Teaching old dogs new tricks.
Sex fiends who get busted sleeping with prostitutes in Los Angeles can attend so-called John School — where graduation could mean no jail time and clean records.
The unorthodox court-ordered rehab program helps Johns turn from their pervy ways — and graduates say it has saved their careers, their marriages and even their lives.
“Most men think prostitution is a victimless crime. She wants the money, I want the sex. That’s the furthest thing from the truth,” said Bill Margolis, founder of the Prostitution Diversion Program — aka “the John School” — designed to expose the horrifying truth of the sex-for-sale industry and help men get back on the straight and narrow.
Margolis worked as an LA vice cop for 30 years, where he saw women enslaved, beaten, and forced to do unspeakable acts by ruthless pimps. He also saw Johns get robbed, shot, infected with HIV and lose their families to sex addiction.
He believes pulling back the curtain on the grim industry is enough to scare men straight.
“We had a young lady, who was a survivor, came into a room full of 40 guys, and when she talked about her past, what her father had done to her, every guy in the room had tears in their eyes,” Margolis said, describing one of the program’s speakers.
The one-day course offers online classes in which arrestees hear statistics, facts, and horror stories from former Johns and prostitutes from red-light districts like LA’s notorious Figueroa Corridor, aka “The Blade.”
The program launched in LA County but has since expanded to Riverside, Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara. The program’s 4,400-plus alumni include blue-collar workers, doctors, lawyers and more than a few celebrities, Margolis said.
One day in John School not only keeps guys out of jail but expunges convictions from their records, Margolis said.
“I was spending $1,000 a month on girls. I couldn’t even afford clothes and stuff for my kids,” said one John School graduate, who goes by Eddy. Eddy started prowling “The Blade” when his job and marriage fell on hard times. Ogling at women turned into chatting, which turned into paying for occasional sex acts, which turned into full-on romps in his car three or four times a week.
Next thing Eddy knew, he was in the back of a squad car. The court gave him a choice: Spend up to six months in prison — or go to John School.
“Until I became involved in the program, I didn’t realize how many men are out there suffering from sex addiction,” Eddy said.
“They open their eyes in the morning and think, ‘How am I going to get a prostitute? How much porn am I going to watch? How many times am I going to masturbate?’”
John School helped Eddy learn about the psychology of his habit and find a therapist for his sex addiction. He said he hasn’t had the urge to return to “The Blade” since completing the program.
Eddy isn’t the only John School success. Within its first five years, of 1,550 men sent to the program, only four had been arrested again for soliciting prostitution, reported KPCC. Dozens of similar programs have sprouted across the country in recent years, including in Chicago, Washington, DC, Nashville and St. Paul. Last year, Ohio State star wrestler and Olympic gold medalist Kyle Snyder was sent to John School after being busted for buying sex in Ohio, reported the Columbus Dispatch.
For another alumnus, who goes by Will, Johns School opened his eyes to the suffering his actions brought to the women he hired for sex.
“I learned about how these women I thought really liked me were just looking for money, and how I was affecting them on an emotional and psychological level,” Will said.
However, some men don’t get the privilege of enrolling in John School.
“If they get busted for underage girls, they don’t go to the program. They go to jail,” Margolis said.
When Margolis patrolled the streets as a vice cop, his team rescued girls as young as 12 and 13.
One teen’s pimp would beat her with a wire coat hanger and make her sit in a bathtub of ice if she didn’t meet her nightly quotas, which could be dozens of men.
Another woman would keep a razor blade in her mouth and slice up men who threatened her or didn’t pay up.
Another sex worker changed pimps — a cardinal sin on “The Blade” — and the jilted former boss punished her by gunning down her Johns. Little has changed since Margolis retired.
The Post recently observed women on street corners all along Figueroa flagrantly beckoning to drivers and passersby — wearing next to nothing despite the January chill. They worked in broad daylight and into the night. Behind them, lines of seedy hot-sheets motels stood open and ready.
Officials have taken steps to crack down on pimps in recent years. Last February, the LAPD announced that a statewide sting operation had bagged more than 300 suspected traffickers.
In August, federal and local agents arrested Figueroa Street queenpin Amaya Armstead, aka “Lady Duck,” and 10 of her lieutenants — who had allegedly been recruiting teen girls from the foster system and forcing them to work on “The Blade.” Armstead is still in federal custody with a trial date set for later this year.
Yet, women still openly walk the streets of LA night and day, forced to sell their bodies to Johns who either don’t know the consequences of their actions, or don’t care.
“I knew what I was doing was illegal,” Eddy recalled. “At that time, I didn’t care, until I realized what it was doing to me, until I realized what it was doing to these women.”
