It’s long been a pillar of American society that there’s only justice for the rich, and everyone below the 1 percent will ultimately pay for their indiscretions and pleasures. Bob Kraft’s afternoon out at a Florida massage parlor is just a minor study in that, but puts it in clear relief.
On Monday, one of the masseueses that Kraft allegedly visited, Shen Mingbi, pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting another to commit prostitution, which finally got her phone and passport back to her, as well as her bank account unfrozen, some community service, and year of probation.
But she has to pay some $31,000 in fines, bail and fees. Kraft doesn’t have to pay anything.
Most of this money is going to the Jupiter Police department, who sold all of this as some major sting on a rampant human trafficking ring, and ended up just busting your run of the mill rub-n-tug. Essentially, they wasted everyone’s time.
Kraft was able to hire the lawyers to get the surveillance video of his “visit” thrown out of court, and clear himself of any charges, even though he’s the one who forked over the cash and requested the service. Certainly these tactics weren’t open to Mengbi.
All this will merely be a footnote for Kraft, who won’t see this on his obituary one day, or even when the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducts him (which you know they will eventually). And nor should he, really. It’s his money, and as far as anyone can tell he didn’t force anyone to give him a happy ending.
It’s likely that $30,000 matters much more to Mengbi, as will the year of probation and the mark on her record. What would have $30,000 meant to Kraft? Not much – that’s what comes out of his nose when he sneezes.
Mengbi also is the victim of an overzealous police force that clearly fucked up, and yet gets her to make up for it. Someone has to be held accountable for the time and the resources the cops put into this, and as we know, it certainly isn’t going to be the cops.
At the end of the day, a client paid for a service that was provided, and other than some small embarrassment that will be lost to time, only the provider is going to suffer for it. Mengbi wasn’t being trafficked, or tricked out, and her crime is sex. Which at this point is an anachronism, and yet another mark of how the country loves to tell women what they can’t do with their choices and their bodies. Even more so if they’re immigrant women’s bodies.
What exactly was accomplished here? Other than punishing the far more vulnerable who we were originally told was being protected by this whole thing? There was no trafficking, there was no forced labor here.
It’s pretty hilarious that a country that still clings to some sort of “Christian values” when it comes to prostitution is the same country that can’t bring itself to wear a mask to protect its fellow man at the store. Mel Brooks had it right in “History Of The World Pt. 1.” The law of the land is “Fuck the poor.”