413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

These individuals fit a victim-offender profile in that they are exploited by a pimp but also used by the
pimp to assist in the exploitation of others—by aiding with recruitment, transportation, and harboring.
This has presented a challenge for law enforcement and prosecutors who understand their victimization,
but see their criminal conduct. One law enforcement officer described the victim offender overlap:
Sometimes you have to weigh it, like we have a case now where the bottom was an 18-
year-old and she’s a mean chick and quite honestly she was like three months older than
the victim and you have to look at it and say “Man this girl really is a victim too.” She’s a
victim too and so we need to figure out in talking with her and working with her and we
will, and ultimately I think she’s going to proffer. I had a case too, one of the ladies was 26
and she’s the bottom and she’s telling you stuff kind of that really is devastating, she’s
telling you that she was recruited at 14 and then you’re like, “Well jeez, you’ve been doing
this for 11 years of course you’ve figured out the hierarchy and you’re in a better off place
now you have to do less deals you get more stuff you get more benefit.” (Denver Law
Enforcement Official)
Pimps force victims to turn over all of the money made through trading sex. Sometimes pimps give an
allowance to their victims and sometimes they do not. Police officials described the power and control that
pimps exert over the women and girls and the difficulty this creates in getting them to open up about the
crimes committed against them:
Well, will the girls talk about it [abuse by pimps/traffickers] Probably not, because I
think it falls back into that, I mean you, you think your absolute [worst] domestic violence
case and situation you can ever think of, and you take these girls, times ten, because I
mean they’re getting beat by these guys, they’re getting raped five to ten times a day every
time they sell themselves, the pimps are raping them. They all think they love them, they
all think they love this guy. (Denver Law Enforcement Official)
Law enforcement also discussed how some pimps will use violence against women and girls. These victims
are then hidden from law enforcement and won’t be advertised until they heal. Law enforcement
discussed how some big escort services trafficking women and minors are moving toward a more “highend”
model that involves gift giving as a form of coercion, rather than physical violence:
We will not see a lot of assaults. But I do not necessarily attribute that to it not happening
it is just that they may be out of pocket for a little while until they heal up and stuff. I
think the bottoms do a lot to influence the girls, to keep them in line. Some of the best
model businesses are going to Heidi Fleiss and all those top-end stuff and her philosophy
was to treat them extremely well. She would pay for the girls to go to trips to Vegas when
they were on their periods. They were out for a week and they were showered with
affection and attention and I think that there is some modeling for that for some of the
big escort services. But for the most part it is more of the disciplinary thing. (Denver Law
Enforcement Official)
Pimps in Denver have also been found to sell or trade victims. In one case, a girl ran away from one pimp
to another and the first pimp paid the other pimp $400 to keep her. One official described how
independent pimps work together, even though they operate separately, to buy and trade women and
girls:
I think that’s really important to get out that they’re not organized, but that’s how they
are organized. It’s that loose knit criminal affiliate, because they’re all criminals, and it’s
so they’re working together that way, they may not be sharing much but they are sharing
girls they’re selling girls back and forth to each other if somebody needs a white girl and
another guy needs a black girl, they might trade. (Denver Law Enforcement Official)
Despite the existence and use of asset forfeiture laws by Denver officials, assets are reportedly difficult to
seize in cases involving independent pimps. Law enforcement described how pimps are transitory and
lease expensive mansions or spend money on hotel rooms for themselves and the women and girls who
work for them. Vehicles are often rented rather than purchased. If pimps did own real estate or vehicles, it
was common to put the property under their bottom’s name to protect them against asset forfeiture and a
91