Sex Industry Funded Campaign Against New Stadium

WASHINGTON - The sex industry funded part of a campaign that opposes the construction of a new baseball stadium on the Anacostia waterfront.

Opponents of a publicly financed baseball stadium spent roughly $50,000, trying to sway public opinion.

In one method used to get their message out, opponents used an automated phone line.

The person on the automated phone call says he's from a group called Friends of the Earth, and he's opposed to a stadium built with public money

Friends of the Earth is part of a coalition called "No D.C. Taxes For Baseball."

And, WTOP Radio has learned up to 20 percent of the $50,000 came from Robert Siegel, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner whose business would have to move to make way for the stadium.

Siegel is a major landowner on the South Capitol stadium site, an area that Siegel calls "D.C.'s unofficial Red Light district."

He owns 11 properties, several of which house gay nightclubs. He also owns a gay porn shop and adult theaters.

He says he's spent $20,000 of his own money to keep from being displaced by a new stadium. The funding includes other efforts he undertook to keep out baseball, including neighborhood signs and lawyer fees.

Some of the money went toward posters and radio ads, including one that ran on WTOP Radio.

Siegel says he's staying in the background because he doesn't want to cloud the issue of baseball with sex.

"No D.C. Taxes For Baseball" tells WTOP it wasn't trying to deceive anyone with its message. The group accepted money from Siegel's legal businesses to make its point.

Other members of "No D.C. Taxes For Baseball" include the League of Women Voters of the District of Columbia, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and the Statehood Green Party.

(Copyright 2004 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)