Accused Sex-for-Tickets Wife Cries Foul

The Philadelphia woman charged with offering sex in exchange for tickets to the World Series contends police are swinging and missing.

Susan Finkelstein, a 43-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate student, says she wanted to take her husband to a game between her beloved Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.

She says she was simply trying to score tickets online, as she had in the past, so she put an ad in Craigslist. The ad had some apparent double entendres. It described, in part, a "gorgeous, tall, buxom blonde ... in desperate need" of the tickets.

"I wanted to get Series tickets I could afford," she told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Friday. " ... I work in communications and PR (public relations). ... I wanted my ad to stand out" among ones soliciting customers for merchandise ... (do) why not make it fun and witty?"

An undercover police officer responded to the ad, and met Finkelstein at a bar in suburban Bensalem, Pa. She says she told him she needed two tickets, one for herself and one for her husband. "I wanted to negotiate prices" for the tickets, she told Smith. " ... I have pretty good negotiating skills."

PICTURES: Sex For Series

More on Finkelstein, on Crimesider

October 29, 2009 - EXCLUSIVE: Susan Finkelstein, Alleged Sex-for-Series Wife, Says "No Such Thing as a Free Ticket"
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October 28, 2009 - Susan Finkelstein Pics: Did She Really Offer Sex for World Series Tickets?
October 28, 2009 - Susan Finkelstein, Woman Accused of Offering Sex for Tickets, May Go to World Series After All
October 28, 2009 - Susan Finkelstein Sex for Series? Lawyer Says Tickets Were For Husband
October 27, 2009 - Susan Finkelstein Offered Sex for World Series Tickets, Say Cops

Finkelstein and her lawyer, William J. Brennan, say no price had been discussed before several officers sitting at a nearby table came to arrest her. She and Brennan stopped short of recounting specifics of what else was said at the table.

Brennan hopes to get the misdemeanor charge count against Finkelstein dismissed.

"If somebody read into that posting a sexual connotation, that's on them. There's no overt sexual reference," Brennan said.

Finkelstein didn't put the ad in any of the Craigslist categories in which people seek each other out for sexual encounters, Brennan pointed out to Smith. "This case would be so much different if it was in a different section, if she met him in a motel, if there was physical contact. ... She lives and dies with the Phils. (It was an) innocuous posting. (They met in) a public place. No money exchanged. No physical contact," and an ad with "no smoking gun."

Finkelstein faces a preliminary hearing in Bucks County on Dec. 3. On the bright side, she's been offered a pair of tickets to a weekend game in Philadelphia, courtesy of a radio station and car dealer.

"It definitely wasn't worth all this ... turmoil and anxiety," she told the AP with her lawyer and husband, 56-year-old John LaVoy, on the line. "Hopefully, the silver lining is I do get to see the game."