Like a bad penny, this one just keeps coming up. Read more at Fox5 Vegas…

Fleiss Gets Probation In Drug Case

Former “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss has been sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to felony drug charges in the town of Pahrump.

Fleiss pleaded guilty July 7 to unlawful use of methamphetamine and possession of the painkiller hydrocodone without a prescription.

The charges stem from a Feb. 7, 2008, arrest outside a plumbing supply store.

Fleiss, 43, moved to Nevada after serving prison time in California for running a prostitution ring.

Read the whole article at The Pahrump Valley Times…

Chicken Ranch: County killing brothels by attrition?
By MARK WAITE

Last March, TCR Holdings LLC sued Nye County over the failure to issue the company a brothel license to purchase the Chicken Ranch.

Now the owner of the Chicken Ranch Western Best Ltd. partnership, the president and sole shareholder Kenneth Green and director Debbie Rivenburgh, have sued Nye County commissioners and Sheriff Tony DeMeo over the same application.

“It is plaintiff’s belief, based on statements made by Nye County officials, that defendants are operating under the incorrect assumption that because legal prostitution involves a privileged license, that governmental officials have virtual, unfettered discretion in all licensing matters concerning legal brothels and are using such assumed, unfettered discretion to attempt to rid the county of its legal brothels by attrition,” the suit claims.

The Chicken Ranch, represented by attorney Allen Lichtenstein — better known as the lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union — filed suit against Commissioners Joni Eastley, Butch Borasky, Lorinda Wichman, Gary Hollis and Fely Quitevis as well as DeMeo.

The suit said Green has attempted to sell the Chicken Ranch for the last several years. By denying the license, the county commission on June 19, 2007, effectively voided a contract to sell the Chicken Ranch to Bruce Kahn, of Dallas, sole member and manager of TCR Holdings. The county commission and the sheriff, meeting as the licensing and liquor board, rejected Kahn’s application because he had not been a Nevada resident for six months.

The suit said county officials told represntatives of the Chicken Ranch it would be a waste of time and money to attempt to add Rivenburgh to the existing Chicken Ranch license, though she’s responsible for day-to-day operations.

“Because she did not have enough personal funds to operate the Chicken Ranch on her own, she could not be added to the license, even with the financial backing and guarantees that already exist under the current structure,” the lawsuit said, “creating a situation that if anything were to happen to plaintiff Kenneth R. Green, the license to the Chicken Ranch would be in jeopardy.”

The suit claims violations of the plaintiffs’ rights under the 14th Amendment, the plaintiff’s rights under the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution and their rights under the commerce clause.

She has a strange habit of turning up, like a bad penny. Read the whole story at The Las Vegas Review Journal…

Fleiss pleads guilty to drug charges
Ex-Hollywood madam faces probation in Nye County incident
By HENRY BREAN

Heidi Fleiss pleaded guilty to felony drug charges in Pahrump on Tuesday, but the former Hollywood madam will avoid a return trip to prison.

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett said Fleiss faces probation but no jail time after pleading guilty to unlawful use of methamphetamine and possession of the painkiller hydrocodone without a prescription.

The charges stem from a Feb. 7, 2008, traffic stop outside a plumbing supply store where Fleiss had gone to buy items for her home in Pahrump.

She was found in possession of six hydrocodone pills for which she had no prescription. A blood test taken after her arrest showed methamphetamine in her system.

She faces three to five years’ probation. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 15.

Beckett said Fleiss probably will be required to submit to random drug tests and might be ordered to seek drug treatment. If she successfully completes the terms of her probation, the two felony convictions will be erased from her record, he said.

“Time will tell if she’s serious about turning her life around,” Beckett said.

An interesting article regarding how the recession is impacting Nevada’s most notorious business, by way of New Zealand, of all places.  Read the entire article at The Mail & Guardian…

Sex feels the credit squeeze in Nevada
by Andrew Clark

Nobody in the business world has emerged unscathed from the financial carnage wreaked by the global recession. That includes those who ply their trade entirely legally – in the world’s oldest profession.

Nevada is famous for its licensed brothels, which originally catered for miners and cowboys working in the sun-scorched desert. Now a lure for lascivious tourists, they have suffered a plunge in earnings as men become parsimonious about their spending on sex.

In good years, Nevada’s 25 or so bordellos pulled in as much as $50-million in revenue. But George Flint, director of the Nevada Brothel Owners’ Association, says takings at the state’s worst-hit establishments have slumped by 60% to 70%, and even the most robust have suffered to the tune of at least 20%.

“It’s been a negative effect,” he says. “More so than anything that’s had an impact on the industry in the half century that I’ve been around.”

The downturn, says Flint, has drawn more women into both legal and illegal prostitution, but customers are scarce and prices, typically $75 to $250 for a quick “date”, are under pressure: “More women are reaching out to work in the industry. The biggest visible effect is that a lot of women are working for about half what they were a few years ago.”

