More from The Province today: Quote:
'I am addicted' to helping prostitutes: Arrested businessman David Ho
David Ho says he considers himself a lucky man if he can sleep for 10 hours a week.
The chain-smoking tycoon considers himself a chronic insomniac. And when he can't sleep, he prowls Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for prostitutes — in order to save them, he says.
He doesn't care how young or old they are, or what they look like, often inviting them to his palatial home in South Granville or into his car or to his pad on Seymour Street. Sometimes he drives them back to their filthy run-down pads on skid row.
"It's worse when it rains ... that's when I get into the car and go looking for them," Ho, the scion of one of Hong Kong's most illustrious and wealthy families, told me during several chats over the past two years.
The former member of the Vancouver Police Board, who is well-connected to the planet's rich and powerful, has had several run-ins with Vancouver cops.
In all the cases, he was with drug-addicted prostitutes and, in one case that was reported by Global B.C. News reporter John Daly in November 2006, police found what they believed was cocaine in his car.
The "truth," Ho told me after one of the incidents, is that he is addicted to Vancouver's drug-addled prostitutes.
"I am addicted to helping them," he said.
Vancouver police officers described Ho's comments to me as "hogwash."
Yesterday, Vancouver police backed up their belief that something was amiss with Ho by announcing a slew of charges against the prominent philanthropist and businessman.
The charges — the results of a "complex investigation" — stem from an incident that took place on Dec. 28, 2008.
Like the other cases, this one also involved a woman tied to the sex trade. Ho has not told me anything about this latest episode. But he gave me his version of what happened on two other occasions police dealt with him and sex-trade workers.
In one of the incidents, police were called to his downtown suite on Seymour Street. A woman was in his apartment. She had called police and said Ho was holding her. Police arrived, investigated and found crack pipes, but did not lay charges.
Ho said the woman was seeking his help, like the others he said he has helped, and wanted a safe place for the night. As they got into the elevator, another man barged his way in and forced him upstairs. Ho's apartment was ransacked and the man left, Ho said.
The woman called the cops, making it sound as if she was being sexually assaulted, said Ho, adding he was trying to persuade the woman to get help after the man had gone.
As for the crack pipes, Ho said they belonged to the woman.
Then there was the incident where Ho was pulled over by cops in east Vancouver. There were two well-known drug-addicted prostitutes in his vehicle.
Ho allegedly told the cops that he was going to call then-Vancouver police chief Jamie Graham. No charges came from the incident, but the arresting cops alleged they found cocaine in the back seat.
Ho described that incident as a big misunderstanding. According to Ho, one of the young women in the car was from Kelowna and was trying to get away from her lesbian pimp. He said he was trying to pay off the pimp to let the young woman return to her family in Kelowna.
As for the cocaine, Ho said he did not know where it came from, after he was sent home in a taxi.
When I took this case to the Vancouver police after the incident, the official reaction was, "Sure, yeah, but we have no comment."
So which Ho are we dealing with? A weirdo with a penchant for street hookers or a caped crusader in a Porsche Cayenne?
Vancouver police seem to have made up their minds. But those close to Ho swear the man has been quietly helping young women involved in drugs and the sex trade for about six years. They tell me that he has written cheques for up to $15,000 to women, who have lost their teeth, to get dental work.
In one case told to me, Ho rescued a woman in the clutches of a
violent pimp and arranged for her to go back to Hungary where he supports her with a monthly stipend until she gets back on her feet.
He has apparently helped a University of B.C. professor get her daughter back from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He has never made this work public and only his closest aides and confidantes know about this philanthropy that has got him into trouble, one of his aides said yesterday.
"I don't know what to think. I have seen him try so hard to help some of these girls and I know for sure he has helped many young girls," she said. "He has some enemies and I feel really sad today ... he has a good heart," she said.
| http://www.theprovince.com/news/addi...422/story.html
I actually kind of believe him. I mean, although his story is so far out there, no liar with half a mind would try to pass that off as the truth. I think i'm on the fence.
If that hooker had ran out of his house where he had keg-sized bundles of marijuana stored, and she somehow magically got a gunshot to the head, subsequently dying from it, then I'd definitely be more suspicious. |
