LETTER TO CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY

As the founder of the modern day sex trafficking movement itself I'd like to weigh in.

Going back in history I take you to 1980. This is when Linda Lovelace released the book “'Ordeal”. This outlined the film “Deep Throat” was made with mob financing, and she was forced to be in the film with her pimp pointing a gun at her from off camera. Now the anti-porn people scooped her up to be their “poster child” to outlaw porn instead of changing the working conditions on porn sets so this type of thing couldn't happen again. Her statements were fought harshly by the porn industry who obviously had an “image” to protect. To point out many “loved” making these types of films – they pulled out Marilyn Chambers to counter Linda in the press as making porn films “voluntarily”. The pimp, Chuck Traynor, had moved on to now “manage” Marilyn who was now making these claims. Of course she was also promoting her film at the same time. So the more she talked about “loving it' – the more money she also made.

Now that she's deceased – I can point out from behind the scenes the public may not be aware Chuck was controlling Marilyn through her drug addiction. If she wanted that next “fix” - then she was going to play along and smile while she made more movies. Those who wanted to work in the industry again whether that be as a cameraman, sound, lighting, make-up, etc. also kept their mouths shut or defended the industry fiercely. I point this out for a couple of reasons. That being you aren't going to find out the “truth” about an industry while the person you're asking is still financially dependent upon that industry or if interviewed while their boss is still standing there. Those who wanted to keep working in porn during this time period with Marilyn – kept their mouths shut. But I ask you if you consider her making the films because of her drug addiction “voluntarily”?

Would it matter of Marilyn was a secretary who was using her paycheck to buy drugs? I contrast the story of these two women to illustrate my point. By having this discussion in this manner we are viewing the sex industry as different than any industry. The reality is, like it or not, it is an industry. As any industry, there are going to be people being forced to work there by human traffickers. I don't care if that industry is blood diamonds, farming, hotels, meat packing, a legal brothel in Nevada or a porn set in Canoga Park. There will be some elements of human trafficking, as well as some who are there by force caused by drug addiction, mental illness and/or not having other economic choices. The problems come when we stop looking at this like the industry it is because the work involves sex.

But an industry it is – and a big one. I point to the Tobacco Industry. Now did we know the truth about tobacco even from so called “experts” until the truth was leaked to us by an “insider”? An insider who was severely threatened about his life and also his career? I say this because if the tobacco industry was going to lie to the public, and even bring in experts also to congressional hearings to claim their product was “not addictive” and did not “cause cancer” - then do you really think that the truth about the sex industry is all that easy to get at? Meaning outsiders don't know the truth. Those working in the industry actively are going to say what it takes to keep working in that industry. But only those who have been in this industry and who have now LEFT will be able to give you honest perspectives.

Remember, sex work is more than just prostitution also. The sex industry includes stripping, webcam studios, phone sex, pornography production both still photos and video, legal brothels in Nevada, sex clubs such as the Green Door, dungeons, fetish work such as “smashing”, and even “peep shows” where you pay to watch other people or even simply talking to you. It even includes sites such as “Sugar Daddy” where one pays by the month rather than the hour. Which is why I've refused to agree with certain people who want to call “sex work” as “rape”.

Rape implies intercourse. However, there are many types of businesses within the industry that do not involve physical intercourse. Let's take companies who sell “dirty underwear” for example or even being a “madam”. There's also “house mothers” who manage the strippers in a club and the women who handle the phone dispatching for the escort services. Just as rape appears to be about sex on the surface – so too does the sex industry also have that appearance yet deception.

Which is why I argue with those who insist sex work is about “what goes on between two consenting adults” as men like David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer like to fall back upon when caught with a prostitute. The minute you CHARGE for something it no longer is a private sexual act. As an example, I can serve food out of my kitchen day and night if I want to. No one should be able to stop me. But the minute I CHARGE for this food – then I become subject to the laws that govern a commercial kitchen and/or restaurant. The same holds true when “commercializing” the sexual acts in various forms.

