In videos being held as evidence by federal prosecutors, Atlanta pimps and prostitutes
talk about their trade. The videos were used to train child prostitutes, authorities say.

Sir Charles
'Sir Charles' talks about a prior arrest for pimping minor girls.
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Kat
'Kat' on teaching young hookers: "It's better to get paid for it."
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scooby
'Scooby': "A car couldn't hold all the ho's I knew I was gon' have."
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They call their pimp 'Daddy'
By Jane O. Hansen
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Out front, the guests are arriving Oscars-style. The new arrivals walk the red carpet, dressed to the nines: fur coats and feather boas, rings with rocks the size of walnuts, bands of gold glittering from their wrists and necks.

And those are just the guys. The women wear bright, skimpy dresses stretched tight around well-toned bodies. As limousines deposit cargos of pretty people, one guest alights from a horse-drawn carriage that would make the Fairy Godmother proud.

But Cinderella won't be coming to this ball.

This is the "Players Ball," a happening for America's pimps, who gather several times a year in cities across the country to primp, preen and be seen and to reward each other with trophies for "Pimp of the Year."

The scene is from a videotape federal prosecutors hope to use later this year in a case against 13 Atlanta men and a woman charged with prostituting children. Prosecutors will try to convince a jury the defendants who attend players balls not only travel together but also sell and trade children among themselves as well as share drugs, condoms, false identification cards, a vocabulary and a code of conduct.

Prosecutor
Prosecutor Janis C. Gordon

"This is like another world," said FBI Special Agent Rick Barry. "It's like a subculture on Stewart Avenue and Peachtree Street."

The U.S. attorney's investigation into child prostitution in Atlanta has uncovered a world seldom seen by the public. It is a world where "players" and "pimps" take pride in "the game" of selling women - and some say children as young as 10 - for sex. Interviews with law enforcement officials and juvenile prostitutes paint a picture of an underground economy that thrives on a pimp's ability to master his "girls," often through violence.

"It's a form of brainwashing," said Herman Glass, an Atlanta police vice detective. "There's a control over the girl. What these pimps do is insinuate themselves into the girl's life. They find out about her, her family. Then they use that. If she doesn't do what they say, they'll beat her. Or they'll threaten to hurt her family."

In its case against the 14 defendants indicted in January, the government has brought racketeering charges in addition to child prostitution charges, hoping to win prison sentences of 20 years to life. To convict them of racketeering, Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis Gordon must prove the defendants have operated as an enterprise under a 1970 federal law designed to go after the mob - the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.

"This is our mob," she said in November. "Our organized crime isn't like New York's. This is organized crime at its worst."

Attorneys for the defendants say the government's case will not be easy to prove. While the evidence may show the defendants knew each other, it won't show they conspired, the attorneys say.

"It doesn't seem very organized to me," said Michael Saul, the court-appointed attorney for Bryant Weaver Bell. "I don't see my client's involvement in any organization."

But Gordon compares the alleged pimps' organization to that of drug dealers who carve up neighborhoods, compete with one another and enforce each other's rules. There are rules to this game, and the videos are used to teach them to young girls, according to the federal indictment.

Among them: A prostitute who belongs to one pimp may never look another in the eye. "When a pimp ride by, they supposed to be lookin' at the . . . curb," says a pimp in one video. "And when she look up, she can be broke for reckless eyeballing."

If she makes eye contact, she's considered "out of pocket" and must be disciplined by her pimp, according to Gordon.

If a prostitute "chooses" to work for another pimp, that pimp must "serve" the original pimp, usually with money. A "choosy Susie" is a fickle prostitute who jumps from one pimp to the next and is generally looked down upon by both pimps and prostitutes.

Pimps expect to be paid if one of their prostitutes "chooses" another pimp. "Just to kidnap some other's girl would cause problems," said Detective Glass. "Most of these transactions are financial."

To show ownership, some girls have been tattooed with their pimp's street name.

