A New Mexico state judge has ruled that a prostitution website run by two elderly professors is legal, WORLD News Service reports. Former University of New Mexico president F. Chris Garcia, 71, is accused of helping David C. Flory, 68, a retired physics professor from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J., run the prostitution website "Southwest Companions." According to investigators, the website promotes prostitution, but judge Stan Whitaker ruled that the site, an online message board and an online user account owned by Garcia did not comprise a "house of prostitution" as defined by state law. Whitaker also ruled the website could not be considered a place where "prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed." Investigators said the website had 14,000 members, including 200 prostitutes. Members could pay as little as $200 for a sexual act and up to $1,000 for a full hour with a prostitute. All transactions were completed with cash, not through the website itself, police said. Garcia and Flory were arrested in June 2011 on charges of promoting prostitution, and Flory is accused of purchasing the website in 2009.
