Joe Conforte
| Joe Conforte | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1926 (age 90–91) Augusta, Sicily |
| Occupation | Brothel Owner |
| Known for | Running the Mustang Ranch brothel; fleeing the country when convicted of tax fraud |
| Spouse(s) | Sally Burgess Conforte |
Joe Conforte (born 1926) was the owner of the Mustang Ranch, a Nevada brothel that was the first legal brothel in the United States. The brothel was closed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1999, but is now reopened under new management. He is portrayed by Joe Pesci in the 2010 film Love Ranch.
Joe Conforte was born in 1926 in Augusta, a little city close to Catania in Sicily. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1937 and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
During World War II and into the early 1950s, Conforte was a cab driver in Oakland, California. He drove soldiers from the Oakland Army Base, and sailors and marines from the Oakland Naval Supply Depot and Alameda Naval Air Station, to brothels on the border of Alameda County and Contra Costa County, adjacent to the site of what is now a shopping center, El Cerrito Plaza.
Conforte moved to Nevada in 1955 and opened the Triangle River Ranch, also known simply as the Triangle Ranch, in Wadsworth. It was an illegal brothel at the junction of Washoe, Storey, and Lyon counties, hence the name. So the story goes, the Triangle Ranch was housed in a trailer. When the Washoe County sheriff declared the brothel a public nuisance and went to shut it down, Conforte would haul the trailer over to Storey County. When the Storey County sheriff came after him, Conforte would then move the trailer to Lyon County. By the time the bordello had become a public nuisance in Lyon County, Conforte felt enough time had passed that it would be safe to return the trailer to Washoe County. In 1959, then Washoe County District Attorney Bill Raggio, summarily had the ranch burned down after Conforte tried to extort money from him. Conforte was convicted for this and served 22 months in jail. In 1963, convicted of the crime of income tax evasion, Conforte served two and a half years in prison.
...
Wikipedia