Former hooker testifies in A.C. sex tape trial

MAYS LANDING - Their motel room encounter didn't last long, a former prostitute said today, and only after it was over did she realize the man she was with was an Atlantic City councilman.

"I thought, ' ... This is way out of my league,'" Kristyn Haino told an Atlantic County Superior Court jury, explaining that the man had given her his business card and said he wanted to see her again.

Haino, the prosecution's star witness in the so-called Atlantic City sex tape trial, spent nearly three hours on the witness stand in Superior Court providing the down and dirty details of her tryst with Councilman Eugene Robinson in a seedy motel on White Horse Pike back in November 2006.

Three local political operatives, Floyd Tally and brothers Ronald and David Callaway, are charged with setting up the encounter and having it secretly videotaped as part of an attempt to force Robinson to resign.

Authorities said Robinson, 67, a part-time minister, was shown the tape about a week later and told if he didn't step down, it would be made public. Instead, he went to authorities.

Robinson is expected to testify when the trial resumes Wednesday.

Haino said she had "assumed" the tryst was being by videotaped by the men who had agreed to pay her, but said she had no idea who was being set up and had been told as the scheme unfolded not to ask too many questions

"They said, 'The less you know, the better,'" she recalled.

Haino, 27, testified Tally brought her into the plot several days earlier by offering to pay her to have sex with a man. On the night of the encounter, he gave her a key to a room at the Bayview Motel, she said.

Ronald Callaway, she said, told her how to position Robinson in the motel room and later praised her for a "good job" after the taping was completed, she said.

The three defendants are charged with conspiracy, invasion of privacy and coercion in what authorities say was a scheme set in motion by a third brother, former Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway.

Callaway and Robinson had a political falling out, authorities charge, and the extortion plot was an attempt to get him out of office.

Craig Callaway has pleaded guilty to his role in the plot. He is serving a 40-month prison sentence on that charge and an unrelated federal political bribery/extortion conviction.

Haino, soft-spoken with long, brown hair and a quick smile, was matter-of-fact in recounting the scheme.

She said she couldn't remember how much she had been paid, but thought it was between $200 and $300. She said Tally later rebuffed her request for more money.

Haino said she was living in an apartment in a low-income housing project at the time and had been involved in prostitution for about four years. She said she was addicted to heroin and crack cocaine.

Asked how often she did drugs back then, she said, "Every day, all day."

But the former Ocean County resident said she has been off drugs for nearly two years and has not engaged in prostitution since leaving Atlantic City in 2007.

She said she agreed to cooperate with authorities when she was approached while serving time in the Atlantic County Jail in 2007 for a parole violation.

Now living in Virginia and recently married, Haino said her parents helped her enroll in a drug counseling and rehab program in New York state following her release from the county jail. She said she now works as a counselor for a similar rehab program.

On the night of the encounter, she said Tally came to her apartment and escorted her to a car outside the building. Ronald Callaway was sitting in the passenger seat and a man she did not know was driving.

She said they first drove to City Hall, waited for about an hour, and then drove several blocks and parked near a convenience store. She said Callaway pointed out Robinson walking past a nearby Dunkin' Donuts.

"That's him, go," she said Callaway told her.

She said she approached Robinson and asked if he would give her a ride to the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa, where some friends were staying. He agreed, she said.

A few minutes later, however, she told Robinson she was tired and wanted to go back to her motel room. As they approached the motel, she said she told the councilman she wanted to "compensate him" and asked if he wanted to come to her room.

Asked how Robinson responded, she said, "He opened the door."

She said as part of the instructions she had received from Ronald Callaway, she first had Robinson sit in a chair, then asked him for money for a soda.

The video, a portion of which was played for the jury, includes shots of Robinson handing her cash.

She said she was then told to get Robinson to lie on the bed and to look at a clock in the corner on a bedstand. She said she assumed a camera had been planted in the clock.

She testified that she took off her shirt and that Robinson lowered his pants and that she performed oral sex on him.

Afterward, she said, as he was about to leave, he handed her his business card and said he wanted to come back later that night.

She said she gave him a false name and phone number and told him to return.

Asked if she had any intention of seeing him again, she replied, "None, whatsoever."

When Robinson had gone, she said, Tally and Ronald Callaway came to the room and escorted her to an adjacent motel room, where she saw recording equipment set up.

Ronald Callaway, she said, told her "not to worry myself because they were going to block out my face."

In fact, the video that was eventually made public had her face digitally blurred.

Haino said Callaway, Tally and three other men whom she did not know congratulated her for "a great job."

"They were high-fiving each other," she said.

She said Tally collected cash from the others and handed it to her. She was then driven back to her apartment where, later that night, she said she used some of the money to purchase drugs.