An unemployed Manhattan man was having lunch Wednesday with a German woman interested in buying one of his kidneys for $25,000 after the man advertised that he was "desperate" and willing to part with an organ.
Thomas Frey, 28, a college educated former dispatcher for a Manhattan messenger service, said he took out the advertisement in the free weekly newspaper the New York Press after other publications, including New York magazine and the Village Voice, rejected it."Desperate. Will sell kidney or lung. $25,000 each," the ad says before giving Frey's phone number.
"You can sell sperm for money, you can sell blood for money," Frey said Wednesday. "I can live the rest of my life with one kidney."
He said a German woman had called him about the offer, saying her doctor has told her she needs a kidney transplant within a year.
"I'm having lunch today with her and her lawyer," said Frey, who added that he had a few other offers in his bid to get out from under $20,000 in debt in one shot.
"She's willing to give me $25,000. I'll be on top of the world," he said.
"I'm going to be rid of the creditors, I'm going to be clean, but then I'll have to deal with the Attorney General. I have a feeling they'll want to make hay out of this."
Judy Doesschate, an attorney for the state Health Department, said he might be right, considering that a 1985 law makes it a misdemeanor offense, punishable by up to a year in prison, to knowingly sell a human organ.
"I'm not aware of any other transactions like this coming to our attention," she said. "It would appear to violate the law."
Frey said he has used up his unemployment benefits and has been out of work for a year, but that selling an organ would allow him to wipe his financial slate clean.
"I'm about to go to a shelter and become a degenerate or commit a crime which I don't want to do," he said. "I want to be a good citizen and pay my debts."