PATRICK, NV — Legendary, trailblazing brothel World Famous Mustang Ranch has re-opened after being closed by the federal government back in 1990. The nation’s first legal brothel has been restored and brought back into business with current brothel employee “Love” telling the local media, “It’s like the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. The Mustang’s always going to be there to stay. They’ve made it even better than the original.”Formerly owned by one-time cab driver Joe Conforte with his wife/fellow brothel owner Sally Burgess, the two took over the Mustang Bridge Ranch, located, about 10 miles east of Reno in 1967. Four years later, Storey County licensed it as the first legal brothel in the state, not to mention the country.
While they made a fortune from the 104-room brothel, the two remained in constant trouble with the feds and with the local government.
A grand jury in Reno found close ties with the brothel to local city officials officials in 1976, but there were no indictments. In 1982, a grand jury determined that Conforte had unusual influence in the county and implicated the district attorney and the sheriff. Again, no indictments were returned after a 2 1/2-year investigation.
Meanwhile, the Mustang Ranch was burned down in 1975 in an apparent act of arson. Conforte rebuilt, and the in 1976, heavyweight contender Oscar Bonavena — managed intimately by Sally Conforte — was shot to death by a Mustang Ranch bodyguard.
It is said that Conforte dealt mostly in cash and kept few records. By 1990, The IRS stepped in and seized the ranch, putting the federal government in the unique position of running a brothel. It failed, which is surprising given how many politicians are whores for cash, and sadly, the ranch was padlocked.
The IRS auctioned the brothel’s fixtures right down to the room numbers to recover some of Conforte’s tax debt.
The brothel was sold for $1.49 million to a company overseen by Conforte and his attorney, Peter Perry. Conforte returned briefly to run the ranch, then left the US to live in Brazil in 1991.
The IRS won the battle in 1997 when it filed a $16 million tax lien, followed in July 1999 with indictments of Conforte and principals in his shell company on charges including racketeering and money laundering.
Four years later, the brothel’s new owner — the federal Bureau of Land Management — put the Ranch up for auction on eBay. Current owner Lance Gilman snapped it up for the pittance of $145,100.
“The Mustang Ranch was a historical site,” Gilman said. “It was a business decision.”
Gilman, a real estate developer/owner of the Wild Horse Resort & Spa, a brothel across the parking lot from the Mustang, estimates he has spent $6 million to move the 12 buildings four miles from Mustang.
Gilman and madam Susan Austin stripped the property to the walls and remodeled.
The parlor, where the girls line up, had to be stripped to its timbers and flown to the Wild Horse site, then completely rebuilt.
“We spared no expense in refurbishing the original Mustang Ranch and turning it into one of the state’s most luxurious brothels,” Austin said proudly. “We kept the same pink stucco exterior of the buildings and spent a lot of time, thought and effort into decorating the massive entry parlor. We kept the essence of what was the Mustang Ranch. We just greatly enhanced and improved it,” Austin said.
Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada’s 17 counties. The state has fewer than 30 brothels currently registered and operating.
Efforts to ban prostitution in the past have gone nowhere in the state legislature, although Gov. Jim Gibbons has promised to sign any anti-brothel bill that lands on his desk.
Gibbons said even his mother thought legal prostitution had its place in Nevada, believing that it was better to have prostitutes “regulated, controlled and tested than walking the streets of Reno.”
Maybe mom knows best.
