Sex for Tickets

A female baseball fan has been charged after allegedly offering her body in exchange for sought-after tickets to the World Series.

Susan Finkelstein, 43, from Philadelphia, was arrested after meeting an undercover policeman in a suburban bar with the intention, it is claimed, of exchanging sex for admission to a finals game between her beloved Phillies and the New York Yankees.

It follows an advert placed on internet site Craigslist which her lawyer admits may have included a couple of double entendres but fell way short of prostitution. William Brennan described his client as a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever . As to the advert he said: If someone read into that posting a sexual connotation, that's on them. There's no overt sexual reference.

The online ad led to a rendezvous between Finkelstein and an undercover police officer snitch. Over a few beers she told the man that she needed two tickets, one for herself and one for her husband. Before prices were discussed she was arrested by several officers on a nearby table and subsequently charged with the misdemeanour charge of promoting prostitution.

Finkelstein has protested that this was not what she intended. I was hoping to get cheap tickets, she told local station WPVI-TV, adding: Maybe meet someone, and talk, and bat my eyelashes and maybe get some tickets.

But there was a silver lining for the Phillies fan. A local radio station and car dealer took pity on her plight, offering a pair of tickets for a weekend game in the process.

The US woman convicted of offering sex for baseball World Series tickets has been sentenced to one year's probation.

Susan Finkelstein was convicted in March of attempted prostitution. She was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

Last year, she placed an online ad on Craigslist seeking tickets for a Philadelphia Phillies game.

She was caught after meeting an undercover policeman who responded to the ad.

Judge Albert Cepparulo called Finkelstein's crime incredibly stupid , saying her ad could have left her vulnerable to a predator, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The judge suggested she spent her community service speaking to groups of women about the dangers of the internet.

Finkelstein said she had wanted to get tickets to take her husband to the opening game of the World Series - in which the Phillies beat the New York Yankees 6-1.