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CNN Saturday Morning News

Robberies Committed by Students Pretending to be Police Officers, Prostitutes

Aired November 08, 2003 - 09:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


HEIDI COLLINS: There were offers of sexual favors, a dose of fraud, a round of robberies, and some of it was kid stuff. Jim Dolan of affiliate WABC reports New York police are trying to sort out this bizarre mix.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM DOLAN, REPORTER, WABC-TV, NEW YORK CITY (voice-over): Very little in this story is as it seems. They are dressed as women, and they are accused of masquerading as police officers and as prostitutes. They are, in fact, male high school students who are just now in a whole lot of trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw two prostitutes, or what looked to be prostitutes, on Jane Street, and it didn't really ring a bell, because there's prostitutes every single day.

DOLAN: Stewart Teitelbaum (ph) was among the group's alleged victims. He was not looking for a prostitute last Wednesday night, but he was smoking marijuana as he walked down the street. And the pretend prostitutes quickly turned to pretend police officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of them grabbed me from behind, the other tried to grab my arm, pulls out a phony badge. The other one got handcuffs already and is trying to cuff me. But I started to resist. And I says, Where's the black and white, where's the cop in uniform? And they said, Don't you worry about that. We're under cover. And they kept trying to cuff me behind my back.

DOLAN: Eventually they got $108 from him. But Teitelbaum still thought they were police officers.

(on camera): You didn't realize you had been robbed yet?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct. It took about another couple of minutes, and that's -- and then to tell you, even when I realized that my money was gone, I thought that maybe they were just corrupt cops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they want to be shady, they can be real shady and nasty, but other than that, it was cool.

DOLAN (voice-over): The suspects attended Harvey Milk High School in the Village, the high school for gay and lesbian and transgender students. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know what the charges are exactly yet. We're waiting to hear from the New York City Police Department as well as the Department of Education. It's under investigation, and once we find out, we'll know what procedures to set in place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Officers, Prostitutes>


Aired November 8, 2003 - 09:13   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS: There were offers of sexual favors, a dose of fraud, a round of robberies, and some of it was kid stuff. Jim Dolan of affiliate WABC reports New York police are trying to sort out this bizarre mix.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM DOLAN, REPORTER, WABC-TV, NEW YORK CITY (voice-over): Very little in this story is as it seems. They are dressed as women, and they are accused of masquerading as police officers and as prostitutes. They are, in fact, male high school students who are just now in a whole lot of trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw two prostitutes, or what looked to be prostitutes, on Jane Street, and it didn't really ring a bell, because there's prostitutes every single day.

DOLAN: Stewart Teitelbaum (ph) was among the group's alleged victims. He was not looking for a prostitute last Wednesday night, but he was smoking marijuana as he walked down the street. And the pretend prostitutes quickly turned to pretend police officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of them grabbed me from behind, the other tried to grab my arm, pulls out a phony badge. The other one got handcuffs already and is trying to cuff me. But I started to resist. And I says, Where's the black and white, where's the cop in uniform? And they said, Don't you worry about that. We're under cover. And they kept trying to cuff me behind my back.

DOLAN: Eventually they got $108 from him. But Teitelbaum still thought they were police officers.

(on camera): You didn't realize you had been robbed yet?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct. It took about another couple of minutes, and that's -- and then to tell you, even when I realized that my money was gone, I thought that maybe they were just corrupt cops.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they want to be shady, they can be real shady and nasty, but other than that, it was cool.

DOLAN (voice-over): The suspects attended Harvey Milk High School in the Village, the high school for gay and lesbian and transgender students. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know what the charges are exactly yet. We're waiting to hear from the New York City Police Department as well as the Department of Education. It's under investigation, and once we find out, we'll know what procedures to set in place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Officers, Prostitutes>