Jack Sheehan talks to two women who left the sex trade and now target it with Christianity

By Jack Sheehan

Sunday, Dec. 23, 2007 | 6:54 a.m.

If you're searching for a uniquely Las Vegas Christmas story, with the emphasis on Christ, look no further than the combined tales of Heather Veitch and Annie Lobert.

These two women have come full circle in their lives through troubled youths, abuse, alcohol and drug issues, and even the dark alley of top-dollar prostitution, to a place where today both live on modest incomes and have devoted their lives to telling people that Jesus loves them.

Their story is hardly a Hallmark card, but it has an equal measure of spirit and conviction.

If you looked up "blond bombshells" in the American Heritage dictionary, Heather and Annie might be pictured in the margins. But rather than striking va-va-voom poses, they'd undercut the stereotype by holding signs above their heads reading "Jesus (Heart) Las Vegas."

Earlier this month the two women did just that, fearlessly walking up and down the Strip carrying signs that read "Jesus Loves: pimps, hookers, addicts, strippers, showgirls, etc...." They did so while dressed in full showgirl regalia, getting priceless looks of surprise and more than a few smiles from tourists.

The 6 1/2-minute video of their excursion, which they titled "Saving Sex City," was put on YouTube and was the most watched video of the week across the broad bands of the Internet. Within days, nearly 2,000 people had written their reactions on Annie's MySpace blog, and more than two out of three were positive.

Of course there were some mean ones, spewing invectives at the women and listing Las Vegas as the lowest rung on the food chain of civilization. But then we locals have come to expect that kind of reaction through the years. (I would guess that half of those who blog-blasted them in fact enjoy visiting Las Vegas and indulging in the very behaviors they profess to find so disgusting.)

If you think Heather and Annie publicly espouse their faith just for attention, a recent long discussion I had with them completely dispelled that notion. These two survivors of the mean streets have become totally convinced missionaries for Jesus Christ in Las Vegas because this is the place where they both nearly bottomed out before seeing the light.

"There are more people who need saving here per capita than anywhere else," Annie says.

Annie's call-girl name was Fallen, which she pronounced like a character on the TV show "Dynasty" (Fal-on), but which she ironically spelled like the adjective that described her condition during the 11 years she sold herself for top dollar on the Strip.

Former Clark County Sheriff Bill Young busted Fallen for the first time in 1989 on a hooker sting when he was working vice. He subsequently arrested her about a dozen more times.

"She was the most beautiful call girl of her day," Young says. "On that initial bust Officer Dave Logue and I had done a room setup at the Stardust, with the flash rolls and wearing Rolexes and everything, and back then we were surprised that a girl like her would choose that life. She was probably the most in-demand call girl in Las Vegas. She made easily in the six figures, but as was typical she had a pimp who abused her and took 90 cents of every dollar she made. I felt bad for her and gave her my standard, 'You've got to get out of this business' lecture."

Young lost track of Fallen in 1995, when he left vice, but was contacted by her years later when he was running for sheriff. She told him she'd left the escort business, had a straight job and had transitioned to a Christian lifestyle.

"I'm proud of Annie and the changes she's made in her life," Young says. "She's the real deal when it comes to her faith. What she does is not easy, but I know she's making a lot of difference in people's lives."

Annie's flash point occurred on a night when she nearly OD'd in Las Vegas on a cocktail of drugs including cocaine, Oxycontin, Valium and Vicodin. "I did some serious bargaining with God that night, that if he let me live, he'd have my love unconditionally. And I've kept that promise," she says.

Heather's epiphany came after more than a year of experiencing a gnawing guilt that she was headed for damnation. Her story is not atypical of women who choose the adult industry.

Heather was a California-bred single mother at age 18, "the wildest girl you could imagine," she says. She was thrown out of school, admittedly suffered from low self-esteem, and therefore exploited her female attributes for all she could. Because men found her irresistible, she chose the easy-money route. She descended down the slippery slope through the years from go-go dancing to bikini-dancing to weekend-warrior stripping and lap-dancing at the Olympic Gardens in Las Vegas. Later she performed in totally nude establishments, where she earned as much as $2,000 to $4,500 a night.

"I provided well for my son, but I didn't save money the way I should have," Heather says. "As the years passed, the regrets for the way I was living my life deepened, and then as we came to the end of 1999 I knew I just had to get out of that world or I would be doomed to hell. This is embarrassing to admit, but I had a strange feeling that the onset of the millennium might mark the end of civilization. I was petrified of dying and going to hell for the way I'd lived my life. I quit dancing and dedicated my life to Jesus at that time."

Heather admits that for the next five years she became an "uptight Christian, very judgmental of others." She and her then-husband cut all her ties to Las Vegas and moved back to California. She dyed her hair black and gained 20 pounds as a way of exorcising the vixen inside her who had always cashed in on her physical appeal. But she soon found that wasn't the answer either.

"My husband and I lived the most cloistered, rude existence," she says. "We threw out all our books and magazines. We'd watch only Christian television, listen only to Christian radio. Everyone hated us and I eventually understood why. We were too one-dimensional."

Then Heather heard about one of her dancer friends who had died in her early 30s of alcoholism, and over the next year four or five other girls she had befriended as a dancer died of drug or alcohol abuse.

She sought out her pastor and told him of her new mission. She wanted to take other Christian women along with her, go into gentlemen's clubs and purchase lap dances for $20, then spend the allotted time talking to the dancers about Jesus Christ. Thus was born her ministry, called J.C.'s Girls.

Heather eventually moved back to Las Vegas, where she has spent considerable time trying to convert people in the adult film industry. She has even rented a booth at the annual porn convention to share her message.

It was inevitable that Heather and Annie meet - they'd heard each other's names repeatedly from fellow Christians, and that they were on similar missions. But the meeting wouldn't happen for several months.

When Heather finally called Annie one morning to reach out, the conversation lasted four hours. Their paths had been so similar that the two bonded instantly. Since then they have joined forces to spread the word to others in the adult industry.

"We don't use a blow horn or a sledgehammer," Annie says. "We just befriend people and offer support."

After all the things these two women have endured, and all the self-inflicted pain they've gone through, their message these days is very simple: Jesus Christ loves us all equally and is ready at all times to forgive our sins.

It's a Christmas parable for today, straight from the belly of Sin City.

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