http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132844/Three-Secret-Service-officers-set-fired-investigators-probe-agents-sex-underage-girls-Colombia.html
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Prostitutes involved in Secret Service sex scandal 'may have been underage' as Senator demands investigation into involvement of Obama's WHITE HOUSE staff
- Six Secret Service agents quit the force over scandal
- President personally briefed on state of the investigation
- Colombian prostitute at the hear of affair has gone into hiding
- Says she was eventually paid $225 for the evening
- Claims to fear retaliation by the U.S. government
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The prostitutes involved in the Secret Service scandal that cost six agents their jobs may have been underage, according to a new report.
A Colombian government official told a newspaper group that investigators from the Colombian attorney general’s office have questioned employees of the hotel in question, and the taxi driver who drove home the woman who triggered the scandal, to find out more.
The U.S. agents and military personnel involved could face criminal charges if is proven that they had sex with girls under the age of 18.
Flaunt: In these Facebook images Dania Suarez, one of the Colombian prostitutes at the centre of the Secret Service sex scandal, flirts with the camer
When Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, was asked if any of the men had done so, he said neither he nor Mr Sullivan could be certain.
‘In the case of the 11 agents, the primary determination is you can’t determine to charge or not charge somebody until you know whether a crime is committed,’ he said, according to The Daily Beast.
‘Under U.S. law, if any of these women are under 18—I can tell you we do not know and Director Sullivan does not have actual contact/picture matched up to verify that as far as I know. When he does, I would expect a call, because that would be a relief to many of us to not have on top of everything else.’
Issa stressed that it was a crime to sleep with minors abroad - although there is no suggestion that any of the men who have been named did.
‘U.S. laws passed in 2003 and 2006 were designed to prevent sex vacations causing harm to underage women,’ the Republican Representative added. ‘We have to respect some things, but going internationally anywhere to have sex acts underage is prohibited under U.S. law.’
It comes as a senior Republican, Senator Charles Grassley, urged the investigation to extend to presidential staff who were preparing for Barack Obama's visit.
Also on Friday, Mr Obama received a personal briefing on the state of the investigation from Mark Sullivan, director of the Secret Service.
Mr Grassley urged investigators to check hotel records for White House advance staff and communications personnel who were in Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas.
In a letter to Mr Sullivan and the inspector general at the Homeland Security Department, Mr Grassley asked whether hotel records for the White House staffers had been pulled as part of the investigations.
He wrote: 'Have records for overnight guests for those entities been pulled as part of the investigation? If not, why not?'
Additionally Mr Grassley, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked whether rooms were shared by Secret Service, the communications agency and the presidential advance staff.
After three agents resigned on Friday, the number of men forced out by the scandal rose to six.
Five more are suspended during the investigation, while one man has been cleared of serious misconduct but could still face disciplinary action.
Mr Sullivan visited the White House late on Friday to brief Mr Obama in the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, the lawyer of the two ousted Secret Service supervisors David Chaney and Greg Stokes said that President Barack Obama's safety was never at risk and criticized leaks of internal government investigations in the case, signaling their strategy for an upcoming legal defense.
Lawrence Berger said he could not comment on the woman's claims about being paid for sex, but added: 'I don't think anything she has said is material to any of the issues I am pressing with my clients.
'Nothing that has been reported in the press in any way negatively or adversely impacted the mission of that agency or the safety of the president of the United States.'
The scandal came to light when a 24-year-old high-end escort fought with an agent who slept with her at a Colombian hotel but then refused to hand over the $800 they had agreed upon.
Her name has been revealed as Dania Suarez and has gone into hiding after photographs of her emerged.
Her identity was revealed as the names of two of the Secret Service supervisors involved in the scandal came to light.
David Chaney was forced to retire over his alleged role in the incident, while Greg Stokes was 'removed with cause'.
Another agent resigned after being suspended as part of the investigation into the scandal.
One of the three agents to have left the service so far apparently plans to sue the agency over his treatment in the aftermath of the prostitution scandal, which has made headlines around the world.
Stokes, who could appeal his sacking in the next 30 days, is apparently head of the agency's Canine Training Section.
The men were identified soon after Suarez, the mother of a 9-year-old son, broke her silence.
Speaking about the tawdry episode that has seen three agents ousted from their posts after a wild night of partying in Cartagena last week, the escort claims she was offered $30 - a fraction of her $800 fee - for a night with one of the men.
'I tell him, "Baby, my cash money",' she recalled in an interview with The New York Times, recounting the heated exchange that has wrecked the agency's reputation and become an election year embarrassment for President Barack Obama.
The news came as the Secret Service said three employees have been ousted in the wake of questionable behaviour at the Hotel Caribe last week, with some now under investigation for possible drug use, ABC News reports.
New details of the sordid night emerged on Wednesday as the single mother and self-described prostitute told The New York Times that she met an agent at a discotheque, believed to be the PleyClub, in Cartagena and after a night of drinking.
'They never told me they were with Obama,' she said, calling the men 'very discreet'.
The woman, who chose to remain anonymous, said she and one of the agents agreed the agent would pay her $800 for sex at the hotel.
The next morning, when the hotel's front desk called because the woman hadn't left, the pair argued over the price.
In an interview in Colombia, Suarez said the two argued after the agent initially offered to pay her about $30 and the situation escalated, eventually ending with Colombian law enforcement involved. She said she was eventually paid about $225.
Days later, she said a friend told her the argument had made the news, and to her shock, she discovered the man was a Secret Service agent.
'I'm scared,' she said, adding that she did not want the man in question to be reprimanded, and fears retaliation, the Times reports.
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