THE

Sex . . QUEEN of L A

HOW A SMALL-TOWN GIRL FROM CALIFORNIA REINVENTED AMERICA’S ESCORT INDUSTRY

t was early evening in istanbul, just before sunset, and michelle Braun – known in the business as “Nici” – was about to become the most notorious and successful provider of women since Heidi Fleiss. There she was, a tall, blond 24-year-old from Bakersfield, California, six months preg- nant with her second daughter, zipping along in a town car to one of Turkey’s I most exclusive hotels. Already the operator of a well-known “escort service” in Los Angeles, Nici had a few famous clients, a nice house and a doting husband. But she was always looking for richer men to book her girls, so she could attract a better class of women and make connections to still wealthier clients. In Istanbul, she was on the trail of Hakan Uzan, a Turkish billionaire whose family controlled the coun- try’s second-largest cellular-service company. v Nici remembers finding Uzan in the presidential suite at the hotel, watching a soccer game on TV. As they talked, his eyes

BY Vanessa Grigoriadis PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIELLE LEVITT

50 , MAY 15, 2008 girl on top Michelle Braun, a.k.a. Nici, in Miami Beach

ROLLING STONE, MAY 15, 2008 51 THE SEX QUEEN of L . A . NICI’S GIRLS

Nici recruited her stable of gold-standard escorts from the ranks of Playmates and porn stars. “For Nici, it didn’t matter what the girl looked like,” says a Penthouse Pet. “It was all about her pedigree in the adult world.” For the girls, who were find- ing it tougher to earn a living off their looks in the age of Internet porn, private meet- ings with fans offered a quick source of easy cash. “The money was sick,” says one porn star. For the clients, spending time with the women was the stuff of fantasy. “In today’s society, once you’re a celebrity, there’s cash TISHARA ASHLEY TINA KRYSTAL LANNY in it,” says Nici’s law- yer. “These guys are COUSINO MASSARO JORDAN STEAL BARBY buying an opportunity PLAYBOY PROFESSIONAL PLAYBOY PORN STAR PENTHOUSE to meet a famous per- PLAYMATE WRESTLER PLAYMATE CLUBJENNA PET son they have interest MAY ’99 WWE MARCH ’02 JUNE ’03 in, such as a Playmate.”

intermittently flicked over to the laptop world of international escorting: models balanced on her knees that displayed her for Maxim and FHM, big-name porn portfolio of girls for hire. Uzan explained “NICI WAS THE BEN & JERRY’S stars and Playmates, including April ’07 what he wanted: a harem waiting for him cover girl, Survivor: China contestant at the hotel every week. But not just any OF HIGH-END ESCORTING,” and WWE star Ashley Massaro, ac- women – Playmates, porn stars, the kind cording to government allegations. Nici of voluptuous, unattainable women of SAYS ONE MADAM. “EVERYONE even claims she once spoke with a teen- few scruples who denote status and age , who offered to meet class in certain circles. The miracle from FOLLOWED HER LEAD.” any client who paid $10,000 a night. Nici’s perspective – in addition to the Though a spokeswoman for Hilton calls size of Uzan’s wallet – was that he would the claims “completely false and totally rarely show up to see the girls, much less for a few days, there was no shortage of and became an international fugitive, absurd,” Nici had seemingly reached a have sex. He just wanted to know they’d them willing to sign up. “Hakan would Nici estimates, he spent $3 million in one point where she could ask anything, of be there whenever he wanted. send me an instant message at 3 a.m., year on her services. any woman. With the connection to a whale like and I would have to get four Playmates The money and word-of-mouth busi- “Nici was the Ben & Jerry’s of high- Uzan – the archetypal “easy client,” a ready right away,” says Nici. “The first ness that Nici received from Uzan en- end escorting,” says a Las Vegas madam filthy-rich guy more interested in court- flight to Istanbul was around 6 a.m. abled her to do what no madam had done who has worked in the sex industry for ship than fornication – Nici’s business through Paris, and sometimes I’d wake before: create a new high end of the es- 10 years. “She was the first person to fig- went supernova. She already had a them up in the middle of the night for cort industry, one that raised the stakes ure out the business, and everyone else line into the Playboy Mansion; one of that flight.” dramatically for both the johns and the followed her lead.” Hefner’s girlfriends was willing to so- The girls were thrilled: “It was like a women. Prominent athletes, TV stars But other escort services weren’t licit other Playmates and girlfriends, paid vacation,” says Angelica, a porn star and Fortune 500 CEOs – the kind of the only ones following Nici. In May who are given a weekly “allowance” of who shared a room with a Playmate in an names that would dominate the tabloids 2002, around the same time Nici visited $1,000. Now, when the girls heard they Istanbul hotel that looked like a castle. for weeks, were they to become public Istanbul, the FBI appeared at her door. could make $25,000 by flying to Turkey “There were eight girls there, and I was – flocked to Nici for access to her elite Tipped off by one of her clients, they doing the math: like, at least $200,000 clientele. Not young, drug-addled no- were looking for millions in cash he Contributing editor Vanessa is being spent here, and these guys don’t bodies like the girl who blew Eliot Spitzer claimed to have sent her through FedEx. Grigoriadis wrote the cover story “The even care.” Before Uzan was accused of but the pinnacle of L.A. beauty, women Nothing came of the visit, but the feds

