A sex trafficking case has collapsed in astonishing circumstances after a masseuse who was called to the stand pointed out the defence lawyer as one of her clients.
Ukrainian immigrant Liudmyla Ksenych had been summoned to court in Chicago as one of the women said to have been forced by a pimp to provide sexual favours to clients and then hand over thousands of dollars to their boss to avoid deportation.But as she left the witness stand last week she told prosecutors that she recognised the lawyer representing pimp Alex ‘Daddy’ Campbell – because the married man was one of her regulars. After the allegation came to light, Douglas Rathe, who is a former assistant state attorney, confessed to the judge that he had visited Miss Ksenych four times in 2009. He said he didn’t recognise her name before she arrived at court because she used a pseudonym when she worked in the parlour. While he told U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman that the pair had exchanged emails and he had even given her a bottle of perfume as a gift, he insisted ‘nothing inappropriate’ had occurred. ‘It was a massage – that was all it was,’ Mr Rathe later told the Chicago Sun-Times.
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