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Feds shut down Bay Area website accused of promoting prostitution

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Federal law enforcement authorities said Wednesday that they seized a Bay Area website that hosted ads for prostitutes and featured explicit photos and lewd descriptions of services offered to potential clients.

Two Northern California residents were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with running the myredbook.com site and laundering money from the operation, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco.

Eric “Red” Omuro, 53, was charged with multiple counts of money laundering and using the Internet to manage and promote prostitution, according to the indictment filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

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Omuro, a Mountain View resident, is accused of heading the website and using aliases to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars via wire transfers from June 2010 to January of this year, according to the indictment.

Annemarie Lanoce, 40, of Rocklin, was charged with assisting Omuro in running the site and laundering money, according to the indictment.

Omuro and Lanoce could not be immediately reached for comment. The Associated Press reported they were released on a $500,000 bond and a $250,000 bond, respectively.

Federal authorities said in a statement that myredbook.com claimed to provide “Escort, Massage and Strip Club” reviews. Instead, the site featured “explicit photos” and “lewd physical descriptions,” along with “acronyms for numerous sex acts, which were defined in graphic detail,” according to authorities.

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