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Nancy Grace
Legal Prostitution in Nevada. Aired 8-9:00p ET
Aired March 25, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, Nevada, the mounting demand to legalize prostitution. I guess they want us to forget about
child prostitutes, violence, sex trafficking, for what? So men can use hookers like throwaway trash and not go to jail for it?
Bombshell tonight. With us live, Dennis Hof, the owner of Dennis Hof`s, quote, "world famous Bunny Ranch," a legalized sex pit where
anything goes as long as you`ve got the money to pay for it. Also with us, infamous madam Heidi Fleiss, who did hard jail time for allegedly providing
hookers to the stars. I guess if you`re a celebrity, it makes it all OK. Well, you tell that to the women and children who are being victimized
innocently every minute of every day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pimps are the worst leeches in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve had people pull guns out on me, try to run me over, chase me, kidnap me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had to work not for pay but to get fed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To get fed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Home is where the hookers are!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, live to Nevada and the mounting demand to legalize prostitution. I guess they want us to forget about child prostitutes,
violence, rape, sex trafficking. So what, men can use hookers like throwaway trash and not go to jail for it?
Bombshell tonight. With us live, Dennis Hof, the owner of Dennis Hof`s, quote, "world famous Bunny Ranch," a legalized sex pit where
anything goes as long as you`ve got the money. Also with us, Heidi Fleiss, who did hard jail time allegedly providing hookers to stars. I guess if
you`re a celebrity, that makes it OK. Well, you tell that to the women and children who are being victimized every minute of every day.
I want to go first out to our special guest, Mr. Dennis Hof. He is the author of a book, "The Art of the Pimp," and he owns the Moonlite Bunny
Ranch. Mr. Hof, thank you for being with us. Why is it that you believe prostitution should be legalized across the country?
DENNIS HOF, OWNER, MOONLITE BUNNY RANCH: Well, because it works. If you want to stop the sex trafficking, all those terrible things you just
showed on your show, I totally agree with you. It`s awful. It`s disgusting. Prohibition doesn`t work. Didn`t work with liquor, didn`t
work with marijuana, and it`s never going to work with sex. Legalize it. Put it in the hands of the professionals. Tax it, license it and control
it.
GRACE: Mr. Hof, in your jurisdiction of Nevada, prostitution is legal in limited areas. Now, isn`t it true, Mr. Hof, that even though it is
legal in certain areas, there is still illegal prostitution, is that not correct?
HOF: Absolutely. And the reason is because Las Vegas and Reno, it`s not legal. Las Vegas is the worst sexual cesspool of America, evidenced by
all the...
GRACE: I don`t know. I think there are a lot of sexual cesspools in America.
HOF: I agree.
GRACE: And I`m referring specifically to prostitution.
HOF: OK.
GRACE: What adults do consensually is not my concern. This is not a moral argument on my part. I`m leaving that to the preachers. But what
I`m telling you, Mr. Hof, is when you say it should be legalized -- well, in your own jurisdiction, man, in your own back yard, it is legal. And
there is still illegal prostitution. And that equals child prostitution, rape and sex trafficking. I mean, Atlanta is tying pretty soon with
Bangkok for the sex capital of the world as far as it relates to child trafficking. What about that?
HOF: I totally agree with you. And that`s why you legalize it. Las Vegas, it`s illegal.
GRACE: That`s bass-ackwards!
HOF: No, it`s legal -- it`s illegal there. I did a CNN show are Amber Lyon (ph). There`s 300 girls being sex trafficked in Las Vegas at
all times, under age. That`s why you legalize it. We don`t have that in our counties.
GRACE: You know, Mr. Hof, now, I wouldn`t normally get into your personal life because that is not my concern. My concern is crime victims.
It`s all I care about. But...
HOF: Me, too.
GRACE: ... I read a great deal of your book, and I noticed that you have one failed relationship -- now, you put this out there, OK? One
failed relationship after the next after the next after the next with women.
[20:05:01]And yet by your own admission in your book I read, Hey, my penis had a mind of its own. Well, OK, number one, your penis does not
have a brain, OK? Your head is the only thing that has a brain. And you continued to see hookers. No wonder your marriage fell apart!
HOF: Well, I was married a long time ago. I was 17 years old when I got married. I was not married while I owned the Bunny Ranch at all. I`m
a single guy...
GRACE: Well, now, I read your book!
