GERMAN DE JESUS VENTURA - IS TRAFFICKING A CRIME OF VIOLENCE?

Dear Judge Davis:

I just read this article - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/01/u-s-judge-rules-sexual-trafficking-is-not-a-violent-crime.html and was shocked at your ruling.  So shocked I started to look up your email address in order to write you about my experience on this issue for future cases you might hear in your court.

As I looked up your profile, I couldn't help but note you're African American.  That frankly shocked me even more.   You if anyone should know how sometimes the fear a victim experiences can be as strongly felt as it gets - all without the predator laying one finger of them.  

I would ask you to think back to the day of the "Ole Miss Riot of 1962" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Miss_riot_of_1962 and tell me that James Meredith might not been afraid for his life to the core of his being - despite the fact no one had even pointed a gun at him.  Thus being an African American male, I'd think you'd understand how one can be truly scared of violence without even a gun pointed at you or a finger put upon you through psychological and other tactics.  

My name is Jody Williams.  I'm the founder of this modern day sex trafficking movement itself.  When the Mann Act was first passed - it was designed to do something about the young girls and the foreign born victims of trafficking who were being forced to work in the sex industry.  

However, after the Act was passed, the legal system knew so little about how sex trafficking, and the sex industry, worked, the Mann Act was instead used to persecute African American men who married white women.   The only two men if I remember arrested under the Mann Act was Chuck Barry, and Jack Johnson.  Both African American men who married white women.  Chuck Barry served two years in jail I'm pretty sure even.

This country found that such a joke - they mistakenly decided to "throw the baby out with the bath water" and basically just started acting like there was no such thing at all as trafficking.  I know because I was lured into a very large trafficking operation in connection with Richard Pryor's family.  Richard was very open about his mother being a prostitute in his grandmother's brothel.  In other words, a "family business" when he was growing up.  

A "family business" that needed to launder money.  Using Richard's entertainment connections a little nightclub was opened in Tarzana, California by the name "Valley West".   I went to work for that club as a waitress - whereby they used their big houses, Rolls Royces, as well as the celebrity connections to people like the Jackson family who also lived in Tarzana (and would come by the club), to convince me this world was the way for me to make a lot of money without standing on a corner.  

But trafficking it was.  Richard's mother ran the brothel because women in this family never left the family.  You stayed in this until you died - with the women tool old to prostitute or strip any longer becoming madams.  The men in the family were either drug dealers and/or pimps or both - using this club to ease their way into the music industry to further cover up their operation and it's illegal money.  

I saw what happened to women who tried to leave this family.  From gasoline being poured on them with matches lit, to being held down while a motorcycle ran over their legs breaking both of them so they couldn't "walk out on the family".  I saw cops who tried to shut down this family blown up with pipe bombs.   In order to make my escape - I went another route.  I went to the head man and negotiated a price for my freedom.  I paid $160,000 to be able to walk away from this family.

However, I couldn't leave after what I saw.  I saw women who had nowhere to go.  The police viewed us a criminals.  Therapists thought we were crazy when we'd talk about what was happening and what we'd witnessed.  The church treated us like home wreckers and agents of the devil.  

In the 1980's it was even worse because of everyone's fear of HIV/AIDS.  Meaning no one wanted us - not the treatment centers, the shelters, domestic violence safe houses, not even the jails wanted us.  When a prostitute I knew was stabbed 51 times by the men dubbed the Hillside Strangler who were pimps - the ER stitched her up but refused to admit her in fear of HIV and simply because they didn't care.  The police refused to take a report from her because "her word wasn't reputable enough to get a search warrant or hold up in court".  

So where were victims to go?  Margo Compton trusted the police when she was being trafficked by the Hells Angel's.  She went to them and fully cooperated.  They put her in their best "safe house" - which promptly got her and her twin kids slaughtered.   I knew I wouldn't be safe at any existing programs or shelters - so I made my own way.  

This is why when I was arrested in 1984, the media dubbed me the "high tech madam" because I had a highly secured warehouse just a stone's throw to the police station.  They never would have believed me as to why I had all that security there - so I kept my mouth shut.  No one would have believed I was using it to hide victims of trafficking connected to Iran Contra, Hollywood producers, the CIA, the FBI, and other various law enforcement and political offices.  I mean where do you go when the traffickers you're running from are CIA?  

