CIA & Las Vegas - Ken Waither, Steve Schorr and Tom Ragan

Early May of 2015 I got a phone call from a man who said his name was Ken Waither.  Here's an article on him.  http://lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/22/spies-valley/  On the phone he sounded friendly and said since he's retired he's gotten very interested in sex trafficking in Nevada.  He said he wanted to meet for coffee.  I was driving from Vegas to Los Angeles at the time and said I would be back in a few days and we could talk then.  However, I tried to get him to talk to me on the phone and he was unresponsive pretty much.  In my experience when someone wants to "meet you for coffee" but doesn't want to talk too much on the phone - there's something they want to say to you they want to be careful it's not recorded.


As we were talking, he commented on how I had over 1500 "friends" on my Linkedin profile.  So clearly this guy has done his homework on me before calling.  Homework meaning that certainly he must know I co-wrote "Trafficking in Nevada - Making the Connections" released to international press in 2007.  http://www.apatraumadivision.org/program/2007_trafficking/farley_slides.pd   fCertainly then he must know I was the ONLY group doing rescues out of the legal Nevada brothels starting in 1988 when we did our first rescue of a woman who Joe Conforte had brought onto a Sally Jesse Raphael show with him.  After taping the show - she ran up to me begging to get her "out of there" saying Joe had drugged her, then forced her at gunpoint onto a private plane to bring her to the show to say what she had said.  We did get her out of there and the word spread from there.  The women aren't allowed to walk out on foot, they can't order a cab, and the police won't help them.  So I moved to Nevada specifically so I could physically go and pick these women up from the brothels when they'd call.


Nevada also has the WORST sex trafficking in the USA, and I'll tell you why.  The legal age is 15 contrary to the 18 years of age most people take for granted in other states.   Which means technically a 16 year old can strip as long as alcohol is not served in the bar.   It's also why Dennis Hof advertises in cities like Oakland.  Why Kemp Schieff used to traffick girls in from Oakland into Nevada.   Now they can't work legally at the brothel until 18 years old - so many work the streets up in Carson City, Reno area until they're of legal age.  Which means you can't just pick up a 16 or 17 year old in Nevada because they're of legal age and put them into juvenile services or drag them back home unless there's a warrant.


Anyway, I digress.  As we talk on the phone - I try to get him to "talk" to me but I'm not getting anywhere.  However, he starts telling me that they're putting together an event in Las Vegas in April and he invites me to "give him some flyers" that he can "put out on the tables".  Okay sounds good - what event?  He starts telling me that they are spending a fortune bringing "in speakers from all over the country".   Okay I'm waiting for my invite - and I hear nothing.  Now mind you I've spoken at events like the National Council on Sexual Addiction, Sexaholics Anonymous, even a Narcotics Anonymous world convention to standing applause - and again I've been working with the local Nevada victims and prostitutes since 1995.  I'm not hearing an invite.   But I am hearing money being spent to bring in out of state speakers.


However, answering our national hotline I can assure you that Nevada is a whole other animal when it comes to sex trafficking than anywhere in the USA, or even Canada.  Which is why it likes to bring in out of state speakers so that locals don't know what's going on in NEVADA.  During the 2013 Bill that was being passed on trafficking - over 45 groups came in from OUT OF STATE.  Congo Justice for one . What on earth does trafficking in the Congo have to do with Nevada?  They showed films on trafficking IN THE CONGO.  They raised money for trafficking in THE CONGO.


After our press conference in 2007 - Shared Hope came in to do trainings for Metro.  However, Shared Hopes doesn't do any "direct services" and doesn't even work with trafficking in the USA.  So please please please tell me what on earth they were teaching?  I do know that when we released the report Oscar Goodman threatened Metro officers, anyone in juvenile services, and anyone who worked with any state offices -  they would be fired if they "even read the report".  Which is a shame because Andrea Swanson's daughter got trafficked that next year.  Andrea Swanson's husband is an FBI officer from what this article says - .http://lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/01/sex-trafficking-children/  Maybe they shouldn't have worried so much about his job - and more about their daughter.