HOF: OK. Great. Thank you.
GRACE: No! I know what you did. And hey, that`s on you. But you put it in your book.
HOF: Right.
GRACE: And you even took your father to a brothel, as it is euphemistically called. And you`re...
HOF: Well, he took me.
GRACE: ... like, Gee, I wonder why my marriages fell apart? And then your relationship with, I think, Stacy (ph), and then your next
relationship and your next. And you`re, like, Gee, why did all these people abandon me? I`ve got just a headline for you.
HOF: Yes.
GRACE: Women in marriages and relationships -- they don`t like it when you`re seeing hookers.
HOF: Well, you know what? I`ve got a headline for you.
GRACE: Tell me!
HOF: You`ve outed all these ministers over the years. I`ve watched you. And if the man of the cloth can`t be monogamous, who can?
GRACE: Well, actually, I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re not talking about you.
GRACE: My husband can.
HOF: We`re talking about men. We`re talking about men, though.
GRACE: My husband has been faithful.
HOF: Good man.
GRACE: And I guarantee that most me -- I think he is. Most men are faithful. But that again -- see, we`re going down...
HOF: Why have I made all this money, then? Why have I made all this money? I made it off...
GRACE: You`re right!
HOF: OK.
GRACE: I`m not saying that...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: I`m saying that there are unfaithful men. I know that. But what my concern is not really them being unfaithful to their wives. That
is their issue.
HOF: Right.
GRACE: What I`m talking about is people getting hurt. I`m talking about violent crime. Hold on. With me, Dennis Hof. He is the author of a
new book, which I have read, "The Art of the Pimp." He also owns the infamous Bunny Ranch, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.
Also with me is a special guest, Annie Lobert, author of "Fallen," a former hooker, and founder of Destiny`s House. Annie, when you hear
arguments put forward -- and Hof. Dennis Hof is extremely charismatic. He`s very charming. He`s attractive to many, many people. And it`s like a
snake charmer. You start listening and you start going along with the music, and it all makes sense.
But I`ve been there. I have seen child prostitutes. I`ve gone in a room full of hookers. And you know what? I looked at the girl that was
13. She looked like she was 38, Annie. I couldn`t pick her out. I had been looking all over the city of Atlanta for this girl. I was standing in
the room with her. She looked she`s 38 years old. She`s 13.
Tell me why his arguments don`t hold water.
ANNIE LOBERT, FOUNDER OF DESTINY`S HOUSE: His arguments do not hold water because I have been that girl. I have been the girl that`s been
abused by the system, prostitution. And yes, it is illegal in Clark County, Nevada. However, I was with a pimp that forced me to sell myself
every night on the Las Vegas Strip.
And I got abused many different times. He choked me out where I woke up and there was no one in the room. I had clients do it, tricks do it to
me. I had a man take me and try to throw me out the 22nd story of the Sahara Hotel. Thank God I had power, and I kicked him ran out of the room.
So I can understand why these women, why these little girls look older because, see, you can`t put a condom on the entire body when it comes to
trauma and the PTSD from this industry, whether it`s in a brothel or whether it`s illegal. It is a violent crime towards women. And I frankly
believe it`s a human rights violation.
GRACE: Well, let me ask you this, Hof...
LOBERT: And that`s why you`re seeing little girls look old...
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE) Annie Lobert, tell me why or how you in your scenario can avoid what she`s talking about, Hof?
HOF: Because it`s legal. You`re like trying to compare Pfizer with the drug cartel. It`s legal. First of all, she`s a criminal. She worked
in a criminal environment, whether she was forced or not. And she could have got out of it because there`s places that will give you help. She
chose not to.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! That`s the pot calling the kettle black! I mean...
HOF: Excuse me?
GRACE: ... just because you happen to be sitting...
HOF: It`s illegal!
GRACE: ... in the Bunny Ranch -- that`s awfully euphemistic -- and you got a little circle around you where it`s legal -- you know what?
You`re doing the same thing she`s doing, all right? It`s just the law of a different jurisdiction.
HOF: First of all, it`s all of Nevada. It`s 15 of the 17 counties in Nevada. That`s the little circle.
GRACE: You know what?
HOF: Don`t question the morality of Nevada. It works real well.
GRACE: You know what? It doesn`t work well in Nevada...
HOF: Yes, it does.
GRACE: ... because there is crime in Nevada.
HOF: I agree.
