LAS VEGAS - Hollywood's fairytale notion of the sex trade - with lingerie models as eager prostitutes and hip-hop stars as their handsome pimps - gets uglier the further you step from the small screen.
"Of course, by the time the girl's realize it, it's usually too late," said Metro Police Detective Chris Baughman.
In volumes instead of videos, detectives with Metro's Pimp Investigation Team or PIT plot the true crime stories of sex for hire. They are cases that often begin, for vice detectives like Baughman, with an unlikely victim.
"There's a misconception that the girls are out here. This is what they want to do, so whatever bad fortune they fall upon, hey, that was their lifestyle choice. Well, that's not true," he said.
The idea behind PIT is not unlike illegal drug enforcement: Set your sites on the dealers, and you may be able to cut off supply. While arresting prostitutes is still part of Metro's mission, it recently put resources toward the criminal organizations behind them and the pimps who live the high life off the misery of women.
From a luxury condo on the Las Vegas Strip, a woman who goes by the fake name "Jenna" punches 911. According to police reports, Darryl Page, a suspected pimp, has answered rejection with violence. He pins Jenna to the ground and threatens to kill her when she refuses to join his "team". That is code for selling her body for his profit.
"He started threatening her, telling her she couldn't work anywhere. ‘I run Vegas. I run LA. I'll have someone cut your face up if you try to leave. You'll never be able to do anything. I'm the king of both of these cities,'" Baughman said.
With Jenna's cooperation, Baughman links Page to eight known prostitutes. Metro executes search warrants at the condo and at Page's home in Southern Highlands. The raids lead police to half-a-dozen high-end vehicles, counterfeit cash and weapons. As part of a plea deal to one count of coercion, Page surrenders the property.
"I want to make life as hard on someone like him as possible. We take all his money, all his cars. Whatever he's got, we take. If we can sell it and make money for the county, we want it," Baughman said.
Though asset seizures - now into the millions of dollars - number among the team's top priorities, Baughman measures his success in salvation of victims like Jenna or a prostitute who goes by the fake name "Shannon". They survived the dark side of the Hollywood fairytale to live happily ever after.
"I learned from it," said Shannon. "I don't get fooled around anymore. I would say he saved me."
"I would tell people to wake up, because this isn't a problem that can't reach where you live, where I live," Baughman said.
Detective Baughman is so driven to change what we think we know about pimps and prostitution, that he has written a book based on his first pandering case. It's due for release in September.
