A win in court makes sex now 1-4 this year in the legal system.
Poughkeepsie - Big Apple Oriental Tours this week got its second big break in two years, when a judge tossed out prostitution charges against the company's operators.
Norman Barabash and Douglas Allen advertised their business throughout the mid-Hudson and were indicted in 2003 on felony and misdemeanor charges of promoting prostitution. The state attorney general's office accused the pair of advertising tours that were actually sex expeditions, sometimes involving underage girls.
The charges were dismissed by Dutchess County Court Judge Gerald Hayes in 2004. The state appealed and won the right to re-present the case to a grand jury, which handed up a new indictment last year charging Barabash and Allen with the same crimes.
On Wednesday, Hayes dismissed the charges again.
"David 2, Goliath 0," said Barabash's lawyer, Jim Hill, of the Dutchess County Public Defender's Office.
Prosecutors argued that Barabash and Allen were promoting prostitution in New York and that the act would be consummated in the Philippines.
But it wasn't that simple, Hayes wrote in his 21-page decision.
"There was also evidence presented that tours could include such activities as golf and scuba diving, shopping for clothes and jewelry and that Âwives and companions are welcome at discounted prices,'" Hayes wrote, quoting from one of Big Apple's ads. "What the tour customer did when he arrived at the location is not part of the Big Apple Oriental Tours enterprise.'"
Paul Larrabee, a spokesman for state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said yesterday that his office hasn't decided if it will appeal again.
