One thought on “Philip Markoff – Profile of Craigslist Killer”

1. myonecent April 23, 2009 at 3:33 pm

   The Secret Life of Billionaire Ira Riklis, by Kirby Sommers

   What happens when a billionaire with the mind of a sex-starved teenage boy and no personal restraints sets his sights on one woman? Under normal circumstances the answer would be marriage. But, what if the billionaire is already married and is a closet sex freak?

   The kind of freak who has a tissue box at the ready whenever a new issue of Victoria’s Secret arrives in the mail, has a stash of girlie magazines neatly stacked away in his office safe, and indulges in prostitutes a-la-Spitzer.

   A pathetic loser, you might say.

   Think again: it’s Ira Riklis, 54-year-old mega rich son of corporate raider Meshulam Riklis. Riklis is also a long-time friend and political contributor to Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former President Bill Clinton and disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, to name just a very few. And if birds of a feather ever flocked, then the addition of the last two people on this short list would be hold up that theory.

   Ira is the principal of Sutherland Capital Management, Inc., a private holding company primarily involved in the home-security market. A portfolio company, C.O.P.S. Monitoring, is the second largest wholesale monitoring company in the country. Combined with sister company, SafeGuard Security (an alarm installation, service and monitoring company), the recurring monthly revenue would rank in the top 50 companies (out of 15,000 companies) in the U.S. Additionally, stakes are held in other companies involved in home and commercial alarm accounts. Other investments include SNIP, a telephone and internet service provider, a hedge-fund consolidation company, a ladies-clothing designer and marketer, a ski-equipment rental chain, various real estate partnerships with an emphasis on strip-shopping centers, in addition to being part of his infamous father’s businesses such as Rapid American Corporation.

   Some 20 plus years ago I was the woman Ira Riklis preyed upon, spied on, and coerced into becoming his sex slave. He did this to me at a time in my life when I was the most vulnerable. And he knew it. That is how predators find their victims. They peer into your soul and find the holes. Then they fool you into believing they can fill those gaps for you. They seek out women who may have been sexually abused as children, have absent fathers or who are going through periods of low self-esteem. In my case, all three factors were present. If I had been an apple, I would have been the ripest victim apple on the tree.

   Before ever meeting Ira, I was viciously date raped at a time when no one went to the authorities and when both the blame and shame fell on the woman’s shoulder. Adding to my already distressed state I discovered I was pregnant. I come from a poor family with a single mother who had her own struggles trying to raise five children. There wasn’t anyone I could go to. The small publishing company I worked for picked up and moved to Connecticut leaving me without a job and the small clothing design company I launched to replace my job hit a brick wall. In short, I was broke. Penniless broke. Barefoot and pregnant broke. Even after selling my clothing samples I still didn’t have enough to pay the bills or get an abortion – which I naively believed would be the answer to at least some of my problems.

   I needed $200 for the abortion and I needed it fast. A woman I knew suggested I make the money at a whorehouse and before I could make sense of what was happening, I found myself working as a prostitute in one of New York City’s illegal brothels.

   New York City, mind you, is the capital of sex. More so than Nevada or any other city in the country – in Walt Whitman’s poem “City of Orgies” he writes, “but, as I pass O Manhattan! your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love.” At any given time of day, and really any 9 to 5 type of day when your white-collar guys are supposed to be in their offices, the phones never stop ringing and the guys never stop coming.

   “Once in, never out.” The Johnny Carson look alike with a cigarette the size of a small brown stump dangling from his lips is giving me the once and twice over. He purses his lips and the brown stump looks like it’s about to pop out and hit me in the eye. I am now officially merchandise and it doesn’t feel good at all.

   I try not to fidget as I stand in what looks like someone’s apartment, in a living room where the furniture is still new and unused. Except this isn’t anyone’s home. It’s a bordello similar to hundreds of other make believe apartments neatly tucked away across the city where women sell themselves everyday and where neighbors never suspect anything of this sort is happening right next door.

