`Escort Service' Couple Pleads Guilty -- Wife Cooperates, May Avoid Jail Time
A former Bellevue couple who operated escort services that authorities contended were fronts for prostitution have pleaded guilty to money-laundering and racketeering charges.
Allen Leon Stalcup, 45, and Mary Rebecca Stalcup, 51, are living temporarily in the Vancouver, Wash., area. They entered the pleas yesterday in U.S. District Court in Seattle and are to be sentenced April 9.
Mary Stalcup cooperated with authorities after her arrest. Under a plea agreement, she could avoid jail time if she continues to assist federal prosecutors investigating other potential targets.
The only incentive for her husband to plead guilty, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gene Porter, was the government's agreement to recommend the low end of a guideline sentencing range of between four and seven years in prison.
Prosecutors say the couple derived an annual income of more than $200,000 from prostitution-related activities over a two-year period until their arrest in October.
The Stalcups lived in a nice Bellevue neighborhood, maintained several cars and rented a beach house in Moclips.
Prosecutors said they supported their lifestyle by dispatching an average of "350 escorts/prostitutes" each month by telephone from their Bellevue home.
The fee for an escort was $150 an hour, with the escort keeping $100, the service pocketing $50.
According to prosecutors, two of the services were started by George Orwell Ellis and Rita Ellis, who live in Indianapolis. When the Ellises left the Seattle area, the Stalcups were placed in charge on condition they pay the Ellises "royalty fees."
Prosecutors contend that since 1990 the Stalcups paid the Ellises about $181,000 in royalties - even though IRS records reveal that 1987 was the last year for which the Ellises filed income-tax returns.
Money-laundering charges stemmed from the Stalcups' efforts to conceal the money by sending cash payments to the Ellises. Racketeering charges were filed because of the Stalcups' ongoing efforts to promote prostitution to generate the funds, prosecutors said.