GRACE: And about 66 percent of the hooking in Nevada is illegal.
HOF: I agree.
[20:10:04]GRACE: And you know, another issue -- you know Sheryl McCollum, criminologist -- bottom line, you and I were in the trenches. We
saw the pimps. I was looking for the underage hooker and trying to get them out of it. You saw it. He`s painting a completely different picture
than what prostitution really is!
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST (via telephone): He`s a con man and he`s using his tricks and forgeries, ju8st like all the other pimps we
know. And he can use his real name instead of a moniker like skillet or bullet or magic. They`re all the same, Nancy.
And here`s the deal. Alcohol is legal. But the age limit is broken all the time. We have drunk driving all the time. We have moonshine.
Just because something is legal does not mean you`re not going to have that criminal element come to it. And we`re never going to legalize child
prostitution. It is going to be...
GRACE: Well, my concern is...
(CROSSTALK)
MCCOLLUM: ... prostitution is nothing more than human trafficking.
GRACE: My concern is if you legalize prostitution, police are going to be taken off of that. There`s not going to be anymore vice squad. And
then it`s going to be easier for child prostitution -- like the girl I`m telling you about. I can see her right now in my mind. The girl had just
turned 13. She looked like she was 38.
And again, I`m not talking about morality because I don`t have a leg to stand on. No, I`m not going there. I`m talking about the law and crime
victims.
I`ve got with me Bishop Noel Jones, pastor, City of Refuge, Preachers of LA. Bishop, I`m going to stay out of the morality game. I`m going to
leave that to someone more worthy. And that would be you. Explain to me why prostitution in your mind is wrong.
BISHOP NOEL JONES, PASTOR, CITY OF REFUGE (via telephone): Well, I`m in the restoring business. I am in the total restoring business. and I
believe that people need other chances, and I need all of that.
But I`m going to tell you why I think that it`s so terribly wrong. It`s terribly wrong because most of the women who are prostitutes have had
so many circumstances and situations in their lives that have left them totally broken, and the continuation of their behavior is a continuation of
their brokenness. And they need redemption.
That`s where I am on that score. And I think that`s why it`s wrong. It`s wrong. And many things -- there`s a price for everything, but some
things should not be for sale.
GRACE: You know, I`ve got somebody on the show tonight, Bishop Jones, that I think is going to disagree with you. That`s Krissy Summers, who
worked at Moonlite Bunny Ranch, along with Dennis Hof, who`s with us tonight, arguing for the legalization of prostitution.
Krissy Summers, I`d like you to respond to the bishop.
KRISSY SUMMERS, WORKED AT BUNNY RANCH: Yes, I completely disagree with that. I mean, I`m a smart, educated woman who got into the business.
I went there with a goal in mind, and that was to pay off my school loans. And I said, Hey, when I`m done paying off my school loans, I`m done with
the business. And that`s exactly what I did. I got out of the business.
GRACE: So you were there. Why did you get out of the business if it was so great?
SUMMERS: I -- that`s not something that I wanted to do forever for myself. That`s just my opinion personally of the business. I know a lot
of women that stay in it forever. Air Force Amy (ph) -- she`s made a career out of it. For me personally, I wanted to get my student loans paid
off, and I wanted to just leave the business and leave that behind me.
GRACE: And what are you doing now?
SUMMERS: I`m actually working on my Ph.D. I`m going to school in San Francisco right now.
GRACE: And you`re dating Dennis Hof, correct?
SUMMERS: Yes, that`s correct.
GRACE: OK, and do you have a job?
SUMMERS: I am actually doing public relations for the Bunny Ranch and then I`m going to school full-time, is what I`m doing.
GRACE: With me is Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madam. Ms. Fleiss, thank you for being with us. I want to hear your argument as to why
prostitution should be legalized.
HEIDI FLEISS, FORMER HOLLYWOOD MADAM: Nancy, first of all, what I dealt with is entirely different from what you`re describing, which is
disgusting. But the women need -- it`s -- everything is structured in this society against the women. For the ones who are beaten down and forced,
there`s nowhere -- they`re forced. There`s no rights for them because what they`re doing is illegal. There`s no help for them.
Somehow, the power has to be something given back to the woman, where the men don`t have any -- they don`t suffer like the women do. It is the
women...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Well, I agree with you, Heidi. I agree with you, Heidi Fleiss. It`s always -- every case I ever prosecuted, it seems like, out of
10,000 cases, it always ended up women and children were the ones that suffered.