Tragedy of Britney Spears” in RS 1046. embezzling billions from his companies who represented the gold standard in the weren’t done with Nici: Last October, ETHAN MILLER (COUSINO); ANDY FOSSUM/STARTRAKSPHOTO.COM (MASSARO); SHELLY PATCH/STARTRAKSPHOTO.COM (JORDAN); AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES (STEAL); ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES (BARBY)

52 ROLLING STONE, MAY 15, 2008 they showed up again, this time with Door enjoy nowhere near the pop- a warrant to search her property. The culture stature of previous Playmates government now alleges that Nici has like Jenny McCarthy and Pamela An- made at least $8.5 million running an es- derson. Even “feature” strip-club tours, Whatever Happened cort service as a front for a once a sure route to extra cash for porn and money-laundering ring. The FBI stars and Playmates with a moderate declined to comment on the case, but following, have gone out of vogue, with to Heidi Fleiss? Nici is adamant that her actions were prettier civilian girls signing up to work legal. She disavows any comparison to at strip clubs in higher numbers. For “madams” like Heidi Fleiss. Playmates and porn stars, there’s only “All I do is make the introductions one way left to supplement their income: Fifteen years ago, Heidi Fleiss was the top madam in Beverly Hills. Today, at between famous girls and rich guys who meeting fans in private settings. 42, she runs a laundromat next to the Wal-Mart in Pahrump, Nevada. Its name: Dirty Laundry. want to meet them,” Nici tells me on a “In today’s society, once you’re a celeb- Until late last year, Fleiss was living in a tiny clapboard rental surrounded by recent afternoon, sitting in her plush rity, there’s cash in it,” says Nici’s lawyer, clay-colored mountains. When I arrive one afternoon at 3:00 – before her arrest condo in South Florida. Her long blond Marc Nurik. “These guys are buying an in February for driving under the influence and possessing prescription drugs hair is swept up into a gigantic bun, and opportunity to meet a famous person they for which she did not have a prescription – she’s in bed with a “migraine,” white her lilac-painted toenails match her pur- have interest in, such as a Playmate of the sheets pulled up to her chin. She looks a little worse for wear, but she’s still the ple sweatsuit. A tattoo of a conjoined Month. It’s similar to a sports enthusiast same girl – irrepressibly enthusiastic, with a big grin and a filthy mind. sun and moon is visible above the small paying to meet Peyton Manning.” “Society makes sex for money sound like a dirty thing, but I think it’s a com- of her back. “I think the rates I charge are Like everyone who runs an escort ser- pliment!” she declares. “Not that anyone would ever want to pay me: My blow justified just to meet these women, even vice, Nici owed her existence to a legal jobs are so bad, I’d have to pay someone to give them.” if nothing happens,” she says. “You know, loophole. While sex for money is illegal, Her paramours these days are 24 giant parrots, which stalk around her a normal guy couldn’t meet a Playmate or paid introductions between adults who house screaming their heads off. “I fucked so much in my life,” Fleiss says. “I a porn star, or get them to go out on a may independently decide to engage in fucked enough for a thousand women: the best-looking guys on Earth and the date with him.” She taps her thigh with a intercourse upon meeting is not. The cli- worst; old, young; fat, skinny; poor, rich. I don’t care if I ever fuck again. I don’t manicured nail. “As far as the details go – ents Nici introduces are well-matched: need a black pimp, a hot guy from Orange County or a little dog to validate my I mean, I never wanted to know.” The men – known as “hobbyists” – are whatever. Right now, I’m happy with my parrots.” looking for no-strings-attached rela- Squawk! “Gina!” Fleiss yells, as an ear-splitting call-and-response with the bird en- h e se x busi n ess h a s tionships, and the women are trying to sues. “Gina’s a ,” she declares. “She always comes into bed and sits on changed dramatically in the finance a lifestyle largely independent my face.” past decade, and no change of men. In Nici’s world, the women are Fleiss inherited some of the parrots from the madam next door, who ran the has been bigger than the shopping-addicted, the men are porn-ad- exotic bird room in the Tropicana hotel. “I fell in love with them,” says Fleiss. obliterationT of the social taboo against dicted, and everyone is desperate to alle- “One night I went to her house at 3 a.m. to feed some babies with her syringe, escorting. “Almost every porn star is an viate their loneliness and depression. and she started to die. I called the paramedics. One of them was like, ‘Hey, escort now,” says Luke Ford, a promi- It’s the highest end of an endemic prob- Heidi, I got your phone number,’ and I was like, ‘Man, don’t hit on me – save nent Web journalist who covered the lem, one that rarely made the front pages the bitch!’ As they took her away in a helicopter in her diaper and muumuu, porn industry. (There is even Internet until Gov. Spitzer was busted as Client 9 she said, ‘Heidi, you have to take care of my birds.’ I was like, ‘Whoa.’ Then the shorthand for the phenomenon: PSE, or of the Emperors Club. America’s streets bitch dies, and here I am.” “porn-star escort.”) There is no real mon- may be freer than ever of prostitutes, Fleiss throws on sweats and jumps into her blue Toyota truck for a tour of ey to be made anymore by naked girls but that’s because the hookers have gone Pahrump, the closest town to Vegas to allow legalized prostitution. Her dream willing to show the world their naked- where all business has gone: the Internet. is to open a male brothel in the nearby town of Crystal, Nevada – thanks to ness, no matter how hot they are or how Even Websites that pretend to be about Viagra, she thinks a “stud farm” would work – but she got mixed up with a guy great they look having sex on camera. free sex – like Craigslist’s “Casual En- who is under federal indictment for wire fraud, so the plans are on hold. There are simply too many naked girls counters” or Fling.com – are populated “I love it out here – this is like the wild, wild West, with prostitution, gam- on the Internet who are willing to be largely by women looking to get paid; bling, corruption,” she says. “I feel like Bugsy Siegel looking at open territory.” She grabs a bottle of spirulina off the dash and downs a pill. ogled for next to nothing, and Websites sites such as SeekingArrangement.com At the moment, Fleiss is thinking about starting her own massage parlor next that will offer them up for free. Many and SugarDaddy.com are explicit in their to a , taking over an abandoned space. On the way to check it out, she companies in the adult-entertainment intentions. Hourly rates in the business takes a detour through the scrubby desert to a mysterious hole that she thinks industry, estimated at $13 billion annu- range from $150 for a Motel 6 prostitute, leads to water; she spends the next 45 minutes putting a 100-foot piece of string ally, have seen their fortunes plummet to $350 for in-call at casinos in Las Vegas, down it, to see if she hits anything, only to drop it at the last second. Then she by a third, with video rentals and sales to $600 for child prostitutes, to $1,000 zooms over to the parlor, and a girl in black garters with pink bows runs out of down nearly 50 percent over the past for elite, membership-only escorts. “We the brothel to let her in. Unable to find the light switch, she props open the door, decade. “We were always worried about spend millions of dollars on enforcement, and the desert sun illuminates a tiny shop of vibrators and ancient porn videos, the government killing our business,” and prostitution simply doesn’t go away,” and a back room of dusty Buddhas, old massage tables and tiny bathtubs. says Rob Spallone, producer of such de- says Barbara Brents, a sociologist at the “This place is ugly as fuck, but I can make it work,” Fleiss says, bouncing up lights as The World’s Biggest Gangbang. University of Nevada at Las Vegas who and down on the balls of her feet. “I even love the words – massage parlor.” “Ironically, we ended up flooding the has studied the sex industry. “The only An enormous smile spreads over her face, and she looks content. “God, it’s so market and killed it ourselves.” thing the government can do is move the gross,” she says. “I love it.” V.G. Today, is the country’s incidence of it from location to location.” only major porn star – and even she has It was Nici who managed to stake out WASHED UP stopped shooting new porn films. Popu- the most lucrative corner in the new on- Fleiss at her laundromat lar “actresses” have seen their fees plunge line trade. “The fact is that the company in Pahrump, Nevada by a third, to $1,000 per scene. The tra- of women is valuable to men, and men ditional path to sex-symbol stardom – will pay for it,” she tells me, sitting in her building a mainstream career after be- condo. In person, the industry’s most coming a famous Playmate – also seems successful purveyor of escorts is imperi- to have narrowed: Today’s Girls Next ous and seemingly invulnerable; the only chink in her self-confidence is a tendency Read the Britney Spears cover story to blink rapidly when confronted with and more by Vanessa Grigoriadis at bad news. Her bosomy Real Housewives rollingstone.com/grigoriadis of Orange County look is at odds with