   My heart is going thumpety, thump, thump. It’s almost in my throat. My palms are clammy and I wonder if I’m going to make it through the interview. I take another look at him. He’s wearing a V-neck striped preppy sweater vest under a white shirt with khaki pants. And I find myself rechecking my reality at the door. I mean who knew pimps looked like someone’s dad? Didn’t they all wear huge hats and flashy jewelry? He even looks Johnny Carson and come on, who doesn’t like Johnny Carson? So now I’m hoping my situation is so absurd that it’s really just a bad dream and I’m going to wake up any moment. Because after all when did Johnny Carson become a pimp?

   Except it wasn’t a dream and fast-forward 20 plus years later, I’m still trying to come to terms with everything.

   The Johnny Carson look-a-like is saying something, but the only words I hear are: “Once in, never out.” The words bounce back and forth in my head: Once in, never out. Not for me. Not for me. Not for me. I’ll get out. Not for me, I protest silently.

   “How old are you anyway? I don’t sell kids.” He says, his eyes burning through my clothes.

   “Old enough,” I retort in an out of body kind of half hallucinatory state. This could not be happening to me. I am practically a virgin. I know the names and the dates of the guys I have slept with, including the one who raped me. I can count them all on one hand. I mentally rename myself the virgin whore.

   To my surprise he hires me. I am both relieved and repulsed.

   Johnny Carson’s twin is now officially my pimp and he’s given me the endearing name of “Greenhorn”. I still haven’t been able to figure out how I’m supposed to have sex with a guy I don’t even know and somehow the moment arrives and there’s no turning back. A parallel universe has taken the place of the world as I knew it. Everything right is suddenly wrong and vice versa. Nothing makes sense, but I float on anyway, away from the core of the woman I had begun to actually get to know and like. I examine the word “greenhorn”. The horn of a newly slaughtered animal and know it’s true in more than one way — I am already fragmented.

   My life becomes unrecognizable to me. For a long time after my first encounter with a client, I wake up every morning with the weight of a deep mournful sorrow one usually feels when someone you love has died. You know, that something-is-missing feeling you can’t quite put your finger on. Then for a miniscule fraction of a second I’d forget. But only for a tiny bit, because then the darkness would envelope me and the piercing pain of loss settles into the pit of my stomach and I know it is own death I am mourning. By comparison, even that would be better than what happened after Ira hunted me down. At least I slept even if I did wake up to a nightmare. After he insinuated himself into my life, sleep would forever elude me. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

   I’m inextricably, undeniably lost. Whatever strength I possess is gone. I cannot go back to being whomever it was I used to be. The shame is immense; at least it was for me. So I push myself away from both family and friends. I no longer have anything in common with anyone. Not even with the other call girls I meet during that period of my life. It was like trying to walk through quick sand. I couldn’t move forward and I couldn’t get out. Whatever small part of me held out hope that someone, anyone – my ex-boyfriend, my mother, my sisters, a stranger on a white horse would somehow rescue me have faded.

   I slip further into a life I never knew existed. I decide if I can’t go back to being me, if there is no me to be, I certainly won’t stay here in a low class whorehouse with three other girls and a pimp. I get my own working place and up the fee. To avoid intercourse, I teach myself to strip, I teach myself to listen, and I teach myself to talk to these rich and powerful men who patronize girls like me. I become the most sought after call girl in New York City; as well as the most reclusive person on the planet, so much so even my clients can’t reach me.

   And that’s when I met Ira Riklis.

   As a client he was fairly easy, but that couldn’t be said about him afterwards. Perhaps Ira kept things somewhat normal because he knew the drill and believed there was a possibility of other people lurking around somewhere in the apartment. I only saw him about 3 or 4 times before I plucked myself out of the absurdity of that faux life. I only wish I’d never met him because during those 3 or 4 times he saw beyond my polished exterior to the broken person I really was. His claws had already ripped through my young flesh and taken residence inside of me.

