Cobra Killer (12 page)

Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Hannon, who led the Kocis homicide investigation, said of the two men, “It was obvious these were two individuals who led an extravagant lifestyle and followed through with it in all facets of their life.”
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Their “success” was reflected in the four vehicles they leased or were purchasing: a BMW M-5, a Corvette Z06, a Dodge Viper, and a Honda S-2000.

The “work” of the escort agency, though, continued to cause strife between the two men. “I hated it when he was with a client,” Kerekes admitted. “I was jealous a lot. Even though we were in the escorting business, it seemed like he was cheating on me in a way.”
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Kerekes said he particularly became angry when he thought Cuadra would spend too much time with any one client. “Harlow and I would disagree about how to do escorting. I was very committed to doing it one way, and he was often doing it another way.”
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When Cuadra had stayed too long with a client, Kerekes would begin paging him with messages that said, “The hour is up, time to leave.”

Kerekes admits that Cuadra’s approach with their loyal client, Captain Joseph Ryan, who he first met in the summer of 2003, turned out to be correct. Cuadra thought Captain Ryan, a retired Naval shipmaster and maritime consultant, had the potential to be generous, regular customer of the escort service. He was. Right up until the end, Captain Ryan was in there trying to help Cuadra—eventually donating $7,500 to his defense fund.
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 “Harlow said to me, ‘Joe, we have to give people their money’s worth, we have to make them feel that we really want to be there and that we really like them,’” Kerekes said.
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The jealousies grew greater when Cuadra, on his own, decided to move away from their previous “company policy” of faking ejaculations and prohibitions against participating in anal sex or performing oral sex without a condom. (Cuadra would later testify at his trial that he did not prefer using a condom when performing oral sex on another man because the spermicidal lotion on latex condoms would irritate the inside of his mouth.)

Kerekes said the “company policies” were in place during their first years in business, but Cuadra was pressuring him to take the escorting in new directions—under the motto of “giving people their money’s worth.”
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During one fight over what limits were appropriate with clients, Kerekes said he “blew up” and threw more than $2,000 in cash off the balcony of their Hague Tower apartment. “I did that to show him that the money didn’t mean anything, that the clients don’t mean anything,” Kerekes said. “The only thing that mattered to me was him, and if he was going to escort, we needed to do things a certain way.”
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Kerekes, who acted as the pimp for Cuadra and for his own alter-ego escort, Mark or Trent, found himself doing fewer and fewer calls over time as most of the clients wanted to book Cuadra. This seemingly only added to Kerekes’ jealousy, as on one occasion he followed Cuadra to a client’s home and peered into a bedroom window to see what was happening. Kerekes said he burst into the client’s home unannounced, demanded that Cuadra leave, and frightened the elderly male client considerably. Kerekes grew angry, he said, because he witnessed Cuadra engaging in oral and anal sex against the “company policies.”

Kerekes “burst in” another time Cuadra was with a client, this time in their Stratem Court home. He worried that not only was Cuadra going too far with the client, but that he may have been developing feelings for the client. As a result, Kerekes said he hid inside large cherry wood cabinets in their client rooms and burst in on the two. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Kerekes recalls shouting. “The client was obviously scared to death, he was jumping into his clothes and trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.”
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Kerekes eventually “gave in” to Cuadra’s ideas about how to run the business, although the new rules included a hidden camera in the bedroom used for sexual encounters with clients. The camera was not for security. “I just wanted to make sure I knew what Harlow was doing,” Kerekes said.
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Eventually the cameras allegedly served a new purpose. Clients who wanted could purchase a DVD of themselves having sex with Cuadra for an additional fee. While the potential existed for Cuadra and Kerekes to use the tapes to extort money from closeted clients, no indication has ever surfaced that they took their escort business in that direction.

Near the end, as many as 150 regular clients kept the company going, making their requests via e-mail off the website or by phone.

