EL PASO — www.elpasotimes.com- Dancers and waitresses commonly participated in prostitution at a Central El Paso strip club that was shut down five years ago after an El Paso police investigation, a former manager told jurors this morning in district court.
Richard Hamm, who was a manager at the club from 2001 until 2004, testified in the trial of Naked Harem co-owner Jeannie Coutta, 66, who was charged with promotion of prostitution and four counts of engaging in organized criminal activity after police shut down the club in 2004 after a 14-month investigation into prostitution allegations.
Coutta’s business partner and Naked Harem co-owner, Phyllis Woodall, was found guilty of the same charges in 2006 and sentenced to 16 years in a state prison.
Hamm testified that dancers and waitress often utilized the club’s private rooms to have sex with customers during private dances. The club’s owners took a cut of the price of a private dance, which ranged from $130 to $140 a song.
Hamm said he, the club’s owners and other managers urged dancers to take customers into the private rooms because that was how the club made most of its money. Hamm said he once paid a dancer to have sex with him in one of the private rooms.
Testimony continues this afternoon in the 243rd District Court, presided by Judge David Guaderrama.
From ABC-7: EL PASO — The first day of testimony on the trial of Naked Harem co-owner Jeannie Coutta got off to a fast start as allegations of prostitution and organized criminal activity were made public.
Couta was indicted on a count of Aggravated Promotion of Prostitution and four counts of Engaging in Criminal Organized Activity. Her partner, Phyllis Woodall, was found guilty on charges of Promoting Prostitution and was sentenced to 16 years in prison back in 2006.
Monday, members of the jury heard from Richard Ham. He used to work at the club as a manager and testified he knew prostitution was taking place at the club. He also went on record estimating 50 percent of the dancers at the club were having sex for money.
Ham went as far as confessing he had sex with a dancer in a private room inside the club. Coutta’s defense team tried to dismiss Ham’s recollections as inaccurate.
Court documents obtained by ABC-7 in 2003 alleged Couta and Woodall knew dancers at their club were having sex with customers for money and that some of those girls were underage.
The indictment stated several men gave statements confessing to spending thousands of dollars in the Naked Harem VIP room where the alleged prostitution took place.
Dancers at the club would perform various sex acts and then give Couta and Woodall a portion of the money they earned, according to the indictment.
The indictment also quoted Ham as saying income from the alleged prostitution activity was the main source of income for the strip club, prostitution at the club was solicited on a daily basis, and that Couta and Woodall advised dancers they would make more money if they gave customers what they wanted.