   Ira Riklis seemed like the nicest guy who no one would ever suspect of doing anything malicious or truly sick. As I write this, the Craigslist killer Philip Markoff has just been caught and everyone is surprised that a nice, clean-cut well educated guy can commit the heinous crimes he’s allegedly guilty of. I can relate to his victims because even at a time when I relied on a higher state of awareness to keep me safe, I didn’t see any red flags. Ira fooled me at the very same time he was fooling his wife Diana, their two children, and his famous friends in both the entertainment industry and the political world.

   Unlike Eliot Spitzer with his call girl du jour Ashley Dupre, Ira wanted me to know who he was.

   “Have you ever heard of Meshulam Riklis?” He asked during his second appointment.

   “No.” I replied acutely aware with the familiar weapon some johns have of trying to impress. It didn’t matter to me who he was. I’d already met people I never thought I’d meet. Plus, by this time I had already played out the Julia-Roberts-Pretty-Woman fantasy (before the movie even came out) with disastrous results and no way was I going to repeat it.

   Even though I read The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and Forbes, I really had no clue. Financiers Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky had yet to be busted and Google wasn’t even a pipe dream.

   Ira tries again. “What about Pia Zadora? Have you heard of her?”

   I’d seen the atrocious “Butterfly” starring Pia Zadora and had read enough gossip columns to know she was married to some rich old man.

   “Yes!” I said trying to sound enthusiastic.

   “I’m his son. And you know I don’t even like her.”

   Our sessions were quite simple. Pretty much all I did was wear something sexy, take it off, keep my lingerie on and crawl all over him. He loved looking at my vagina, and in the early days, I didn’t think it was too weird. Later it changed. But at the time, he was pretty easy to get off. I’d dart my tongue gently across his penis and off he went!

   Ira’s full face beamed as he languished in my bed. He was slightly overweight, with full cherub checks and an adult case of mild acne. With a slow smile and concerned eyes he pushed a long strand of hair away from my face. “You need a vacation. Why don’t you accept a gift from me and go on a cruise?”

   “No thanks, I’d be bored being on a ship with the same people day after day.” But what I really meant was that I wasn’t going to be taking a gift from him or any other of my clients. I didn’t want to feel indebted to anyone. I saw who I wanted to see and when they became too difficult I’d stop seeing them. Taking gifts makes a girl sloppy and closes off her options.

   “I insist. Really it’ll do you good. Carnival Cruise Lines is part of my family business, so I’ll be giving you something while keeping it all in the family at the same time.”

   Even in the mid 1980s Carnival wasn’t high on anyone’s list and I was somewhat put off. Frankly I would have said no to a cruise on the Queen Mary, but Carnival definitely had an ick factor.

   “No thanks. So where are you off to now?” Which was my way of saying “time’s up”.

   During his next visit Ira changed his strategy.

   “I wanted to give you a gift, but I didn’t know what kind of jewelry you like. Why don’t you let me open accounts for you at Harry Winston and a few of the other jewelers on Fifth Avenue? This way you can just go in and pick out what you like.”

   I raise my arms and show off my bare wrists then I run my fingers across my bare neck. “I don’t wear jewelry, but thank you for the lovely offer.” In hindsight it must have seemed a little strange to him to have a call girl turn down cruises and diamonds. But, I was never your ordinary hooker.

   While he’s getting dressed he stops, gives me a deep look, forgets about buttoning up his crisp white shirt and pulls me close to him. Hoarsely, he whispers into my ear: “I love you. I never thought I feel this way about another woman but I do. I love you.”

   “You’re married,” I push him away reminding him of the obvious.

   “Yes, and I’ve known Diana since I was fourteen. I never thought I would meet someone I’d leave her for. You know, when my father left my mother and married Pia I was so angry with him. It was more than the divorce. It was marrying outside the Jewish religion. But I can see why he did it now. I understand it because of you. I’d leave her for you, if you’d have me.”

   And somewhere between his professed love, possible marriage proposal, and our next appointment I summoned up the courage I needed to bolt out of that life of red lipstick and lies.

