06/16/2002

By GLYNN WILSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

NEW ORLEANS – When the noon hour chimes in the St. Louis Cathedral clock tower on Jackson Square every Friday, the courthouse shuts down, law offices close, and the chefs at Galatoire's and the bartenders at the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street get busy.

In the French Quarter bars, where lawyers in seersucker suits are as common as tourists in khaki shorts and T-shirts, the conversations nowadays often turn to prostitution. It's the hot topic for both locals and visitors since the April bust of a multistate prostitution ring with headquarters here.

The tourists can't help wondering whether prostitution and brothels are as common as the city's reputation of unobstructed fun and vice seems to indicate.

The question many locals ask of each other in jest is: "Are you on the client list?"

The gag is not funny in some quarters.

The lawyer for Jeanette Maier, 43, who pleaded guilty to being the madam, said his client was getting calls from worried customers.

"People have called her up to lobby her," Vinny Mosca said.

Armed with evidence from months of court-approved telephone wire taps, a team of FBI agents stormed the two-story, white-columned Victorian house in the 4300 block of Canal Street, just up the road from the French Quarter in Mid-City.

They busted Ms. Maier and her mother, Tommie Taylor, 62, on charges of conspiring to run a prostitution ring operating across state lines. In the raid, they seized the booking and billing records containing the names of hundreds of clients.

Both women admitted running a high-priced brothel using prostitutes who worked for $200 to $300 an hour on a national prostitution circuit from New York to Boston, Pittsburgh and Atlanta. And they both agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, even if that meant naming names, according to Mr. Mosca, who represents the women. "My clients have an agreement with the government to cooperate," Mr. Mosca said. "If agents of the government debrief them, they will give truthful answers to any questions asked."

According to telephone wiretap record summaries released in court filings, the names that could come out if there is a trial include police officers, at least one judge, a telecommunications mogul, a former head of the prestigious Mardi Gras society Rex, a partner in a prominent law firm, a member of one of the city's leading restaurant families, an executive with a large chemical company, bankers, stockbrokers, oil-field workers and a former professional football star.

The FBI began investigating the Knock (N) Shop brothel after a doctor accused of insurance fraud said he spent more than $300,000 there from 1994 to 1998. The doctor pleaded guilty and cooperated with the FBI.

The agency got the green light to investigate the goings-on in the house by claiming a suspected link to drug dealing and organized crime. Up to 10 agents worked on the case. Apparently no connections to organized crime were uncovered. Some drug charges ­ marijuana selling ­ were included among the racketeering and prostitution indictments. In all, 15 people ­ including Ms. Maier, her daughter and her mother ­ were indicted.

Ms. Taylor pleaded guilty to one minor count of money laundering, admitting she used profits from prostitution to write a $695 rent check. Prosecutors dropped five counts of money laundering and a marijuana conspiracy charge against her and Ms. Maier in a plea bargain that called for their cooperation.

Not all of the defendants have entered guilty pleas ­ including some of the 10 suspected prostitutes and madams in other cities ­ which is why a trial is still a possibility. Sentencing for Ms. Maier and Ms. Taylor is scheduled for Aug. 28.

FBI criticism

Since announcing the bust, the FBI has been the butt of jokes and criticism, locally and nationally.

"It demonstrates the lack of priorities on the part of the FBI and the Justice Department," said Arthur A. "Buddy" Lemann III, a leading criminal defense lawyer in New Orleans. "It's a waste of time and money to spend all these federal resources to investigate a couple of ladies of the night. To make a federal offense out of it is like using an elephant gun to kill a fly."

It was on Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's mind this month as Congress looked into intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"If the FBI can spend resources investigating whether there is prostitution in New Orleans, they ought to be able to find the resources to investigate what happened in this country prior to 9-11," the South Dakota Democrat said.

Ken Kaiser, special agent in charge of the New Orleans FBI office, said the criticism is frustrating. The brothel investigation was a good one, he told the local Times-Picayune newspaper, and is an example of the FBI doing its job of being a domestic watchdog. "To say this was a tremendous waste of FBI resources, I deny it," he said.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick turned down an invitation from acting U.S. Attorney Jim Letten to review evidence in the case for a possible state prosecution. "This is their case, and I don't know why they would want to give it to us," Mr. Connick said. "They spent so much time and money on it already. They could certainly include the customers as principals."

Mr. Letten maintains there is no federal statute to deal with "johns," and that any prosecution of customers would have to be pursued in state court.

Mr. Lemann said the case is a political hot potato that Mr. Connick declined to catch. He said the list of clients may never come out.

In fact, local sentiment is that there are too many rich and powerful people named in the records for the list to ever be made public. "I don't think the list will ever come out," said real estate developer Bobbie Monroe, an Old Absinthe House regular.

Legalization question

Some hope the case reopens a debate about an issue that has lingered just beneath the surface of propriety here since police ran prostitution out of the red-light district on Bourbon Street in the 1950s and '60s: Should prostitution be legalized? Just down the street at the Gennifer Flowers Kelsto Club, the city's newest club owner thinks so.

"Some of my best friends are prostitutes," said Ms. Flowers, whose fame came from an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas. "I think they should legalize prostitution and tax it."

Some locals also question whether Christine Wiltz, author of The Last Madam, was a bit premature in calling Norma Wallace, who ran brothels from the 1920s to the 1960s, the last. "Norma Wallace was the last madam of her era," Ms. Wiltz said in an interview. "I think it's clear from this there's always going to be a latest madam. There's always going to be somebody willing to take the risk."

As for Mr. Connick's refusal to get involved in the case, she said she wonders if it's "just business as usual in New Orleans, a town which likes its lurid local color."

The last prostitution case to come to light here in the 1990s involved a seedy massage parlor. The case against Ms. Wallace in the early 1960s was the last big vice investigation of a high priced-brothel before the Canal Street brothel case.

Ms. Wiltz said Ms. Wallace would never have agreed to name her clients. She added that she believes the only reason Ms. Maier agreed to name names in this case was to get the charges reduced, knowing "it would be very unlikely the list would ever be used."

History of the trade

Prostitution was allowed by city ordinance in 1897, in a confined area called Storyville, near the river and downtown on the site of what came to be the Iberville public housing project. Storyville was shut down at the request of the Navy in 1917 because it was too close to the new base and port. The red-light district moved to the French Quarter.

As late as the 1960s, prostitutes kept apartments on the second floor above businesses on Bourbon Street with two balcony lights. A red light meant busy. Green meant open for business.

But a series of police chiefs ran the illicit businesses off Bourbon Street. Seedy clubs were replaced by the gift shops that dominate the Quarter today.

Famous New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt, who died in 1999, was the most vocal opponent of the anti-prostitution drive, because the ladies of the night and jazz went hand in hand to make the French Quarter and Bourbon Street the tourist draw that fed the local economy.

Will the Canal Street brothel case start a serious debate on legalizing prostitution again?

"I sincerely doubt it," Ms. Wiltz said. "As a society in general we are far too conservative to even think about that. And in New Orleans, I think we like too much being bad. Why would we want to make it good?"

Glynn Wilson is a free-lance writer based in New Orleans.