But Heidi Fleiss, how is it that legalizing women being used for sex for money -- how does that empower them? That`s what I don`t understand
because even if you legalize it, you`re still going to have illegal prostitution. I mean, for Pete`s sake...
[20:15:05]FLEISS: Sure. Sure.
GRACE: ... there is Lawrence Taylor (ph) of "Dancing With the Stars." And some teen hooker was delivered to his door like a pizza, all right?
And here`s the video of him on "Dancing With the Stars."
FLEISS: That`s disgusting. It`s disgusting. First of all, to me, I don`t even understand who the person is who would want to sleep with
someone underage. It`s just repulsive. It`s not appealing. It`s not attractive. There`s something sick about it. But something has to be done
where there`s help for them. But that`s not the business that I`m familiar with. And that`s not what Dennis is selling.
And it`s not a career, Nancy. This is not a career. I don`t think it`s a career. But for some people, they see it differently. They embrace
it differently, maybe a stepping stone. Or -- you say there`s one girl, she`ll go spend the night with some guy for free. People are cool with
that. As soon as the guy hands her five grand, then people have a fit!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:20:09]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People love the sex business, and I love being a part of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you get into the game or when you, like, have somebody telling you, you know, You can sleep with me for money, you
already lost your virginity, and it`s, like, Why not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hof says that he wants to set the record straight, let the public know that life in his legal brothel is a far cry
from the lives of most American prostitutes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re home. Home is where the hookers are!
(CROSSTALK)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: With me tonight, live, Dennis Hof, the author of "Art of the Pimp" and owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Excuse me -- the "Dennis
Hof`s world famous Bunny Ranch." Also with me, Annie Lobert, author of "Fallen," a former prostitute, and Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood Madam.
This as an intense movement is mounting for the legalization of prostitution. You know, I see another flaw in your argument, Mr. Hof. And
that is, yes, you may run the Moonlite Bunny Ranch a certain way, where women have a right to go, No I don`t want anal sex, OK? I don`t want to do
around the world. I`m not down for a (EXPLETIVE DELETED), all right? No.
But guess what? That`s you. That may not be true in every brothel, as it is euphemistically called, just because you see yourself as a good
pimp. If we legalize prostitution, how do I ensure that everybody is going to be as good as you are?
HOF: Good question. First of all, the people that can`t get into the brothel business are people that have criminal records and girls that are
underage. The police department checks their identification. That eliminates all the underage trafficking in the brothels. It just cannot be
done.
GRACE: Ah! Ah! Ah! Get back to what we were talking about.
HOF: OK.
GRACE: I just think you control...
HOF: The girls have a choice.
GRACE: ... pimps, Annie. I don`t see it.
HOF: Well, the girls have a choice. Girls like Krissy come into the business, and they have a choice. It`s a means to an end. They decide how
long they want to be there.
GRACE: Well, that`s with you, Dennis. That`s with you, according to you. I`m talking about other pimps.
HOF: Right.
GRACE: They`re not a nice bunch, Dennis, all right...
HOF: I appreciate that.
GRACE: ... behind I put them behind bars. They`re not.
HOF: I appreciate that. Good job. Keep doing it, and let`s work together...
LOBERT: They`re not -- they`re not...
HOF: ... in Atlanta to do that.
GRACE: OK, Annie.
LOBERT: I need to say something because I`ve had tons of friends that have worked at the brothels that have came back and complained to me --
actually, my friends were punished by the pimps to be sent to the brothels, bad record or not. Pimps get fake IDs all the time, OK? Let`s just keep
that real.
And how can you actually test the women that come into the brothels that they`re not being double-pimped, OK? What I mean by that is they
already have a sex trafficker on the outside of the brothel. So when they get locked down at the brothel for two weeks, because if they leave, they
get fines, right, Dennis? They get fines if they leave before their time.
HOF: No. Wrong.
LOBERT: They have to come back to their pimp outside of the brothel and break themselves to the pimp. And by the way...
HOF: Nancy...
LOBERT: ... I started working as a prostitute as a free choice. I was in a great honeymoon period. And thank God Krissy got out of it...
HOF: You did it illegally.
LOBERT: ... and then she had a great honeymoon period.
HOF: You worked as a criminal.
LOBERT: It doesn`t matter.