…

The recession has come at a tricky time. Bordellos were already facing competition from a whole new digital avenue as free listings websites such as Craigslist made sex available at the touch of a mouse.

Brothels are not permitted in the county around Las Vegas, which is by far Nevada’s biggest city, but an hour’s drive into the desert is sufficient to cross the county line. At establishments within 90 minutes’ drive of so-called Sin City, as many as 70% of customers are tourists, of whom about a quarter tend to be foreign. But Vegas is suffering — visitor numbers have fallen as penny-pinching gamblers stay away.

Given the long drive involved in reaching brothels, high petrol prices have hardly helped. One establishment, the Shady Lady Ranch, has been offering $50 fuel vouchers to anybody spending more than $300.

Sheri’s Ranch sits beneath a spectacular view of the snow-topped peak of Mount Charleston, in the cotton farming town of Pahrump, near the California border. On a eight hectare site, Sheri’s boasts tennis courts, a hotel and spa, a sports bar and a rose garden. It is owned by Resort Entertainment, which also operates two lapdancing clubs in Las Vegas. Its chief operating officer, Jonathan Klempa, readily admits that the downturn is hurting.

He says men who arrive at Sheri’s are still willing to pay the same, but footfall is slower: “Our customer quality is about the same, there are just fewer of them.”

Staff at Sheri’s repeatedly emphasise that the place is like any business. Gloria Mandarino, the ranch’s back-of-house manager, used to work at the internet advertising firm Razorfish. She says: “You soon learn this is a company like any other. It’s got accounts payable, receivables, the whole lot.”

Read the whole story at The Reno Gazette-Journal…

Nevada brothel owner files lawsuit against Nye County

A legal brothel has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming county officials are trying to shut down the industry by refusing to license brothel employees.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by the Chicken Ranch, a bordello 60 miles from Las Vegas, is the second against Nye County over regulation of brothels.

Chicken Ranch owner Kenneth Green argues that a county rule requiring brothel buyers to be Nevada residents for at least six months is unconstitutional. He also says the county is refusing to license his brothel manager, a situation he says jeopardizes the business should something happen to him.

Nye County Commission Vice Chairman Andrew “Butch” Borasky on Friday said he couldn’t discuss pending litigation. County attorney Robert Beckett also said he could not comment on the suit.

In a related case pending in federal court, the county disputed arguments that brothel owners are protected by the due process and the privileges and immunities clauses in the U.S. Constitution.

“Legalized prostitution … is not a fundamental right,” the county argued in a case brought by Bruce Kahn, a Texas businessman who agreed to buy the Chicken Ranch but in 2007 was rejected for a brothel license, in part because he did not live in Nevada.

The county argued that prostitution is unlike some protected interstate industries, such as insurance and law.

It looks like The Shady Lady Ranch brothel outside of Las Vegas is considering hiring men for the pleasure of women patrons. Well, the same idea flopped for Heidi Fleiss, so what could go wrong? Talk about a fundamental misunderstanding of what women want!

Be sure to read all of this very funny column by John L. Smith at The Las Vegas Review Journal…

Seeking 30- to 50-year-olds for a stud farm generates nothing but suspicion
by John L Smith

Unemployment is on the rise in Nevada, but The Shady Lady Ranch is hiring.

The diminutive brothel, between Beatty and Goldfield on U.S. Highway 95 about 150 miles from Las Vegas, appears to be doing its part to offset the flaccid job market. Madam Bobbi Davis says she’s prepared to start her first stud farm.

To that end, she sent me this e-mail from ShadyLadyRanch@starband.net: “The month of June The Shady Lady Ranch will start interviewing men to entertain women. We will be looking for men in their early 30s to mid-50s.”

Initially, I was flattered.

Halfway to Beatty I realized she wasn’t actually soliciting my application and had sent that e-mail to others. Talk about red-faced.

When I returned to the office, I called her at the ranch, which has no cows or horses but does offer three shady ladies.

Come on, Miss Bobbi, a stud farm?

Haven’t we heard this one before, several times in fact, from Heidi Fleiss?

“We really want to do this,” Davis says. “We’ve got a place we’ve been putting together. We should have it done in a month or so.”

But what will she name it?

Calling a stud farm “The Shady Lady” could give the employees a complex. Viagara Falls sends the wrong message, and “the Poynter Institute” is already taken.

While I remain skeptical, seeing as how inviting men to “apply” in person at a brothel could be perceived as a way of drumming up business for said establishment, Davis does have plenty of experience in the pleasure racket. By her count, she’s operated the Shady Lady more than 17 years. Before that she ran outcall services and massage parlors in California.

