When the Family Business is a Brothel

Oct. 6 -- Behind the doors of one quiet house in New Orleans, federal authorities say, lay the heart of a multi-state prostitution ring.

"I was booked in six months in advance. Girls were just knocking the door to get in," said Jeanette Maier, the madam. Maier is in her late 40's.

But that was hardly the only surprise inside the Canal Street Brothel. Maier's mother Tommie Taylor, who is in her early 60's, ran the office. They brought in prostitutes from around the country, then hired them out at $300 an hour.

And the brothel had one more twist that surprised even a confirmed party town like New Orleans. Not only did Jeanette and her mother run the place, but one of the prostitutes was Jeanette's own daughter.

"I didn't really want to grow up to be like her because I knew what it entailed," said the daughter, Monica Montemayor, who is in her late 20's. "But it just happened that way, you know? It — it just happened."

The Canal Street Brothel had three generations of women under one roof. For Maier, it was the realization of a dream: a safe, friendly place that evoked a New Orleans long past.

"I believe that this city was built on sex and jazz, you know? And I think a big part of it was Storyville," Maier said.

Storyville was New Orleans' infamous red light district. Prostitution was legal in the city from the days of the first French settlers until the 1920s.

It was a world portrayed in the movie Pretty Baby — of elegantly decorated brothels, whose madams, like Lulu White, became New Orleans' biggest celebrities. All a man had to do was pick up a "Blue Book" to find the woman of his choice.

Down into Disrepute

But Storyville had long since faded by the time Maier began her life of prostitution.

Maier was a high school dropout with two kids and a failed marriage when she began dancing in strip clubs in the 1980s. That career move led to years of prostitution.

"I am a single woman. I like sex too. OK?," Jeanette told ABCNEWS' Primetime. "Now what better way to have sex and be able to get paid for it?"