Sundance Now Doc Club: Heidi Fleiss- Hollywood Madam

Source:The Daily Review

Did Heidi Fleiss break the law? Well prostitution is illegal in Los Angeles, California and the United States and that is the business she had. So of course she was guilty of breaking the law and Los Angeles and the Feds were simply doing their job when they had her arrested and later convicted of running a prostitution ring. But again what is she guilty of? Prostitution, which is the selling of consensual sex. Between a prostitute and a client. The prostitute is paid for having consensual sex with their client. Generally the prostitute is a women and the clients tend to be men. And where Heidi comes in is that she's guilty of running a business that involves the selling of consensual sex. Not running a hitman operation , or selling immigrants, money laundry, or any other business where innocent people are hurt simply for doing their jobs.

So Heidi ends up doing about two years in prison in the late 1990s for running a business where a consensual service for payment is involved. She wasn't in prison for murder, rape, assault, bribery, child pornography, child prostitution, where innocent people are hurt by predators and intentionally so. She did time in a Federal prison for selling a service that two people consensually agreed to. And ends up taking resources from the criminal justice system. Law enforcement, prostitution and prison, at taxpayers expense, money that could have been used to put away, gee I don't know, about dangerous criminals. I'm not an expert on Heidi Fleiss, but I believe a big reason for why California and the Federal Government, went so hard at her, is because she was so good at it. And perhaps looking to make an example of her.

Heidi, wasn't called the Hollywood Madam for nothing. She was not only based in Los Angeles, but had a lot of L.A. clients in the Hollywood industry. Including Charlie Sheen, who in 1997-98, wasn't exactly at the height of his career. Dealing with alcohol and other drug addictions and when he was working doing movies that flopped. That is how you become a millionaire as a madam by working in Hollywood and getting confidential agreements with their clients. Because no one wants to go to jail, especially for consensual sex. Is Heidi an angel, I don't think she even looks like one, let alone is one and has personal issues with how she deals with people. But we're not talking about a criminal who hurt innocent people for either money, or because she enjoys hurting people. And this not someone who should have been in prison for what she was involved in.