"I was shocked that some of these girls have tattoos of their pimps," FBI agent Barry said. "One girl had the names of two different pimps tattooed on her body. She was sold, and she was most likely a child."

Another Atlanta 18-year-old, who says she was sold for $1,000 by one pimp to another when she was a minor, still has the tattoo on her leg that identifies who "owned" her. "He made me get his name on my leg and do things I never wanted to do," she says. "But I was too scared to go to the cops." She says she is still frightened because many of the defendants know her.

Like any organization, Gordon says, there's a structure to this one. There are "international pimps," those who frequently travel, and "guerrilla pimps," the more violent ones who are known to "trunk" girls, or lock them for hours in the trunk of a car.

"It was an organization within which there was competition," Gordon said. "They didn't put all their money into a big pot. But the fact that they traveled together, they made movies together to explain the rules to the girls, all that speaks to organization."

In addition to testimony from up to 31 girls, key to the government's case are the videos - two commercial tapes and more than a dozen homemade ones that were seized after the defendants' arrests in January.

The commercial tapes, billed as documentaries, show how pimps feel about themselves and offer a glimpse into what they call their "secret society." Not everyone can be a pimp. "Pimps are born, not made," several say on the tapes.

The videos glamorize pimps, portraying men whose stereotypical dress, cars and bravado create a near-caricature. At least two of the defendants boast openly about their trade in "Really, Really Pimpin' in da South," a video about Atlanta's pimps that was produced locally.

"Back then, you didn't just become a pimp," says Charles Pipkins, known on the streets as "Sir Charles." "You had to earn your stripes. You had to have some game about yourself before you could ever call yourself a pimp."

Pipkins sits before the camera, his black hat tilted sideways, as he talks about getting his start in Atlanta in 1975 and finding the "track" - the area where prostitution thrives. Back then it was Auburn Avenue. Today, it's Metropolitan Parkway, formerly known as Stewart Avenue.

In several clips, Pipkins is pictured at Hartsfield International Airport with two other defendants - Herman Gordon Hutson Jr. and Terrence Anderson. In the indictment, a federal grand jury charges the three went as a group to the Players Ball in Detroit.

The videos also show how pimps view prostitutes. The women are referred to in only the demeaning terms of "hos" and "bitches," a "pet name," according to one self-proclaimed pimp. Anderson, known as "Scooby," brags he had so many prostitutes he needed a bigger van.

Many prostitutes address their pimp as "Daddy." In a chilling segment, a man's voice, in the cadence of a circus barker, administers an oath to "you professional ladies of leisure." Those taking the oath sound like little girls.

"Will you sacrifice your all in all for me?" the deep voice booms.

"Yes, Daddy," the childlike voices answer.

"Will you crack a trick in his head, beat [him] until he's dead for me?"

"Yes, Daddy."

The defense attorneys point out that these videos, portrayed by the government as training films, are commercially produced and available to the public.

"What's going to be important in court is separating myth from fact," said W. Sander "Sandy" Callahan, the court-appointed attorney for Hutson, known as "Redd." "All you have to do today is turn on MTV, turn on any radio station that plays music, and half the songs you hear are about being a pimp. It's just a part of the culture."

But the government contends this is an organization with a hierarchy. Key to the organization, the indictment says, is the most prized prostitute: the "bottom female."

"My relationship with Sir Charles, right now, I'm his bottom female," Kathy "Kat" Sherman says in the video. "That's the female that handles most of his business, that's been with him and is dedicated to him. . . . Never left, through jail, hell and high water."

Throughout the videos, the men speak of the need to control the minds of prostitutes, even longing for the good old days when it was easier to get away with "hanger whupping" and "stick whupping" prostitutes to keep them in line.

"There are laws on domestic abuse," says a man in "Pimps Up, Ho's Down," a video featured on HBO and mentioned in the indictment. "You've got to be able to control a woman's mind without necessarily applying physical abuse. You've got to be a virtual psychologist. You've got to be a manipulator, you've got to be a dream seller."

