by Alexa Albert
How ironic that a casino czar should accuse the brothels of soiling Nevada’s image. Since the days of Bugsy Siegel (the notorious mobster who built Las Vegas’s first casino, the Flamingo Hotel), sex had been promoted as an essential accompaniment to gambling, from the lavish showgirl revues and provocatively dressed cocktail waitresses to the bell captains and pit bosses brokering sex between customers and house girls. Despite Wynn’s contention that his industry had been cleaned up and the casinos transformed into ideal family vacation spots, Las Vegas’s freelance sex market flourished, with 140 pages of the Las Vegas Yellow Pages devoted to “Entertainers”—much to the chagrin of the brothel industry, which was prohibited from advertising. But whereas the brothels drew men out of the casinos, the freelancers worked inside and kept gamblers on the premises. I suspected that what Wynn really disliked was the idea of losing customers to the legal brothels.
Economic arguments like Wynn’s met resistance primarily from rural legislators, who had their own fiscal reasons for endorsing legalized prostitution. In 1998, Nevada’s local governments received over $500,000 from brothel business licenses, liquor licenses, and work cards. This was over and above revenue from property taxes, initial investigation fees upon application for brothel licenses, and room and boarding licenses in certain counties. Storey County received $182,500 in revenue from its brothels, Mustang Ranch and Old Bridge Ranch, a sum amounting to almost 4 percent of the county’s total general fund.
Brothels also provided jobs. Mustang Ranch was Storey County’s third largest employer, after the Kal Kan dog food factory and the school district, and had an annual payroll of $1.3 million, employing seventy-five people in positions ranging from floor maids to maintenance helpers. Local suppliers who provided goods and services directly to the brothels all benefited financially, as did taxicab drivers. And the need for police expenditure on vice squads was largely eliminated, because illegal prostitution was virtually nonexistent in counties that permitted brothels.
More disputable, however, were claims by brothel members that legalized prostitution reduced the incidence of local sex crimes by offering potential perpetrators safe environments to act out aberrant sexual fantasies that might otherwise endanger the public. Women had told me about the men with pedophile fantasies who paid them to dress up and pretend to be little girls. My running partner Heather had a regular who asked her to pretend to be his daughter and say things like, “Fuck me, Daddy. I won’t tell Mommy.” She hoped that because he came to see her, he wouldn’t go out and molest a real child.
But others were more skeptical that the brothels could reduce child abuse and rape. According to Nevada Crime Statistics, the state experienced significantly higher rates of sex crimes than the rest of the nation throughout the 1990s.*
Brothel opponents like Wynn, O’Donnell, and Reese have accused the “influential and monied” Nevada Brothel Association (NBA) of propagating “self-serving” misinformation about the industry, making untrue claims that sex crimes had diminished and exaggerating the brothels’ economic impact. George Flint said he took offense at such allegations. The NBA never lobbied for legalized prostitution per se, he asserted. Instead, it took the libertarian position that brothels were age-old state institutions whose regulation was traditionally left to local governmental bodies. “All the bills that have been introduced tried to make prostitution illegal across the board,” George explained to me one afternoon in Mustang #1’s bar. “Nuts and bolts, bottom line, we say, That’s an impractical way for you to legislate, because even though there may be reasons to outlaw brothel prostitution in Washoe County, there may be reasons to keep it legal in another county.”
The history of George’s involvement with the brothel industry is instructive, because it also charts the ebb and flow of its opponents’ fortunes. A handful of brothel owners approached George in 1985 looking for a leader. Since relocating to Nevada from Oregon twenty years earlier and opening his wedding chapel, George had become a respected and effective lobbyist, first for the wedding chapel industry and later for other interest groups, including physicians and employment agencies. George had been well aware that the brothel industry had no “presence” in the legislature, except for Joe Conforte, who regularly made political campaign contributions to candidates statewide. When Rock Hudson’s death raised public awareness of AIDS, George predicted that the brothels would have to work in concert to protect their interests or risk losing the industry altogether.