When a client called, they almost always dealt directly with Kerekes. “Harlow didn’t talk to people on the phone,” he said.
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“When they would call, I would ask them where they lived or where they were staying,” Kerekes said. “I know the Virginia Beach and Norfolk areas very well, so if they were calling from some area where the houses aren’t even worth $100,000, I knew we weren’t even going to bother with that person. That person probably wasn’t going to able to afford us.”
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Keeping the clients happy

Client reviews, if what is posted online can be trusted, were favorable. Between 2005 and 2007, postings on websites such as www.daddysreviews.com and www.whoboy.com sung the praises of Cuadra and Kerekes. In one, a client claiming to be a thirty-six-year-old male said he liked the added touch of being picked up at his hotel in a nice car for his “date” with Cuadra. “Harlow’s pictures don’t do him justice, he has a nice tight body, broad smooth chest, defined stomach, and of course a very nice butt,” the client review read. “We talked and got to know each other. We then spent some quality time in the Jacuzzi. After he got me all hot and bothered we decided to hit the bed and I had one of best times I have ever had. After several hours of fun we had a nice shower and went out to dinner. Harlow is a nice young man with a great personality. I would recommand (sic.) any one wanting a great expericence (sic.) to try him out.”
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Another review purporting to be from a sixty-year-old man said, “I have been wanting to have an experience with a man, Harlow was my first. I was very nervous, and he put me at ease with a massage to start. His body is unbelievable, and his cock is the greatest. He came three times, and I think he could have gone on. He made me feel like a stud that I am not. I have returned for more since, and will return again.”
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A forty-three-year-old businessman was also apparently satisfied. He wrote online that “I preset my appointment with Harlow for two hrs. in-call two weeks in advance before my conference in Virginia Beach. The arrangement was made through Mark, the agent who did a very good job in arranging the time and presence of the models requested. The in-call place is located in a very private, first class neighborhood. The indoor facility is above par with all the amenities available and nice furnishing. The place also has it’s (sic.) own video equipment on hand for photography and movie production. The service provided by Harlow was superb and excellent. He was very versatile and came thrice during the session. He looks much younger than his age and has the most perfect body.”
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Almost every client review seemed to make mention of Cuadra’s triple-ejaculations during each session. Whether those were actual ejaculations or the “faked kind” that Kerekes said the couple had perfected is unclear.

Kerekes himself received a couple of favorable online reviews as well. Called Mark or Trent by his customers, one who described himself as “fat, almost fifty” wrote, “Trent was even more perfect than his pics. He was wearing a white muscle shirt and black shorts. His muscles were bulging. And on top of being a major hunk, he was so amazingly nice to me! He showed me into his place and we just hugged and then we kissed and then we stripped and then we climbed into the big bed and then we hugged some more and kissed some more. I was really happy and excited to be with this total stud. Tent (sic.) has a wonderfully muscled chest with just the right amount of hair on it and a beautiful hairy ass.” Describing a “flip” sexual scene where both men bottomed for each other, the customer concluded, “After we cleaned up and dressed, he walked me back out to my car. What a gentleman! This was such a wonderful experience that I was eager to see Trent again as soon as possible. I will have to find another time to get away to the Virginia shore to see Trent again. I loved my time with Trent! Hot, muscled, hard, fun, kind, considerate, the perfect escort gave me the perfect session!”
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Another customer was pleased to have hired both Cuadra and Kerekes for a three-way scene at his hotel room. “The guys even stuck around afterward to chat,” he wrote.
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Ironically, the Daddy’s Review website featured not one, but two separate reviews of Cuadra posted on January 29, 2007, just five days after the Kocis murder. Both of them sounded dramatically similar in their descriptions of the claimed sexual encounters with Cuadra, prompting the question: were the reviews posted by Cuadra and/or Kerekes themselves? Insiders say that it is not uncommon for escorts to go online and post favorable reviews of themselves as a means of drumming up business.

