Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Sugar Daddy' Targeted Women Online to Drug and Rape Them: DA

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Andrew Gallo, 40, is accused of raping five women that he met on a dating website where women can meet a "Sugar Daddy." Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said Gallo drugged the women at his home and choked them during sex over the last year. Schorn believes there are more victims that have yet to come forward. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the disturbing allegations on this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: John Clune  https://x.com/CluneEsqCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. He methodically carried out what was clearly pre-planned crimes with the sole purpose of satisfying his deviant sexual desire. A construction worker from Pennsylvania, he's accused of drugging and raping women, targeting them, using a website, promising women a sugar daddy. And the DA believes there are more victims out there. This is a woman's worst nightmare, a young woman's worst nightmare. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. When the DA in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,

calls this case and the allegations being made against Andrew Gallo, a woman's worst nightmare, she is 100% right. The allegations in this case are terrifying. Andrew Gallo lived outside of Philadelphia. District Attorney Jen Shorn says Gallo was meeting women on a site called sugardaddymeat.com and inviting them to his house to drug and rape them. You might be asking yourself, what's sugardaddymeat.com? Never heard of that one? I hadn't heard of it either until reading about this case. The site bills itself as a sugar daddy dating website.

Sugardaddymeat.com claims it has 8.2 million selective members. It asks the question to men, are you a successful, generous man looking for an honest relationship? And to women, are you an attractive, classy woman looking for a mentor? The site also says it's a location for generous men and attractive women looking to form honest relationships. But the DA says these were not honest relationships. DA Shorn says Andrew Gallo started contacting women on sugar daddy meet

in June of 2023, and the women would go to his house for dates. An affidavit says victim one went to Gallo's house in Levittown last Christmas Eve. The affidavit says CV1, that's how she's identified, states that when she got to Gallo's residence, it was only her, Gallo, and his dog there. CV1 reported that Gallo made her a drink in the kitchen, which she did not witness him making, and she was playing with the dog. CV1 then advises that she does not drink often, so she was unsure what type of drink he made, but described the drink as having a sugar rim. The woman, according to the affidavit, said she didn't sleep that night, and she felt both energetic and cool.

She also said that she and Gallo had sex and that he choked her so much that her airflow was restricted and she had to tell him to stop. She then took a drug test for a job she was applying for, and it came up positive for both meth and cocaine. Here's the DA on more of what happened to this woman and other victims. He ultimately raped five of the six victims while sexually assaulting those six victims. He also physically assaulted those victims. He used such force in strangling his victims that some lost consciousness. These victims suffered such ill effects from the drugs that they unknowingly ingested that some reported being up for days. One said she was up for seven straight days, unable to fall asleep.

A number of them sought medical attention due to the severity of the side effects of the drugs that they unknowingly ingested. Some reported experiencing hallucinations and psychosis. I'll have more on the drugs that the DA says police found in Gallo's home. But she said last month police actually went to Gallo's home with a search warrant and caught him in the act. They executed a search warrant not too long ago. And clearly the defendant was unaware that they would be arriving at his home. And not only did they find an open bottle of alcohol that contained methamphetamine mixed within, but they actually found a victim being victimized when they arrived. Their work is not

done though, because we are quite confident that there are more victims in this case. Can you imagine? That woman is incredibly lucky that police arrived when they did. Another woman, identified as CV2 in the affidavit, described Gallo giving her a glass of wine in the summer of 2023. And about 45 minutes later, she said she felt like all of her inhibitions were gone and that she was aroused. CV2, according to the document, said Gallo asked her to put on lingerie that he had bought for his ex-girlfriend and that he introduced sex toys into their encounter. The document said CV2 later asked Gallo if he had drugged her because she hadn't felt that way in the past after drinking wine.