(CROSSTALK)
HOF: Are you comfortable with that, working as a criminal? Because that`s what you were doing, criminal activity.
GRACE: Well, she`s not doing anything different...
HOF: She was, though.
GRACE: ... than what you`re doing.
HOF: Oh, yes, she is.
GRACE: She`s just in another jurisdiction.
HOF: Yes, she is. I have a license to do that.
GRACE: Oh, you think...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Are you kidding me? You think that piece of paper makes you OK and she`s the bad guy?
HOF: Do you think your law license makes prosecutors honest? Are you kidding?
GRACE: No, I don`t!
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: You just made my argument for me. Thank you so much!
HOF: No, I didn`t.
GRACE: Yes, you did. A piece of paper doesn`t mean anything as...
HOF: Underaged girls are not going to work...
GRACE: ... to right or wrong!
HOF: Underage girls are not going to work in the brothels...
GRACE: We`re talking about violence.
HOF: ... because they cannot get a license.
GRACE: We`re talking...
HOF: And she`s talking about a fake ID.
GRACE: ... about violence.
HOF: If the police department can`t figure out...
LOBERT: Fake IDs!
HOF: ... a fake ID, that`s on them.
(CROSSTALK)
LOBERT: That`s all the pimps do. No.
GRACE: And another thing.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: And another thing. You say it`s all safe and it`s OK. If your own book, man, you wrote you have an arsenal of guns. You know what?
When I go to Macy`s or TGI Fridays or Olive Garden or Walmart or Costco or Target, they don`t have an arsenal of guns. Why do you need an arsenal of
guns if you`re so safe?
HOF: Because people in Nevada have guns. We`re a state where we can have guns...
GRACE: Bull!
HOF: ... we can own.
GRACE: That is a lie! And I am so calling you out on that!
HOF: Excuse me?
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: That is not why you have guns! You have guns because...
HOF: We can have guns.
GRACE: ... it`s violent!
HOF: No, it`s not violent at all. It`s not -- we wouldn`t have been there 60 years, Nancy -- 60 years we`ve been there, 60 years. Do you think
if it was violent, we would have lasted that long?
GRACE: You know what? This is what it`s about. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jessica (ph), who was 19 at time, says her pimp, a gang member, set a quota of about a thousand dollars a day, money that
took 10 dates to earn. She told me that if she didn`t work, she didn`t eat, saying she once went five days without food.
[20:25:13]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought I was going to die of starvation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had to work not for pay, but to get fed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To get fed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just get on in here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many of you were sex trafficked under age when you started in the business? Can you raise your hand real high? We
have one, two...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) he`ll beat you up. And he beat my ass all the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: With me tonight is Dennis Hof. He is the author of this new book, "The Art of the Pimp." He is also the owner of the Moonlite Bunny
Ranch, as it is euphemistically called. Oh, excuse me -- the "world famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch" -- the world famous.
OK, Mr. Hof, if your ranch is so famous...
HOF: Yes.
GRACE: ... why do you have to have panic buttons in every room? What`s that about? Because I don`t have a panic button. Why do you have
them?
HOF: It`s famous because my television show is in 64 countries and 27 language. I`m the one that spoke at Oxford Trinity College and the
Sorbonnes last week fighting sex trafficking. That`s why it`s famous. And the panic buttons are there so they can communicate if there is a problem.
Have they ever been used? No. But they are there as a protection mode, and we like that comfort.
GRACE: A problem, a problem. Why would there be a problem if you are all just one big happy family? As you say in practically every other
sentence in this book? One big happy--
HOF: Whenever you have liquor involved, there could be an issue. Why do strip clubs have security people?
GRACE: Bouncers.
HOF: When there is liquor there, there can be issues. That`s why.
GRACE: Okay. You are taking a look at the Bunny Ranch menu. I can only imagine the interpretations of these two. Annie Lobert, author of
"Fallen," how safe is it?
ANNIE LOBERT, FORMER PROSTITUTE: It is not safe at all. A man can come in there without a gun or a knife and choke someone out. Trust me.
That`s all he has do, and how are you going to press a panic button when you are being choked to death? It`s a very simple equation. You are not.
GRACE: Another issue -- and that happened to you. You were choked out. And you could feel the life draining out of your body.
