Guilty! Private dick violated privacy, promoted prostitution

May 3, 2019 Noah Goldberg

Vincent Parco leaves Brooklyn Supreme Court with his lawyer, Lawrence LaBrew, after being found guilty of promoting prostitution, unlawful surveillance, and dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image. Eagle photo by Noah Goldberg.

Vincent Parco (right) leaves Brooklyn Supreme Court with his lawyer, Lawrence LaBrew, after being found guilty of promoting prostitution, unlawful surveillance, and dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image. Eagle photo by Noah Goldberg

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Reality TV private eye Vincent Parco was found guilty Friday of promoting prostitution and unlawful surveillance for enticing a man into having sex with prostitutes at a Sunset Park hotel — and then surreptitiously recording the sex acts.

He faces one and one-third to four years in prison. He is scheduled for sentencing June 14.

Parco was hired by Samuel Israel, who was arrested in 2016 and later convicted of sexually abusing a female relative. Israel paid Parco $17,000 to get “embarrassing” video footage of the sex abuse victim’s husband to try to get her not to testify in his case.

The victim and her husband’s names are being withheld for privacy.

“I feel very confident in my attorneys and in the appeal process,” Parco said outside of Brooklyn Supreme Court after the verdict was announced.

On two occasions in December 2016, Parco, along with a woman he enlisted named Tanya Freudenthaler, lured the sex abuse victim’s husband to a Sunset Park hotel to have sex with prostitutes. Parco and Freudenthaler set up cameras in the hotel room to record the acts.

Videos of the sex acts were found on Parco’s computer during the execution of a search warrant.

The jury ultimately found Parco not guilty of promoting prostitution in the third degree, because he did not supervise or manage the sex act. But they did find him guilty of promoting prostitution in the fourth degree, because he facilitated and profited from it.

He was also found guilty of unlawful surveillance and dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image.

“It wasn’t easy, but eventually we were able to make a decision,” said one juror, who declined to give his name.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said, “This defendant shamefully used his private investigators license to profit by illegally surveilling a man after secretly setting him up with prostitutes in this criminal scheme. The defendant has now rightfully been convicted by a jury for his role in this scheme.”

“This was the equivalent of a high-tech lynching by the Kings County District Attorney’s office,” said Parco’s defense attorney Lawrence LaBrew, referencing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s infamous quote during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Parco is white.

Update (4 p.m.) — This article has been updated with a statement from Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.