The woman told police that Gallo said he had forgotten that he had put Molly in the bottle of wine. The woman told police that Gallo said he had forgotten that he had put Molly in the bottle of wine. Methamphetamine was one of the substances found in his home in that open bottle of tainted liquor. We do believe, though, other substances such as MDNA, often referred to as Molly, and other substances were perhaps administered to these victims. And, you know, obviously, this investigation is still unfolding as it relates to that. Now, CV2 said she went camping with Gallo in October of last year. The police officer wrote in the affidavit, he tried to choke her while they were having sex, placing his hand around her throat and squeezing, trying to make her pass out. CV2 stated she tried to fight against the choking, telling Gallo she was scared to pass

out and did not want to be choked. The officer said Gallo told the woman that's how it works and that she was supposed to pass out because that was the fun in it. Other women described similar interactions with Gallo. I mean, some described that he was literally having intercourse with them so violently and choking them that they would clearly indicate they wanted it to stop and that they were terrified and he disregarded that. Some would describe that like involuntary movements, like one victim said her jaw was constantly going back and forth, back and forth based on, you know, drugs. And some of these women never touched an illegal substance in their life and obviously suffered terrible ill effects. Andrew Gallo faces several charges, including five counts of rape causing impairment, six counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, four counts of strangulation and corruption of minors.

The victims in this case range in age from 17 to 30, and a lot of what is in the affidavit is incredibly graphic. The DA says Gallo used the screen name Drewster420 on sugardaddymeat.com. The women described to police really rough sex. Some had bruising from being choked, and one woman, who advertised herself as 19 when she was actually 17, quoted Gallo as telling her that she was going to receive a punishment. The teenage girl said that Gallo gave her a lot of tequila, 15 shots is what she said, and that he slapped and choked her.

The teen described his home as having a lot of lingerie in it. The affidavit says she went to the hospital and later tested positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine. Those are both stimulants and THC. And the DA said she believes there are more victims who haven't reported their interactions with Gallo. The victims in this case are so courageous. They came forward to report crimes that, quite frankly, predators like this assume the victims won't have the strength to do so. And I commend them for their strength and courage. I commend the two that initially reported this case and each and every one thereafter that disclosed their victimization to the police. The D.A. described the level of cooperation that her office received from meet sugar daddy dot com.

And they were not very cooperative and gave us the bare minimum and not specifically what we asked for. And it's not lost on me that these these platforms know that they're inviting dangerous things to unfold. We do find some social media platforms very cooperative with law enforcement. I would state unequivocally that Sugar Daddy was not one of those platforms. OK, if there are no further questions, thank you for your time. Now I mentioned earlier that I had never heard of meet sugar daddy.com, but you might remember backpage.com the fed shut it down because it was a place where sex trafficking was rampant. The DA was asked about whether meet sugar daddy.com

is committing a crime by not cooperating with law enforcement. I remember back in the trafficking cases when we, other states, attorney general's offices shut down Backpage, which was commonly hosting human trafficking cases. I mean, you know, sexual crimes. And unfortunately, it just drove predators to other more obscure sites. So it's hard to say. But right now, our focus is identifying more victims of Andrew Gallo, but also certainly putting on blast how dangerous platforms are like this. John Klune is a civil sexual assault attorney. He's also a former sex crimes prosecutor. John, your thoughts on this case? I was kind of shocked when I was reading the documents. Yeah, it's one of the more disturbing cases. A couple of reasons. I think it's one of the more

kind of predatory series of facts that we've seen on this type of a case. Also, the thing that comes to mind with these sugar daddy platforms is they are attracting some of the most vulnerable people in our community. And that really is a setup for a disaster like this. Yeah. The whole sugar daddy thing. I mean, these are supposed to be older men who I guess they're calling them mentors. I'm not sure I would call it that, but I, you know, I thought a sugar daddy was somebody who provided kind of money and things of that nature and gifts to women who would provide companionship. And this is like, my God, this is like the allegations here are just blatant sexual assault and practically

torture with the choking, this whole sugar daddy thing. I mean, is that just a modern day euphemism for sex work? It's exactly what it is. I mean, this is essentially prostitution. If you ask the platforms their take on this, they're saying, hey, we're just making the introductions. What happens thereafter is something that's out of our control. But what they're really doing is facilitating prostitution in the cases of these underage kids, which is very common on these platforms. It's really child sex trafficking. How prolific are these sugar daddy websites? I mean, I've heard about sugar daddies, women getting sugar daddies. I mean, are these things cropping up all over the place? Yeah. And they're worldwide and they're a significantly lucrative business. They make

