Jury orders Mustang Ranch turned over to federal government

RENO, Nev. - In less than a month, the girls of the Mustang Ranch will be gone and the tacky carpets, overstuffed sofas and flocked wallpaper will belong to the government. And the government will be shutting it down. Perhaps forever.

A federal jury on Friday ordered the owners of the brothel to turn it over to the government along with an array of other properties owned by two companies convicted of being set up solely to hide the identity of the true owner, fugitive brothel baron Joe Conforte.

The jury handed down verdicts on Thursday that said A.G.E. Enterprises Inc. and its holding company, A.G.E. Corp. Inc., existed to conceal Conforte's ongoing involvement.

The issue of prostitution never faced the jury, as it is legal in a dozen of Nevada's 17 counties, including the one where the Mustang is located. The defendants were convicted of conspiring to protect Conforte.

"There is no justification to let any of these entities retain any of these assets," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Damm told the U.S. District Court panel.

"Forfeiture is to disable a criminal enterprise and to punish the criminal activities," he said.

Judge Howard McKibben issued preliminary orders for all the forfeitures effective immediately so the government could begin identifying the assets.

Only the turnover of the brothel was postponed - until Aug. 9 - so people there could make arrangements to move out.

The government will seize the bordello at that time and padlock it. Damm said he did not know what will become of it after that.

"It will not be an operating brothel," he said, declining to speculate whether it would ever reopen as one.

The panel on Friday also ordered that the two companies forfeit $20 million each and that former Storey County commissioner and former Mustang Ranch madam Shirley Colletti surrender $220,000 for taking part in the intrigue.

In addition to the gated brothel off Interstate 80 about 15 minutes east of Reno, the two straw companies will surrender real estate ranging from vacant lots to a mobile home park and a restaurant near Virginia City.

Ms. Colletti said she was devastated.

"I'm innocent of all those charges," she said. "If I was guilty, I would have taken all those deals they offered me. All the money I have to pay back is money I earned working 24 hours a day."

Outside the courtroom, Colletti attorney David Houston, was more outspoken.

"Why doesn't the government get off its lazy butt and go arrest Conforte instead of picking the pocketbook of a 63-year-old woman?" he asked. "They know where he is. They even know his phone number.

"They could invade Panama to get Noriega, but they don't bother to get Conforte."

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