ISAAC BREKKEN/“THE NEW YORK TIMES”/REDUX her voice, which is as low-pitched as a

ROLLING STONE, MAY 15, 2008 53 The Sex Queen of L . A .

female voice can be, with perfect elocu- (The girls came with a what-you-see-is- One of her alleged clients, Michael Fang- o embrace the charac- tion and a magisterial, Joan Crawford- what-you-get guarantee: “It’s me or it’s hella, the CEO of a California mortgage- ter she had created, Nici had esque drawl. The mother of five- and free!”) At 19 years old, the impermissible brokerage firm, spent $14 million in gifts to turn herself into one of the seven-year-old daughters, she considers had become commonplace. The question on NBA-cheerleader-turned-porn-star guys. She was the one who herself untainted by the sordidness of in Nici’s mind wasn’t “How can I do this, Kelly Jaye before landing in prison for Thung out with the high rollers in Vegas, the world in which she moves. “Even morally?” It was “What’s the best way I 10 years for defrauding his investors. At Moscow and Dubai, smoking cigars now,” she says, “there’s part of me that’s can do this, practically?” 21, Nici met Mark Yagalla, a financial and gambling and drinking cognac with still a nice girl from Bakersfield.” Then one day, according to Nici, the prodigy and hedge-fund manager from them all night long, dressed in Louboutin As a kid, Nici enjoyed the privileged unthinkable happened: Charlie Sheen Philadelphia. She says Yagalla offered shoes and low-cut DKNY suits to show lifestyle of a small-town California girl. answered an ad. It was the Holy Grail her $500,000 to matchmake him with that she deserved their respect – and her Her Jewish parents owned a Baskin- of escorting, the Hollywood connection a girlfriend, for whom he would supply 40 percent cut. For Chinese New Year, Robbins franchise in Bakersfield, an oil that can make or break a service. When a car, house and allowance. He bought she accompanied a tobacco billionaire and agriculture town, and showered her Nici dropped four girls off at his pent- Playmate Tishara Cousino a Mercedes to the MGM Grand, where she and her with gifts, like a purple Chevy truck that house, she found the actor in silk paja- and an $850,000 house, and Hefner’s girls were treated to horseshoe diamond sported pink flames along its sides and mas with C. MaSheen embroidered over “girlfriend” Sandy Bentley a $1.7 million necklaces, D&G dresses and red enve- the license plate yoosexy. After school, the pocket. Sheen gave her a $20,000 house, two Rolexes, six cars (including lopes stuffed with cash. “If you’re a VIP she worked at a gym and a tanning salon, check for the girls, and she picked them a red Ferrari Spider and a white Bentley in Vegas, there’s nothing like that in the hanging out in the apple fields at night up several hours later. After he went convertible) and a copy of the ruby-and- world,” she says. “We’d have a VIP table to drink beer with her friends. A popu- into court-ordered rehab, she continued diamond necklace Richard Gere gives Ju- at Tabú, and a hostess would come over lar girl who loved wielding power over a to book girls for him, furtively sending lia Roberts in Pretty Woman. (Bentley’s to take care of every need. If we were clique of friends, she plastered her bed- hungry, carts would be rolled in with room with posters of James Dean and High Rollers chocolate cake and steak, and everyone Among Nici’s Marilyn Monroe, and dreamed of mov- biggest clients, else would look over at us, like, ‘There’s ing to Hollywood. “I wasn’t going to stay she says, were food? Where do I get food?’ ” She laughs. in Bakersfield,” she says. “No way.” Turkish cell- “You know what the worst part of being As a freshman at San Diego State phone magnate rich is? Nothing!” University, Nici spent most of her time Hakan Uzan Talk of her success quickly began to partying at frats. Her roommate got on (far left), who spread – most notably the tale of her trip paid for a harem her case for not having a job, but she of porn stars, to the king’s palace in Jordan with two never wanted for money: On one trip and hedge-fund girls, where she was picked up in a bullet- to Rosarito, Mexico, she entered a wet manager Mark proof stretch Escalade and partied in the T-shirt contest and won hundreds of dol- Yagalla (left, royal disco. “The guys all kind of blended lars. Her primary skill involved the com- in blue), who together,” says one girl. “They were all puter – her father, an electrical engineer, offered Nici named Mohammed, and they were all taught her to build one for a school proj- $500,000 to set princes, but you didn’t know how far him up with a ect. “From the beginning of the Internet, girlfriend. up they ranked. I used to hang out with I was obsessed with communicating over a prince from Jordan all the time, and fi- the Web,” she says. “I was a computer them to a doctor’s office in Los Angeles boyfriend was later murdered while try- nally I asked him, ‘Hey, are we cool with geek with a party-girl persona.” owned by a friend of Sheen’s. The order- ing to sell some of the jewelry she received Jordan, here in the U.S.?’ He was like, One day, while she was window-shop- lies at the rehab center would let him out from Yagalla.) Within a year of meeting ‘Jordan’s neutral, don’t worry.’ ” ping for sequined miniskirts on Melrose for his frequent medical appointments. Nici, Yagalla’s hedge fund began to fail, Nici soon began to branch out from Avenue in Los Angeles, Nici was picked (Sheen refused to comment for this arti- and he bilked investors of $32 million. He her usual clients. To drum up business in up by a handsome fashion designer cle, but Nici says she continued to book was sentenced to five years in prison. Dubai, she paid modeling agents a flat fee 14 years her senior. She soon dropped out girls for him until last year, sending them In May 2002, as Nici was throwing to represent their girls, then sent their of school and moved to L.A. to be with to a hotel in Santa Monica.) a birthday party for her older daughter, photos to her clients’ assistants, who got him full time. When he dumped her, Nici began charging $10,000 per night with 60 guests and miniature horses a cut for hiring her instead of another she took a job working the door at the for her top girls, plus a $5,000 fee for at her 8,000-square-foot mansion, the service. She also fought to hold on to her Century Club, where a manager offered membership on her Website, NicisGirls. FBI appeared at her door. Yagalla had best girls: The more she expanded her her extra money to find pretty girls to As a companionable young mother, she told them that he had sent Nici millions business, the more girls she seemed to sit at the tables with the big spenders. found she could win the trust of the girls of dollars through the mail to start an lose. Ambitious escorts, seeking to cut Nici quickly proved to have a knack for – they felt she was a friend who wouldn’t adult-video company. Nici claims he Nici out of her fee, would take numbers separating girls from their dates. “We’re run off with their money. “Nici was the never mailed her any cash, and shorted from guys and set up their own dates; really busy tonight,” she’d tell people least shady of all agents,” says a Penthouse her $250,000 on the matchmaking fee. “I rival escort agencies would steal photos straining at the velvet rope. “I don’t Pet who made $200,000 a year working was close with Mark, and I couldn’t be- of Nici’s girls from her Website and post know if we have room for all of you, but for Nici. “Other people made me feel like lieve he would do that to me,” says Nici them on their own sites, pretending that the girls can come in.” Eager to get into I was a product, and she treated me like now. “It was a wake-up call that you can’t they had them to offer. the club, the women would ditch their a buddy. We would gossip for hours on trust anyone.” Nici did not accept such treason light- boyfriends without a thought. the phone. She made me feel like it was As her business grew, Nici found her- ly. “I would freak and go off on people,” Then one night, a big spender asked us against them. She tooled her clients, self increasingly isolated. There was no she admits. “I gave some of them the am- Nici to set him up on a date with a girl and most agents tool their girls. That’s one she could take as a confidant – not munition they needed to start a war.” she had befriended – and tipped her $500 the difference.” her husband, not her closest friends. She Competitors hired private investigators for the privilege. Escort services are word-of-mouth never took an assistant, and she didn’t to dig up dirt on her, called Child Servic- “That,” she says, “is when I realized businesses: When Nici got a Playmate confess her secret to anybody from her es to show up at her door and question this was a business.” to join her team, she would start her off “real” life, like the couples she would meet her fitness as a mother. “I would sit in a with the easiest clients, so the girl would for lobster dinners at the country club rocking chair nursing my youngest baby ithin a few months, tell her friends they should work for in Bakersfield on weekends: To explain – she never knew what a bottle was and Nici’s inner party girl Nici, too. “Nici talked all of us up to the why she was always on her cellphone never tasted formula,” she says. “I would had lined up a few more clients like we were celebrities,” says one booking plane tickets, she told them rock her and book clients on the phone, guys who wanted to get of her girls. “She was a good , and she was a corporate travel agent. “Ulti- and I would cry. I became a complete so- hookedW up with girls for money, while she was never willing to back down.” mately, you’re alone in this business,” she cial phobic. I was so worried about what the computer geek in her had launched a Nici learned quickly that there were says. “No one wants to be the underdog. would happen to her if I got in trouble.” Website advertising her escort services. guys who would pay almost anything. Everyone wants to be the boss.” When her marriage started to fall burhan ozbilici/ap photo (uzan); shawn baldwin/bloomberg news/landov (yagalla) 54 ROLLING STONE, MAY 15, 2008 The Sex Queen of L . A .