Not all of George’s friends and colleagues in the legislature agreed that a brothel association would be a good thing. An association and lobbyist meant heightened visibility for a state institution that may have been tolerated but still carried with it considerable baggage. Sure, almost all professional and business groups had associations, politicians told George, from bankers and gamers to embalmers and funeral directors, but the brothels were different—they were whorehouses. But legislators were soothed by the notion of having George at the helm, a lobbyist they considered reasonable. “Lawmakers knew I wasn’t a flash in a pan,” said George. “They knew I wouldn’t go half-crazy and start marching hookers through the halls of the legislature.”
Aware of how controversial his new clients were, George approached lawmakers with caution. Thus his decision never to suggest to legislators that prostitution was good or that whorehouses should be more widely distributed. Instead, he took the position that lawmakers should continue respecting the state’s age-old belief in decentralized government, its emphasis on local control and personal liberties. This gave lawmakers a way to support his clients without appearing to be in favor of legalized prostitution. “Rather than come out openly as soft on prostitution or pro-brothel, legislators could say that local authorities are in a better position to make that decision,” George explained to me. “My goal as lobbyist is never to see a bill make it to the point where individual members, our friends, are embarrassed by having to take a public stand on the rise or fall of legalized prostitution.”
George was just as careful in doling out political contributions. Although most politicians were more than willing to accept money from the brothels, they preferred not to do so publicly. Because Nevada permits candidates to receive contributions of up to $500 without naming the donor publicly, George made all his political action contributions in checks of $500 or less. If the NBA wanted to give a senator a $2,000 contribution, George sent four checks, each for $500 from four different brothels. In the NBA’s first year, half a dozen checks were returned to George. In recent years, the number has dwindled to one or two.
When I told him that O’Donnell and Reese accused the NBA of “bribing” politicians, George raised his voice a decibel and told me that the brothels were no different from any other interest group that made political contributions, except that the NBA spent far less money than other industries, especially gaming. In 1996, the NBA contributed approximately $50,000 to legislators’ campaigns (nearly 60 percent coming from Mustang Ranch), while the gaming industry dispensed $800,000 to statewide legislative races. “It’s crude to say,” George added, “but at all levels of politics, money’s the name of the game. One hand washes the other. It’s that simple. The brothel business survives on politics, friendship, and political action contributions.”
I appreciated George’s shrewdness, but the fact that the executive director of the NBA felt it necessary to beat around the bush with legislators about a lawful profession bothered me. It seemed to me that the merits of legalized prostitution spoke for themselves, and that sidestepping the issue—making it one of political jurisdiction—undermined their validity.
But for the time being, Nevadans seemed to favor the status quo, or so said multiple public opinion polls. In a 1986 telephone survey of registered voters in northern Nevada, 66 percent said they believed the state should leave the right to legalize brothels with each county, letting voters have a direct say on the issue. As of the year 2002, only southeast Nevada’s Lincoln County had voted (by public
referendum) to repeal its existing law legalizing brothels. General opinion held that the brothels were tolerable, as long as they kept a low profile. What seemed to worry citizens were the brothels that became too well known, which usually happened when owners refused to remain discreet. The most notorious, of course, was Joe Conforte.
Even after getting brothel prostitution legalized in 1971, Conforte didn’t stop thumbing his nose at the establishment. A national folk hero of sorts, Conforte wallowed in the ensuing media attention, much to the chagrin of conservative Nevadans. In 1972, Rolling Stone magazine ran a cover story entitled “Joe Conforte, Crusading Pimp: A Concerned Citizen’s Fight to Keep Prostitutes Off the Streets of Nevada.” Long critical of flashy brothel publicity, the Reno Gazette-Journal published editorial after editorial condemning Conforte. (The newspaper, then named the Reno Evening Gazette, actually won a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1977 for a series of editorials on Joe Conforte, his Mustang Ranch brothel, and his alleged influence on Washoe County public officials.)
