'NYPD 24/7': Undercover as a Prostitute

June 29, 2004 -- Nicole Papamichael is proud to be a New York City police officer. But she still hasn't told her mother exactly what she does.

A detective in the vice unit, sometimes her job calls for her to go undercover as a prostitute. She baits men who try to buy sex from her.

"Mom's a good churchgoing woman. She would never approve," Papamichael says. Her father just shakes his head and doesn't say a word.

"My sisters think it's great," Papamichael continued. "As a joke, my brother wants tips on how not to get busted."

She admits it's not easy. "You got a lot of weirdoes out there trying to pick you up," she tells ABC News, adding she also has to deal with pimps and prostitutes who think she's muscling in on their territory. "It's a tough life. I don't know how these women do it."

Most cops who do "pros ops," or prostitution operations, think it's degrading to women, she says. Not her.

"It's fun," she says. "I think I was made for it."

Striking a Deal

To entice and distract the johns, Papamichael likes to suck on a lollipop.

"Usually when you're sucking on the lollipop they tend to focus on that and forget anything else," she says. "Then they rush you into the car because this stimulates them for some reason."

The technique works. One night, a 500 Series BMW slowly drives up next to her. The window rolls down, and the passenger asks, "How does it work?"

"You pay me, I do you," she says, still sucking the lollipop. After running through her price list, $50 for oral sex and $100 for sex, her potential customer says it's too much.

"A hundred's too much?" Papamichael asks. "Look at the nice car you're driving." Eventually, she agrees to $75.

The man then asks how much for him and his friend. Without missing a beat, she says, "I tell you what. A hundred for the both of you … for an hour though, that's it."

"All right, get in," the potential John says.

"OK," Papamichael says. She picks up her bag, the signal to her back-ups to make the arrest.

Undercover police cars suddenly flood the street, as a voice from a loudspeaker booms: "Stop the car. Stop the car. Turn the car off."

No Set Profile

The young men were nervous and apologetic. "We just came from dinner. We were just messing around. We're from the city and we just drove around," one says.

Papamichael gloats as they're led shackled into a police van that will take them downtown.

"A hundred bucks. Can you believe he tells me I charge too much money for one, meanwhile he's driving like an $80,000 car?"

She's seen it before. She's bargained with customers from all walks of life. "We've come across a judge, a couple of rabbis, priests."

"Most of the men we arrest are married," she says.

Back at the station, she tells colleagues about her latest catch. "I got these two — Upper East Side, Wall Street. They're young, but with an attitude, in a brand new BMW. They got a Louis Vuitton attaché case. The whole nine yards."

While escorting them to the cell block, Detective Danielle McLaughlin said one of them asked her for a private cell.

She says he pled with her that he's 23, never been in trouble before and didn't want to be locked up with regular criminals.

McLaughlin was disgusted. "Two preps that picked her up — they want private cells," she says to Papamichael. "You wanted somebody to suck your d-ck!"

Papamichael says, "The one guy was almost in tears when he saw that his cellmate was a 6-foot-4 black guy."

"Oh, I love this job!" she says.

More Sympathy

When Papamichael was growing up, she couldn't understand why women would sell themselves for sex. "I said 'Ooh, disgusting. How could they do that?' "

She gained insight into the life of a streetwalker when her best friend in junior high school and high school became a prostitute. She ended up dying of AIDS.

Because of her friend's fate, she's sympathetic to the dangerous life a hooker leads. She hopes the younger ones will change their lives, but they rarely do.

Some have been arrested repeatedly. For the older ones, a night in jail is just an inconvenience.

"It's scary," Papamichael tells ABC News. "When I'm walking the street, I have six or seven people with guns backing me up, and these women go into cars … you don't know who you are getting into cars with. I feel bad for them. I really do."

But she tries not to form bonds with the prostitutes or judge them in any way.

"That's what they choose to do," she says.