apart, Nici moved to South Florida and into her bedroom with members of a eventually remarried, to Farrell Kellener, The Matchmaker local SWAT team toting machine guns an amiable novelist and radio announc- Nici offered girls the while she was in bed naked. According chance of “feeling like er. “I thought of myself as semiretired, a Princess or actually to Nici, one of the agents picked up a but I’d still get upset whenever I heard meeting a Prince.” pair of her girlfriend’s jeans and a small about someone making inroads into my bag of fell out. “Those weren’t game,” Nici says. “My ego couldn’t take my jeans – they’re a size zero,” she it.” She could no longer hold onto a large says. “The leg on them is the size of my stable of girls – there were now hun- calf.” The FBI took her to the local dreds of escort agencies online, most police department, where she was of them offering the same models and charged with possession. porn stars that she did. But there was “What do you do for a living?” an still plenty of money to be made, if you agent asked her. knew how to hustle. In 2005, when one “I think I’m here because you know of the largest escort agencies for porn what I do,” Nici replied and asked for a stars, Exotica 2000, was shut down by lawyer. authorities in New York, Nici quickly maneuvered to fill the open niche with a t home just outside fort new agency. She named it Bella Models, Lauderdale, Nici – who now a dig against a madam in London named prefers to use her given Bella with whom she had fallen out. name, Michelle – shoos her Nici turned Bella Models into the dogs A off her white couch as the ABC escort equivalent of an assembly line, a Family channel blares from the TV. She mass-production operation that churned has just returned from ’s out more girls at lower cost. She cut her house in Calabasas, California, where membership fee in half to $2,500 and she spent the weekend lying by the pool began to book more than 100 women for and watching movies in his home the- as little as $1,500 an hour. She also low- ater. It’s late in the afternoon, and Kel- ered her standards – any porn star would lener has taken her daughters for a dip in do – and she even recruited off her Web- the Atlantic, which is spread out behind site, touting benefits like “flexible hours the living room’s sliding-glass doors. and fabulous pay,” “making an additional They burst into the room, wrapped in $100,000 or more in a year,” “feeling like towels decorated with the Twister logo. a Princess or actually meeting a Prince” “We went in the ocean with our clothes and “the endless possibilities that can on!” the kids scream, opening the tow- change your life today!” els to reveal sopping-wet shorts. Nici But as the business grew, Nici got in- orders them into the bath, then tells one creasingly fed up with all the day-to-day of them to get a hairbrush so she can un- hassles. “I’d started to get frustrated tangle her hair. with the girls,” she says. “The majority Nici has been depressed for a few of them are stupid, and they make half a “WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A months, but she’s tunneling her way out. million dollars a year and then come to She’s trying to sell a reality show, The me later piss-broke because they spent it LIVING?” THE FBI AGENT Girls of Ocean Drive, centered on the on clothes or cocaine or whatever. I felt South Beach lifestyle, where she plays for them, but I didn’t want to be every- ASKED. “I THINK YOU KNOW the “Bret Michaels part,” as she puts one’s therapist all the time.” To work the it. “I’m having a little bit of an identity phones and handle the girls, Nici hired WHAT I DO,” NICI REPLIED. crisis,” she says quietly. “I’ve been Nici three assistants including her sister, for 12 years. It’s an alter ego that’s been Mandy Gray. torn away from me so quickly. I’m used to Trusting other people proved to be charged a fixed rate. When he wanted fetish, gives the client a GFE (shorthand having a hundred girls kissing my ass for a mistake. Nici always had a delicate to know the difference between models for “girlfriend experience”), squirts or work, texting me every second, and now relationship with her sister, who had and porn stars, she explained that they “speaks greek.” In one exchange, a john they’re terrified to talk to me.” remained in Bakersfield working at an just have different mentalities – models complained about porn star Taryn She picks up a blindingly white pil- office in the oil fields. When Gray left are concerned with the “act itself,” she Thomas: “I would never have her work low, pounds it into shape, then blinks her husband after a series of fights, he told him, while porn stars are more “by for you ever again . . . she had a horrible for at least 10 seconds. It is as though her found his way to the FBI. Nici, he told the clock.” attitude, and her performance was the brain cannot reconcile the two worlds