While on probation - I still kept being approached by victims for help.  This is what led to me standing up on that first talk show stage in 1987 saying not only did I have a hotline for victims to call for help, and a 12 step program where they could find healing - but that this country had to start changing and acknowledge we existed.

Which they did 13 years later with the passing of the Trafficking Act of 2000.  Federal recognition meaning now money was available for this work - which of course led to the hijacking of the movement by the fakes and con artists such as "Samoly Mam" to name only one.  

Because of the money these fakes and cons raised - voices like mine were completely over-shadowed by theirs.  Only problem was "theirs" wasn't "real".  I assure you I've seen just about every type of tactic pimps and traffickers use.  While Polaris has answered about 100,000 calls on their whole hotline to date - I've personally answered over 500,000 phone calls on our hotline since 1987.  I've not only witnessed just about every form of sex trafficking there is - but I've heard about others I didn't witness.

I can tell you stories like Michael's.  One of our earliest members who was sold at 8 years old to a biker gang.  When he hit 13 years old - they sold him to a pimp in New York.  A pimp who would once a month force one of the kids in his ring to murder one of the other kids in the ring in order to keep dominance - and to incriminate them so they wouldn't dream of going to the police for help.  Not when he had a murder weapon in a safety deposit box and a body in the freezer.  

In other words, he never lifted a finger himself against his victims.  When it came Michael's turn to shoot his victim - he turned the tables and shot the pimp instead.  So at 13 years old he was tried for murder - being sentenced to do time in a juvenile correctional facility.   A facility where the guards would sell the young boys inside to tricks they'd lock in the dorm with the boys so there was no escape.  He had his teeth knocked out by a guard when he put up an argument.  The guards told the dentist that one of the other kids did it.  

I seen forms of emotional violence that would give you nightmares just hearing about it these pimps have done to their victims - all without a gun.  All without lifting one finger on them or even directly threatening them in any way.  Even in my case - no one ever pointed a gun at me or lifted one finger at me.  Yet I still knew if I didn't comply that my whole family, myself, and even my dog would be murdered.  

What's worse for us Mr. Davis - is we know we have nowhere to run like "typical" victims of violence, or domestic violence victims do know they have.  They know they can call the police for help.  They know they can be put into a shelter.  They know the sympathy of the public, the court, and those helping them will all be with them once they pick up a phone and call 911.  

We don't know that Mr. Davis.  Which further contributes to the feeling we truly have no way out from the situation.  We once rescued a woman who a year later was simply walking down the street to see a movie when her ex-pimp saw her and in order to maintain his "street cred" he mowed her over in his Cadillac in order to "teach a bitch what happens when she runs".  

I could go on and on about the psychology these victims deal with every day because I've been doing this work for 30 plus years now all over the USA, into Canada, and we're now in five other countries.  So whether it's legal or not has nothing to do with the impact these victims feel.  

We don't even know if we're safe in the courts when judges routinely rule that rape of us is considered "theft of services".  To date, I know of no US judge that has ruled a prostitutes' rape as rape whether she was raped during a "date" or just walking down the street to buy a soda.  

So please Mr. Davis - if you ever have a grey area on a case where you wonder if the case of trafficking is one of "violence" or "extreme" enough - please consider giving me a call to discuss it.  Because in the legal viewpoint - isn't it about what's going on in the victim's mind?  Many women who are domestic violence victims are now getting off on murder cases because the court is acknowledging that in the victims' mind they may have felt it was the only way to escape.  Maybe there were other ways - but if in her mind there was no other way - the courts are allowing this.

Therefore, isn't the level of fear, or violence, or even if the victim reasonably feels this person is going to do extreme damage to them a factor in a ruling when it comes to victimization whether it be rape, violence or trafficking?

Because I can assure you that some of the most horrific violent and extreme cases I've seen in sex trafficking are those where the pimp hasn't a gun or laid a finger on the victim.  To be quite frank - it doesn't work other wise.

Let me explain by citing the Hillside Strangler case again.  These were two pimps.  Their m/o was to kidnap woman off the streets literally at whim.  They'd take them to their place where they could rape, beat, and torture them for days on end.  They would use guns, knifes, drills, hammers, chains, etc. on their victims.  I told you one woman who I rescued from them had been stabbed 51 times while chained to a refrigerator. 

After they got done playing with their victim - they had to make sure the police wouldn't listen to their testimony.  Which meant making them a prostitute.  So they'd pack them up, and go to a motel.  There they would again rape and torture this victim for a while until they convinced the victim they couldn't leave the room because they'd be standing right outside the door.  Once they established that fear - they brought in "johns" to pay them as prostitutes - thereby making them into ones.  

