Metro Police target pimps in attempt to curb child prostitution problem

Jace Radke

Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | 11:03 a.m.

A 14-year-old girl ditching a day from a valley high school thought she had made a new friend after meeting a man in a nice car along Boulder Highway this year.

He told her he was a rapper, and the two got to know each other as he bought her gifts and took her out over the next several weeks.

"She didn't realize that this guy was a pimp and she was his newest recruit," said Sally Huncovsky, a juvenile probation supervisor for Clark County. "He gained her trust over the next couple weeks, but he could never quite get her to start hooking.

"I guess he got tired of waiting because one day he took her to a seedy downtown motel room and he and a friend raped her repeatedly."

The pimp then told the girl to stay in the motel room and make him some money or face a beating.

Stories like this girl's are a growing problem in Las Vegas where Metro Police are on track to arrest a record number of juvenile prostitutes this year.

Metro has arrested a total of 339 prostitutes between the ages of 11 and 17 from 1994 through June of this year, and the number of arrests has increased every year. Just 24 were arrested in 1994 compared to the 88 Metro booked in 1998.

Through June of this year Metro has already arrested 46 child prostitutes.

"Every year our juvenile arrests are increasing," Vice Detective Victor Vigna said. "We're getting better at finding these kids and getting them out of prostitution, but what we want is to get to the point where we see the arrests dropping because there are less kids out there."

Despite the growing numbers of juvenile prostitutes, Vigna says the word is getting out that child prostitution won't be tolerated in Las Vegas.

"It goes in spurts and you're never going to put an end to prostitution, but the pimps are starting to get nervous," Vigna said. "The word is starting to get out that if they bring kids here we'll find them."

About two thirds of the underage prostitutes arrested in Las Vegas are from out of state, and of the 339 juvenile cases Metro has handled only four have involved boys.

Most of the juvenile prostitutes in Las Vegas are part of the "West Coast track," a circuit of cities that pimps rotate girls through so that arrests don't stack up against them, police say. Phoenix, Seattle, Hawaii and California serve as prime recruiting grounds, authorities say.

Huncovsky, who works in Clark County's Family & Youth Services Division, says that juvenile prostitutes became a priority for Metro in 1995 when the "Stop" program was introduced.

The program is aimed at getting underage prostitutes off the streets by identifying them before they've been on the street for long and by aggressively targeting pimps. Since "Stop" was started, 123 pimps have been arrested.

"The numbers of child prostitutes have grown every year that I've been here," said Huncovsky, who has been with the division for 22 years. "Now with 'Stop' vice detectives are trained to focus on the younger girls and get them off the street."

Huncovsky's office coordinates closely with vice detectives and often has as many as 10 child prostitutes at a time in the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.

The juveniles are usually held for two weeks to a month and during that time relatives are contacted and homes for the children are arranged. After they are released they are usually placed on some form of probation, Vigna said.

"We were finding that we would make an arrest and then they would be right back out in the bad environment that led them to prostitution before," Vigna said. "The root of the problem was the environment, so now we do a lot of casework and try to find parents and set up counseling and find these kids a stable environment."

Detectives also talk to the juveniles in the detention center in the hopes of gaining new information on their pimps.

"When we pick them up we tell them that their arrest probably saved their lives and that getting their pimp off the street will save more girls' lives," Vigna said.

Ironically the detectives work to gain the trust of the juveniles, which is exactly what the pimps did to get them into prostitution, or "the game" as it's known on the streets.

"The pimps work to gain trust and then they exploit that," Vigna said. "Many times these girls don't even realize the guy is a pimp because he tells them he's their boyfriend."

Some of the common things pimps tell the girls is that they are record producers, rap stars or rich businessmen. They often have expensive cars, homes and clothes, and even have business cards listing them as company presidents.

"We talk to the girls and break down the lies they've been told," Vigna said. "We show them the rental receipts for the pimp's fancy homes and cars, and show them these guys aren't what they seem to be."

While being held at the juvenile detention center the girls get a look into what could be their future, courtesy of the inmates at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility.

"The women at the prison have been where these girls are, and are now where they could end up," Huncovsky said. "These inmates volunteer to share their stories with the girls, and they can cover everything from HIV to being in jail for prostitution.

"We allow them to pair off and talk, and it's often a real shocking experience because these women know what the girls are thinking and can really get through to them."

Huncovsky takes a group of juvenile prostitutes to meet with the inmates once a month.

"They (the convicts) tell you straight up what's going on and what will happen to you if become a prostitute," said Elizabeth, a 15-year-old girl who was picked up by vice during the July 4th weekend. "They told us to stay away from drugs because that's what led a lot of them to prostitution."

Elizabeth considers her arrest the luckiest thing that ever happened to her.

"I was at a party in California and I met a guy who said he was going to Las Vegas with some friends for the Fourth of July and asked if I wanted to go," Elizabeth said. "We got to Las Vegas and there were a lot of girls around, but he said they were his cousins.

"One night a whole bunch of pimps came to the motel room we were at, and I thought 'Oh my God.' "

Detectives found Elizabeth the next day and she was taken to the detention center where she stayed for 32 days. She left the detention center on Friday and will serve out her probation living with her mother.

Children who aren't found as quickly as Elizabeth have the option of going to Children of the Night, a nonprofit shelter for abused teenagers, in Van Nuys, Calif. The shelter was established in 1979 and provides counseling for teenage prostitutes.

The offices of the vice unit are proof that the fight against child prostitution is working. It's decorated with pictures and cards from former child prostitutes who have left the game.

"All the detectives get calls at least once a week from a girl who they helped get out of this, and that's the payoff," Vigna said. "We get invited to graduations and weddings and they send us pictures of their children.

"If we can get even one girl out the program is a success."

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