LOBERT: Yes, and I had a friend. Right. And Nancy, I had a friend. A good friend of mine. Loved her. Her pimp put her to the brothel as a
punishment. And the first week she worked there, a trick came in and shot her in the head and killed her. Tell me where the safety in that was. I
don`t care if it was illegal or not. There`s no safety in that. She is not here to tell a story. I`m here to tell the girls side of the story
that are being honest and not being an actress, which all the pimps school the girls on being. You need so say this. You need to look like this.
You need to smile when you`re having sex because you know you really don`t like it. But we`re getting paid, right?
GRACE: To Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madam. Ms. Fleiss, again, thank you for being with us. You actually pled guilty to one charge of
attempted pandering. Have you gone back to being a madam?
FLEISS: No. Because what I did was illegal. And I`m not going back to jail. But let me -- in defense of Dennis, there are panic buttons in
those rooms. What if a man has a heart attack or something why he`s having sex? There are many reasons for those panic buttons.
GRACE: Put her up, please. Do you know what, Heidi? That`s not true.
FLEISS: But it --
GRACE: That`s complete BS, that the panic button is there in case a man has a heart attack.
FLEISS: You don`t like that one?
GRACE: I mean, no, I don`t. That is a lie. They are there because the women could be hurt.
FLEISS: And very other reasons. Also the thing about him and not finding love and failed relationships, I think that is about 85 percent of
the men in America, if not more. About the failed relationships and the divorce. That. And what else were you a little off on? A few other ones.
But --
GRACE: I`m not here to talk about men being unfaithful, about failed relationships, divorce. Those are all moral issues that I don`t have a leg
to stand on. I`d have to be Jesus Christ to be able to throw a stone. Because nobody on this panel is pure.
What I`m talking about is violent crime and women being sold for sex, selling your body like you are a slave to have sex. And I think it is
wrong. And when you all tell me -- don`t tell me --
FLEISS: And it is wrong.
GRACE: -- I can`t sell my body. You know, it`s not me. It is the government. 49 states agree that it is wrong. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ll tell you like oh, I`ll kill your family. And he`ll beat you up. He`ll beat my ass all the time. I`ve had people
pull guns out on me. Try to run me over. Chase me, kidnap me, pull knives on me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:38:27]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pimps are the worst leeches in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ve had people pull guns out on me. Try to run me over. Chase me. Kidnap me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had to work not for pay, but to get fed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To get fed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Home is where the hookers are.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Home is where the hookers are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Hey, you know what? It ain`t pretty. Tonight though the movement to legalize prostitution is mounting. And with me a pro
prostitution advocate, Dennis Hof, the author of a new book, "The Art of the Pimp." And runs the world famous -- the let me -- world famous, as he
says is the true name, Bunny Ranch.
Also with me tonight, Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madam. Annie Lobert, author and Becka Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms. (inaudible).
Straight back to you, Dennis Hof, author of "The Art of the Pimp." Let`s talk about the fact that it takes sometimes three, four, twelve weeks for
HIV to show up.
HOF: They have new --
GRACE: To manifest. And your girls get tested once a month, correct?
HOF: They get tested every week, and they have new and better tests now. Every week for chlamydia and gonorrhea. Every month for HIV and
syphilis. Since 1981 we went to mandatory condoms. Never had a problem. Not one. The porn industry can`t say that. Hefner can`t say that. We
can.
[20:40:00]
GRACE: Am I supposed to pick between you and Hugh Hefner? Those are my two choices? How about no hooking and no prostitution? There is
another choice.
HOF: Do you think it is going to go away, Nancy? It is not going away.
GRACE: No, I don`t think it`s going away. And do you know why?
HOF: Why?
GRACE: Because the devil. He ain`t going anywhere.
HOF: That`s okay, but it`s still not going away. It`s not going to away. So don`t you want to license --
GRACE: That does not matter to me! Murder is not going away. Should I stop putting them in jail too? Because that`s going to keep happening.
HOF: Prohibition didn`t work with liquor, it`s not going to work with sex.
GRACE: No, no, this is not for sex. I`m not outlawing sex. I am all for sex. All right? I want everybody to run out and have good sex. I`m
down with that. But let me tell you, I`m against prostitution. Because women get beat up. They get forced into it.
HOF: I agree.
GRACE: And just because you are this great daddy, you know, every other pimp is not going to be the daddy that you claim you are. And
another thing -- back to the testing. You just said your women -- you call them girls -- don`t like that. Your women get tested once a month for HIV.