Then they'd leave.  Within a two week period of time usually - their victim would get up the courage to open the motel room and run away.  This was before these cousins escalated into murdering their victims.  But my point is that once the immediate threat was off them - these women would run.

When I was lured into the "family" that trafficked me - I was mentored by pimps who had been pimps for generations.  They taught me that anyone can kidnap, rape, and force a woman to prostitute for them at the point of a gun.  Just as in the Linda Lovelace case where Chuck Traynor did in fact point a gun at her while she filmed "Deep Throat".  

However, once the gun is removed, the fear is gone - they run.  The pimps in my "family" told me that wasn't being a pimp - but being a rapist and a thug.  They viewed the psychological warfare they brainwashed their victims with as more desirable from their point of view.

Remember, these were "generational" pimps and prostitutes.  In order to keep a woman in prostitution, against her natural will, from her childhood up on to her senior years, while still giving the money to her pimp - well that required more than just brute force.  Now this type of brainwashing that would keep a victim coming back for their whole life - all while "thinking" it was their choice - that truly was what they called their "art".  This was the type of brainwashing the FBI certified me as an expert in so I could testify at a trial in the 1990's against a pimp who had been trafficking women who were staunchly defending not only him - but insisting they had "acted in free will".  

They allowed me to fly to Hawaii to testify and consult on that case.  They got the conviction.  

So please Mr. Davis - if you have another case come up where you're not sure what the degree of fear, violence, etc. a pimp used against their victim - please don't look to things like a gun, or immediate threat of violence, because it's just not that simple.  

I've been watching since this movement got hijacked how I feel this country has been again repeating the cycle of using this crime to focus on and prosecute African American men rather than taking the time to understand the way the sex industry, and trafficking within that industry, works.  It's why despite the fact the most organized trafficking in this country are not African American, nor are their victims on a street corner, that the legal system has been going after almost universally African American men as pimps.  

It's not their fault.  I spoke to the head of vice in Houston not long ago.  He told me that their budget is so low the best they can do is round up street walkers and call that "helping trafficking victims".  They not only don't have the budget to bring someone like me in to consult, but they also don't have the budget to do any proper investigations into these sophisticated trafficking rings, or sting operations to shut them down.

Which is truly a shame.  Because the prostitutes are only 1/2 of the victims of these trafficking rings.  Again, I don't mean pimps either.  I point to the case of Donald Burns as an example.  This is a man who was blackmailed by a male out of $500,000 in cash.  Then the ring went back for a cool million.  In Donald's case, he was wealthy and important enough for the police to set up a sting to capture the man who was being forced to do what he did by the ring - which is still chugging right along today while the prostitute who lured Mr. Banks into the ring is in jail as a criminal.  

The problem is I can tell you that all over this country right now in massage parlors in just about every major city, with sometimes four of them on a corner, there are trafficking operations where the prostitutes are taking down credit card information, information from the customer about where he lives, where he works, his marriage, his kids, and any other information they can use to hack into these men's bank accounts or heads.  

If you read about the case of the CEO of Glaxo Pharmaceuticals - you will have an idea of the financial impact just one of the "johns" can have on one corporation - which in turn affects our whole economy. https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/gsk-mark-reilly/  

Now multiple that by about how many men come into those parlors per day with the average parlor having three women, who in turn average about three clients per day without using any protection either by the way - and you have an idea how many men are being ripped off, blackmailed, robbed, etc. within these parlors.  

The case of the Crazy Hose strip club proved that customers are being violated inside of the strip clubs as well.  There the patrons were drugged, then their cards maxed out.  When they objected - they were thrown out, their marriages and careers threatened.  If they went to the police - they were not helped by Chief Gillispie who stepped down because of the corruption charges.  Nor the DA David Shubert who died of a drug overdose.  So if they took matters into their own hands - one man wound up paralyzed for life from the beating he got from the club's bouncer.  He's still waiting on his payments by the way.  So by not handling these cases properly - more people are victimized by trafficking than just the prostitute.  

Until we're at a point where this country can pay to fly me all over the place offering trainings like I used to do in Los Angeles - all I can do is offer to help in any way I can by giving you an introduction to me and my phone number to call.  

Thank you for listening.

Jody Williams

www.sexworkersanonymous.com

(702) 468-4529 Telephone