In the videos, Sherman and others describe the type of recruits they're seeking. "Most of them have been abused sexually by their parents," she says. "Been raped so many times that they feel they might as well get money for it. Well, it's my job to teach them that it's better to get paid for it than to do it free."

Sherman, who is not accused in the indictment, says she makes no pretense about what the life involves.

"Working the track is extremely dangerous," she says. "It's high risk as far as diseases, as far as abuse, as far as police, definitely police."

The indictment alleges a number of violent acts by the defendants. Herman Hutson is charged with disciplining juvenile prostitutes by hitting them with a metal bat and burning them with a hot clothes hanger.

As part of the alleged conspiracy, one defendant provided drugs to juvenile prostitutes who worked for other pimps as well as for him, according to the indictment. Some defendants are accused of providing false identification cards to juveniles and providing condoms to other pimps.

Scenes from the Players Ball also hint at what the government contends is a close-knit association among pimps. In one video, Bishop Don "Magic" Juan, a nationally known ex-pimp turned preacher, advocates a national pimps seminar, "so we can get players to come down there and bring their problems: how to catch a hooker, what you do to be a boss player, what do I say to my wife when I've decided to be a true player and walk out on the family?"

"The Bishop" is today credited as the founder of the Players Ball, and he continues to host them around the country, most recently in February in St. Louis. In a phone interview, he boasts, "I'm the best you know, baby. I'm chairman of 3 million players worldwide."

In the video, Juan is seen chairing the "Players Ball Awards Committee" as members discuss the necessary qualifications for Pimp of the Year. The criteria: "Your jewelry, your clothes, your cars, your women, your bankroll, the joint where you live," he says.

When one pimp wins the coveted trophy, two women carry the 4-foot-tall, three-tiered award. As he struts in front of them in his royal blue suit, diamond-studded earrings and 4-inch-high gold rings, his girls walk behind him, lugging the heavy trophy, their heads bowed.

That kind of servitude is at the heart of the relationship between prostitutes and pimps, Detective Glass says.

"Let me tell you what pimping is," he says. "Pimping is slavery."

PHOTO GALLERY
Freeze-frame images from a video "documentary" on pimps.

TALKING THE TALK
Pimps who prostitute children and adults share a common vocabulary, according to law enforcement officials. Here are some of the terms:

Players and macks: Pimps.

Players Ball: An annual ball for pimps where trophies are awarded for "Pimp of the Year." The next big Players Ball is scheduled for Dec. 1 in Chicago. There are also Players Rendezvous, Players Picnics and Players Cruises.

Choosing: When a prostitute elects to work for another pimp.

Breaking bread: When "choosing" a new pimp, a prostitute must prove herself by earning him money before he accepts her.

Serve: A pimp who's "chosen" by a prostitute must serve notice to her prior pimp, generally in the form of a cash payment or something else of monetary value.

Choosy Susie: A fickle prostitute who jumps from one pimp to the next.

Daddy: How many prostitutes address their pimp.

The game: Making money through prostitution.

Pimpology: The art of pimping.

Bottom female: A pimp's most trusted prostitute who helps collect money, recruits prostitutes and posts bond when they're arrested.

Track: Where prostitution thrives. In Atlanta, the "track" often refers to Metropolitan Parkway. Peachtree Street is called "the financial district."

Date: The "john" or prostitute's customer.

Out of pocket: Breaking the rules. A girl who looks at another pimp is "out of pocket" and must be disciplined.

Cuffing: When a prostitute keeps the money she earned, rather than turning it all over to her pimp.

Safety zone: Strip clubs where pimps are less likely to be bothered by vice cops.

Breakers: People who break down a girl's will through gang rape and other demeaning sexual acts.

International pimps: Pimps who travel.

Popcorn pimps: Wannabe pimps who talk the game but may have only one prostitute.

Guerrilla pimps: Pimps who use violence.

Trunking: Disciplining a girl by putting her in the trunk of a car and driving around.
 


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