The cops that I speak to in Nevada that want to help tell me that they're afraid to.  They tell me anyone they see stepping up to do anything is either fired, or smeared and run right off the force.  The one cop that I have been doing good work with for a few years now - we can't speak directly to each other because I'm sure if the force finds out who he is - he'd be fired also.  I had terrible problems with Chief Gilliespie.  https://nevadastatepersonnelwatch.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/fifteen-members-of-las-vegas-sheriff-douglas-gillespies-organization-have-been-served-with-a-federal-complaint/


I went to him once with iron clad black and white information on a trafficking ring operating throughout the whole USA that did a pit stop in Vegas with a few brothels here - and I gave him everything on the operation.  Names, addresses, car plates, phone numbers, how they operated, etc.  What happened?  Within 24 hours everyone was cleared out.   The brothels were cleaned out, the chop shop shut down, everything became a ghost town.  It wasn't a phone tap either because I handed him the information by hand.   (I did wait until they regrouped and tried another tactic to help those women - and here's what happened.  http://talkaboutwidget.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=460  They were sent right back to their traffickers and that house.)

So I go to Internal Affairs - and there is none.   So I complain about a lack of Internal Affairs to the press and the White House.  What do I get?  Not much better.  Lt. Karen Hughes is a Vice Officer at Metro now.  https://www.linkedin.com/pub/karen-d-hughes/45/550/57a  She used to be a typist and answer 911 calls by the way for the police before becoming Vice.  Notice she's also head of North Internal Affairs - north being where most street level  prostitution is by the way.  http://www.lvmpd.com/Sections/InternalAffairs/tabid/176/Default.aspx AND she's on the Southern Nevada Sex Trafficking Task Force.  https://courageworldwide.org/people/karen-hughes/  Oh and one other note - she refused all calls and emails from me.  I guess the fact I have victims calling me for help escaped her attention when she blocked me.


Now let me ask you something - how would I be able to make a report against another police officer for being a trafficker?  Or for raping a prostitute?  Of for the task force not doing a very good job with the grant money?  I say that because I wrote Lou Pascoe once about an underage trafficking ring operating out of a used car lot in Las Vegas I wanted some help with - and I got absolutely no response.  I have this documented by the way.  Now - who would I complain to about that if Karen is on IA as well as the task force?   As my grandma used to say "a fox can't guard the chicken coop".


Maybe that's why Vegas handles things like police misbehaving like this - http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/battery-over-prostitution-fee-leads-arrest-metro-detective  That arrest happened because battery is another officer.  Or this http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-glendale-officer-prostitution-sting-paid-leave-20140926-story.html  or this http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120879/can-police-legally-have-sex-prostitutes-only-michigan Shall i go on?


As I'm waiting for Ken to invite me to come speak about sex trafficking IN NEVADA - I'm not hearing it.  Then I go into a group I belong to on Linkedin for private investigators who work on human trafficking cases.  I mentioned something about the corruption and the brothels in Nevada and Ken pops up with his comment "oh yes that USED to happen - but that's long in the past".


What?  He's not asking me if this was current - because what I was talking about WAS current.  He's in the room TELLING people that "oh that's in the past".  You know what?  I watched the 2013 legislature hearings as they rail roaded that Bill through with fake survivors in the rooms, and 45 groups no one ever heard of before or after that piled onto a bus, got up at the microphone, the news cameras all pointed at them - and then everyone denied that our members were even there.  I had to remind Assembyman John Hambrick that he was speaking to one of our members on that camera as the hearings are televised because he started to deny it flatly.  When I reminded him we had the tape of him speaking to her - he blocked us on facebook.


MTV did the same thing.  When we were scheduled to be filmed for a "Real Life" documentary and I went to talk to them about Snoop's 2003 "pimp revival" tour that he confessed to in Rolling Stone - they dropped our project entirely, fired the producer, and then made the project about trafficking in Europe - opening in Sweden.   It's real easy to talk about it some place else - but oh not here.


So why is the CIA trying to stack up speakers from outside of Nevada - but at the same time wanting my flyers on the table?  Because people are starting to notice my absence.  It's kind of hard to hold a conference on alcoholism without Bill Wilson there.  I am the founder of the movement, and the oldest and largest program of survivors in the world that's all.  That's why one conference in Chicago advertised my speaking at it for six months - until the day before the event when they pulled the plug on my speaking and then moved forward without me.   They were making it appear I was coming but then made sure I didn't get up to the microphone.