But if HIV can take from three to 12 weeks to manifest, then they could get HIV. And you are saying, always have a condom. Well, oh oh oh. So when a
man goes in the back room and says I`ll give you $500 more if you let me take this rubber off, that is not going to happen?
HOF: They are not going to do it. Ask Chrissy. Why would they take that risk when they don`t have to?
GRACE: Are you spying on them? Do you know?
HOF: I`m not spying, but I talk to the girls. They get asked that.
GRACE: What about that episode in your book where you say you went behind a curtain and looked through a two-way mirror and saw a man with a
string tied around his penis. I read that in your book.
HOF: 1976.
GRACE: You got rid of that window. Okay.
HOF: I didn`t own it until 1992. It`s 1976. Nancy, prohibition does not work.
GRACE: You`re back on booze again, oh now you`re on pot.
HOF: We`re back to it. We got to stay on it, because I can`t help it if you bring ex-criminals on the show to talk about how bad it is. It is
bad. I agree with everything you are saying and more. That is why I did the CNN piece that you are showing the clip on with Amber Lyon (ph).
GRACE: Let`s go to people with criminal histories, let`s go to Becka Stevens, the founder of Thistle Farms. Also an episcopal priest. Some
women from Thistle Farms came to my church in New York a long time ago and I`ll never forget them. Becka Stevens, thank you for being with us.
Thistle Farms helps rehabilitate or helps hookers start over. Explain to me in a nutshell, Ms. Stevens, why -- what they endure as hookers.
BECCA STEVENS, EPISCOPAL PRIEST: Well, I think you`re doing a great job holding your own, Nancy Grace. But if I was going to add something, I
would say any time a man is talking about owning women, you have to question if he`s really interested in their freedom. For us the women
who`ve come to us on Thistle Farms over the last 20 years, are first sexually abused between the ages of 7 and 11, they hit the streets between
the ages of 13 and 15. I`m talking about women who strip. I`m talking about women who enter prostitution. Child trauma, child rape is the
gateway into that, it`s the gateway to addiction. So it is a myth. There are so many myths. That it is a victimless crime. Children are victims.
The community are victims, and there is not enough places for women who want to get out of that lifestyle to go.
We have a hundred women on our waiting list. Not just for the residential piece, but for our social enterprise piece, where we are trying
to sell products all over the country. If people are interested in women`s freedom, be about their economic well-being, not owned by men.
GRACE: Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They let me know what would become of me if I ever told anyone. They told me they knew where I lived. They knew who my
teachers were. They knew my school. They knew everything about me. There is nothing I could do to protect myself. And at 14 years old, I didn`t
even know where to begin.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:48:31]
GRACE: Okay, let`s test your crime IQ. While at a vigil for his missing wife Lacey, Scott Peterson called his lover Amber Frey and
pretended to be in Rome, Paris, Honolulu or Buenos Aires? Tweet or Facebook your answer using #crime iq. I will reveal the winners here on
the show tomorrow tonight. All you legal eagles, you have 24 hours. Go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of these girls, you can arrest him as many times as you want to. They are still going to go back to their pimp. They
are not going to tell for anything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are they going to go back to their pimp?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is their sole -- they are brainwashed into it. And when you start making money like that, you get stuck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, the movement is mounting for the legalization of prostitution. And with me a pro legalization advocate, Dennis Hof, author
of "Art of the Pimp," owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madam. Annie Lobert. Becca Stephens, Bishop Noel Jones,
and Sheryl MacCallum along with our all-star panel. To Annie Lobert. Is it true that your pimp continually humiliated you?
LOBERT: Yes. There was one night that I left him. And two weeks later, he kidnapped me. Put me in a car, drove me into this random
neighborhood with six other pimps while them and their girls witnessed him repeatedly beat me and pistol whip me.
[20:50:08]
Strip me completely nude and then proceeded to cut all my hair off and beat me with an iron poker from a fireplace. I thought I was going to die that
night. There was a body bag and gloves and a shovel ready. And this is part of what the pimps do, is besides just that violence, they coerce and
threaten the victims. They use intimidation, they use isolation. They make sure that the girls don`t have any close family or friends around them
that know them very well, to keep these girls feeling like they have no one to turn to. They use their male privilege and their ownership over them to
keep them enslaved.
