LAS VEGAS (CN) — Nevada officials and a group of brothels created and benefitted from an environment conducive to sex trafficking, an unnamed victim and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation accused in a lawsuit filed Friday in Nevada federal court.
"Nevada has permitted its legal brothels to participate in sex trafficking unchecked," Nevada attorney Jason Guinasso said in a statement. "The State of Nevada, along with Nye, Elko and Storey Counties, have provided legal protection for the sex trade by licensing these brothels and mandating that individuals like Jane Doe, who have been exploited, remain under their control. Jane Doe's rights have been infringed upon, and she is entitled to justice."
Jane Doe, the lawsuit's unnamed plaintiff, claims she was trafficked and exploited within Nevada's legally regulated brothel system from 2017 to 2022. She challenges the state, its counties and several brothel operators — including Western Best, operating as Chicken Ranch — for sustaining and profiting from a legalized system of prostitution that, she argues, amounts to sex trafficking.
Doe's experience, legally sanctioned in certain Nevada counties and tacitly allowed elsewhere, led directly to her sex trafficking in legal brothels, she says.
The plaintiff, represented by the center and Guinasso, challenges what she describes in the suit as "state-sanctioned sex trade," arguing that Nevada's sanctioned brothels, state officials and county administrations violate the 13th Amendment's prohibition of slavery and indentured servitude, along with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
Christen Price, an attorney with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said that the defendants facilitate the exploitation and trafficking of individuals under a guise of legality. Nevada's regulatory apparatus fundamentally breaches the rights and dignity of victims, fostering a cycle of abuse and exploitation, she said.
Price added, "The conditions within the brothels that exploited Jane Doe were deeply coercive, designed to keep her indebted and under their control. This violates the 13th Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude."
Jane Doe details in the her suit systemic abuse within the brothels, including confinement, economic coercion and limited autonomy over personal and professional lives.
The case exposes the unsettling realities of Nevada’s sex trade, challenging the assumption that legalized prostitution can exist without contributing to the conditions typical of sex trafficking. Nevada's approach to prostitution highlights a complex relationship between economic gains and human rights considerations, the plaintiff says.
An estimated $5 billion is funneled annually into Nevada's underground through illegal prostitution. This economic behemoth stands in stark contrast to the state's legal brothel revenue — approximately $75 million from legalized brothel-based prostitution in counties with populations under 700,000 — raising profound questions about the balance between economic benefit and the human cost.
This legal stance has cultivated a tourism culture that anticipates such services, inadvertently amplifying the illegal sex trade and complicating anti-trafficking efforts. Despite the prohibition of prostitution in cities like Las Vegas, brothels are operational in seven counties.
The plaintiff in the suit also details the stringent controls brothels impose on women, including fines for minor infractions, mandatory sexually transmitted infections testing without similar requirements for clients and confinement to brothel premises. Jane Doe's story, she writes, is not isolated but reflects the broader plight of many women trapped in Nevada’s legal brothels, subjected to debt bondage, restricted movement and psychological manipulation.
The suit also targets establishments such as the Chicken Ranch and Mustang Ranch, as well as notable individuals including brothel owner and Storey County Commissioner Lance Gilman, Governor Joseph Lombardo and Attorney General Aaron Ford, none of whom were immediately available for comment.
The suit seeks a declaration that Nevada’s state and county defendants have breached the 13th Amendment, an injunction against the laws, policies and actions supporting what they called an exploitative system, and damages for the significant harm endured by the plaintiff and people like her.
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