the agents, had a floorboard in her ga- The search warrant thoughtfully worst of anyone I have seen through you. she inhabits. She closes her eyes. “I made ree up D

rage that concealed a safe full of cash omits the names of the men who used Specifically, she had just woken up, dis- guys feel like they weren’t wasting their s e buried eight feet deep. He also said she Nici’s service, but it provides plenty cussed her rates openly, checked her IM, lives,” she says. “Look, you’re talking d had paid $22,000 to have her German of details about the women who alleg- and more or less made me feel very un- about a guy who lives in Podunk, Ohio,

shepherd trained to attack anyone the edly worked for her. According to the comfortable.” Bella Models forwarded and makes millions of dollars a year run- by Merce dog didn’t know. handful of e-mails tracked by the FBI, the e-mail to Taryn, with a note: “Please ning a freaking coal-mining company – p In April 2006, an FBI agent using the Bella Models made travel arrangements read what he has said and take what he is and, for fun, he gets to go golfing in the

name George Tarpinsky paid the $2,500 for more than a dozen Playmates and saying into consideration, as it is the fans Bahamas with his friends’ wives in ten- ace; MakeU p S K

retainer to join Bella Models. According porn stars, including Ashley Massaro that keep your career going and without nis skirts and talk about what color the to a search warrant put together by the and Playboy model Loredana in 2004, them you would not be a star.” Chihuahua Buffy’s poop was this morn- d

bureau, he called a woman he believed to Maxim model Jody Palmer and ex-Hef- On October 16th of last year, after ing! All they want is an ego boost, and e Davi be Nici, who was using the alias “Mona,” ner girlfriend Tina Jordan in 2006, and Tarpinsky paid $4,500 to book a Play- they don’t care if they have to pay to Th and asked her about the services. When AVN’s Best New Starlet Naomi in 2007 boy cover model and a Playboy.com meet a hot girl.” he claimed to be worried that the girl (exchanges with popular porn star Krys- model for one hour at a Boca Raton re- She gives an exasperated sigh. “They would ask for more money once she ar- tal Steal were also monitored). Some of sort, the FBI raided Nici’s house. They pay for their Ferraris, too,” she says, “but rived, “Mona” assured him that her girls the e-mails discuss whether a girl allows threw a flash bomb inside and stormed it still feels damn good to drive it.” Hair by Parker Plotkin/ 56 ROLLING STONE, MAY 15, 2008 photograph by danielle levitt