When the Family Business is a Brothel

Oct. 6, 2003 -- 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?"

After attempts at several other addresses, Maier opened the Canal Street Brothel in 1999.

One of the prostitutes there was her own daughter, who had started in the business through what she says was a kind of accident — when she was just 16.

"I was out. A guy had made a comment, and I thought it was a joke," Montemayor remembers. "Well, I ended up drinking. And I had gone back to my apartment. And things happened. And before I knew it, he left money on the table."

Montemayor says she remembers thinking, "What the hell just happened?" And then on second thought, she said, "I was like, 'Hey, you know? This wasn't so bad. This is easy money, you know?'"

She remembers her mother's reaction to the news that she was turning tricks: "She didn't say it was wrong. She didn't say anything. Nothing, you know? 'Don't do it. Stop. Go to school.' Nothing," she said.

Montemayor went on: "Nobody put a gun to my head. Nobody made me do it," adding, "It was a learned behavior. Definitely a learned behavior."

Maier says the brothel was a way to run her own business, to give her mother a job, and, she claims, to give her daughter a safer place to turn tricks.

"I am sure that, yeah, that was part of it," Monica said. "The other part is that, I think it was — money, you know? Fresh young girl. That's a lot of money."

All three generations of women say they shared a long history of sexual abuse and substance abuse that ultimately led to the sex business.

Vanishing Connections

Not only did federal officials suspect the brothel was involved in interstate trafficking of prostitutes, but they believed there were drugs involved too — heroin, cocaine and marijuana — and even ties to the Mob. In April 2001, a federal court approved the wire-tapping of Maier's phone.

After a two-year investigation and thousands of wiretaps, the U.S. Attorney's office moved in. Maier, her mother and her daughter found themselves facing the possibility of serious time. But when they learned the identity of one of the FBI's main informants, they were furious. He was their best customer: Dr. Howard Lippton.

According to federal documents, Dr. Lippton had written Maier and her mother almost $350,000 in checks over a four-year period. Under indictment for Medicare fraud, he started informing on the brothel.

To this day, Maier still feels betrayed. "For him to turn on us to save himself — what a coward. What a coward," she says. "And what are we supposed to do? You know how many girls were hurt by this?"

But in the end, after that lengthy federal investigation and all that controversy, the Canal Street Brothel case ended with a whimper. Maier, her mother, her daughter and all the others who were charged pleaded guilty to their involvement in the prostitution ring, but no one did jail time.

The initial allegations of hard drugs and Mob connections all but vanished. And not one man of the men who had paid for sex was charged.

"So is it only one side of this crime that is criminal?" asked Laurie White, an attorney who represented a Chicago madam who pled guilty. "That's what doesn't make any sense to me, because only the women were charged," she said.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, whose office led the brothel prosecution, turned down ABCNEWS' request for an interview. But in a statement, he called the overall investigation "properly instituted." He also said none of the customers were charged because they did not violate any federal laws.

‘Snakes in the Grass’

The end of the case hasn't stopped New Orleans from wondering exactly who was paying for sex at the Canal Street Brothel. The customers reportedly include some high flyers of New Orleans society.

"There were a lot of men nervous, and they had every right to be," Maier says.

To this day, the women of the Canal Street Brothel have not named names. When Maier playfully asks her mother if she has any stories to tell about the clients, Taylor responds with a laugh: "My lips are sealed!"

But Maier's daughter isn't laughing about the men she thought were loyal customers. "They are snakes in the grass," she said. "They really are. Not one of 'em stepped up."

"People that have been using my mother from the time she was 21 years old. They just walked away with their tail between their legs and didn't look back. Scattered like flies," she said.

Today, Montemayor says the brothel bust has left her broke, while her mother and grandmother are starting to cash in on their infamy with books and a TV movie.

Now that the Canal Street Brothel is shut forever, Maier says she's happy to leave "The Life" behind — with no regrets.

"I don't miss being a working girl," she says. "I mean, we all want to retire, don't we? No matter what business we're in. And go fishing."