Lexington man admits running interstate prostitution business for two decades

A Lexington resident has admitted to running a prostitution business in Kentucky and other states for more than two decades.

Michael Comberger, 56, pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to violate U.S. law and one charge of taking women across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.

Comberger admitted that from 1998 until April 2021 he operated a business called Fantasys Escort Service to provide commercial sex services, first advertising in the telephone book and later through a web site and on Twitter, according to court records.

The website had photos of female escorts — with their faces blocked out — and included information on their measurements and hourly rates, according to the court record.

Comberger hired prostitutes from Kentucky and other states and often drove them to meetings with customers, according to court records.

He admitted driving women to sites in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to his plea.

Isaac Robison, a special agent with the FBI who investigated, filed an affidavit describing one example from December 2020 involving a woman from Texas who worked for Comberger.

After picking up the woman at the airport in Northern Kentucky, Comberger took her to a motel in the Cincinnati area to meet a customer on Dec. 11 — charging $640 for two hours — and then took her on to Indianapolis later that evening to spend the night with another man at a cost of $1,800, according to information in the affidavit.

Comberger took the woman, who went by the false name Cody on the escort service website, to Owensboro on Dec. 18 to meet a man from Indiana before she flew back to Texas on Dec. 20, Robison said.

She returned later in the month and Comberger took her to Grayson, in northeastern Kentucky, to meet a client from West Virginia at a rate of $625 for two hours.

In the charge outlined in his guilty plea, Comberger admitted that in October 2020, he picked up an escort in Mooresville, Ind., took her to Mount Sterling to meet a customer, then drove her home.

The FBI used intercepted texts and calls and surveillance in the case against Comberger, the court record indicates.

Comberger and the escorts split the money from the prostitution.

Comberger has been in jail since he was arrested in Lexington in April 2020 because of alleged threatening statements he made to women involved in the escort service, who were potential witnesses.

A judge said his relationship with the witnesses and his references to violence indicated an intent to intimidate them.

Comberger entered a binding plea that includes a sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, according to court records.

That means that’s what his sentence will be if U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove accepts the agreement.

Comberger is scheduled to be sentenced in September.