…but hey, legal prostitution is another matter entirely.  Read the whole story in The Pahrump Valley Times…

New group seeks to combat illegal prostitution

“Prostitution is rampant in Las Vegas,” said Bob Fisher, whose Fisher & Associates Inc. handles publicity for the Chicken Ranch brothel in Pahrump.

There are mobile billboards, newspaper racks of smut and aggressive shills promoting women who will visit you in your hotel room, and it all involves a business that is illegal.

And just as in Los Angeles and New York and any other urban area, little seems to be done about it.

Now Fisher’s client, Kenneth Green, owner of the Chicken Ranch, has established Regulated Management LLC to combat what is seen by its originators as a scourge on Las Vegas’ image.

During a news conference here Friday, Fisher pointed to the press conference’s location at the Sahara Casino and Hotel as illustrative of the problem in bringing illegal prostitution to the public’s attention.

Out of eight possible sites for the press conference, he said, “six of them turned us down.”

Meanwhile, he and Green pointed out, the Legislature and even members of the religious community in the state seem to have no interest in the subject.

Fisher recalled one minister with whom he spoke, whose response was, “I really don’t have any passion for this.”

Fisher said he and Green have been working on the Regulated Management plan for about nine months with “no Pollyanna dreams that we’re going to wipe out illegal prostitution.”

But they think a start in that direction can be made through, on the one hand, public education and, on the other, public pressure on those officials who should be taking responsibility for it.

“This is not just a Las Vegas problem,” Green said. Despite it being an illegal business in virtually all the nation, he added, there are literally “millions of listings” available on Internet sites.

Looks like a Pahrump brothel owner has taken the burden of a noble cause!  Read the whole article at The Las Vegas Sun…

Brothel owner launches effort to battle illegal prostitution in Las Vegas
By Steve Green

Chicken Ranch brothel owner Kenneth Green today detailed plans for his new company, Regulated Management LLC, which he said would expose illegal prostitution in Las Vegas and lead a public effort to demand government deal with the problem.

The company also unveiled a Web site on the effort, www.regulatedmanagement.com. Green noted he has a financial interest in a crackdown on the illegal sex trade since his legal brothel is 60 miles away in Nye County.

“I have a vested interest and that’s why I’m stepping forward,’’ he said.

He said it’s frustrating that in one sense, Nevada “gets it,” as it has a system of legal, regulated brothels in rural counties. Yet in the most populous counties, Clark and Washoe — home to Las Vegas and Reno — it’s illegal.

But asked if one of the goals of the business is having prostitution legalized in Clark and Washoe counties, Green said: “That’s not my job. That’s the Legislature’s job.”

Regulated Management says the illegal sex trade in Las Vegas is a multibillion dollar, untaxed and unregulated industry that is an embarrassment to the community with residents and tourists exposed to the likes of “Hot Babes Direct to Your Room” advertising, smut racks and the aggressive passing out of sex industry business cards to pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip.

“What is most frustrating is that everyone acknowledges its existence, but all too many turn a ‘blind eye’ to it and fail to take action,” Green said.

KTNV reports….

Brothel owner calls for crackdown on illegal prostitution

Illegal prostitution in Southern Nevada has an unlikely foe!

The owner of the Chicken Ranch Brothel in Pahrump is calling for action against illegal prostitution.

He’s even holding a press conference Friday to get his point across.

Kenneth Green says illegal prostitution in Clark and Washoe counties puts a financial and image burdern on the state while legal brothels generate revenue and provides jobs.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that our favorite ubiquitous pest, Heidi Fleiss, suffers another failure in her life.

This time, Einstein planned a brothel filled with hunky men, for the sexual pleasure of women (and only women). Needless to say, you don’t have to crack the top percentiles in IQ to know that her plan just wasn’t going to work out!

Until we hear from you again, Heidi…

Heidi Fleiss gives up on plan for brothel for women
By HENRY BREAN

Remember that thing Heidi Fleiss said she was going to do but never did?

Well, you can forget it now because she’s not doing it.

The Hollywood Madam turned Pahrump laundromat owner says she’s abandoning her plans to open a Nye County brothel catering to women. With its stable of men, Heidi’s Stud Farm would have been the first bordello of its kind in Nevada, where houses of prostitution are legal in most rural counties.

Fleiss first announced her plans in late 2005. A short time later she rented a house in Pahrump and teamed with her brother, Jesse, to buy 60 acres in the tiny nearby town of Crystal.

In the years since, Fleiss has talked about the project a lot — even agreed to let HBO shoot a documentary about it — but she never took the first step of submitting an application for a brothel license in Nye County.

Now it appears she never will.

“I think I’m going to put all my property up for sale in Crystal,” Fleiss said recently by phone from her house in Pahrump. “I don’t want to work so hard … and deal with all the nonsense in the sex business.”

Instead, she is focusing her attention on an alternative energy project she said is “perfect for Nevada.”

“That’s where the money is,” she said. “That’s the wave of the future.”