millions and millions of dollars a month, largely just from fees for subscribing to their site. So it's a dark side of the, if you can call it the dating app world. They're not exactly dating apps, but they're similar to that. But they are, unfortunately, incredibly successful financially. The DA in this case, Jen Shorn, said that basically they usually get some good cooperation from some social media platforms. Sugardaddymeat.com, not so much. They were not cooperative. She almost likened this in some ways to Backpage, which was shut down years ago by the feds. So, I mean, they're not cooperating or they don't want to cooperate, but sometimes they are going to have to produce information. Are we going to maybe see an effort

to shut down websites like this? Because this seems like a brave new world and that it's going to be incredibly dangerous for these women. Thank God that they didn't die, that they survived. Yeah. I mean, I would love to see the Department of Justice step in here. It seems like it's a harder thing for them to do for Backpage because what's being advertised isn't purely sex work. It is really for these introductions. But I think there's enough that goes on with these sugar daddy websites that there is a close enough analogy to back page that I think I'm sure the DOJ looks at this and they're looking for opportunities to be able to step in.

What the advertising is, they make it sound like these are college kids that need a little extra money for books or not that those exist anymore, but tuition or whatever the case may be. And that's not the average sugar baby that's attracted to the site. It's somebody who, you know, they may be underage. There's a lot of other underage kids on these sites, and they really can be desperate for money. And that's what makes it such a vulnerable population for somebody like this gentleman. The victims in this case ranged in age, the DA said, from 17 to 30. So we did have one who was 17. And the DA said she thinks that there are more victims out how often this was going on. And these women going to his, if you know of one, there's probably another dozen for that one. So it's hard to completely speculate on how many could be out there, but it's impressive that so many young women have come forward.

This is an unusual number of people. This is an embarrassing experience that they've been through. They don't want to acknowledge that they signed up for the Sugar Baby platform. So that's why it's uncommon to get this level of cooperation. And I give the DA's office credit for whatever they've done to help facilitate that. But I'm glad they're advertising it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they get additional victims come forward. This whole thing about the drugging too. I mean, they were saying that they found a number of different drugs in the systems of these women, methamphetamine, cocaine.

These are all stimulants. And the victims claimed in some instances that he was choking them. I mean, really hurting them where they had to basically tell him, beg him to stop. Where does this come from? I mean, he's passing them a drink and acting like it's a margarita when indeed, they said it's salted with meth and cocaine. So where is this coming from in this guy's mind, since you're a former sex crimes prosecutor? Yeah, it's interesting the use of stimulants. It's not the most common form of drug facilitated sexual assault. Usually they look for the depressants that kind of knock people out. But obviously there was, you know, the use of,

there's ecstasy that was on board that he, you know, he wanted this to be, you know, it kind of, you know, not, not a passed out individual, but somebody who just was so up on the stimulants that, you know, they, they couldn't make their own decision about consenting to behavior. The strangulation is extremely disturbing. I mean, there's a lot of correlation between strangulation in either sexual assault cases or domestic violence cases with murder. It's very common to have that kind of crossover behavior. And so that's something that I'm sure was a red flag to the prosecutors as well. But what's in the mindset of this individual when he does something like this is obviously a massive amount of control that he's looking for. I mean, this isn't looking for some sort of

sexual encounter. This is a power and control need that he's trying to satisfy. Well, it is certainly disturbing. I mean, he's, of course, presumed innocent until proving guilty. But what is laid out in the documents and what the DA said was going on in this case is just incredibly disturbing. websites across the country, especially if a man is giving a woman money and thinks that he can just do whatever he wants then because he is paying for sex. Yeah. And like I said, also because of what's going on in the background, very rare that these women even come forward in the first place. It's almost like the perfect platform for a predator. Yeah. John Klune, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you.

And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you back here next time.