NEVADA INTERNAL AFFAIRS LETTER

Jody Williams

www.sexworkersanonymous.com

Email – sexworkrecovery@yahoo.com

(702) 468-4529

Internal Affairs for Nevada

Via fax and emai

Dear Sirs:

Back in 1988 – I did a Sally Jesse Raphael show where I appeared against Joe Conforte, the previous owner of the Mustang Ranch brothel. He brought with him four prostitutes who worked at the ranch – and for an hour the audience heard this was a “victimless crime” and how much “money they were making”. The purpose of the show was Joe was trying to get his brothels expanded into California and outside of the small rural communities that these legal brothels operate out of in Nevada spread across the state.

When the camera was off – I had one of these women run up to me in the dressing room begging for help to escape. She claimed she had been drugged, then placed on a charter plane at gunpoint (there's a landing strip at the ranch), where she was told to say what she said “or else”. Her fear was because she said other women were “disappearing” into the night and that Joe was physically abusive to the girls. Luckily, the show was being filmed in Chicago. I was working with Genesis House up there at the time so we staged a fake ambulance call to get her out of the studio and placed with them (they don't exist any longer).

Clearly I'm concerned about what this woman is telling me. I then started calling the police who were in charge of that area in 1988 and received nothing but the brush-off. Now I understood that because of the very reason I was on that talk show in the first place. Society didn't believe that sex trafficking was real – or that women could be victim of force and coercion in the sex industry. Not when the “Happy Hooker” was on the best seller list back then and musicals were being made starring Dolly Pardon singing about “down on the chicken ranch – nothing dirty's going on”.

So I packed up my family, shut down my business, and sold off my real estate in 1996 and moved to Nevada so I could help them. Mind you this was before the Trafficking Act of 2000 was passed that even gave sex trafficking federal recognition. I knew that my calling for help was going to be received about the same as if I called up saying “little green men were forcing women into sex work” back in the 80's and 90's. Meaning that if anyone was going to help – it was going to be me and not law enforcement.

I had gotten to know Sharnel Silvey at this point. She used to be a madam at the Mustang Ranch before Joe fled the country and the IRS took over the ranch about 1992. Sharnel got clean from drugs, left sex work, became a caretaker by day, joined a local church – and we started the first alternative sentencing program in all of Nevada with her taking the helm in northern Nevada. I held down the fort on the southern Nevada end of the state. Working together – her and I tried to get help not just to someone being forced to work in the sex industry – but to anyone who wanted help to exit the industry. She was then “set up” in my opinion on a theft charge that shut down the program.

Why shut it down? The stories we were hearing out of these women about law enforcement's treatment of them wasn't exactly “flattering” when it came to helping them when they were in trouble. I'm going to invite you to listen to Aubrey's interview at www.leavingtheliferadio.com She was working at the Shady Lady brothel that's now closed. Aubrey claims that when an officer would come down weekly to pick up the HIV test results – that she would be drugged by this officer, and then raped. Further, that this was done in exchange supposedly for not picking up any “real” test results from the girls. This isn't just an issue about her being drugged and raped – but one of a threat to the public health and safety.

So what do I want to do about it? At that time, I went onto the internet to find out who I could complain to about this officer. At that time, the website said that I had to take all Internal Affairs complaints to the CHIEF. However, at that time, the chief was the officer in question. Now what do I do about this? I don't know – you tell me. Go to the Attorney General? The Attorney General was trying to get AB67 passed about this time and doing everything possible to avoid speaking to me. To the point where even when our group read a letter to the Attorney General on the legislature floor – she then lied to the press saying there was “no objection” to AB67. So who do I complain to about this? No idea.

Look – I'm just a recovering addict, sex worker, and survivor. What I do well how to do is I help others to leave the sex industry and find recovery also. That's what I do. I'm not a cop. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a political science major nor a politician. I shouldn't have to have some kind of advanced degree or connections in order to register a complaint against an officer. Nor should anyone with a complaint either.

