CARSON CITY, Nev.—Rebekah Charleston has been making quite a name for herself in anti-sex circles such as the National Coalition on Sexual Exploitation, which promoted an article Charleston wrote for the Reno Gazette-Journal, titled "Human trafficking thrives in legal brothels." In the piece, Charleston claimed to have been "trafficked" into the brothels by a pimp—though not once in the article, nor in the lawsuit she filed on February 25 seeking to criminalize prostitution in Nevada, does she name this "pimp" who supposedly forced her to engage in prostitution.
According to Charleston's lawsuit, for which she is represented by Jason Guinasso, a Lyon County official who managed to get an anti-brothel initiative on the November 2018 ballot—where it was soundly defeated—the federal Mann Act (H.R. 12315, passed in 1910), whose current version reads, "Whoever knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual to travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, to engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both," is the key to getting rid of the brothels.
As far as Charleston is concerned, that means that even though neither the United States Constitution nor the Constitution of the State of Nevada prohibit any state from setting up a legal brothel system within its borders, where men and/or women can sell sexual services to willing buyers, somehow the Mann Act prohibits it, in part because women who live in states other than Nevada have come to work in its legal brothels—and as far as Charleston is concerned, that's "interstate trafficking," even though the women voluntarily sought brothel work.
Or as Charleston puts it, "Under the cover of Nevada law legalizing prostitution, brothels, brothel owners and operators, and the women bought and sold in brothels for sex, actively and intentionally persuade, induce, entice, and coerce men and women to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution by advertising and marketing brothels and the sale of people for sex to individuals outside the State of Nevada through hundreds of websites, social media accounts, and other mass media."
The lawsuit, which in mid-March added two other plaintiffs, is full of buzzwords like, "women bought and sold"—they are, at most, rented, as any contractor would be—and "Prostitution is modern day slavery." Charleston also claims that, "multiple brothel owners have brazenly spoken publicly of their efforts to recruit young adult virgins from across all states and/or countries to auction their virginities at their brothels," and charges such as "one brothel owner and manager would send prostituted women out-of-state to California, Illinois, Georgia, and South Carolina to see established sex buyers whose credit cards were processed at the brothels during the time the women were provisioned, though the sex acts occurred, and the buyers were out-of-state. The prostituted women were placed on airplanes to provision sex acts in the state and city where the out-of-state sex buyer was located."
Charleston claims that she personally was trafficked by a pimp into the Moonlight [sic] Bunny Ranch where she was forced to "perform prostitution in the Nevada brothels as a form of punishment," "was not permitted to turn down a sex buyer," "was not permitted to come and go as she pleased," and "was not permitted to turn down a sex buyer"—a claim adult actress Nina Hartley described as "crap."
According to the lawsuit, other horrific acts by brothel owners include, "The Moonlight [sic] Bunny Ranch brothel advertised a College Loan Match Funds Repayment Program 'to recruit and entice more educated,' 'wholesome-looking' women to engage in prostitution at the brothel. Under this 'program,' the brothel management promised to match each dollar expended by the women towards repayment of student loans. This advertisement was specifically used to lure women from across the United States to engage in prostitution in the State of Nevada." (Hmmm... doesn't appear that the women expended much beyond food and other daily necessities, so it's hard to understand how the brothel reimbursing them for that would much affect their student loans.)
But other claims in the lawsuit—such as "Prostitution is inherently an act of sexual coercion, is a form of sexual violence and is integrally connected to sex trafficking, drug abuse, brutality, rape, and murder"—that make it clear that Charleston's lawsuit is less about protecting women and more about getting legal prostitution criminalized in Nevada and sending prostitutes back to pimps and back to soliciting on street corners.
Needless to say, the Nevada governor and its legislature don't want that to happen, so they filed a Motion to Dismiss Charleston's lawsuit, and its second paragraph makes the state's position clear: "If Congress desired to criminalize prostitution, it could easily do so. But it has not. Lacking express language from either the Mann Act or the TVPA [Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000] to support their attempt to ban brothels, Plaintiffs’ complaint relies on a nebulous theory of Congressional intent and conflict preemption. There is no conflict, however. The illegal conduct alleged by Plaintiffs is illegal under both Nevada and federal laws that criminalize sex trafficking."
The Motion also notes that none of the three plaintiffs—Charleston, Angela Delgado-Williams and Leah Albright-Byrd—face current or future injuries due to Nevada's brothel system—a system in which Delgado-Williams never even worked!
