwest guy, the son of a paramedic, father of a 3-year-old son, a graphic designer by trade.

“Gosh, he’s just mild-mannered,” DeCailly said.

The masterminds were Carr’s wife Laurie, 39, and Michelle Matarazzo, 37, the sex ring’s office manager and an ex-prostitute, the attorney said.

“The government made deals with the devils,” DeCailly said.

Rodriguez, who represents Laurie Carr, denied she ran the escort service.

“(Greg) was the face and head of this whole thing,” he said.

Laurie Carr on Oct. 22 agreed to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy and prostitution conspiracy charges. If she provides substantial help, the government will recommend a 12-month prison term.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Rodriguez said.

One prostitute busted in early 2008 told investigators Miami Companions never forced escorts to have sex with clients. Sex was their choice. When they did have sex, the Carrs let prostitutes keep 60 percent, minus some travel expenses, according to court records.

“Laurie and Michelle would get nasty with the girls if they didn’t pay,” DeCailly said. “He’d just let them go.”

Either way, there was a lot of money flowing into Miami Companions. And the Carrs went to extraordinary lengths to hide the cash, prosecutors said.
A key date

The door to room 308 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Novi could have used a turnstile because there were so many men entering and exiting Jan. 7, 2009 — a key date in the government’s crackdown of Miami Companions.

Inside was a porn star and part-time Miami Companions escort named Brianna Beach, the 34-year-old star of such adult films as “Best of Blackzilla 2,” “Bubble Bottoms” and “I Scored a Soccer Mom 4.”

Agents with the Southeast Michigan Crimes Against Children Task Force, which includes the FBI, knew she was in town for three days and charging $500 an hour after checking an adult Web site used by traveling escorts.

Approximately every hour, task force officers spotted men entering and leaving the room. They busted two, including a man identified in an unsealed FBI search warrant as “A.Z.,” a West Bloomfield customer who had hired Miami Companions prostitutes 15 times. Or maybe it was 20 — he’d lost count.

He told officers he put $500 cash on the dresser and had sex with Beach, whose real name is Melissa Sternberg.

After the date, investigators learned Sternberg had hailed a cab to a nearby Bank of America branch and deposited $710 in the bank account of a company called MC Consulting Assoc.

Investigators would soon learn the Florida company was headed by Greg Carr.

At the peak, Miami Companions prostitutes were turning 100 tricks a day, generating cash that needed to be systematically tracked, counted and laundered through a web of companies, according to federal court records.

The cash went from the nightstand to the Carrs’ pockets after being funneled through the Bank of America and Fifth Third Bank, according to the records.

The accounts were under the names of four companies — including MC Consulting Assoc. — either headed by Greg Carr or two of his former prostitutes: Florida residents Fabiola Contreras and Matarazzo, who ran the Miami Companions office after ending her prostitution career. Otherwise, Greg Carr would be waiting at the airport, welcoming the hookers home with his hand out, according to records.
‘Dressed well, lived well’

Greg and Laurie Carr spent the money freely.

Married in 2002, they reigned over the Miami Companions empire from a $1 million penthouse condo in Miami and owned a $1.6 million mansion in Miami Beach.

They were well-known in Miami’s vibrant social scene.

“They dressed well and lived well, of course,” said photographer Patrick Pell-Richards, who shot photos of Miami Companions escorts that were posted on the ring’s Web site. “But so does half of Miami.”

The Carrs spent millions operating call centers in Panama and Costa Rica, renting beach houses in Mexico andColumbia and running a Costa Rican brothel where clients could fly in for the weekend, according to the feds.

There were warning signs leading up to the couple’s indictment July 21.

“They were too greedy and too hot. They were trying too hard to make too much money,” Pell-Richards said.
Black book organized

The Carrs put as much thought into organizing the ring’s little black book as they did the money-laundering operation, according to investigators.

The Internet-based database was password-protected and hosted on a server in Panama to avoid law-enforcement’s reach.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is keeping strict control over the black book, defense lawyers say. If they want to see it, lawyers have to make an appointment.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman would not say whether the office will publicly disclose clients or call them as witnesses.

The veil of secrecy covering the database is suspicious, said DeCailly, Greg Carr’s attorney.

“I’d imagine there’s some public officials, public figures on the list,” DeCailly said. “There’s got to be a reason the government doesn’t want to just give it to me.”