The Mustang Ranch was a brothel near Reno in Storey County, Nevada. It became Nevada's first licensed brothel in 1971, eventually leading to the legalization of brothel prostitution in most counties of the state. Nevada's largest brothel, with more revenue then all other legal Nevada brothels combined, the Mustang Ranch was closed by the federal government in 1999.
As in other Nevada brothels, customers were buzzed in through a gate, chose a woman from a lineup in a lobby, and negotiated prices and services in the woman's room. Typical prices ranged from $100 to $500 plus tips; the house received half of anything the women made. After the negotiations (overheard by a hidden intercom system) were over, the prostitute collected the money and deposited it with a cashier. The house rules forbade anal sex and kissing on the mouth. Oral sex and intercourse were to be performed with condoms. The women were not allowed to reject a customer who was willing to pay the house minimum and stick to the rules. Every room had a hidden panic button. Cab drivers typically received 10% of the money their customers spent at the ranch. The prostitutes lived on the ranch during their whole shift, which lasted from several days to several weeks. During their shift, they worked 12 hours per day, serving six customers per day on average. Women not working on the ranch were not allowed in.
The brothel started out as a set of four double-wide trailers, run by Richard Bennet and initially called Mustang Bridge Ranch. Joe Conforte, who had owned several brothels in Nevada together with his wife Sally since 1955, took over the Mustang Ranch in 1967. At this time, brothels were not explicitly illegal in Nevada, but some had been closed as public nuisances.
Initially, the brothel did not serve black customers. In 1967, a separate trailer for blacks was built, and the prostitutes were allowed to refuse these men. This segregation was later abandoned, but black customers were still announced by a special signal, so that women could choose not to join the lineup, something not allowed for white customers.
Conforte gained political influence in Storey County (by renting out cheap trailers and telling the renters how to vote) and persuaded county officials to pass a brothel-licensing ordinance, which came into effect in 1971. The Nevada Supreme Court upheld the right of a county to legalize prostitution, and several counties followed suit.
Conforte converted the trailers into a permanent structure with 54 bedrooms. In 1976, the world class boxer Oscar Bonavena, who was a former friend of Conforte's and probably had an affair with Sally, was shot dead at the ranch by Conforte's body guard. In 1984, Mustang II with 38 bedrooms was built a hundred meters away from Mustang I. A bit smaller and not as luxurious as Mustang I, mostly new women and women demoted from Mustang I for some infraction worked there.
Alexa Albert, who conducted interviews with several women in the Mustang Ranch from 1993 to 1996, alleges that the brothel at one point required all women to have pimps, who were thought to make the women work harder. While this practice had stopped in the nineties, many women were still pressured into the work by boyfriends, husbands or other family members. About half of the women reported having been sexually abused as a child, compared to an estimated overall rate of 20%.
After losing a tax fraud case in 1990, the brothel was closed for three months and auctioned off. Conforte fled the United States and now lives in Brazil. The brothel was bought by a holding company (a front for Conforte) and stayed open. After that company and the brothel's manager (a former county commissioner) lost a federal fraud, racketeering and conspiracy case in 1999, the Mustang Ranch was closed and forfeited to the federal government. The Brazil supreme court ruled in the same year that Conforte could not be extradited. In 2002, the brothel's furniture, paintings and accessories were auctioned off.
See also
References
The Mustang Ranch is the biggest brothel on the Spanish tourist island of Mallorca, located close to the capital Palma. It offers strip-tease, sex shows and prostitution.