Ken then spoke about how he "was with a survivor as she was getting onto the plane with a Metro cop" only isn't that sort of thing supposed to be confidential?  He's not a metro officer and according to him he's a "retired" CIA agent.  So please tell me what the heck he's doing anywhere near a victim and a Metro officer?


When I asked him that question he stopped speaking to me.  Why?  No idea.

His wife is the  President of the World Affairs Council.  http://www.waclv.org/our-board.html  It looks like Stephen Schorr is on that Council also.


Stephen Schorr who owns the Review Journal.  Now it makes more sense.  I was told by a reporter on the Review Journal I had a "life time ban" on my name ever even appearing in the RJ after the 2007 press conference.  I asked her "you mean if people die because they don't find help because they don't know about us - that doesn't change?" and she said "right". BTW - no other sex trafficking program, nor shelter or domestic violence shelter or even the rape center transports victims to them.  Since they usually have to leave the pimp on foot with no money and often no shoes or ID - please tell me how they're going to get to help without calling SWA for a ride?


I got a call in 2013 from Tom Ragan, a writer for the RJ.  He was assigned to do a spread on Sex Trafficking in Nevada.  I told him I didn't want to waste my time being interviewed because my name would never appear in the piece.  He told me I was being "completely paranoid" and asked me for the interview.  I gave it to him just so he could see for himself what would happen.  http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/nevada-movement-draws-line-human-trafficking


Do you see my name anywhere?  After he interviewed me - he said he was impressed.  Then he went out to interview other people.  He called me back about a week later and asked me for a photo.  I told him it was a waste of time.  He insisted that he was going to "make me the cover story" on the piece.  When I asked why - he said "because you're the only group out here actually doing anything for these women that's why".


Then I read that piece.  I asked him "what happened?"  He grumbled a bit about how I was right  and gave me some information I won't repeat.   A while after that - I found a photo of me online during my weekly google.  It was the photo taken by the RJ photographer only she was in Kentucky now.  I asked her what was up.  She said that her and Tom "demanded that they run the story on Sex Workers Anonymous" and well they both got fired she said.  She told me she "wanted to do something" so she at least posted the photo.  I asked her to please take it down but thank you because I don't want people seeing what I look like unless they know me.  She understood and did.


A bit after that I saw Tom back on the paper.  He must have worked things out.   He called me again in August for a quote.  I said "why bother?"  He says "trust me".  http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/tv-producers-ogle-strip-joint-reality-show  He got my name in the RJ!!!


So Mr. Schorr, if you and the World Affairs Council and the CIA don't want my name to appear in your paper or to speak at your event - that's fine.  Because people who I am helping and people who see my work are beginning to notice the loud glare of my absence.


As for other groups working with sex trafficking who aren't based in Las Vegas - do you see this kind of thing going on anywhere else?


Now you know why I live in California to do my Vegas rescue work.  Now you know why I say that sex trafficking in my opinion is at it's WORST in Nevada because the very "powers that be" are trying to cover everything up.  In early recovery they used to tell me "you can't cover your ass and your face at the same time".  Who is more important here?  Young 16 year old girls being trafficked and helping them - or cover up what's going on by men in uniform, judges, city council, etc.  http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/21/nation/na-strippers21


Now you know why I say a trafficking victim is not safe in a Salvation Army shelter.  Look at the kind of people they're having to run from?  This CIA man is with a Metro officer speaking to a trafficking victim, while his wife is on the World Affairs Council, who hob nobs with Steve Schorr - I mean mean can you imagine if you had something they wanted to cover up where are you going to run?  Not like the press will print about it after Bob Herbert of the NY Times did and ex-mayor Oscar Goodman threatens him with a "baseball bat to the head" for talking about sex trafficking IN Las Vegas - not Wisconsin or the Congo.  http://www.alternet.org/story/61859/vegas_mayor_threatens_to_kill_n.y._times_columnist_after_anti-sex-trade_column


Follow-up - The Salvation Army Seeds program that was listed in the Ragan piece has folded.  Annie Lobert?  Pastor Benny Perez filed bankruptcy and ran off with over $1,000,000 in cash raised to open Destiny House.  Annie ran off to Africa for six months to let things blow over.   Her A&E show got yanked after one episode because it turned out there was no house.  I got left getting the women jobs, housing and support.  I could go down the list of groups that folded after the bill got passed but I need to go do laundry instead of being here another hour.  

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