The Motion makes fairly short work of the Complaint's allegations. For example, as to the Mann Act claims, "The Mann Act is not inconsistent with Nevada law, since it only applies to conduct 'for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense,'" and prostitution is legal in legal Nevada brothels.
Regarding the plaintiffs' claim that "Nevada created a market for sex trafficking to flourish because Nevada affirmatively authorizes prostitution," the Motion notes, "Nevada, however, like the federal government, takes no affirmative position on the criminality of prostitution. It leaves that decision up to counties whose population meets certain requirements," and such allegations "are not consistent with the text of the relevant Nevada law, Nevada Revised Statute 244.345(8)."
Finally, though the lawsuit claims that "Nevada advertises as a sex tourism state," the Motion to Dismiss states that after examining the numerous exhibits, including many news articles, attached to the Complaint, "Plaintiffs never allege factual allegations demonstrating a nexus between these articles and their allegations against the State. The only relevance these articles could have is to an outright federal ban on legalized prostitution, which Plaintiffs concede is not federal law."
That last point is perhaps the most important, since whatever actually happened to the plaintiffs, the State of Nevada had nothing to do with it.
"This Court only has power to hear 'cases or controversies...,'" the Motion declares. "To seek injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show that he is under threat of suffering 'injury in fact' that is concrete and particularized; the threat must be actual and imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; it must be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant; and it must be likely that a favorable judicial decision will prevent or redress the injury." As to all of that, the only assessment that can be reached regarding the complaint's allegations is one big FAIL.
"Nevada law did not injure Plaintiffs because the traffickers’ conduct that injured Plaintiffs was illegal in Nevada as well as federal law. Nevada law, like its federal counterpart, criminalizes sex trafficking...," the Motion states. "Accordingly, Nevada law could not have injured Plaintiffs. It criminalized the very conduct that Plaintiffs complain of. ... Plaintiffs failed to allege any affirmative conduct by the State that placed them in danger. Plaintiffs’ allegations pertain to conduct by private individuals, sex traffickers, who violated federal law, and (where such allegations have a nexus to Nevada) Nevada law, by using force or threats of force to coerce Plaintiffs into prostitution."
The Motion to Dismiss takes issue with several other claims in the lawsuit, most revolving around the fact that plaintiffs, who haven't shown any state-caused injuries, aren't entitled to any relief under either Nevada or federal law—and an article published on the Nevada Brothel Association website seems to undercut several of the allegations Charleston does make.
"Let’s start with the fact that 'Rebekah Charleston' is the name she goes by now," the article states. "Her real name back in 2006—when she was busted for money laundering and tax evasion—was 'Rebekah Kay Dean, a.k.a., Nicole A. Wilson.'"
The article goes on to quote from an undated interview Charleston/Dean/Wilson gave to Ft. Worth Magazine, wherein the woman says that "by the time she was 16 she’d become a drug abuser and dropped out of school," that she "eventually ran away and moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a half-dozen 'low level' drug dealers and started dealing drugs herself. Around the same time she also began stripping and 'sitting on 50-year-old men’s laps accepting shots of Hennessy'," and finally, "One night, at the age of 17, 'she and her friends were looking for men in a strip club parking lot' when she met the guy she now claims 'beat' and 'trafficked' her over the next ten years." (Again, he remains nameless.)
But that's not all: "On March 9, 2006 a United States federal grand jury issued two indictments against her for bank fraud," charging that she "devised and intended to devise a scheme and artifice to defraud Chase Manhattan Bank to obtain money, funds, and credits owned by or under the control of Chase Manhattan Bank by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representation or promises."
But even that's not all: "On August 29, 2006, the United States Attorney also charged Charleston/Dean/Wilson and another woman, Tina Bennett, with "Conspiracy to commit Tax Evasion," alleging that, as part of an illegal prostitution ring they allegedly ran, "During the calendar year of 2004, BENNETT and DEAN deposited $684,541.71 into [several bank] accounts with the intent to share the money between themselves. BENNETT and DEAN thereafter attempted to conceal this income and failed to file tax returns with the IRS." As a result, Charleston/Dean/Wilson was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison.
And to top it all off: "In addition, no one associated with the brothels has been able to find any record of Charleston/Dean/Wilson—under her current name or any of her known aliases—ever working in Lyon County and she’s provided absolutely no proof or corroboration that she did."
The earlier version of the Charleston/Delgado-Williams/Albright-Byrd complaint can be read here. The state's Motion to Dismiss may be read here.
Pictured: The Moonlite Bunny Ranch and its former owner, the late Dennis Hof
(H/t to Michael Whiteacre for the info)