One editorial published in 1976 read, “If Conforte wishes to run a whorehouse, he can do it as everyone else does it: quietly. Conforte needs to get the message that Reno does not want him to ride in its parades, finance its bus lines, influence its politicians, or be front row center as the gamblers celebrate him with the best showroom tables.” (To curry favor, brothel owners have traditionally made donations ranging from uniforms for local Little League teams to bulletproof vests for county sheriff departments.)
A classic example of Conforte’s grandstanding was the time he showed off his patriotism by offering single servicemen stationed in the Persian Gulf free twenty-four-hour dates with Mustang prostitutes upon their return. Such a party normally cost about $1,000. “I’m going to give them the ultimate morale booster,” Conforte told the press. In the end, between 100 and 150 servicemen took advantage of Conforte’s offer. “He was such an animal for publicity,” George told me. “It didn’t make a difference whether he made a good impression or not, because Joe worked under the theory that any publicity was good publicity.”
But some kinds of publicity could be damaging, even to Conforte. In 1976, the Argentine heavyweight boxer Oscar Bonavena, once the world’s fifth-ranked contender (58 and 9, with 43 knockouts), was shot and killed in the parking lot of Mustang Ranch allegedly by Conforte’s bodyguard, Willard Ross Brymer. At the time, Mustang’s arsenal included two AR-15s, three 12-gauge shotguns, a Mace gun, and sidearms for all security guards. Rumor had it that Conforte had emerged from the brothel after the shooting and shouted, “Move this fucking bloody body from the door to my brothel!”*
Although Conforte was not implicated in the killing, he was assumed to have some connection to it, especially after the media unearthed evidence of an affair between Bonavena and Conforte’s wife. (Among other suspicious events, the body had been moved by the time the medical examiner arrived, so no firm conclusions could be drawn as to where the killer had stood.) Conforte took further heat when the ensuing criminal investigation was deemed insufficient because of his interference. Two grand jury investigations concluded that Conforte held “unusual influence and power” over county officials, naming the district attorney, Virgil Bucchianeri, and the sheriff, Bob Del Carlo, both of whom handled the Bonavena investigation. Conforte’s lavish entertaining, free brothel passes, and campaign contributions had corrupted county government, critics contended.
Conforte’s influence over county politics was due, in part, to his ability to tip elections. Allegedly, he had engineered a bloc of votes, the “river vote,” comprised of Mustang Ranch staff and prostitutes (whose legal residence may or may not have been in-county) and tenants in his Lockwood Mobile Home Park, a community of ninety-four low-rent trailers and single-family houses that he had developed. Storey County had only 2,500 residents, and fewer than 1,500 registered voters, so Conforte controlled nearly 20 percent of the votes.
Conforte made it his business to volunteer his two cents about candidates when he accompanied prostitutes to the polling place and visited Lockwood residents before elections with a bottle of whiskey under one arm and a turkey under the other: early “Christmas presents.” Conforte fooled no one, said George. “But they [the tenants] were also paying him a mere thirty-five dollars a month in rent. And having Joe in your living room was such an honor, the people loved it.” Besides, Conforte didn’t try to hide his agenda. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he once told a reporter. “I go around the trailer park and tell the people, ‘Look you’ve got two candidates. Now I think this one is pro-prostitution, this one is not, and I would like you to vote for this one.’ But where is the law against that?”
Conforte was finally brought down by the most commonplace of crimes: tax evasion. From the beginning, he had evaded paying taxes, soon attracting the IRS’s attention and ultimately bogging down the courts with appeals of his convictions for tax evasion. When his appeals finally ran out, Conforte fled to Brazil to avoid imprisonment. He returned in 1983 as part of a federal plea bargain to testify against his former attorney, U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne; Conforte claimed that Claiborne accepted an $85,000 bribe from him.
