Enrico Conti: Winmalee concreter convicted for abusing sex worker
A successful businessman claimed he was merely raising objections as a ‘community minded’ person when he abused a sex worker for offering services during the COVID pandemic. He claims he never intended to engage in sexual activity and instead turned up to an appointment purely to abuse the worker.
Penrith
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A ‘community vigilante’ who sent a series of abusive texts to a sex worker, calling her a coronavirus spreader and a “whore”, has left court with a criminal conviction.
Successful businessman Enrico Conti, 57, told police he had been contacting sex workers solely to abuse them as he didn’t “believe they should be allowed to work during COVID-19”.
The Winmalee man, who runs a concreting business, told police officers sex workers were “spreading diseases”.
On June 20 Conti texted a sex worker, known as Louise, asking for an appointment later that day, the police facts state.
When told to book through a website the man immediately became abusive and called her a whore and “rambled about COVID-19”.
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When Louise said she was going to block him, he sent six vitriolic messages including ““Ill (sic) see you today or tomorrow under another number and tell you to your face you’re a whore” and “you are a dirty whore like you spread virus”.
Court documents state Louise hadn’t taken on any new customers, fearful Conti would arrive and be violent or commit a hate crime.
When the Winmalee man was interviewed at Newtown Police Station in July, he told police officers he had showed up at a Parramatta unit used by a sex worker after making a booking purely to abuse her.
He told police officers he never planned to receive any of the sex services with the police facts stating he “clearly had a dislike of sex workers”.
His lawyer told Magistrate Jennifer Giles at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday the global pandemic “brings out different personalities”.
“He was a community minded person and wanted to raise his objections,” he said.
Magistrate Giles told the concreter to “mind his own business”.
“These are trying times for everyone,” she said. “The idea that you go off being a vigilante scaring a call girl because you want to … where she is scared you are going to turn up. They are a vulnerable profession.”
Conti was convicted and fined $500.