The 24-year-old Colombian single mom at the heart of the Secret Service hooker scandal revealed Wednesday that the dispute began when an agent offered her just $30 for services she had told him would cost $800.
“I tell him, ‘Baby, my cash money,’” the unnamed escort told the New York Times.
The woman said she and other escorts partied with a group of American men at the Pley Club in Cartagena. The men bought a bottle of Absolut vodka for the table, and then another when the first was drained.
She denied reports that the agents were bragging about their assignment protecting President Obama, who was on his way to Cartagena for a regional summit.
“They never told me they were with Obama,” she told the Times. “They were very discreet.”
In fact, she said she didn’t know they were government agents of any kind and just assumed they were rich foreigners.
She said one of the men invited her back to his room and they stopped on the way to buy condoms.
She told him he would have to give her $800, explaining to the Times that the high price reflects her status.
“You have higher rank,” she said. “An escort is someone who a man can take out to dinner. She can dress nicely, wear nice makeup, speak and act like a lady. That’s me.”
Prostitution is legal in Colombia.
They were awoken at 6:30 the next morning by a call from the hotel front desk reminding her that all prostitutes must leave before 7 a.m.
She said the agent told her he had been drunk when they discussed the price and offered to give her 50,000 pesos - about $30.
She said they argued and he ordered her out of the room, swearing at her. She said she went crying across the hall to enlist the help of another escort who was with another man from the same group of Americans.
The dispute escalated as two cops stationed at the hotel got involved, along with two more of the American men.
The original agent remained behind his locked hotel room door as the argument played out in the hallway.
Eventually, the escort lowered her demand to $250, which she said was the amount she has to pay the man who helps find her customers.
The Americans gave her a combination of dollars and local currency worth about $225, and she left.
Now that she knows who the men are and how the hallway dispute has escalated into a scandal threatening the reputation of the Secret Service, she says she worries about retaliation.
“I’m scared,” she said.
“This is something really big,” she said. “This is the government of the United States. I have nervous attacks. I cry all the time.”
Eleven agents and nine military servicemen - most of them married - are under investigation for carousing with 20 or 21 hookers during the trip.
Though there is no suggestion that the women were anything but sex workers, authorities are doing background checks on them in case they had any contacts with foreign intelligence services, terrorists or narcotraffickers.
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