Which also brings up the issue of “conflict of interest”. Meaning if I'm a health inspector for restaurants – then should I be the one who is in charge of judging my competitors, as well as my own restaurant? Wouldn't that “conflict of interest” possibly color my reports to try and run my competitors out of business while protecting my own? Which is why I draw a very severe line when it comes to people within law enforcement, politics, and even the media being in positions of power with respect to the sex industry while also purchasing, and/or selling, it's products. I ask you – would we as the general public really hear the truth about the industry while men like Steve Sassa was the CEO of Hearst Media? Further, is Eliot Spitzer going to be someone a victim of trafficking can turn to if he's more concerned with protecting his own family and career over the victims' needs?

Which is why I think the issue of writing laws with respect to the sex industry and/or trafficking works both ways. I think those who are involved in some fashion need to disclose this fact when involved in the issue of writing laws. Just as I would expect that if one was writing laws with respect to the tobacco industry it should be disclosed if one owns a tobacco company at the same time or even smokes. For that reason, I invite those hearing this letter to state their relationship with the sex industry for the record.

So we need to look at the providers, as well as the law makers, the customers and even the general public when it comes to the issue of “prostitution” vs. “trafficking” in order to understand it. When it came to Linda's claims the general public wasn't ready to believe they had “partied” to a film where they were watching a woman being forced to have sex at gunpoint. So they shouted out at her on talk shows “liar” and “boo'd” her to not accept her story. Her pimp had kicked her a lot, and she'd done a lot of drugs – so the touring to do public speaking to try and outlaw porn took it's toll. She needed money for a transplant. The porn industry had turned on her feeling “betrayed” she revealed secrets about them while the anti-porn people abandoned her once she was no longer useful.

Needing $10,000 for a transplant – Linda actually returned to the industry “voluntarily” to make another XXX film. The industry then used that to claim that NO ONE was forced to make films and her statements were false. I think Linda's story told us about the issues of “force” vs. “non-force” very well with respect to the porn industry when at one point she was not the one consenting vs. the time when she was. But because of the way she had told her story – it changed nothing so that others could be prevented from being forced to work in the industry as she once had been. She had focused on trying to stamp out the industry rather than in improving the working conditions in other words to ensure sex work was consensual. That is why she failed – and we need to learn from her mistake.

Having in the back of my mind how the public didn't believe her claims, and also remembering how everyone wrote off her story as being about “selling a book” - I had to think about the public's lack of belief in 1983 when I set up what was the “first adult safe house”. If you look at the clips at www.hightechmadam.com you'll see what was called a “brothel two blocks from the Van Nuys police station”. Only it talks about how it was a warehouse, and had “high tech security equipment” which included iron bars, and a CCTV system.

 The reason I got a warehouse is so that if shots were fired – innocent children wouldn't be hit. It was by the police station to deter a lot of attacks and the cameras were to record what went down if the men who would sometimes attack the warehouse with AK47's ever got in – I figured that the film would at least be found back at my home if we were ever murdered. Something I had seen happen during the crazy cocaine days back then.

Which safe house illustrates why no one stepped up to stop Linda from being forced. If they had stepped up because this film was mob financed – there was no where to run for safety before I had opened that first “safe house”. Which is why when considering”consent” one must also consider who is the “employer”. Because the film was a mob film - quitting wasn't an option.

I don't know if you've seen movies like “Charlie's War” or “Cocaine Cowboys” or even “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” but I was dealing with sex trafficking on many levels in the sex industry back in Los Angeles in the 1980's. We had the cousins who were dubbed the “Hillside Strangler” by the media who in reality started out as two pimps. They would kidnap woman right off the street – rape, beat, torture them – and then once done with them they'd lock them in a motel room where they're pimp them for a few weeks before letting them go.

Why? Because to quote one cop “the word of a whore is worthless to get a warrant”. Predators knew this – so the best way to make the world not care about us and our word “worthless” was to turn their victims into “prostitutes”. They of course escalated into murder. But the police didn't really go after them until they started murdering”non-prostitutes”. That needs to change also.