Now I invite you to look at the site for Reno Nevada now with respect to Internal Affairs. http://www.reno.gov/home/showdocument?id=26107 I can assure you the LAST thing we're going to do to make this complaint is her and I go waltzing into the police station where this guy worked. You have a phone number for a victim to call. However, this woman has two small children who are home and awake during the day. The only time she's going to want to CALL = would be after hours. Also, to be honest – calling leaves her voice on the recording. If she was going to have bothered calling – she's not going to call and have the officer recognize her voice. Yet nowhere on the site is there simply an email address for her to make an anonymous report. Of course it also says “write to the Chief”. Yeah right. I'm sorry but my understanding about Internal Affairs is that it's supposed to be someone you can report an officer to – not someone who is going to cover for another officer.

Which is what happened to me when I started dealing with victims of Kemp Schiffer and Chris Butler. Those are the names I can mention publicly because they're now been arrested and found guilty. However, I want you to think about the position I was in getting calls from women they were victimizing BEFORE this happened. Both of these men were part of a very large crime ring that was/is networking itself across the USA. Las Vegas is only one stop on the network. A network that if you read up on how Chris operated – you'll see that I was dealing with the cops and private investigators as part of this operation. The drugs, guns, money, and even the women are transported in police/sheriff cars. That way they're not stopped. Genius right? Especially when you're putting on all kinds of public events pointing the fingers at street pimps as the “real traffickers”.

So genius that when I went to Chief Gillespie about the information that I had – names, addresses, phones numbers, etc. and gave him the file to do something about this the very next morning I had a pregnant woman on my doorstep. When I asked her what was going on - she told me that the “chief had come in at midnight clearing everyone and everything out”. Describing to me even the walls were cleaned with bleach to remove any fingerprints or evidence in the brothels & drug houses. After putting her into a motel – I then went to check all the addresses I'd given the chief to find – everything had been cleaned out.

EXCEPT the Asian operation. This was Asian women in private homes speaking only Mandarin. I can't knock on the door of these homes and say “do you need help” like I could at a massage parlor or a strip club. We couldn't even get a “fake john” into the house because they were only accepting men getting off the plane from China getting into cabs at the airports with plane tickets as clients. So what am I to do? I looked on the Metro Internal Affairs website at that time in 2007 – and there was no IA at all. There was a website that said “due to a lack of funding” there was no Internal Affairs.

So I went to a friend who was a reporter and “Operation Dollhouse” went down. Then I saw 24 women sent back to their pimps despite bags of drugs being found in that house simply to make a case go away against two officers from San Mateo that was EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TRYING TO GET EXPOSED.

So now what? I turned to Terri Miller who was director of ATLAS who told me that “making complaints about the police was not her job”. Especially since Metro had just given the Salvation Army $370,000 – I bet. So I went to the FBI and got threatened with a 5150 if I didn't “back off”. Which was a great position to be in when I had fresh information coming in on the Jessie Foster case. I went to the detective listed on her page as being in charge of Jessie's case. He didn't return my calls. I went to Terri who again blew me off. I went to the DA's office – only to run into David Shubert who has since died from a drug overdose.

Now for years I've been getting calls from prostitutes needing help because of a lot of good cops. Cops who were handing out our cards to prostitutes they'd meet who said they needed help. So at one point in time – I had seven women who wanted to step up to testify against the men involved in the same ring as Kemp and Chris (this was before they got arrested mind you). They asked me to find out if they could be safely protected if they testified against an officer, a judge, a city councilman, etc. I was also talking to Jeane Palfrey then who was releasing names in her “Black Book”. While releasing names – she was not talking about who was doing what. Not until she could figure out if she could be made safe if she did. A valid concern if you look up the position those strippers in that DEA owned strip club in NJ are in. If one of them is killed or disappears – I have no way of knowing. Which is what many of these women look to me as – someone who will know if they go missing and do something about it because I won't shut up.

Lois Lee suggested I go talk to Vic Vigna. I called asking if he would show me what steps could be taken to protect a witness who wanted to testify against an officer, politician, judge, etc. He agreed to meet with me to show me. At the meeting where he showed up wearing an FBI t-shirt – he then asked me if I wanted to be a paid informant. Then after asking me if I knew anything about street pimps (which was not the point of the meeting) – he then blew me off – refusing all future phone calls because I said I didn't want to become a paid informant. When I went back to speak to these women – a few of them laughed saying they'd had some less than nice “encounters” with Vic and they weren't surprised I was treated this way.

