Sweatshop16

Sylk directed his frustration at Nicki. In the midst of a fight in Mexico he promised that he would ruin her
life by telling her parents and college dean that she was a stripper and a hooker. After the fight he left in a
rage. The following day, while Nicki was at the Beach, Sylk cleaned $2,000 out of her checking account
using her ATM card and PIN number which he had memorized. He also ripped up her birth certificate and
absconded with more cash that she had left in the hotel safe. Alone and broke she had to wire her mother
for money and contact the U.S. consulate in order to leave the country. Once she was back in New York,
she was shocked to discover that Sylk had indeed followed through with his malicious threat. "It caused a
whole lot of problems," she says. "I also had to have my phone number changed and get an order of
protection, because he was threatening my life. He's a nasty person who would definitely hurt someone."
Later that same month Sylk, serving as a drug mule, flew with two other men to Amsterdam to buy a large
quantity of exstasy. This drug run was more successful than the Cancun trip. Netting Sylk $50,000. "He
made a killing," says an ex-girlfriend. "I saw the bag that was strapped to his body. There were probably
30,000 pills in it." Sylk finally had the cash he needed to make a move. And it was going to be big. So big

it would make M2 look like a high school science project. But opening a cyber-sex business might require
far more capital than $50,000. After doing some research he estimated he'd need at least $250,000 just to
get up and running.

Raising that kind of money in a town where he had no contacts would take some time. Those who read
Sylk's Page Six press clipping thought the phone sex king had just recently arrived in New York. In reality,
though, it would take him three years just to find someone interested in listening to his pitch. In retrospect

he probably should have started looking in New Jersey much sooner. The X-rated soap opera known as
SoHo Models begins December 2000 at the Montammy Country Club in Alpine, New Jersey. It was here

that Jason Sylk met Fred Baum, one of the investors who would provide him with the venture capital he

was so desperately searching for. Baum, a 49-year-old trust fund baby who collected Ferraris and built
affordable housing in Upstate New York, was sucked into the project after having a conversation with
another club member, Ron Itzler. Frustrated by not being able to raise the seed money himself Sylk once
again turned to his stepfather for assistance. Although Ron Itzler still wasn't fully recovered from the M2
meltdown Jason somehow persuaded him to once again help him find new investors. Itzler told Baum there
was a fortune to be made in the dot-com sex industry.

Infused with cash, Sylk rented an apartment with a roommate at the Atrium on Bleeker Street and
pondered his next move. He decided to do some drug deals to raise the funds that would enable him to

set up a new business. He had been toying with the idea of breaking into the internet business. On-line sex
services appealed to him because they were run like a strip clubs. All you needed to make money were
naked girls and credit card numbers. And the business had its perks. Unlike their 900-line counterparts,
who were hired for their voices, not their bodies, internet sex girls were hotties who typically worked in
other facets of the adult entertainment industry. The internet billing system was also appealing. With clients
paying directly and up-front there was no need to borrow money against receivables, thus eliminating the
dreaded interest rates charged by factors. Being in new surroundings cleared Sylk's head. He liked New
York. It had Classier strippers. He began dating one of them named Nicki, who used the Funny Money

she earned at V.I.P. to pay her tuition at Columbia. The first week of October the couple flew to Cancun,
where Sylk planned to purchase some Oxycontin. Scoring Oxy wasn't as easy as he thought. Unlike other
popular prescription drugs that were sold freely over the counter in Mexico -- Oxy was in short supply.

"I think he only got one small bottle," says Nicki of the failed venture. "He was flipping out because he
couldn't find any more."