If any of Cuadra and Kerekes’ clients worried their covers would be blown by the growing seriousness of the charges against the two men, Cuadra tried to put that doubt to rest while still jailed in Luzerne County awaiting trial. “I just wanted for everyone to know that there are no black books with client lists, there are no senator, congressman or others that will be named here... Joe and I never kept a book with client names in it,” Cuadra posted online.
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One of Cuadra’s regular monthly customers, Captain Ryan, said he greatly enjoyed his personal time with his escort, but did not appreciate Kerekes. Ryan said Kerekes “was the controlling part of the business…he did have, I’ll say, a domineering tone even in terms of setting arrangements in that he was denying certain calls in his manner or very forceful, not very good customer service, if you will.”
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In fact, Kerekes “fired” Ryan as a client on at least three occasions for attempting to get too close to Cuadra, he said, only to relent and agree to let him see Cuadra for additional meetings. Kerekes would not allow, however, the weekend or out-of-state trips Ryan occasionally suggested for himself and Cuadra.

Part of Cuadra and Kerekes’ rules for their escort business was for their “boys” to avoid local gay bars. “It’s bad to be seen (at gay clubs), you lose business. I tell all my guys, like the open ones, I’m, like, ‘Ya know, don’t frequent gay clubs, and if you do, then you want to stop,’” Kerekes said. Staying away from clubs helped clients keep their secrets, even secrets kept by gay men from their lovers. “I hate seeing those kind of clients, the ones you know they’re cheating on somebody else, I hate that,” Kerekes said.
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Eliminating competitors was also nothing new for Cuadra and Kerekes. When they started their escort adventures, as early as February 2002 when the www.boisrus.com domain was registered, they partnered with Jon Ross of Norfolk. Ross had made a name for himself as the owner of Elite Escorts, a company specializing in introducing women to men in the Navy-dominated beach communities around Norfolk. Today it still operates under various names such as Penthouse VIP Escorts and 24-Hour Escorts.

At one time, early in his escorting career, Kerekes worked for Ross as one of his few male escorts—available for female or male clients. He parted ways with Ross, he said, after feeling Ross did not appreciate his time or talent. “One night he called me and wanted me to go to Richmond, Virginia on a call,” Kerekes recalled. “I said, ‘John, I know I can make that kind of money right here in town tonight without having to drive all that way.’”
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An argument ensued and Ross, Kerekes says, fired him on the spot. Ross would later suffer an eerily similar knife attack to the one that killed Kocis—but Ross survived. According to Matthew Childress, a former investigator with the Virginia Beach Police Department, “assailants attempted to kill (Ross) by slitting his throat. Our informants stated that Kerekes boasted about forcing Ross to sell BoisRUs.com to him.”
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Childress said Norfolk Police investigated the attack on Ross because it happened in their jurisdiction, but they weren’t able to make any connections between the incident and Kerekes-Cuadra. This may be due to the fact that Ross was unable to provide a detailed description of the assailant at the time of the attack, Childress said.
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Regardless, Ross relented on the BoisRUs domain name, and Kerekes was off and running with his own escort enterprise.

The world starts to close in on Harlow and Joe

Unknown to them, at the same time Pennsylvania authorities were looking closely at Cuadra and Kerekes for any possible involvement in the Kocis murder, Virginia detectives were moving forward on their review of their escorting activities.

In January 2006, the Special Investigations Unit of the Virginia Beach Police Department began its own probe of a “citizen’s complaint” concerning Norfolk Male Escorts and Norfolk Male Companions (the enterprise sometimes operating under either name). The complaint alleged that the operators, Cuadra and Kerekes, were running a prostitution ring disguised as a legitimate escort service, Childress said. He said the complaint originated from an unhappy former employee of Cuadra and Kerekes.
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Virginia Beach detectives took an unusual approach in their investigation. “We decided not to investigate this complaint like a traditional prostitution sting,” Childress said. “We decided to treat this as a money laundering investigation. The informant was very close to Cuadra and Kerekes, and we were able to generate several sworn affidavits for subpoenas (to allow us) to initiate our financial investigation.”
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