But Conforte’s problems with the IRS weren’t over. They came to a head in 1990 when he purposely defaulted on his monthly interest payments on the IRS’s tax liability, and the IRS seized Mustang Ranch. The tax agency briefly considered running the brothel, but decided to sell it after the federal government became the butt of late-night television one-liners, with jokes poking fun at “Uncle Sam the pimp.” When the property sold at auction for $1.49 million to a Victor Perry—who happened, not coincidentally, to be the brother of Conforte’s personal lawyer—Conforte was hired as a consultant to oversee day-to-day operations. In 1991, he announced his retirement and once again fled the country to avoid further charges of tax evasion. (As of 2002, Conforte remains a fugitive, hiding out in South America. He even missed his wife Sally’s funeral in 1993.)
But even as a fugitive, Conforte was by no means out of the picture. George received static-filled telephone calls from him at all hours; Conforte usually used a phone card and called from a pay phone to avoid having his exact whereabouts traced. Occasionally, George held the receiver up to my ear so I could hear Conforte’s husky Mafioso-like voice ranting about the newest injustice obstructing his return to America. Mostly, Conforte wanted to hear news about Mustang. He also liked to huff and puff and bark orders for George and other old friends to carry out. When he was overtaxed by Conforte’s incessant demands, George would avoid his calls for a couple of days.*
Conforte’s exile came at a time when the industry was witnessing the emergence of a new breed of owners, more conventional businessmen who knew that political action contributions and lobbying efforts were all part of the game. But these new owners also posed dangers to the industry, as Conforte had once prophesied before his flight. When George first signed on as the brothels’ lobbyist, Conforte took him aside to warn, “The one thing you’ve got to know is we’ve got a lot of squares getting into the business. They’ve got to understand that we’re not selling cough drops, we’re selling pussy. A lot of what works when you’re selling cough drops doesn’t work in our business.” Still, neophytes could make a success.
Russ Reade was a case in point. A biology and sociology teacher at a small high school in northern California, Reade had burned out over his fifteen-year career, frustrated by the low pay and inadequate spending on department supplies. An advertisement in The Wall Street Journal in 1982, sandwiched between brokerage ads and stock quotes, attracted him and his business partner. It read: “Good cash flow, legal in Nevada.”
All Reade knew about Nevada brothels came from a visit to Conforte’s Wadsworth brothel in the early 1960s with a group of football players from the University of Nevada–Reno who were intent on recruiting Reade from Santa Rosa Junior College. “They wanted me to see some of the perks of living in Nevada. I was standoffish. I was too concerned about ven
ereal disease. Condoms were not required then.”
Reade and his partner spent six months doing research before buying the advertised brothel, the Chicken Ranch, for $1.25 million. (Today, brothel price tags vary from $200,000 to $4 million.) Although it was the closest brothel to Vegas, the Chicken Ranch was still a good distance away, fifty-five miles away, to be exact, outside the Nye County town of Pahrump. More remote than the Mustang, the Chicken Ranch drew fewer customers per day but made up for it because they were big spenders. The day I visited, women were turning one $1,000 trick after another. (Mustang parties averaged about $350.) The cab ride from Vegas alone cost over $200, so fewer barflies wasted prostitutes’ time.
Reade’s departure from teaching hadn’t exactly been seamless. When he disclosed his intentions to colleagues—he had asked for a leave of absence, in case his new career didn’t work out—the school board threatened to fire him and revoke his teaching certificate. His unusual career change made the San Francisco Chronicle, and the school superintendent became enraged and asked Reade what sort of role model he thought he was being for children. But Reade had always been a beloved teacher, and nearly two-thirds of the students signed a petition expressing their support. They presented it to the school board under the name “The Immoral Majority.”
Sixteen years later, Reade was now fifty-eight years old, a fit man with salt-and-pepper hair and a Tom Selleck mustache; he still looked more like an all-American high school football star–turned–teacher than a brothel owner. He doubted whether any PTA would allow him to teach again, but he professed no regrets, having found an occupation that tripled his income.