The dean of students at tony Scarsdale HS was allegedly giving kids guidance by day — and smoking crack with hookers at night.
David Mendelowitz, 58, was the only person named as a john yesterday as the feds and NYPD took down a $7 million prostitution ring that ran its own advertising firm to lure wealthy clients, the complaint alleges.
The veteran educator, who retired in June, reportedly for health reasons, told a prostitute on May 21 that he’s been “using cocaine for 20 years,” usually on Friday nights, according to the criminal complaint.
That was one of four days in May he was caught on surveillance having crack-cocaine parties with hookers named Yoyo and Suji at his White Plains home, according to the complaint.
“Two more hours plus $100 for a package of rock,” Mendelowitz said when booking one date with Yoyo, authorities said.
For Suji, he allegedly asked for “the blue thing and everything,” referring to Viagra pills the ring allegedly provided. He paid the women with a credit card.
He was charged with drug possession and patronizing prostitutes, and was held in lieu of $10,000 bail.
He had been at Scarsdale HS, one of the wealthiest secondary schools in the country, for 15 years as a guidance counselor and dean, and ironically served on the school’s Drug and Alcohol task force.
His arrest was the talk of the school yesterday.
“I knew there was something wrong with him, that he was on some kind of drugs,” said alumna Alexandra Cappello, now a Manhattan College sophomore.
Eighteen other people were arrested yesterday as authorities brought down the Queens-based operation following a 16-month probe.
Ringleaders allegedly created a Manhattan advertising agency, Somad Enterprises, to spread the word about its five escort services.
The agency even gave the pimps advice “at the level of: Don’t advertise during the Super Bowl, the johns are not going to be reading your ads then,” said state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman .
The sophisticated operation, which was also into money-laundering and human trafficking, hired a Web master in the Philippines to design a search-engine optimizer so that the online ads “would rise to the top in Google and other search engines,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
“This was almost like the mob goes to business school,” said Schneiderman.
Two women, described as human-tracking victims, were rescued in raids early yesterday.
Additional reporting by Andy Soltis and Pedro Oliveira Jr.
Dean’s ‘high crimes’
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