Which is why the sex industry has more trafficking victims inside of it than say the Tobacco industry – because people's view of it as something “sexual” vs. just being an “industry” means those in that industry are not given the full protections under the law that are afforded people in other industries.

Let's look at an enterprise that was “trafficking” vs. “sex work” or even “pimping”. Chuck Barris was producing “The Dating Game” while also acting as a CIA agent. Back then we didn't have the internet, video phones, etc. To get film of beautiful women – they were taken into casting auditions. Those who had no family, and no one to ask questions about their disappearance – had paperwork arranged for them to go on “dates” in other countries that no one ever thought to follow up on who didn't return.

Other attractive women found during scouting were encouraged to register to work at an escort service being run by LAPD called “Talk of the Town” on the set. Their “hourly” rate as escorts was then billed as “extra's” or “model's”. Now you can imagine trying to tell someone about this – and you'd see what I mean about how people would think you were “crazy”. But this was sex trafficking – and something we needed to have this country recognize as such to help women. While what Chuck did was PIMPING – what Barris did was TRAFFICKING.

Now in the 1970's and 80's Linda could have called 911 for help with her pimp and received it. No – I take that back. While the laws were on the books to have theoretically helped her had she called the truth is if she had called then the police, the courts, shelters, victim assistance programs, etc. would have refused to help her then because she was a “prostitute”. That's because we apply the law differently in this country depending on how we feel morally about the victim. Which again becomes the issue that changing the law here isn't the answer. The laws exist already. The problem is when it's not being applied because of the victim being a “prostitute”. Meaning that one step to helping this situation is to start applying our laws, and offering resources, no matter who the victim, or the job, is.

Who would not have been helped back then was victims of this whole network involving Chuck Barris, the Dating Game, and Talk of the Town. I had tried going to the police who said no laws were on the books to be able to help these women. To cope with the stress of this – the mental health system was also ill-equipped then to help us victims. So this whole situation here was why I had to set up that warehouse for victims we had helped escape the situation because these were some seriously “bad dudes” for one. Especially because they were (1) men within our own government, (2) men who were our own law enforcement, and (3) men who were rich, powerful, and famous. We've seen an example of how rape could go on right under everyone's noses with Bill Cosby. Well this is how sex trafficking continues to go on operating right under everyone's noses as well.

Now as long as this country keeps trying to address pimping and trafficking as the same as prostitution AND trying to exclude “us” from being involved in the process of fighting it as survivors – you are endangering this movement to fail again just as it did with the Mann Act.

Yes we also had Iran Contra going on then – meaning the CIA was the ones bringing the cocaine into this country to generate “off the books” cash which was used to buy guns for the Contra's. The gangs were used to process the drug, then it was mixed with heroin and sold through the crack houses in south central Los Angeles. To get the drug however into the parties of the Hollywood elite – it was put into the purses of high-priced escorts who were dispatched into “high society” through the three madams who ran Los Angeles back then. The three was Alex, the Beverly Hills Madam, Cheri, who was the Hollywood Madam, and then myself, who was dubbed the “High Tech Madam”.

Because LA was having the largest number of serial killings of prostitutes in history at this time – Hillside Stranglers, Southside Slayers, Night Stalker, Green River Killer, Grim Reaper, etc. - and we couldn't turn to the police for help nor was the internet born yet then – I had found a way to eliminate cash through an office I used to as a “front” to be able to not only be able to take credit cards – but also to protect our security. For this reason, the other madams would screen potential clients through our security to make sure they weren't cops or maniacs by paying a “screening fee” and also I'd set up the warehouse for adults where they wouldn't be safe in a motel or a shelter. Meaning there was a difference being “pimping” and offering “security” for a community who can't turn to outside agencies for help. I bring this up because I'm seeing a lot of attacking upon the screening used in the sex industry as being the “pimping” because non-survivors don't understand the sex industry.

