Major League Baseball

Phillies fan found not guilty of prostitution

Published Mar. 25, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

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A Philadelphia Phillies baseball fan accused of offering sex in exchange for tickets to last year's World Series has been found not guilty of prostitution, Philly.com reported on Thursday.

A jury did, however, find Susan Finkelstein guilty of attempted prostitution in relation to the series between the Phillies and the New York Yankees.

The 44-year-old from West Philadelphia had admitted to being desperate to find reasonably priced tickets to a home game.

She was arrested on October 26 after meeting an undercover police officer at a restaurant in Bensalem and allegedly offering to perform sex acts with him and another man in exchange for two tickets for herself and her husband.

The prosecution said there were several elements to the crime: a sexually suggestive tickets-wanted advert on Craigslist, a flirty exchange over price, semi-nude photos mailed by Finkelstein to the ticket "seller" and a condom found in her purse after the arrest.

"What we have here is a unique situation, a different situation, but a prostitution situation nonetheless," Assistant District Attorney Steven Jones said.

Finkelstein told the court she had used poor judgment in crafting the online ad and in sending the provocative photos.

However, she said she was simply trying to generate interest and then using her "feminine wiles" to talk a man into giving her a decent price.

"Are you a prostitute?" her attorney, William J. Brennan, asked her.

"No, I am not." Finkelstein replied.

Brennan told the jury: "She's goofy. She's eccentric. She got nuts with an epidemic case of Phillies Fever. But she's not a prostitute."

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