Woman guilty of running Internet prostitution ring

A Webmaster turned Web madame pleaded guilty yesterday to running an Internet prostitution ring in Russett.

Elizabeth Harrison, the former proprietor of www.wiggleandsquirm.com, was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and placed on three years supervised probation. If she violates her probation, she faces up to two years in prison.

"You always think if you put a warning on it you are safe, but it's not that way," said Ms. Harrison, 36, of Laurel.

Assistant States Attorney Kathy Evans said Ms. Harrison arranged for men to meet with at least three different women at an apartment on Holly Creek Drive in Russett. She said Ms. Harrison profited from the prostitution that occurred there.

Ms. Harrison was arrested Feb. 28 after unwittingly arranging for an undercover police officer to meet a prostitute at the apartment. Ms. Evans said the prostitute called Ms. Harrison for help and Ms. Harrison came over and was arrested.

"These crimes are not victimless crimes," Circuit Court Judge William C. Mulford II said before handing down his sentence. "They have social costs."

Ms. Harrison said she now understands what she did was against the law, but at the time she thought she was safe because she was removed from the actual prostitution. She said she felt she was serving as the prostitutes' Webmaster - not their pimp.

Ms. Harrison said she only went to the apartment the day of the bust because she was friends with the woman and was worried about her.

"We were personal friends. We talked to each other," she said.

Ms. Harrison said she started making Web sites for escorts in 2002 after a friend - who was an escort - asked her about how to make one. She quickly learned the basics and started her own business catering to the sex industry.

Ms. Harrison - known as Magical Lizzy online - said she still operates her own Web design company, Wench Web Design, and several "adult-oriented" Web sites, but she stressed she no longer works with escorts.

"I'm not ever going to go back into it," she said.

Ms. Harrison said she is staying in touch with her old friends though and plans to write a book about the prostitution business called, "Negotiable Virtue."

"I'm not humiliated by my arrest," she said. "I am humbled by it."