So back then I was seeing all types of sex work as well as all types of sex trafficking and pimping. I was also seeing the difference between “security” and “pimping” of which there is also a difference. There is a difference between a pimp and prostitute working together on Hollywood Boulevard to support a drug habit and men within our CIA who would come asking if I knew of a woman who I'd sell them for $25,000. A woman who had no one to ask questions back here if she went missing who they would give to a drug dealer to play with or a wealthy Saudi who liked “white girls” to seal an oil deal. Just as there was a difference between a network of traffickers who were behind women like Linda – who were taken from town to town to be sold as a prostitute, stripper, porn performer – any which way that product could be sold. If those women tried to leave – not only was their lives threatened but also their families. What's worse – others in the industry were threatened also.

With all of this in mind – you have to take into consideration in the early 1980's society didn't believe trafficking even existed. The prostitute back then was viewed solely as either a “criminal” or “sexual deviant” or even a “health threat”. Which is how it usually broke down then – the cops thought of us as criminals, the therapists thought we had a sexual addiction, and the churches viewed us as “home wreckers” and “health threats”.

So much so that in 1986 there was actually a Bill considered to put prostitutes on an “island to quarantine them from society”. That was another reason I stepped up in 1987 to launch this movement was that whole push where we were being viewed as a “threat to public health” and people were actually talking about rounding us up and putting us on an island! What people didn't seem to understand is that many of the HIV positive prostitutes who were out there continuing to prostitute didn't want to be there –their pimps were forcing them to be there. But another thing that concerned me with this quarantine bill was when law makers were talking about “us” like we weren't members of society. A “tone” of which I'm seeing a lot of now in the movement which also concerns me.

So when I stepped up on that first talk show stage in 1987 – it was to (1) promote the first hotline to have people call when they needed help to leave for whatever reason, (2) let people know we had a 12 step program for their recovery and where we would believe them about their experiences, (3) call out our society to change the way it viewed this situation so that we could start getting the help we needed properly for whatever our needs were. I say that because I'd been working towards my psychology degree back then also – and the only bits I could find in the textbooks only seemed to be a tiny blurb about the “junkie prostitute” type of character. Meaning even our educational system has to change.

Which was another one of my bones to pick – the whole time I'd been in the sex industry I had never drank nor did drugs. Yet every time I'd try and find help to leave the industry – I kept butting up against the perception we were all junkie prostitutes. Yet here I was driving up to my $250 an hour therapy sessions in my Mercedes 450SL while living south of the Boulevard in a house with view of LA. When I was arrested and the police came and confiscated my cars, furs, jewelry and cash – I want you to know I was just as much of a “trafficking victim” as the next one who might be forced to work in some Mexican border cantina handcuffed to the bar. So these stereotypes I've been seeing lately in the media about victims only appearing to look like street prostitutes and junkies concerns me. I want you to realize that I was a trafficking victim and so was Jeane Palfrey – so determining who is what isn't something so easy to do nor to do at a first glance and does require a trained eye.

The only way I could see to convince America to set up a system where victims of operations like Chuck Barris' was running was to first get them to believe me. I watched how Linda hadn't been believed – and used that to work from. She had started out by trying to sell her story in a book. So I then deliberately didn't “sell a book” or “make a movie” when I started speaking out in 1987. So this meant I kept the contracts that came in after I was arrested. When I reached a $1,000,000 in offers I went onto a Joan Rivers' show and showed them to the audience. I then ripped them up (while Joan pretended to faint). I said to Joan and the audience – I needed them to BELIEVE me more than I needed money. I could get money by going back into sex work. Meaning understand that I don't think we've even be talking about this issue had I not done things like this which cost me a great deal of money as you can imagine. Because not only did I refuse these offers – but I further had to spend over $400,000 of my own money to do work for these calling our hotline because we didn't get federal recognition until 2000. Meaning everything was coming out of my pocket back then and that this a movement I've heavily invested in and sacrificed for. Which is why I'm going to hope you're listening.

