Joseph Conforte obit

Boxing Promoter  Joseph Conforte Has Died

 

He was not on the list.

He was an American legal brothel owner from Sparks, Nevada, professional boxing promoter, restaurateur, and philanthropist. Born in Italy, Conforte was the owner of the Mustang Ranch and a prominent advocate for legal prostitution, becoming a fixture in Sparks, Nevada. He was married to Sally Conforte (née Burgess).

Early years Conforte was born Giuseppe Christophe Conforte in Augusta, Sicily, December 10, 1925, the youngest of one brother and three sisters. His birth date is often mistaken as January 6, 1926. His mother died when he was five.

Giuseppe traveled to Ellis Island on the Rex steamship in December 1937. Giuseppe was given the name Joseph by immigration services. Conforte's father Agostino ran a small produce shop in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston where he taught young Joe how to sell fruits and vegetables. Agostino also sold bootleg alcohol. As printed in Rolling Stone, 1972: "...this poor immigrant boy from Augusta, Sicily. When he stepped off the boat in New York 35 years ago, he was simply the pudgy, uneducated son of a Massachusetts bootlegger."

Conforte ran away from home to Manhattan in New York City at age fifteen. He moved to Los Angeles in 1942 and soon leased the produce side of the Shermart Market in West Hollywood.

He enlisted in the United States Army on November 1, 1945, before his twentieth birthday. Because of his fake birth date, he was drafted late. He was in the military police in the army and discharged in January 1950 as a staff sergeant.

Joe Conforte operated illegal brothels in Oakland, California in 1952 and 1953. He moved to Wadsworth, Nevada in 1955 and started the Triangle River Ranch brothel. His operation grew and soon he met and teamed up with Sally Burgess, with whom he had a series of run-ins with law enforcement:

Clark County, Nevada Undersheriff Lloyd Bell (1959): "We don't care where you (Conforte) stay. But don't stay in this county, or we'll pick you up again."

Washoe County, Nevada Sheriff C.W. (Bud) Young (1959): "My deputies have been told to pick Conforte up wherever he shows his face in Washoe County."

Ormsby County (State Capitol), Nevada Sheriff Howard Hoffman (1961): "He was told not to let the sun set on him here in Ormsby County."

The Confortes expanded their prostitution business across Nevada.

In 1960, Conforte was convicted of extortion by threat of Washoe County District Attorney William Raggio, and was sent to prison.

Conforte married Sally Burgess in August 1961

In 1963, Conforte pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion while in state prison for extortion.

In December 1965, Conforte was released from prison.

In 1967, Joe and Sally Conforte took over the Mustang Bridge Ranch brothel in Storey County, Nevada.

That year, the Nevada Gaming Commission had Conforte on a list to be included in their Black Book of undesirables but did not add him for unexplained reasons.

February 26, 1971, Nevada's Governor Mike O'Callaghan signed anti-vice bill SB214, also known as the county option brothel bill, into law, giving counties the ability to license and regulate brothels while outlawing Clark County-Las Vegas to keep Conforte out.

Mustang Bridge Ranch, with Sally Conforte as licensee, was first in the nation to be licensed under the new state law. The event lead to instant fame for Joe Conforte who assumed the role as leader of the legal prostitution movement.

Joseph Conforte and/or Mustang Bridge Ranch were featured on television and in magazines, including:

1971: TV shows 60 Minutes and Mantrap (Canada), and in Look magazine—photos by Marvin E. Newman

1972: The Donahue Show, Rolling Stone—photos by Annie Leibovitz

1973: Mantrap, Tomorrow

1974: Oui

1975: Hustler, The Girls of Nevada by Gabriel Vogliotti, documentary movie Mustang: The House That Joe Built filmed at Mustang Bridge Ranch, interview by Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, and a cameo in the movie Charley Varrick filmed at Mustang Bridge Ranch

1976: New York and New West magazines

Conforte spoke publicly about the need and benefit of legal prostitution to organizations such as the Lions Club, Rotary Club, on national and regional TV shows, and on talk radio. From Rolling Stone, 1972: "...[he] has appeared nationally in magazine and television profiles, and is widely heralded as a folk hero for his fearless, one-man crusade to legalize prostitution in Nevada--and then "the whole g*****n country.""

He was behind a 1971 initiative in California to legalize brothels in that state.

In 1976, Conforte began sponsoring heavyweight Bernardo Mercado (Colombia) who went on to beat Trevor Berbick in 1979 to win the World Boxing Council Continental Americas Heavy Title. Mercado beat Earnie Shavers, the hardest puncher of his time, in March 1980, but lost to Leon Spinks later that year in an elimination bout to determine who would fight for the world title.

The grand opening of Joe and Sally Conforte's Mustang Ranch brothel on May 15, 1976 received little to no coverage by the news media.

Conforte reportedly controlled organized crime in Northwestern Nevada, and was quoted in the Nevada State Journal on March 21, 1976: "Conforte said if organized crime elements move into Northern Nevada against his warnings, "Then there's going to be a war."" In March 1976, the Washoe County Grand Jury released its Final Report on Joseph Conforte, exposing his Mob ties and political connections across the country. In a statement, Conforte retorted: "The grand jury as it exists today in Washoe County is a colossal fraud. You can put 17 angels with one attorney in a grand jury room for two years, such as these grand jurors have been, and end up with 17 devils."

A week after the Mustang Ranch opened in May 1976, seventh-ranked heavyweight boxer from Argentina, Oscar Bonavena, was shot and killed at the front gate by Joe Conforte's enforcer, Willard Ross Brymer. Conforte was accused of conspiring to murder the boxer but charges were never filed against him.

In 1977, Conforte was convicted of tax evasion and fraud, and sentenced to twenty years in prison; fraud charges were added due to his regularly destroying his financial records.

In 1979, Conforte, while on appeal for tax evasion, was arrested for attempted bribery of the Lyon County, Nevada District Attorney John Giomi.

In December 1980, Conforte fled the country to avoid prison for the tax evasion conviction and also prosecution for the attempted bribery of John Giomi. Conforte lived as a fugitive of U.S. justice in Brazil for three years. While living as a fugitive, Conforte claimed he had bribed federal judge Harry E. Claiborne (Nevada 1978–1986) who was his former attorney. The Department of Justice granted Conforte a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony. Conforte gave himself up to the U.S. federal authorities in Miami in December 1983. He provided testimony of alleged bribes paid to Claiborne before a Reno grand jury and Claiborne was indicted based on those claims.

To the embarrassment of the Department of Justice, in Harry E. Claiborne's bribery trial, Conforte flubbed the date of one of the two bribes and Claiborne had a solid alibi on the other bribe Conforte alleged to have made. Jurors were deadlocked and the trial ended in a mistrial. Conforte was prosecuted separately for the crime of attempted bribery of the Lyon County district attorney and sentenced to eighteen months in state prison to run concurrently with his federal sentence.