Bye-bye, private eye
TV’s Parco gets jail for prostitution-blackmail scheme
Former TV private eye Vincent Parco was hit with a one to three years in jail Friday for trying to blackmail a witness in a child sex abuse case by plying him with hookers and secretly taping it.
Parco, who once starred in Court TV’s “Parco P.I.,” was found guilty on May 3 of promoting prostitution and unlawful surveillance for blackmailing the relative of a child sex abuse victim to stop him from cooperating with cops.
The trial was highlighted by details of hotel rendezvous, massages and a hidden video camera.
The jury acquitted Parco on a higher count of promoting prostitution, finding he did not supervise or manage the act, but profited from its occurrence.
Parco directed a woman to lure the blackmail target to a Sunset Park hotel room in 2016, where she hired prostitutes to have sex with the man and secretly recorded it. He then tried to use the video as blackmail.
The victim said he had no idea he was being recorded during the trysts. He testified that a month later, a man came up to his car and showed him pictures of him with the women during the hotel romps.
Prosecutors said Parco accepted $17,000 from the accused rapist, Samuel Israel of Brooklyn, for the video sting. Israel was sentenced in 2018 to eight years in prison for sexual assault.
He came up with the plan with Parco because he didn’t want jurors in his trial knowing his alleged victim was only 12 years old when he sexually abused her in March 2016, prosecutors said.
Peter Gleason, Parco’s lawyer, called the case “politically motivated” and said he plans to appeal and seek a stay on the sentence while the appeal is pending.
“(This was) payback to the Jewish community in Brooklyn who apparently runs the district attorneys office,” Gleason said. “That influence comes from the fact that the Orthodox/Hasidic community votes in blocs and without that voting bloc, you don’t get elected in Brooklyn. It is clearly politically motivated. He was not given a fair trial by this court.”
Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez countered, “This defendant, a licensed private investigator, was hired by a sexual abuser who sought to silence the victim of a heinous crime, causing her and her family additional pain. A jury found him guilty of secretly recording an intimate encounter and with today’s sentencing he has been held accountable. Sickening and shameful behavior such as this will not be tolerated in Brooklyn and will be vigorously prosecuted.”
Parco will be held in protective custody at the Brooklyn House of Detention.