Their professions read like a roll call of respectability - several lawyers, a surgeon, a doctor, two dentists, two college professors, a teacher and a financial adviser are among their ranks, all based in affluent suburbia east of New York.

But their police mugshots have been released on a "wall of shame" after more than 100 men were arrested for soliciting sex from undercover officers in Nassau county on Long Island.

A US defence lawyer has spoken of lives ruined by alleged police entrapment and several wives have consulted divorce lawyers.

But Kathleen Rice, the district attorney for Nassau county, defended the "name and shame" tactic of the prostitution sting, "Operation Flush the Johns".