Now realize our hotline was the first ever promoted nationally for adults from any part of the sex industry, male or female, whether trafficked or not. Realize the term “sex trafficking” wasn't even coined until the Trafficking Act of 2000. Meaning from 1987 until 2000 – we didn't even know that word. But to give you a perspective on my experience on this issue – the National Trafficking Hotline has answered about 100,000 phone calls to date. Our hotline in contrast has answered about 500,000 calls. Meaning I don't know anyone who has talked to more people in more of a wide variety of situations than myself. This I believe gives me a very unique perspective when it comes to advising lawmakers on the issue of sex work and/or sex trafficking. So granted this letter is long – but I'm also giving you a much wider view on this issue than the story you're going to hear over and over again.

I'm doing this because I don't want to see what we did with the Mann Act repeated. Something I see we're very dangerously close to. I bring this up because the Mann Act was well-intentioned. The problem was however the lawmakers then didn't sit down and work with law enforcement about what it meant. Nor did the law makers give the cops any way to really carry out the law. Meaning the Mann Act was about women who were being brought in from other countries to staff massage parlors basically. However, the only two men arrested on the Mann Act after it was passed was two African American males who married white women. Of course the media back lashed about it – and basically laughed the law right out existence.

To not repeat what happened with the Mann Act – we have to bring this conversation back around to putting real live survivors, and the founder of this movement, back on the discussion table. The fact no one thought to include us to this discussion shows a fatal gap exists in this current movement that if not repaired does endanger it. As well we need bring back into focus what some of the original key points of the movement was about. We also have got to start talking about what modern day sex trafficking is in this country that I'm not seeing. I'm seeing a huge explosion of images of street prostitution being paraded around as “sex trafficking” in the media lately. I can assure you it's different and I can also assure you that I've been trying to get people within the trafficking arenas to talk to me about a case of modern day sex trafficking for YEARS NOW and I can't get so much as a return phone call.

First thing needs to be addressed is when a victim calls 911 for help SHE WOULD without any discussions about whether she's a “victim” or a “prostitute” or a “sex worker” be able to get help. To make these distinctions reminds me way too much of how in other countries you have to prove you fought “hard enough” against the rape. Again, these issues are much like we went through with rape and domestic violence back during the days when society didn't believe date or spousal rape was rape.

Meaning why I'm getting very concerned about all this emphasis on how someone has to cry “I'm a victim” in order to be receiving help in this current climate. Think about it – to call the National Trafficking Hotline right now you have to cry “victim”. Meaning that right now the ONLY hotline where one can call for help to simply leave sex work, whether trafficked or not, whether prostitution or not and WITHOUT CRYING “VICTIM” – is ours. Also, this movement is failing when our hotline is also the only one for victims to call when law enforcement is involved in the trafficking which is most of the time in reality.

One of the biggest reasons we've had to fight people in this movement through the ACLU vs. Catholic Bishops and the Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society is because the church is pushing to limit help only to heterosexual women who have engaged in illegal prostitution who are showing “remorse” by crying “victim”. They are turning this into an abortion issue when it's not. But because we have insisted on making help available to anyone, for any reason, from any part of the industry, who may simply just want to “leave” - this is why certain people been trying to push us out of our own movement.

This tunnel vision that's crept into this movement to only focus in on the prostitute, vs. those in the sex industry as a whole, concerns me . So to the emphasis on only those engaged in illegal prostitution. The way people are being “cherry picked” as to who is a “victim” who isn't deeply troubles me. It's sending a message that help and protection is only available to someone engaged in illegal prostitution as well only someone crying “victim”. It's also excluding the males, transgenders, the LGBT, and those who may be Jewish, Buddist or atheist. That type of focus has been what's destroyed this movement every time in the past and is about to destroy it now. To further only be offering help to those who are arrested makes about as much sense as screening for cancer by looking at the list of who was arrested today for speeding. Trafficking exists within the LEGAL sex industry just as much as the illegal.

