US Secret Service agents walk around the Convention Center in Cartagena, Colombia, prior to the opening ceremony of the 6th Summit of the Americas at the Convention Center in Cartagena, Colombia, Saturday, April 14, 2012. Last Thursday, a dozen secret service agents sent to provide security for President Barack Obama, were relieved from duty and replaced with other agency personnel after an incident of alleged misconduct. AP/Fernando Llano
BOGOTA – One of the Colombian prostitutes involved in a sex scandal with US Secret Service agents broke her silence Friday to tell how she had begged for hours to be paid $800 for her services.
“I told him, there’s a problem here. Because if I had come with you to enjoy myself that would have been one thing. But I didn’t come to enjoy myself,” Dania Londono told Caracol Television and W radio. “I had to beg from 6:30 am to 10:00am for him to pay me.”
Londono told the television she had met the men when she was in a bar in Cartagena, Colombia, with three of her friends.
They drank two bottles of vodka with the men and danced and then they agreed to go back to their hotel rooms, but Londono insisted she had asked the man she was with to give her an $800 “gift” in return.
“We danced and when we left I said, ‘Well, love, you have to give me $800, that is the gift I want to go with you,'” she noted. “He said, ‘Okay, baby. Let’s go to the hotel.
“Neither my friend nor I were aware that they were agents of Obama at all.”
She said the next morning when she asked for her money, he swore at her and offered her 50,000 pesos ($27) for a taxi fare. Eventually with the intervention of a local police officer, who was guarding the hotel corridor, she accepted $250.
The Secret Service has been scrambling to contain the scandal that originated in Colombia in mid-April when US President Barack Obama was visiting to attend the Summit of the Americas.
More than two dozen Secret Service agents and military personnel were sent home from Cartagena where they had been preparing security for Obama’s visit.
They were accused of drinking heavily, visiting a strip club and consorting with prostitutes, including bringing sex workers to their hotel rooms.
Eight agents have since been dismissed, the security clearance of one other has been permanently revoked, and three others have been cleared of major misconduct, according to the agency.
Investigations into the actions by the agents and some 12 military personnel are ongoing.