When Lt. Karen Hughes took over – I thought things would change. What changed was the cops who were giving out our number to prostitutes they'd meet who wanted help suddenly came to a halt. Then Mayor Goodman had threatened all Metro officers if they even spoke to me – they'd be fired. This was when he was trying to get a brothel put in where the Mob Museum now sits. I was now getting calls from cops telling me that anyone who would even mention my name, especially in a good light – was finding themselves being run right off the force or fired. Okay what do we do about it? I go online to find that Karen is also head of Internal Affairs. She's also part of the Southern Nevada Sex Trafficking Task Force.

A task force that I tried to get help from when I was finding out about underage trafficking in Nevada. I have documentation showing of multiple attempts to reach out to Karen at Metro, and to the task force, about underage trafficking I had learned about – and getting no response back. Now – who am I going to complain to about this when she's on Internal Affairs?

Last week I got a call from Officer Bolzack (I don't know if that's the right spelling). This officer said that since Karen Hughes is “no longer with Metro there's nothing he can do”. When asked who replaced her with Vice or the task force – he said he “had no idea”. Funny. This is an officer supposedly from Internal Affairs who doesn't know who is the head of Vice in Las Vegas? Seriously?

I'm still getting calls from prostitutes in Las Vegas telling me one thing or another about officers. I'm hearing about raped, beatings, threats, intimidation, blackmail – the whole nine here. I'm also still hearing about officers who are working for this trafficking network that is still operating with a few new players.

The reason for the RICO act is because you could arrest a few men – and the operation continued. Men like Kemp Schiffer and Chris Butler have been arrested yes – but the operation is continuing on. I've now built up information about the heads of this operation that is based out of Pasadena, California. I know why too – because everyone is telling me they “can't do anything” until there's a police report written up out of Pasadena, California. Easy to say when witnesses are being drug out of their homes by Pasadena officers and having fake charges slapped on them signed by Pasadena judges. Easy to say when trying to help them I'm getting threatened by a Pasadena Officer.

When I escalated this to get a return call from the Chief of Pasadena Police about the situation – I then witnessed all these private investigators staging what appeared to be the building of yet another 5150 campaign on me. One where if I walk into the Pasadena police to file a complaint about anything or anyone – I'm going to be the one carted off. Now no offense – but after what happened to Sandra Bland who was also complaining about the police I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

So Karen Hughes is with the Wynn now. So what? The reason I started the modern day sex trafficking movement is because our system was not set up to address sex trafficking WITHIN OUR CURRENT SYSTEM. Back in the 1980's I was witnessing sex trafficking during Iran Contra. This meant the men involved were police, politicians, diplomats, judge's, prosecutors', etc. Men who knew how to make evidence disappear – again as we saw with the file burning and Iran Contra. There are no system then for me to go to with what I saw happening to put a stop to it – and THAT'S what I wanted to change.

Now I look at Metro's page for Internal Affairs for Las Vegas. I have emails from Metro officers telling me they're afraid to even mention my name or they'll find themselves being thrown right out of the force. That's a problem. Now I ask you – where are they going to go to file a complaint about the fact they're being intimidated? The information on your website hasn't changed when it still shows Karen Hughes as the person in charge over there for north Las Vegas (where most of this is going on). If IA doesn't know that Lt. Spencer is in charge of Vice and I can find that out on Google – it tells me your IA Dept. is pretty much out of touch. Now Karen didn't act in a vacuum. Other officers acted with her. And I'm not hearing out of Officer Bolzack anyone really seems to care about that fact either.

I want to know where I can go and have complaints about officers actually investigated and not find myself on the other end of the threats. I am not alone either. I've got a couple of files on my desk from tax paying citizens of other cities where a sex trafficking victim came to them for help. They went to the police – and they got threatened. Serpico himself is reported to be living in a cabin off the grid because of threats he's receiving from police. He's stated we have a “serious problem” with Politico Magazine. So I'm not just ranting and raving about little green men here.

Now I want to know what's going to be done about this?

Jody Williams