The woman at the center of the U.S. Secret Service prostitution scandal embraced her notoriety and spilled colorful details Friday about alcohol flowing like water and Secret Service agents dancing on a bar.
Dania Londono Suarez is the escort who unwittingly sparked investigations that have ensnared roughly two dozen members of the Secret Service and U.S. military over reported use of prostitutes in Colombia in the days before President Barack Obama visited last month. She gave a lengthy, wide-ranging interview to Colombia's W Radio on Friday.
It attracted international attention, with reporters from as far away as Europe calling in to press for more details.
She retold the story of the disagreement in the hallway of the Hotel Caribe, of her fear after the fallout and what she envisions for herself in the future.
Her days of selling her body are over, she said, but she is open to appearing nude in men's magazines.
"My life is already ruined by this," she said.
Suarez said she considers her reputation shattered but is looking for opportunity by voluntarily stepping fully into the limelight that has been chasing her.
If a magazine offered the "right price," she would pose nude, she said.
The fallout of the scandal has "left me cured" of being an escort, she said. "That part of my life is dead."
In the interview, she also presented a more nuanced view of herself. Amid her fears that the U.S. government might retaliate and do her harm, she is also nervous about what her crush thinks about this.
She doesn't have a boyfriend, she said, but "I'm interested in someone. I don't know how he's taken all this. I wish I could go inside his head."
She also said that she would not have told police about the incident if she had known the men were agents, and that their behavior hypothetically could have put the agency's work at risk.
She didn't see any schedules or plans regarding Obama, she said, but if she had been someone wanting to do harm, "while I was with them, I could have done a thousand things." Given such an opportunity, a terrorist could have wreaked havoc, she said.
Concerns about a security breach, as well as outrage over the salacious nature of the scandal, have motivated multiple investigations by the Secret Service, the military, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general and several congressional committees.
On Friday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-New York, said he had more questions about the agency's internal review after meeting with Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.
In particular, King noted the Secret Service said it interviewed 10 of the 12 women involved but had been unable to find the other two, including Suarez.
Citing the radio interview by Suarez that "details information vital to the investigation," King said he asked the Secret Service "for an explanation of how they have failed to find this woman when the news media seems to have no trouble doing so."
Nine of 12 Secret Service agents implicated in the scandal have resigned or are being forced out, while three others were cleared of serious misconduct. A separate military investigation of 12 U.S. military members is continuing.
Details of what happened on the night Suarez met the Secret Service agent had surfaced before Friday, and she confirmed the narrative in her interview with W Radio.
A friend at the bar introduced her to a man who was interested in her, Suarez said.
She watched as the man and his friends ordered bottles of vodka. "They were buying alcohol like it was water," she said.
She saw them dance on the bar. The man she was with liked to dance in a "disorderly" manner in which "he lifted his shirt to show off his six-pack."
They didn't speak the same language, but when the man mentioned "sex," she answered in her basic English, "Baby, cash money."
They agreed on $800, she said, and went to his hotel.
The next morning, she was awakened by a call from the front desk alerting her that it was time for overnight visitors to leave the hotel, she said.
She woke the man up, and he refused to pay, telling her "just go, bitch." It was a completely different personality than the night before, when he was very loving, she said.
"When he was drunk, he was a different person than when he had his wits about him," Suarez said.
The escort walked across the hall to the room of another man, who had brought her friend to the hotel. That couple came out and tried to sort things out with the first man, but he refused to open the door.
Now it is known that the two men were Secret Service agents, though at the time she had no idea. The only hint that the man was some sort of official was a uniform inside his room, which led Suarez to presume that he was in the military.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation have told CNN that the Secret Service agent at the center of the scandal is Arthur Huntington.
Huntington, of Severna Park, Maryland, has now left the Secret Service, but it was not clear under what circumstances.
Suarez says she does not recall what name, if any, Huntington gave her that night. But she would recognize him if their paths crossed again.
"I remember his face as if I saw him yesterday," she said.
Suarez said she spent hours trying to persuade the agent to open the door and pay her, but she finally gave up around 10 a.m.
As she was leaving, however, she came across a local police officer who encouraged her to share what was bothering her.
More agents wandered into the hallway and pleaded, "please, please, no police, no police," Suarez said.
Three agents pooled their resources and gave her $250, she said.
She took the money and left the hotel.
It was two days before Suarez learned what scandal had been ignited that day.
Today, Suarez says she would have let the man off the hook if she had known he was Secret Service. But that sentiment is not out of respect.
"They are idiots," she said. "They were protecting President Obama, and they didn't see the magnitude of the problem."
CNN
