Nevada- Former “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss could soon find herself back in a courtroom, this time as a witness in the federal trial of a Nevada brothel owner accused of trying to bribe the chairwoman of the Nye County Commission.

Fleiss said she has been contacted by FBI agents who want to talk to her about conversations she has had with Nye County brothel owner Maynard “Joe” Richards.Advertisement

On March 22, a federal grand jury indicted Richards on two counts of wire fraud in connection with an alleged attempt to bribe Nye County Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell.

Richards has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Scheduled to begin today, his trial has been delayed to allow attorneys on both sides of the case to review the massive amount of evidence involved, including recordings of more than 7,700 telephone calls intercepted by authorities.

Fleiss is certain that her voice can be heard on some of those recordings.

She said that until she had a falling out with Richards about a month ago, he had called her “every day for three years.”

And during many of those calls, he mentioned Trummell, especially in recent months, Fleiss said.

“I think he had a crush on her,” Fleiss said. “He’s really obsessed with her.”

Richards’ lawyer, Leo Flangas, laughed off that claim but said there was little he could say about the case.

“There’s a tremendous amount of discovery, and it’s going to take a while for us to go through that,” Flangas said. “Mr. Richards maintains his innocence, and I have not seen anything to contradict that.”

In November, Richards and Fleiss announced plans to convert one of his properties into a brothel catering to women. They ended their business affiliation about a week later.

Though Fleiss said she is “not a rat,” she plans to fully cooperate with authorities.

“I will never lie to the FBI. I will never go back to prison,” she said. “I did something illegal, and I paid a very high price for it. I learned a very big lesson.”

In the 1990s, Fleiss ran a high-priced ring of call girls for California’s rich and famous.

Then she was busted, tried and sentenced to a 22-month prison term on charges of conspiracy, tax evasion, money laundering and attempted pandering.

FBI spokesman David Staretz could not confirm whether investigators planned to interview Fleiss. “It’s our policy not to comment on pending investigations, and Joe Richards is a pending investigation,” Staretz said.

High-profile Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Anthony Brooklier represented Fleiss in her criminal trial, and he continues to serve as her lawyer of choice. He confirmed on Monday that Fleiss has been contacted by the FBI and that an interview with federal agents is being arranged. He declined further comment.

According to court papers, the government’s case against Richards also involves 131 “consensually recorded” telephone calls and almost a dozen audio and video recordings.

Trummell, who was elected to the commission in 2003, assisted with the FBI sting operation by wearing audio and video recording devices to several face-to-face meetings with Richards last year. Partial transcripts of the conversations between the two have been published in court documents filed by the U.S. attorney’s office.

One conversation focused on the Nye County ordinance that prevents construction of a brothel within 300 yards of a road.

In a recorded conversation with Trummell on June 28, Richards asked her to rewrite the requirement so he could build a brothel on land he has long owned at the southern edge of Pahrump.

The property is across the road from the Chicken Ranch and Sheri’s Ranch, two of Nevada’s largest legal brothels, thanks in no small part to their status as the closest such operations to Las Vegas.

Trummell told Richards she didn’t have the time to rewrite the county ordinance because of work obligations. She asked him for “a small advance” on her law school tuition so she could quit her job temporarily and work on the ordinance.

After that meeting, Richards and Trummell walked to his car, and he gave her $1,000 in cash, according to the original complaint against the brothel owner.

Trummell turned the money over to the FBI.

Richards has hired prominent Las Vegas attorney Thomas Pitaro to represent him. Messages left for Pitaro were not returned Monday.

Fleiss said she first met Richards several years ago, after she struck up a business relationship with a legal brothel in Australia. The deal made international headlines and prompted several brothel owners in Nevada to contact her, she said.

Fleiss called the allegations against Richards “far worse than anything I ever did in my whole life.”

When you bribe a public official, she said, “you’re denying the public. You’re going against the founding fathers and everything we fought for.”

As for her brothel for women, Fleiss insists she still plans to hire about 20 male prostitutes and open Heidi’s Stud Farm on land she bought with her brother in the tiny town of Crystal, about 25 miles north of Pahrump.

She has yet to apply for a brothel license in Nye County but said she expects to do so soon.

Contacted Friday at the home she is renting in Pahrump, Fleiss said she is in the process of reviewing the inch-thick license application that is being prepared by her attorneys in Las Vegas and Southern California.

Nye County is currently home to seven licensed bordellos, three of them owned by Richards.

If it ever opens, Heidi’s Stud Farm would be the first in Nevada to employ male prostitutes and cater exclusively to women.