   Six months later I’m back in school and am working part-time. I’m studying for midterms when on a particularly cloudy October afternoon in 1986 my intercom rings. It doesn’t just ring once. Someone’s finger is on it and the piercing sound is jolting. Not expecting anyone I ignore it and try to remain focused on the oversized art history book on my lap. I’m sitting crossed legged on my sofa and am surrounded by over a dozen books. Almost ten minutes later the buzzer is still ringing. Exasperated, I push my books aside and get up. Quietly, I tiptoe to the front door, and stand in front of the intercom.

   “Who is it?“ I bark sharply.

   “It’s me, Ira.”

   I let out an audible gasp. I take a quick look at my apartment because I have to remind myself that I’m in my home, not in my working place which doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m baffled: Ira doesn’t even know who I am, I never told him where I lived, he’s married, I don’t “do that” anymore, and somehow he’s standing in the tiny vestibule of my apartment building. My two worlds have collided and like a deer just about to be run over by an on coming truck, my feet have melted into the hardwood floor beneath me. I cannot move.

   The flashbacks begin and I start to hyperventilate.

   “I’m busy, go away.” I barely have enough air in my lungs to breath.

   “It’s taken me six months to find you, just give me one minute.”

   “No.” My body is trembling and my index finger is shaking as I hold down the small button. I feel like a trapped animal and indeed I was. Flash forward to 1991 and a similar scenario would play out in the very same apartment when someone broke in and tried to kill me. Someone I believe sent by Ira.

   “Just let me speak to you for a few minutes, please.”

   “Give me your phone number. I’ll call you in a few days. I’m studying for midterms.”

   “No, give me your number and promise to meet me for lunch at The Plaza on Thursday. Do that and I’ll go away.”

   “Promise?”

   “Promise,” he echoes.

   So, like an idiot because I can’t think, I give him my real phone number, and less than one minute later my phone rings.

   “I couldn’t wait till Thursday,” Ira chirps smugly.

   “How did you find me?”

   “I hired a retired police officer I used to know, someone I trust, I paid him $150,000. It took six months. I’ve missed you. I love you. See me please.”

   I’m too dumbfounded to say anything. The whole thing was so invasive. I mean knowing someone has paid a ridiculous amount of money to have you hunted down. A hundred questions came to mind, but like a ferris wheel my mind keeps going round and round: how did he find me, how did he find me, how did he find me? I felt violated. I remember thinking about Rita Hayworth and her comment about Gilda: “Every man has fallen in love with Gilda and has awakened with me.” I wasn’t the vamp he met when he paid for sex. I was just an ordinary girl.

   What I will not know for years to come is that Ira has been spying on me. He already had my phone number. Asking me for it was just a ruse and I’m being followed wherever I go. Two days later on Thursday I meet him at The Plaza when it was still The Plaza before Donald Trump bought it.

   I follow him quietly to the Oak Room. He never orders lunch. I spot two other men walk in behind us and sit down immediately to our right, which I think is weird since the whole place is empty. Nothing feels right and I simply want to leave. And then Ira gave me a good reason to do just that.

   “I want to see you exclusively,” he tells me in a monotone voice as though he’s ordering a glass of water. “Just see me, no one else. I’ll pay you.”

   “I’m not for sale! The girl you met and the girl I am are two different women. I’m not interested!” Flush with anger and completely insulted, I storm out.

   I will not know when I ride my bike through Central Park in the following days, weeks and months to come and bump into Ira on his own bike that it was not coincidental. He is, in fact, spying on me. He has become my stalker. Someone has told him I’m in the park on his orders so he can zip on over and chat me up. He is priming me by making me feel he is becoming my friend. I will not know for years to come — even after I become his mistress of many years that my phones are tapped and every single move I make is being recorded for him. Someone else is writing my diary for the sole purpose of one man’s folly. In time I will succumb. But for now, I’m merely being spied on by the man who will turn me into his sex slave.

   Copyright 2009 Kirby Sommers