Economic abuse was another tactic they use. They don`t have the girls -- they don`t allow them to have any of their own money. They keep the
money from them. And even with the brothels, the brothel takes 50 percent on the get-go. After the girls tip out, they make about 25 percent of that
money that should actually go to them. OK, I`m sorry, but if you sell your body, no one else should have any money from it. You are risking your very
life.
GRACE: (inaudible) about pimps. Dennis Hof, owner of Moonlight Bunny Ranch. I was reading in your book where your girls, pimps would call you
and threaten you, and you would say, come on, I have got an arsenal of guns waiting on you. So even though you are running the Bunny Ranch, pimps are
still involved in this scenario, pimps like the one Annie Lobert just described?
HOF: I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for her, but she entered the sex trade voluntarily and then expected a good result. Are you kidding me?
GRACE: That`s my argument exactly. You are arguing --
HOF: She entered the illegal sex trade.
(CROSSTALK)
HOF: That was back when I first bought the place. I agree, most of the girls had pimps. We said no pimps. We don`t want any part of that.
That`s what I said. But yes, I had those conversations with pimps. I`m not dealing with pimps. They`re all just terrible leaches.
GRACE: But you are a pimp.
HOF: I am not a pimp. I have a license --
GRACE: The name of your book is "The art of the Pimp." You have a caricature of yourself on the front.
HOF: It`s tongue in cheek. It was me showing that I have a humor about my business.
I`m the one that fights the sex trafficking. I do it all the time, every day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:49]
GRACE: All right. Unleash the lawyers. Alex Sanchez, Randy Kessler, also with me, psychologist Caryn Stark. Sanchez, why should prostitution
be legalized? I`m sure you are pro.
SANCHEZ: There`s an enormous amount of resources that go into prosecuting prostitutes. If you can have prostitution illegal, that means
you`re going to arrest prostitutes. And that means there`s police, prosecutors, there`s prisons, there`s judges --
GRACE: That`s the general idea, Sanchez.
SANCHEZ: You are exhausting an enormous amount of resources, which I would rather see used to prosecute those people that are abusive and take -
- and are promoting under-age prostitutes. Why don`t we take all that money and all those resources and go after those people. Those are the bad
people we need to get.
GRACE: It`s about money for you. All right, Kessler.
SANCHEZ: It`s not about money. That`s right.
KESSLER: Why are we going after Dennis Hof? We should be going after the people who are not Dennis Hof, the people who are doing it illegally.
If Dennis Hof wants to run his show, fine.
GRACE: I asked you about legalizing prostitution. That`s my question.
KESSLER: Criminalizing it has not solved it. If people are going to do it anyway, why not regulate it, why not see how we can manage it--
GRACE: Why don`t we regulate rape and murder too, while we`re at it. Caryn Stark, just because it`s done, Caryn, doesn`t mean it should be done.
STARK: I agree, Nancy. Because it`s done it doesn`t mean that it all -- you were talking about that and saying morally, that`s incorrect.
However, it`s what happens to different people, different girls who are feeling desperate. Pimps come from guys who need to have control, who have
a way out for their aggressive tendencies. It`s really hard to monitor what`s going on. Unfortunately, it`s not like the Bunny Ranch. If you
think about the Bunny Ranch, just the name, Bunny, I mean, it`s such an euphemism for what`s really going on. They are not little bunnies, they
are women who have been in desperate situations, and it`s not an innocent way for them to make money.
GRACE: Dr. Tim Gallagher out of Daytona Beach, I`m also concerned about HIV and STDs getting passed on. Although Dennis Hof swears the women
insist on condoms, but I`m just not getting the sense that this is fail proof.
GALLAGHER: Thanks for having me on the show. Condoms do tend to break. There`s a failure rate among condoms, and so passing HIV, a virus,
passing viruses that cause hepatitis and other sexually transmitted disease is very, very possible.
GRACE: I want to thank Dennis Hof, author of "The Art of the Pimp." I don`t agree with you. But I want to thank you for your time. Chrissy
Summers, Heidi Fleiss, Annie Lobert, Becca Stevens and Bishop Noel Jones, and our panel. Yes, I saw that.
Let`s stop and remember American hero, Marine Private Edwardo Lopez. 21, Aurora, Illinois. Loved cooking, war movies, paintball games. Bronze
Star and Purple Heart. Parents Edwardo and Martha. Brother Alejandro. Edwardo Lopez, American hero. Drew up next. I will see you tomorrow
night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.
END