You also don't “end demand” for sex trafficking by arresting men trying to buy sex. They are apples and oranges. Most “johns” don't knowingly buy a man, woman or child, they think was forced. Most customers don't go “oh gee I need to find someone who is forced to have sex with me to give money to their pimp today. So limiting who you're offering help to offering it only to people who can call for help is almost an oxymoron. It's like saying you're only going to sell brake jobs to owners of brand new cars. Because if the victim can call a number and say “I need help” then they aren't in the position of needing help to escape trafficking. If you want to call it “ending demand for prostitution” fine. But these people have got to stop calling it “ending demand for trafficking victims” because it's actually siphoning resources away from the real steps it takes to do that job.

Which brings me to these “billboard campaigns”. Do you want to know where this whole “billboard” idea came from by the way? The very first committee we were on put together by Tom Bradley had set aside $30,000 to put up bus stop signs. I had asked for $30,000 to buy a van to go and pick up the men and women who were being released before they hit the “bottom of the hill” where the pimps picked them up after being released. The money was given to the signs because the guy OWNED A SIGN COMPANY. When I found out I marched into Bradley's office and resigned. I told him “not one person is going to be helped by those signs but a van could have changed things”. At the end of the year, when they saw the signs weren't helping anyone – I got call from Tom to “come back”. So that's what started this whole billboard thing – people who had no idea how to do sex industry outreach.

On the other hand, Bob Herbert, who used to have a column with the NY Times, wrote a couple of articles after interviewing me in Vegas. In one of them he actually verified what I was saying by DUPLICATING what I told him to do. He went into a random club first of all. Then he picked a random dancer. He says by doing what we told him – he found a woman saying she “wanted out”. Meaning in 15 minutes Bob found a trafficking victim he was able to help and send home by listening to us. Yet when the ATLAS program was opened in 2007 and their director reported at the end of the year helping ZERO victims. Our hotline however had processed over 300 calls from Nevada alone that year. For $870,000 they got in grant money for the year - that's a crime. But this is happening each and every time we've been excluded from the table.

ESPECIALLY since I'm not saying what I'm saying to try and obtain a federal grant or hold a fund raiser. As a 12 step program I do not solicit federal grants nor do I hold “fund raisers”. I've also been clean from all drugs and from all forms of the sex industry since 1985. I'm not on any type of psychiatric medications, no “medical marijuana” and I'm not a paid lobbyist. I hold no job within this industry I'm trying to protect nor advance my “career” either. I'm not trying to “start a house”.

Meaning what you hear when you hear me speaking about this industry is in fact pretty much therefore an “unbiased” opinion that is not being motivated by the idea of a paycheck at the end nor an advance to my career. I'm also saying not just because we've worked for so long with so many – that means nothing. But because our work has been EFFECTIVE. But since that guy who wanted to use that committee to line his own pockets – I've been seeing people come in trying to exploit this movement for their own purposes and it's threatening the movement.

I say that because I've read many a “report” lately where the groups being listed on that report as “contributors” were standing in line for government grants or using this platform to advance their careers. I mean do you know how many politicians I've seen come in waving the trafficking banner for a year, advance their careers, and then they're gone. That's not helping us! Which means also guess what? What I'm saying might be different than everyone else right now in line who is trying to open a house, get a grant, or advance their careers on the back of this movement – and for good reason!

Now we had to address the issue of “force” in our early meetings of Sex Workers Anonymous. Some were coming in having been pimped by street pimps while others were driving up in BMW's and living in mansions. We had madams, porn performers, strip club owners, pimps, and prostitutes from both the legal and illegal sides of the fence coming to our meetings. SWA has also had members who were drug addicts – and those who never used at all. Some members had pimps and some didn't. Some were trafficked – not pimped.

I can tell you Jeane Palfrey, who was dubbed the DC Madam, was someone who spoke about being “trafficked” while she was in our program. A fact she was trying to get across by releasing the names in her “Black Book”. Unlike what many think – she was not trying to release names of “johns” but trying to reveal the same type of trafficking that I had witnessed, as well as madams like Alex and even Heidi Fleiss witnessed. She was trying to show “proof” of who it is some of the victims are having to be helped to escape from – men pretty high up without our political, legal and even celebrity status. The fact she was murdered before she could testify at the ethics hearing to this speaks volumes!

Let me contrast with you for a moment. Let's take a street drug addict's type of drug usage and the drug dealer who is going to sell him $10 worth of crack. Then let's talk about the dealer who deals in “keys” of cocaine that he has to carry around in his gym bag. Up another level to a group of dentists I knew who banded together to get the paper done that brought in a large shipment of cocaine which they wrote on their paperwork was for their dental surgeries. Then contrast with the people I saw bringing in illegal cocaine on a boat right past the coast guard. This coke was in boxes which we then packed onto a truck I drove because they said “no one was going to stop a white girl”. This coke hadn't even been processed yet and had to be taken next to a chemist. Now liken this to the sex industry and trafficking and you have an idea about the many layers that exist within this world.

Layers that I'm not seeing addressed in this movement yet. Something I was trying to change when I started going on TV telling my stories, and well as bringing on other women into the media like Jeane Palfrey, Brandy Britton, etc. wasn't trying to convince people that pimps existed. They already knew that. What I was trying to raise awareness of was the fact that there is also a trafficking network run by people in power over us. So when Jeane came forward with names like Randall Tobias in her “black book”– she was setting the stage to reveal how this tied into TRAFFICKING – not as “johns”.

Because Jeane had seen the same thing that I'd seen, Alex had seen, Heidi Fleiss had seen, and even Kristin Davis had seen – which is men within our own government using the madams as pawns in a trafficking network where prostitutes were used to milk secrets out of men, blackmail men, set them up, etc. Further, we could not leave or refuse what we were asked to do. When we each were asked to do something we just couldn't live with ourselves if we did – we each found ourselves arrested, publicly shamed, then our lives “glamorized” in the media in what we believe is these men trying to push a “successor” forward they might be able to get more “play” out, and the cycle continues.

When Alex refused – I was flushed forward. When I refused, Heidi was flushed forward. After this, Jeane was flushed forward. This was “pre-internet” so the process has changed some since – but that's the way it was done pre-1995. Afterwards – if it appears we're going to “talk” about what we knew - we'd found dead hung somewhere like what happened with Jeane. The others take their money to make their “Movies of the Week” and keep their mouths shut about the whole story. Only Jeane had hoped to get the “whole story” out, pocket Larry Flynt's million, and have her movie be about not prostitution – but about how our government had been using her, and these escorts like Brady Britton, in their high levels deals that I can show you about over and over again now in the news as “real”.

Which once we got “federal recognition” for being “real” in 2000 – I have to admit I had no idea how fast this would be hijacked. Hijacked by people who want to turn this whole thing into a way to create more fodder to target lower-income minorities, and tear these families apart while throwing most of the family either in jail and/or foster services. This we've witnessed in the projects like Project Rose, Division 17, the NY Trafficking Network, etc., that came out once it became something where one could get paid. The police now go out and round up prostitutes in the same identical manner as the sweeps they've always done only instead of being called “sweeps” it's called “rescue”.

In the meantime, I've been knocking on doors for a couple of years now about the same network operating right now across the USA where the victims' can't speak out for help themselves because of who they're being threatened by and how. In this network, the people involved are also involved within law enforcement, and the trafficking “task forces”, and in some cases even Internal Affairs. Leaving me with no idea who to turn to in order to get help for the victims of this ring. In Wichita, Kansas, a few women were “freed” who then thanked the court for this freedom. Granted the judge, and arresting officer have received death threats for their trouble – but the women were freed.

That said the evidence of this can be used to go after the very heads of this operation. RICO was written because of criminal operations – you can take a few people out but the machine still continues. Well the machine is continuing and everyone is so busy chasing after street prostitutes – that I can't get anyone to sit down with me to look at this trafficking network because it involves looking at our own legal and political system. Problem is – that's the only way it's going to get done. If you're ready to take that on – and help build a system that truly addresses sex trafficking, and pimping, in all it's forms then please get in touch with me. Thank you for listening.

Jody Williams

www.sexworkersanonymous.com (702) 468-4529 Telephone